Theoretical and experimental studies in support of the geophysical fluid flow experiment

Computer programming was completed for digital acquisition of temperature and velocity data generated by the Geophysical Fluid Flow Cell (GFFC) during the upcoming Spacelab 3 mission. A set of scenarios was developed which covers basic electro-hydrodynamic instability, highly supercritical convection with isothermal boundaries, convection with imposed thermal forcing, and some stably stratified runs to look at large-scale thermohaline ocean circulations. The extent to which the GFFC experimental results apply to more complicated circumstances within the Sun or giant planets was assessed

Groups whose word problems are not semilinear

Suppose that G is a finitely generated group and W is the formal language of words defining the identity in G. We prove that if G is a nilpotent group, the fundamental group of a finite volume hyperbolic three-manifold, or a right-angled Artin group whose graph lies in a certain infinite class, then W is not a multiple context free language

On a zero speed sensitive cellular automaton

Using an unusual, yet natural invariant measure we show that there exists a sensitive cellular automaton whose perturbations propagate at asymptotically null speed for almost all configurations. More specifically, we prove that Lyapunov Exponents measuring pointwise or average linear speeds of the faster perturbations are equal to zero. We show that this implies the nullity of the measurable entropy. The measure m we consider gives the m-expansiveness property to the automaton. It is constructed with respect to a factor dynamical system based on simple "counter dynamics". As a counterpart, we prove that in the case of positively expansive automata, the perturbations move at positive linear speed over all the configurations

Metallochaperones Are Needed for Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Escherichia coli Nicotinamidase-Pyrazinamidase Activity.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis nicotinamidase-pyrazinamidase (PZAse) is a metalloenzyme that catalyzes conversion of nicotinamide-pyrazinamide to nicotinic acid-pyrazinoic acid. This study investigated whether a metallochaperone is required for optimal PZAse activity. M. tuberculosis and Escherichia coli PZAses (PZAse-MT and PZAse-EC, respectively) were inactivated by metal depletion (giving PZAse-MT-Apo and PZAse-EC-Apo). Reactivation with the E. coli metallochaperone ZnuA or Rv2059 (the M. tuberculosis analog) was measured. This was repeated following proteolytic and thermal treatment of ZnuA and Rv2059. The CDC1551 M. tuberculosis reference strain had the Rv2059 coding gene knocked out, and PZA susceptibility and the pyrazinoic acid (POA) efflux rate were measured. ZnuA (200 μM) achieved 65% PZAse-EC-Apo reactivation. Rv2059 (1 μM) and ZnuA (1 μM) achieved 69% and 34.3% PZAse-MT-Apo reactivation, respectively. Proteolytic treatment of ZnuA and Rv2059 and application of three (but not one) thermal shocks to ZnuA significantly reduced the capacity to reactivate PZAse-MT-Apo. An M. tuberculosis Rv2059 knockout strain was Wayne positive and susceptible to PZA and did not have a significantly different POA efflux rate than the reference strain, although a trend toward a lower efflux rate was observed after knockout. The metallochaperone Rv2059 restored the activity of metal-depleted PZAse in vitro Although Rv2059 is important in vitro, it seems to have a smaller effect on PZA susceptibility in vivo. It may be important to mechanisms of action and resistance to pyrazinamide in M. tuberculosis Further studies are needed for confirmation.IMPORTANCE Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis and remains one of the major causes of disease and death worldwide. Pyrazinamide is a key drug used in the treatment of tuberculosis, yet its mechanism of action is not fully understood, and testing strains of M. tuberculosis for pyrazinamide resistance is not easy with the tools that are presently available. The significance of the present research is that a metallochaperone-like protein may be crucial to pyrazinamide's mechanisms of action and of resistance. This may support the development of improved tools to detect pyrazinamide resistance, which would have significant implications for the clinical management of patients with tuberculosis: drug regimens that are appropriately tailored to the resistance profile of a patient's individual strain lead to better clinical outcomes, reduced onward transmission of infection, and reduction of the development of resistant strains that are more challenging and expensive to treat

Management of super-refractory status epilepticus with isoflurane and hypothermia

Super-refractory status epilepticus (SRSE) is defined as status epilepticus that continues 24 h or more after the onset of anesthesia, and includes those cases in which epilepsy is recurrent upon treatment reduction. We describe the presentation and successful management of a male patient with SRSE using the inhaled anesthetic isoflurane, and mild hypothermia (HT). The potential utility of combined HT and volatile anesthesia is discussed

Numerical study of resistivity of model disordered three-dimensional metals

We calculate the zero-temperature resistivity of model 3-dimensional disordered metals described by tight-binding Hamiltonians. Two different mechanisms of disorder are considered: diagonal and off-diagonal. The non-equilibrium Green function formalism provides a Landauer-type formula for the conductance of arbitrary mesoscopic systems. We use this formula to calculate the resistance of finite-size disordered samples of different lengths. The resistance averaged over disorder configurations is linear in sample length and resistivity is found from the coefficient of proportionality. Two structures are considered: (1) a simple cubic lattice with one s-orbital per site, (2) a simple cubic lattice with two d-orbitals. For small values of the disorder strength, our results agree with those obtained from the Boltzmann equation. Large off-diagonal disorder causes the resistivity to saturate, whereas increasing diagonal disorder causes the resistivity to increase faster than the Boltzmann result. The crossover toward localization starts when the Boltzmann mean free path relative to the lattice constant has a value between 0.5 and 2.0 and is strongly model dependent.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Magnetic confinement of the solar tachocline

We study the physics of the solar tachocline and related MHD instabilities. We have performed 3-D MHD simulations of the solar radiative interior to check whether a fossil magnetic field is able to prevent the spread of the tachocline. Starting with a purely poloidal magnetic field and a latitudinal shear meant to be imposed by the convection zone at the top of the radiation zone, we have investigated the interactions between magnetic fields, rotation and shear, using the spectral code ASH on massive parallel supercomputers. In all cases we have explored, the fossil field diffuses outward and ends up connecting with the convection zone, whose differential rotation is then imprinted at latitudes above 40 deg throughout the radiative interior, according to Ferraro's law of isorotation. Rotation remains uniform in the lower latitude region which is contained within closed field lines. We find that the meridional flow cannot stop the inward progression of the differential rotation. Further, we observe the development of non-axisymmetric magnetohydrodynamic instabilities, first due to the initial poloidal configuration of the fossil field, and later to the toroidal field produced by shearing the poloidal field through the differential rotation. We do not find dynamo action as such in the radiative interior, since the mean poloidal field is not regenerated. But the instability persists during the whole evolution, while slowly decaying with the mean poloidal field. According to our numerical simulations, a fossil magnetic field cannot prevent the radiative spread of the tachocline, and thus it is unable to enforce uniform rotation in the radiation zone. Neither can the observed thinness of that layer be invoked as a proof for such an internal fossil magnetic field.Comment: 12 pages, 8 color figures (low res), published in A&A, october 200