3,718 research outputs found
Energy spectrum, density of states and optical transitions in strongly biased narrow-gap quantum wells
We study theoretically the effect of an electric field on the electron states
and far-infrared optical properties in narrow-gap lead salt quantum wells. The
electron states are described by a two-band Hamiltonian. An application of a
strong electric field across the well allows the control of the energy gap
between the two-dimensional (2D) states in a wide range. A sufficiently strong
electric field transforms the narrow-gap quantum well to a nearly gapless 2D
system, whose electron energy spectrum is described by linear dispersion
relations \epsilon_{\sigma} (k) ~\pm (k-k_{\sigma}), where k_{\sigma} are the
field-dependent 2D momenta corresponding to the minimum energy gaps for the
states with spin numbers \sigma. Due to the field-induced shift of the 2D
subband extrema away from k=0 the density of states has inverse-square-root
divergencies at the edges. This property may result in a considerable increase
of the magnitude of the optical absorption and in the efficiency of the
electrooptical effect.Comment: Text 18 pages in Latex/Revtex format, 7 Postscript figure
Spectroscopic Survey of {\gamma} Doradus Stars I. Comprehensive atmospheric parameters and abundance analysis of {\gamma} Doradus stars
We present a spectroscopic survey of known and candidate \,Doradus
stars. The high-resolution, high signal-to-noise spectra of 52 objects were
collected by five different spectrographs. The spectral classification,
atmospheric parameters (\teff, , ), and chemical
composition of the stars were derived. The stellar spectral and luminosity
classes were found between G0-A7 and IV-V, respectively. The initial values for
\teff\ and \logg\ were determined from the photometric indices and spectral
energy distribution. Those parameters were improved by the analysis of hydrogen
lines. The final values of \teff, \logg\ and were derived from the iron
lines analysis. The \teff\ values were found between 6000\,K and 7900\,K, while
\logg\,values range from 3.8 to 4.5\,dex. Chemical abundances and
values were derived by the spectrum synthesis method. The values were
found between 5 and 240\,km\,s. The chemical abundance pattern of
\,Doradus stars were compared with the pattern of non-pulsating stars.
It turned out that there is no significant difference in abundance patterns
between these two groups. Additionally, the relations between the atmospheric
parameters and the pulsation quantities were checked. A strong correlation
between the and the pulsation periods of \,Doradus variables
was obtained. The accurate positions of the analysed stars in the H-R diagram
have been shown. Most of our objects are located inside or close to the blue
edge of the theoretical instability strip of \,Doradus.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figure
Accurate reconstruction of insertion-deletion histories by statistical phylogenetics
The Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) is a computational abstraction that
represents a partial summary either of indel history, or of structural
similarity. Taking the former view (indel history), it is possible to use
formal automata theory to generalize the phylogenetic likelihood framework for
finite substitution models (Dayhoff's probability matrices and Felsenstein's
pruning algorithm) to arbitrary-length sequences. In this paper, we report
results of a simulation-based benchmark of several methods for reconstruction
of indel history. The methods tested include a relatively new algorithm for
statistical marginalization of MSAs that sums over a stochastically-sampled
ensemble of the most probable evolutionary histories. For mammalian
evolutionary parameters on several different trees, the single most likely
history sampled by our algorithm appears less biased than histories
reconstructed by other MSA methods. The algorithm can also be used for
alignment-free inference, where the MSA is explicitly summed out of the
analysis. As an illustration of our method, we discuss reconstruction of the
evolutionary histories of human protein-coding genes.Comment: 28 pages, 15 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1103.434
Syntactic representation is independent of semantics in Mandarin:Evidence from syntactic priming
Theories of language processing generally assume that speakers construct independent representations for syntactic and semantic information, based largely on evidence from English and related languages. But it is not clear whether the assumption of autonomous syntactic representations extends to other languages with different typological characteristics. We therefore conducted two structural priming studies investigating production of dative sentences in Mandarin, a language whose interpretation appears to be more reliant on non-relational (intrinsic) semantics (e.g. animacy features). We examined whether participants' tendency to repeat syntax was affected by whether the theme and recipient arguments matched or mismatched in animacy across prime and target. Participants repeated syntax to the same extent irrespective of whether prime and target arguments had matched or mismatched animacy. These findings provide evidence that the separation of syntactic and semantic representations occurs in Mandarin and therefore may occur across languages
30 days wild: development and evaluation of a large-scale nature engagement campaign to improve well-being
There is a need to increase people’s engagement with and connection to nature, both for human well-being and the conservation of nature itself. In order to suggest ways for people to engage with nature and create a wider social context to normalise nature engagement, The Wildlife Trusts developed a mass engagement campaign, 30 Days Wild. The campaign asked people to engage with nature every day for a month. 12,400 people signed up for 30 Days Wild via an online sign-up with an estimated 18,500 taking part overall, resulting in an estimated 300,000 engagements with nature by participants. Samples of those taking part were found to have sustained increases in happiness, health, connection to nature and pro-nature behaviours. With the improvement in health being predicted by the improvement in happiness, this relationship was mediated by the change in connection to nature
Dating Phylogenies with Hybrid Local Molecular Clocks
BACKGROUND: Because rates of evolution and species divergence times cannot be estimated directly from molecular data, all current dating methods require that specific assumptions be made before inferring any divergence time. These assumptions typically bear either on rates of molecular evolution (molecular clock hypothesis, local clocks models) or on both rates and times (penalized likelihood, Bayesian methods). However, most of these assumptions can affect estimated dates, oftentimes because they underestimate large amounts of rate change. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A significant modification to a recently proposed ad hoc rate-smoothing algorithm is described, in which local molecular clocks are automatically placed on a phylogeny. This modification makes use of hybrid approaches that borrow from recent theoretical developments in microarray data analysis. An ad hoc integration of phylogenetic uncertainty under these local clock models is also described. The performance and accuracy of the new methods are evaluated by reanalyzing three published data sets. CONCLUSIONS: It is shown that the new maximum likelihood hybrid methods can perform better than penalized likelihood and almost as well as uncorrelated Bayesian models. However, the new methods still tend to underestimate the actual amount of rate change. This work demonstrates the difficulty of estimating divergence times using local molecular clocks
Features of near-inertial motions observed on the northern South China Sea shelf during the passage of two typhoons
HIPK2 and extrachromosomal histone H2B are separately recruited by Aurora-B for cytokinesis
Cytokinesis, the final phase of cell division, is necessary to form two distinct daughter cells with correct distribution of genomic and cytoplasmic materials. Its failure provokes genetically unstable states, such as tetraploidization and polyploidization, which can contribute to tumorigenesis. Aurora-B kinase controls multiple cytokinetic events, from chromosome condensation to abscission when the midbody is severed. We have previously shown that HIPK2, a kinase involved in DNA damage response and development, localizes at the midbody and contributes to abscission by phosphorylating extrachromosomal histone H2B at Ser14. Of relevance, HIPK2-defective cells do not phosphorylate H2B and do not successfully complete cytokinesis leading to accumulation of binucleated cells, chromosomal instability, and increased tumorigenicity. However, how HIPK2 and H2B are recruited to the midbody during cytokinesis is still unknown. Here, we show that regardless of their direct (H2B) and indirect (HIPK2) binding of chromosomal DNA, both H2B and HIPK2 localize at the midbody independently of nucleic acids. Instead, by using mitotic kinase-specific inhibitors in a spatio-temporal regulated manner, we found that Aurora-B kinase activity is required to recruit both HIPK2 and H2B to the midbody. Molecular characterization showed that Aurora-B directly binds and phosphorylates H2B at Ser32 while indirectly recruits HIPK2 through the central spindle components MgcRacGAP and PRC1. Thus, among different cytokinetic functions, Aurora-B separately recruits HIPK2 and H2B to the midbody and these activities contribute to faithful cytokinesis
Crystal Structure of the Formin mDia1 in Autoinhibited Conformation
Formin proteins utilize a conserved formin homology 2 (FH2) domain to nucleate new actin filaments. In mammalian diaphanous-related formins (DRFs) the FH2 domain is inhibited through an unknown mechanism by intramolecular binding of the diaphanous autoinhibitory domain (DAD) and the diaphanous inhibitory domain (DID).Here we report the crystal structure of a complex between DID and FH2-DAD fragments of the mammalian DRF, mDia1 (mammalian diaphanous 1 also called Drf1 or p140mDia). The structure shows a tetrameric configuration (4 FH2 + 4 DID) in which the actin-binding sites on the FH2 domain are sterically occluded. However biochemical data suggest the full-length mDia1 is a dimer in solution (2 FH2 + 2 DID). Based on the crystal structure, we have generated possible dimer models and found that architectures of all of these models are incompatible with binding to actin filament but not to actin monomer. Furthermore, we show that the minimal functional monomeric unit in the FH2 domain, termed the bridge element, can be inhibited by isolated monomeric DID. NMR data on the bridge-DID system revealed that at least one of the two actin-binding sites on the bridge element is accessible to actin monomer in the inhibited state.Our findings suggest that autoinhibition in the native DRF dimer involves steric hindrance with the actin filament. Although the structure of a full-length DRF would be required for clarification of the presented models, our work here provides the first structural insights into the mechanism of the DRF autoinhibition
Topology by Design in Magnetic nano-Materials: Artificial Spin Ice
Artificial Spin Ices are two dimensional arrays of magnetic, interacting
nano-structures whose geometry can be chosen at will, and whose elementary
degrees of freedom can be characterized directly. They were introduced at first
to study frustration in a controllable setting, to mimic the behavior of spin
ice rare earth pyrochlores, but at more useful temperature and field ranges and
with direct characterization, and to provide practical implementation to
celebrated, exactly solvable models of statistical mechanics previously devised
to gain an understanding of degenerate ensembles with residual entropy. With
the evolution of nano--fabrication and of experimental protocols it is now
possible to characterize the material in real-time, real-space, and to realize
virtually any geometry, for direct control over the collective dynamics. This
has recently opened a path toward the deliberate design of novel, exotic
states, not found in natural materials, and often characterized by topological
properties. Without any pretense of exhaustiveness, we will provide an
introduction to the material, the early works, and then, by reporting on more
recent results, we will proceed to describe the new direction, which includes
the design of desired topological states and their implications to kinetics.Comment: 29 pages, 13 figures, 116 references, Book Chapte
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