A Study of Final State Effects in the electrodisintegration of a polarized Helium-3 target

An approach for the description of the final state interaction in the evaluation of inclusive electromagnetic responses of a polarized Helium-3 target, is briefly illustrated. Preliminary results of calculations, where the final state interaction is fully taken into account for the two-body break-up channel, are compared with experimental data, showing a very encouraging improvement with respect to the plane wave impulse approximation results.Comment: 8 pages. Proc. of "GDH 2004", Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Va, June 2-5, 2004. Class file "ws-procs9x6.cls" and style file "rotating_pr.sty" include

Systematic and biological studies of the leopard frogs (Rana pipiens complex) of the United States.

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/56392/1/MP148.pd

Evidence of a new low field cross-over in the vortex critical velocity of type-II superconducting thin films

We measure current-voltage characteristics as function of magnetic field and temperature in Nb strips of different thickness and width. The instability voltage of the flux flow state related to the vortex critical velocity v* is studied and compared with the Larkin-Ovchinnikov theory. Beside the usual power-law dependence v* ~ B^-1/2, in the low field range a new cross-over field, Bcr1, is observed below which v* decreases by further lowering the external magnetic field B. We ascribe this unexpected cross-over to vortex channeling due to a fan-like penetration of the applied magnetic field as confirmed by magneto-optic imaging. The observation of Bcr1 becomes a direct evidence of a general feature in type-II superconducting films at low fields, that is a channel-like vortex motion induced by the inhomogeneous magnetic state caused by the relatively strong pinning

Highlights of Recent Results with Clas

Recent results on the study of the electromagnetic structure of nucleon resonances, the spin structure of proton and neutrons at small and intermediate photon virtualities, and the search for exotic pentaquark baryons are presented.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, invited talk at MENU2004, Beijin

The Most Severe Test for Hydrophobicity Scales: Two Proteins with 88% Sequence Identity but Different Structure and Function

Protein-protein interactions (protein functionalities) are mediated by water, which compacts individual proteins and promotes close and temporarily stable large-area protein-protein interfaces. In their classic paper Kyte and Doolittle (KD) concluded that the "simplicity and graphic nature of hydrophobicity scales make them very useful tools for the evaluation of protein structures". In practice, however, attempts to develop hydrophobicity scales (for example, compatible with classical force fields (CFF) in calculating the energetics of protein folding) have encountered many difficulties. Here we suggest an entirely different approach, based on the idea that proteins are self-organized networks, subject to finite-scale criticality (like some network glasses). We test this proposal against two small proteins that are delicately balanced between alpha and alpha/beta structures, with different functions encoded with only 12% of their amino acids. This example explains why protein structure prediction is so challenging, and it provides a severe test for the accuracy and content of hydrophobicity scales. The new method confirms KD's evaluation, and at the same time suggests that protein structure, dynamics and function can be best discussed without using CFF

Beta defensin-2 is reduced in central but not in distal airways of smoker COPD patients

Background: Altered pulmonary defenses in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may promote distal airways bacterial colonization. The expression/activation of Toll Like receptors (TLR) and beta 2 defensin (HBD2) release by epithelial cells crucially affect pulmonary defence mechanisms. Methods: The epithelial expression of TLR4 and of HBD2 was assessed in surgical specimens from current smokers COPD (s-COPD; n = 17), ex-smokers COPD (ex-s-COPD; n = 8), smokers without COPD (S; n = 12), and from non-smoker non-COPD subjects (C; n = 13). Results: In distal airways, s-COPD highly expressed TLR4 and HBD2. In central airways, S and s-COPD showed increased TLR4 expression. Lower HBD2 expression was observed in central airways of s-COPD when compared to S and to ex-s-COPD. s-COPD had a reduced HBD2 gene expression as demonstrated by real-time PCR on micro-dissected bronchial epithelial cells. Furthermore, HBD2 expression positively correlated with FEV1/FVC ratio and inversely correlated with the cigarette smoke exposure. In a bronchial epithelial cell line (16 HBE) IL-1β significantly induced the HBD2 mRNA expression and cigarette smoke extracts significantly counteracted this IL-1 mediated effect reducing both the activation of NFkB pathway and the interaction between NFkB and HBD2 promoter. Conclusions: This study provides new insights on the possible mechanisms involved in the alteration of innate immunity mechanisms in COPD. © 2012 Pace et al

Efficient all-optical production of large 6^6Li quantum gases using D1_1 gray-molasses cooling

We use a gray molasses operating on the D$_1$ atomic transition to produce degenerate quantum gases of $^{6}$Li with a large number of atoms. This sub-Doppler cooling phase allows us to lower the initial temperature of 10$^9$ atoms from 500 to 40 $\mu$K in 2 ms. We observe that D$_1$ cooling remains effective into a high-intensity infrared dipole trap where two-state mixtures are evaporated to reach the degenerate regime. We produce molecular Bose-Einstein condensates of up to 5$\times$10$^{5}$ molecules and weakly-interacting degenerate Fermi gases of $7\times$10$^{5}$ atoms at $T/T_{F}<0.1$ with a typical experimental duty cycle of 11 seconds.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure