Using NMR to Measure Fractal Dimensions

A comment is made on the recent PFG NMR measurements by Stallmach, et al. on water-saturated sands [Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 105505 (2002)]. It is pointed out that the usual law for the time-dependent diffusion coefficient D(t) used by these authors is not valid for a fractal surface. It is shown that (1-D(t)/D0) \~ t^[(3-Ds)/2] at short times for a surface of fractal dimension Ds, where D0 is the bulk diffusion coefficient. Preliminary PFG NMR data on water saturated limestone and plastic beads are presented to illustrate this analysis.Comment: 1 page, 1 figur

X-ray Observations of Parsec-Scale Tails behind Two Middle-Aged Pulsars

Chandra and XMM-Newton resolved extremely long tails behind two middle-aged pulsars, J1509-5850 and J1740+1000. The tail of PSR J1509-5850 is discernible up to 5.6' from the pulsar (6.5 pc at a distance of 4 kpc), with a flux of 2*10^{-13} erg s^{-1} cm^{-2} in 0.5-8 keV. The tail spectrum fits an absorbed power-law (PL) model with the photon index of 2.3\pm0.2, corresponding to the 0.5-8 keV luminosity of 1*10^{33} ergs s^{-1}, for n_H= 2.1*10^{22} cm^{-2}. The tail of PSR J1740+1000 is firmly detected up to 5' (2 pc at a 1.4 kpc distance), with a flux of 6*10^{-14} ergs cm^{-2} s^{-1} in 0.4-10 keV. The PL fit yields photon index of 1.4-1.5 and n_H=1*10^{21} cm^{-2}. The large extent of the tails suggests that the bulk flow in the tails starts as mildly relativistic downstream of the termination shock, and then gradually decelerates. Within the observed extent of the J1509-5850 tail, the average flow speed exceeds 5,000 km s^{-1}, and the equipartition magnetic field is a few times 10^{-5} G. For the J1740+1000 tail, the equipartition field is a factor of a few lower. The harder spectrum of the J1740+1000 tail implies either less efficient cooling or a harder spectrum of injected electrons. For the high-latitude PSR J1740+1000, the orientation of the tail on the sky shows that the pulsar is moving toward the Galactic plane, which means that it was born from a halo-star progenitor. The comparison between the J1509 and J1740 tails and the X-ray tails of other pulsars shows that the X-ray radiation efficiency correlates poorly with the pulsar spin-down luminosity or age. The X-ray efficiencies of the ram-pressure confined pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) are systematically higher than those of PWNe around slowly moving pulsars with similar spin-down parameters.Comment: 14 pages, 16 figures and 5 table

Heavy flavor kinetics at the hadronization transition

We investigate the in-medium modification of the charmonium breakup processes due to the Mott effect for light (pi, rho) and open-charm (D, D*) quark-antiquark bound states at the chiral/deconfinement phase transition. The Mott effect for the D-mesons effectively reduces the threshold for charmonium breakup cross sections, which is suggested as an explanation of the anomalous J/psi suppression phenomenon in the NA50 experiment. Further implications of finite-temperature mesonic correlations for the hadronization of heavy flavors in heavy-ion collisions are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Contribution to SQM2001 Conference, submitted to J. Phys.

Tripartite phase separation of two signal effectors with vesicles priming B cell responsiveness.

Antibody-mediated immune responses rely on antigen recognition by the B cell antigen receptor (BCR) and the proper engagement of its intracellular signal effector proteins. Src homology (SH) 2 domain-containing leukocyte protein of 65 kDa (SLP65) is the key scaffold protein mediating BCR signaling. In resting B cells, SLP65 colocalizes with Cbl-interacting protein of 85 kDa (CIN85) in cytoplasmic granules whose formation is not fully understood. Here we show that effective B cell activation requires tripartite phase separation of SLP65, CIN85, and lipid vesicles into droplets via vesicle binding of SLP65 and promiscuous interactions between nine SH3 domains of the trimeric CIN85 and the proline-rich motifs (PRMs) of SLP65. Vesicles are clustered and the dynamical structure of SLP65 persists in the droplet phase in vitro. Our results demonstrate that phase separation driven by concerted transient interactions between scaffold proteins and vesicles is a cellular mechanism to concentrate and organize signal transducers

Cooling of a New Born Compact Star with QCD Phase Transition

We study the cooling behaviour of an isolated strange quark star, using an equation of state derived from perturbative QCD up to second order in strong coupling constant, and we compare it with that of a neutron star. After an initial rapid cooling, a quark star may undergo the QCD phase transition to become a neutron star. We propose several signatures for such a scenario: a large amount of energy can be released due to latent heat, a long duration $\gamma$-ray source, and a second neutrino burst after a supernova explosion.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables. Deleted a section related to static structure.Very minor updated the results without changing the conclusions.This is the final submitted version after all the proof read processe

On the Coupling of Gravitons to Matter

Using relationships between open and closed strings, we present a construction of tree-level scattering amplitudes for gravitons minimally coupled to matter in terms of gauge theory partial amplitudes. In particular, we present examples of amplitudes with gravitons coupled to vectors or to a single fermion pair. We also present two examples with massive graviton exchange, as would arise in the presence of large compact dimensions. The gauge charges are represented by flavors of dynamical scalars or fermions. This also leads to an unconventional decomposition of color and kinematics in gauge theories.Comment: RevTex, 4 page

Transmission Through Carbon Nanotubes With Polyhedral Caps

We study electron transport between capped carbon nanotubes and a substrate, and relate the transmission probability to the local density of states in the cap. Our results show that the transmission probability mimics the behavior of the density of states at all energies except those that correspond to localized states in the cap. Close proximity of a substrate causes hybridization of the localized state. As a result, new transmission paths open from the substrate to nanotube continuum states via the localized states in the cap. Interference between various transmission paths gives rise to antiresonances in the transmission probability, with the minimum transmission equal to zero at energies of the localized states. Defects in the nanotube that are placed close to the cap cause resonances in the transmission probability, instead of antiresonances, near the localized energy levels. Depending on the spatial position of defects, these resonant states are capable of carrying a large current. These results are relevant to carbon nanotube based studies of molecular electronics and probe tip applications

Enhancing Transport Efficiency by Hybrid Routing Strategy

Traffic is essential for many dynamic processes on real networks, such as internet and urban traffic systems. The transport efficiency of the traffic system can be improved by taking full advantage of the resources in the system. In this paper, we propose a dual-strategy routing model for network traffic system, to realize the plenary utility of the whole network. The packets are delivered according to different "efficient routing strategies" [Yan, et al, Phys. Rev. E 73, 046108 (2006)]. We introduce the accumulate rate of packets, {\eta} to measure the performance of traffic system in the congested phase, and propose the so-called equivalent generation rate of packet to analyze the jamming processes. From analytical and numerical results, we find that, for suitable selection of strategies, the dual- strategy system performs better than the single-strategy system in a broad region of strategy mixing ratio. The analytical solution to the jamming processes is verified by estimating the number of jammed nodes, which coincides well with the result from simulation.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

ProteoMirExpress: inferring microRNA-centered regulatory networks from high-throughput proteomic and transcriptome data

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression through translational repression and RNA degradation. Recently developed high-throughput proteomic methods measure gene expression changes at protein levels, and therefore can reveal the direct effects of miRNAs’ translational repression. Here, we present a web server, ProteoMirExpress that integrates proteomic and mRNA expression data together to infer miRNA-centered regulatory networks. With both high throughput data from the users, ProteoMirExpress is able to discover not only miRNA targets that have mRNA decreased, but also subgroups of targets whose proteins are suppressed but mRNAs are not significantly changed or whose mRNAs are decreased but proteins are not significantly changed, which were usually ignored by most current methods. Furthermore, both direct and indirect targets of miRNAs can be detected. Therefore ProteoMirExpress provides more comprehensive miRNA-centered regulatory networks. We use several published data to assess the quality of our inferred networks and prove the value of our server. ProteoMirExpress is available at http://jjwanglab.org/ProteoMirExpress, with free access to academic users.postprin