780 research outputs found
The role of microtubule movement in bidirectional organelle transport
We study the role of microtubule movement in bidirectional organelle
transport in Drosophila S2 cells and show that EGFP-tagged peroxisomes in cells
serve as sensitive probes of motor induced, noisy cytoskeletal motions.
Multiple peroxisomes move in unison over large time windows and show
correlations with microtubule tip positions, indicating rapid microtubule
fluctuations in the longitudinal direction. We report the first high-resolution
measurement of longitudinal microtubule fluctuations performed by tracing such
pairs of co-moving peroxisomes. The resulting picture shows that
motor-dependent longitudinal microtubule oscillations contribute significantly
to cargo movement along microtubules. Thus, contrary to the conventional view,
organelle transport cannot be described solely in terms of cargo movement along
stationary microtubule tracks, but instead includes a strong contribution from
the movement of the tracks.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure
Orbit structure and (reversing) symmetries of toral endomorphisms on rational lattices
We study various aspects of the dynamics induced by integer matrices on the
invariant rational lattices of the torus in dimension 2 and greater. Firstly,
we investigate the orbit structure when the toral endomorphism is not
invertible on the lattice, characterising the pretails of eventually periodic
orbits. Next we study the nature of the symmetries and reversing symmetries of
toral automorphisms on a given lattice, which has particular relevance to
(quantum) cat maps.Comment: 29 pages, 3 figure
Symmetries and reversing symmetries of toral automorphisms
Toral automorphisms, represented by unimodular integer matrices, are
investigated with respect to their symmetries and reversing symmetries. We
characterize the symmetry groups of GL(n,Z) matrices with simple spectrum
through their connection with unit groups in orders of algebraic number fields.
For the question of reversibility, we derive necessary conditions in terms of
the characteristic polynomial and the polynomial invariants. We also briefly
discuss extensions to (reversing) symmetries within affine transformations, to
PGL(n,Z) matrices, and to the more general setting of integer matrices beyond
the unimodular ones.Comment: 34 page
Psychological type and prayer preferences: a study among Anglican clergy in the United Kingdom
This study applies the framework of Jungian psychological type theory to define eight aspects of prayer preference, namely: introverted prayer, extraverted prayer, sensing prayer, intuitive prayer, feeling prayer, thinking prayer, judging prayer, and perceiving prayer. On the basis of data provided by 1,476 newly ordained Anglican clergy from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, eight 7-item scales were developed to access these aspects of prayer preferences. Significant correlations were found between each prayer preference and the relevant aspect of psychological type accessed by the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. These data support the theory that psychological type influences the way in which people pray
The grinch who stole wisdom
Dr. Seuss is wise. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Seuss, 1957) could serve as a parable for our time. It can also be seen as a roadmap for the development of contemplative wisdom. The abiding popularity of How the Grinch Stole Christmas additionally suggests that contemplative wisdom is more readily available to ordinary people, even children, than is normally thought. This matters because from the point of view of contemplatives in any of the world's philosophies or religions, people are confused about wisdom. The content of the nascent field of wisdom studies, they might say, is largely not wisdom at all but rather what it's like to live in a particular kind of prison cell, a well appointed cell perhaps, but not a place that makes possible either personal satisfaction or deep problem solving. I believe that what the contemplative traditions have to say is important; they offer a different orientation to what personal wisdom is, how to develop it, and how to use it in the world than is presently contained in either our popular culture or our sciences. In order to illustrate this I will examine, in some detail, one contemplative path within Buddhism. Buddhism is particularly useful in this respect because its practices are nontheistic and thus avoid many of the cultural landmines associated with the contemplative aspects of Western religions
Analytic Spectra of CMB Anisotropies and Polarization Generated by Scalar Perturbations in Synchronous Gauge
We present a detailed analytical calculation of CMB temperature anisotropies
\alpha_k and polarization \beta_k generated by scalar metric perturbations in
synchronous gauge, parallel to our previous work with RGW as a generating
source. This is realized primarily by an analytic time-integration of
Boltzmann's equation, yielding the closed forms of \alpha_k and \beta_k.
Approximations, such as the tight-coupling approximation for photons a prior to
the recombination and the long wavelength limit for scalar perturbations are
used. The residual gauge modes in scalar perturbations are analyzed and a
proper joining condition of scalar perturbations at the radiation-matter
equality is chosen, ensuring the continuity of energy perturbation.
The resulting analytic expressions of the multipole moments of polarization
a^E_l, and of temperature anisotropies a^T_l are explicit functions of the
scalar perturbations, recombination time, recombination width, photon free
streaming damping factor, baryon fraction, initial amplitude, primordial scalar
spectral index, and the running index. These results show that a longer
recombination width yields higher amplitudes of polarization on large scales
and more damping on small scales, and that a late recombination time shifts the
peaks of C^{XX'}_l to larger angular scales.
The analytic spectra C^{XX'}_l agree with the numerical ones and with those
observed by WMAP on large scales (l \lesssim 500), but deviate considerably
from the numerical results on smaller scales, showing the limitations of our
approximate analytic calculations. Several possible improvements are pointed
out for further studies.Comment: Accepted by Classical and Quantum Gravity. 43 pages, 15 figure
Better Knee, Better Me™: effectiveness of two scalable health care interventions supporting self-management for knee osteoarthritis – protocol for a randomized controlled trial
Although education, exercise, and weight loss are recommended for management of knee osteoarthritis, the additional benefits of incorporating weight loss strategies into exercise interventions have not been well investigated. The aim of this study is to compare, in a private health insurance setting, the clinical- and cost-effectiveness of a remotely-delivered, evidence- and theory-informed, behaviour change intervention targeting exercise and self-management (Exercise intervention), with the same intervention plus active weight management (Exercise plus weight management intervention), and with an information-only control group for people with knee osteoarthritis who are overweight or obese
QUaD: A High-Resolution Cosmic Microwave Background Polarimeter
We describe the QUaD experiment, a millimeter-wavelength polarimeter designed
to observe the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) from a site at the South Pole.
The experiment comprises a 2.64 m Cassegrain telescope equipped with a
cryogenically cooled receiver containing an array of 62 polarization-sensitive
bolometers. The focal plane contains pixels at two different frequency bands,
100 GHz and 150 GHz, with angular resolutions of 5 arcmin and 3.5 arcmin,
respectively. The high angular resolution allows observation of CMB temperature
and polarization anisotropies over a wide range of scales. The instrument
commenced operation in early 2005 and collected science data during three
successive Austral winter seasons of observation.Comment: 23 pages, author list and text updated to reflect published versio
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