118 research outputs found
Attempts to transmit hepatitis B virus to chimpanzees by arthropods
Bedbugs (Cimex lectularius L.) were fed on an infective blood-hepatitis B virus (HBV) mixture. Further bedbugs and tampan ticks (Ornithodoros moubata [MurrayJ) were fed on HBV-carrier chimpanzees. After a 10 - 13 day interval for oviposition, tests done on samples of individual arthropods showed that 53 - 85% of the bugs were HBsAg-positive and none HBeAg-positive, while 100% of the ticks were HBsAgpositive and 88% HBeAg-positive. The remaining arthropods were fed on 3 susceptible chimpanzees, which had failed to develop HBV infection after 11 months, indicating no transmission had occurred. Subsequently the presence of viable virus in the original infective meals was confirmed by inoculation of the relevant donor sera directly into the 3 still susceptible chimpanzees. HBV infections quickly followed in each animal. It is concluded that, while mechanical transmission of HBV is most unlikely after a 10 - 13-day interval between feedings in bedbugs and tampans, it is still possible that mechanical transmission between humans might occur during interrupted feeds
Cooperative spontaneous emission in nonuniform media
The subject of this paper is modification of cooperative spontaneous emission
by a nonuniform medium, with nonuniform distributions of electromagnetic field.
A brief analyzis is presented and it is postulated, that if spontaneous
emission from an atom is strongly suppressed, cooperative emission with another
atom may be a preferred emission channel and counteract the suppression.Comment: The final publication is available at http://www.epj.or
Nuclear Octupole Correlations and the Enhancement of Atomic Time-Reversal Violation
We examine the time-reversal-violating nuclear ``Schiff moment'' that induces
electric dipole moments in atoms. After presenting a self-contained derivation
of the form of the Schiff operator, we show that the distribution of Schiff
strength, an important ingredient in the ground-state Schiff moment, is very
different from the electric-dipole-strength distribution, with the Schiff
moment receiving no strength from the giant dipole resonance in the
Goldhaber-Teller model. We then present shell-model calculations in light
nuclei that confirm the negligible role of the dipole resonance and show the
Schiff strength to be strongly correlated with low-lying octupole strength.
Next, we turn to heavy nuclei, examining recent arguments for the strong
enhancement of Schiff moments in octupole-deformed nuclei over that of 199Hg,
for example. We concur that there is a significant enhancement while pointing
to effects neglected in previous work (both in the octupole-deformed nuclides
and 199Hg) that may reduce it somewhat, and emphasizing the need for
microscopic calculations to resolve the issue. Finally, we show that static
octupole deformation is not essential for the development of collective Schiff
moments; nuclei with strong octupole vibrations have them as well, and some
could be exploited by experiment.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figures embedded in tex
Carbon Nanotubes as Nanoelectromechanical Systems
We theoretically study the interplay between electrical and mechanical
properties of suspended, doubly clamped carbon nanotubes in which charging
effects dominate. In this geometry, the capacitance between the nanotube and
the gate(s) depends on the distance between them. This dependence modifies the
usual Coulomb models and we show that it needs to be incorporated to capture
the physics of the problem correctly. We find that the tube position changes in
discrete steps every time an electron tunnels onto it. Edges of Coulomb
diamonds acquire a (small) curvature. We also show that bistability in the tube
position occurs and that tunneling of an electron onto the tube drastically
modifies the quantized eigenmodes of the tube. Experimental verification of
these predictions is possible in suspended tubes of sub-micron length.Comment: 8 pages, 5 eps figures included. Major changes; new material adde
Probing exotic phenomena at the interface of nuclear and particle physics with the electric dipole moments of diamagnetic atoms: A unique window to hadronic and semi-leptonic CP violation
The current status of electric dipole moments of diamagnetic atoms which
involves the synergy between atomic experiments and three different theoretical
areas -- particle, nuclear and atomic is reviewed. Various models of particle
physics that predict CP violation, which is necessary for the existence of such
electric dipole moments, are presented. These include the standard model of
particle physics and various extensions of it. Effective hadron level combined
charge conjugation (C) and parity (P) symmetry violating interactions are
derived taking into consideration different ways in which a nucleon interacts
with other nucleons as well as with electrons. Nuclear structure calculations
of the CP-odd nuclear Schiff moment are discussed using the shell model and
other theoretical approaches. Results of the calculations of atomic electric
dipole moments due to the interaction of the nuclear Schiff moment with the
electrons and the P and time-reversal (T) symmetry violating
tensor-pseudotensor electron-nucleus are elucidated using different
relativistic many-body theories. The principles of the measurement of the
electric dipole moments of diamagnetic atoms are outlined. Upper limits for the
nuclear Schiff moment and tensor-pseudotensor coupling constant are obtained
combining the results of atomic experiments and relativistic many-body
theories. The coefficients for the different sources of CP violation have been
estimated at the elementary particle level for all the diamagnetic atoms of
current experimental interest and their implications for physics beyond the
standard model is discussed. Possible improvements of the current results of
the measurements as well as quantum chromodynamics, nuclear and atomic
calculations are suggested.Comment: 46 pages, 19 tables and 16 figures. A review article accepted for
EPJ
Motor-Driven Bacterial Flagella and Buckling Instabilities
Many types of bacteria swim by rotating a bundle of helical filaments also
called flagella. Each filament is driven by a rotary motor and a very flexible
hook transmits the motor torque to the filament. We model it by discretizing
Kirchhoff's elastic-rod theory and develop a coarse-grained approach for
driving the helical filament by a motor torque. A rotating flagellum generates
a thrust force, which pushes the cell body forward and which increases with the
motor torque. We fix the rotating flagellum in space and show that it buckles
under the thrust force at a critical motor torque. Buckling becomes visible as
a supercritical Hopf bifurcation in the thrust force. A second buckling
transition occurs at an even higher motor torque. We attach the flagellum to a
spherical cell body and also observe the first buckling transition during
locomotion. By changing the size of the cell body, we vary the necessary thrust
force and thereby obtain a characteristic relation between the critical thrust
force and motor torque. We present a sophisticated analytical model for the
buckling transition based on a helical rod which quantitatively reproduces the
critical force-torque relation. Real values for motor torque, cell body size,
and the geometry of the helical filament suggest that buckling should occur in
single bacterial flagella. We also find that the orientation of pulling
flagella along the driving torque is not stable and comment on the biological
relevance for marine bacteria.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figure
Closed-Form transformation between geodetic and ellipsoidal coordinates
We present formulas for direct closed-form transformation between geodetic coordinates(Φ, λ, h) and ellipsoidal coordinates (β, λ, u) for any oblate ellipsoid of revolution.These will be useful for those dealing with ellipsoidal representations of the Earth's gravityfield or other oblate ellipsoidal figures. The numerical stability of the transformations for nearpolarand near-equatorial regions is also considered
Improving Genetic Prediction by Leveraging Genetic Correlations Among Human Diseases and Traits
Genomic prediction has the potential to contribute to precision medicine. However, to date, the utility of such predictors is limited due to low accuracy for most traits. Here theory and simulation study are used to demonstrate that widespread pleiotropy among phenotypes can be utilised to improve genomic risk prediction. We show how a genetic predictor can be created as a weighted index that combines published genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics across many different traits. We apply this framework to predict risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in the Psychiatric Genomics consortium data, finding substantial heterogeneity in prediction accuracy increases across cohorts. For six additional phenotypes in the UK Biobank data, we find increases in prediction accuracy ranging from 0.7 for height to 47 for type 2 diabetes, when using a multi-trait predictor that combines published summary statistics from multiple traits, as compared to a predictor based only on one trait. © 2018 The Author(s)
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