47,694 research outputs found
Sequence-specific double-strand cleavage of DNA by penta-N-methylpyrrolecarboxamide-EDTA·Fe(II)
In the presence of O2 and 5 mM dithiothreitol, penta-N-methylpyrrolecarboxamide-EDTA·Fe(II) [P5E·Fe(II)] at 0.5 µ M cleaves pBR322 plasmid DNA (50 µ M in base pairs) on opposite strands to afford discrete DNA fragments as analyzed by agarose gel electrophoresis. High-resolution denaturing gel electrophoresis of a 32P-end-labeled 517-base-pair restriction fragment containing a major cleavage site reveals that P5E·Fe(II) cleaves 3-5 base pairs contiguous to a 6-base-pair sequence, 5'-T-T-T-T-T-A-3' (4,323-4,328 base pairs). The major binding orientation of the pentapeptide occurs with the amino terminus at the adenine side of this sequence. In the presence of 5 mM dithiothreitol, 0.01 µ M P5E·Fe(II) converts form I pBR322 DNA at 0.22 µ M plasmid (1.0 mM in base pairs) to 40% form II, indicating the cleavage reaction is catalytic, turning over a minimum of nine times. This synthetic molecule achieves double-strand cleavage of DNA (pH 7.9, 25 degrees C) at the 6-base-pair recognition level and may provide an approach to the design of "artificial restriction enzymes.
Predictions for the fracture toughness of cancellous bone of fracture neck of femur patients
Current protocol in determining if a patient is osteoporotic and their fracture risk is based on dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). DXA gives an indication of their bone mineral density (BMD) which is the product of both the porosity and density of the mineralized bone tissue; this is usually taken at the hip. The DXA results are assessed using the fracture risk assessment tool as recommended by the World Health Organization. While this provides valuable data on a person’s fracture risk advancements in medical imagining technology enables development of more robust and accurate risk assessment tools. In order to develop such tools in vitro analysis of bone is required to assess the morphological properties of bone osteoporotic bone tissue and how these pertain to the fracture toughness (Kcmax) of the tissue.Support was provided by the EPSRC (EP/K020196: Point-ofCare High Accuracy Fracture Risk Prediction), the UK Department of Transport under the BOSCOS (Bone Scanning for Occupant Safety) project, and approved by Gloucester and Cheltenham NHS Trust hospitals under ethical consent (BOSCOS – Mr. Curwen CI REC ref 01/179G)
Expected Precision of Higgs Boson Partial Widths within the Standard Model
We discuss the sources of uncertainty in calculations of the partial widths
of the Higgs boson within the Standard Model. The uncertainties come from two
sources: the truncation of perturbation theory and the uncertainties in input
parameters. We review the current status of perturbative calculations and note
that these are already reaching the parts-per-mil level of accuracy for the
major decay modes. The main sources of uncertainty will then come from the
parametric dependences on alpha_s, m_b, and m_c. Knowledge of these parameters
is systematically improvable through lattice gauge theory calculations. We
estimate the precision that lattice QCD will achieve in the next decade and the
corresponding precision of the Standard Model predictions for Higgs boson
partial widths.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure; v2: minor typo correction
Nonperturbative ``Lattice Perturbation Theory''
We discuss a program for replacing standard perturbative methods with Monte
Carlo simulations in short distance lattice gauge theory calculations.Comment: 3 pages, uuencoded Latex file, two embedded figures and .sty file
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Energy bounds for codes and designs in Hamming spaces
We obtain universal bounds on the energy of codes and for designs in Hamming
spaces. Our bounds hold for a large class of potential functions, allow unified
treatment, and can be viewed as a generalization of the Levenshtein bounds for
maximal codes.Comment: 25 page
Coupled currents in cosmic strings
We first examine the microstructure of a cosmic string endowed with two
simple Abelian currents. This microstructure depends on two state parameters.
We then provide the macroscopic description of such a string and show that it
depends on an additional Lorentz-invariant state parameter that relates the two
currents. We find that in most of the parameter space, the two-current string
is essentially equivalent to the single current-carrying string, i.e., only one
field condenses onto the defect. In the regions where two currents are present,
we find that as far as stability is concerned, one can approximate the dynamics
with good accuracy using an analytic model based on either a logarithmic (on
the electric side, i.e., for timelike currents) or a rational (on the magnetic
side, i.e., for spacelike currents) worldsheet Lagrangian.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figure
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