25,535 research outputs found
Momentum-resolved lattice dynamics of parent and electron-doped SrIrO
The mixing of orbital and spin character in the wave functions of the
iridates has led to predictions of strong couplings among their lattice,
electronic and magnetic degrees of freedom. As well as realizing a novel
spin-orbit assisted Mott-insulating ground state, the perovskite iridate
SrIrO has strong similarities with the cuprate LaCuO,
which on doping hosts a charge-density wave that appears intimately connected
to high-temperature superconductivity. These phenomena can be sensitively
probed through momentum-resolved measurements of the lattice dynamics, made
possible by meV-resolution inelastic x-ray scattering. Here we report the first
such measurements for both parent and electron-doped SrIrO. We find
that the low-energy phonon dispersions and intensities in both compounds are
well described by the same nonmagnetic density functional theory calculation.
In the parent compound, no changes of the phonons on magnetic ordering are
discernible within the experimental resolution, and in the doped compound no
anomalies are apparent due to charge-density waves. These measurements extend
our knowledge of the lattice properties of (SrLa)IrO
and constrain the couplings of the phonons to magnetic and charge order.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures (+ 12 pages, 6 figures of supplemental material
Del Pezzo surfaces with 1/3(1,1) points
We classify del Pezzo surfaces with 1/3(1,1) points in 29 qG-deformation
families grouped into six unprojection cascades (this overlaps with work of
Fujita and Yasutake), we tabulate their biregular invariants, we give good
model constructions for surfaces in all families as degeneracy loci in rep
quotient varieties and we prove that precisely 26 families admit
qG-degenerations to toric surfaces. This work is part of a program to study
mirror symmetry for orbifold del Pezzo surfaces.Comment: 42 pages. v2: model construction added of last remaining surface,
minor corrections, minor changes to presentation, references adde
A Dynamic Programming Approach to Adaptive Fractionation
We conduct a theoretical study of various solution methods for the adaptive
fractionation problem. The two messages of this paper are: (i) dynamic
programming (DP) is a useful framework for adaptive radiation therapy,
particularly adaptive fractionation, because it allows us to assess how close
to optimal different methods are, and (ii) heuristic methods proposed in this
paper are near-optimal, and therefore, can be used to evaluate the best
possible benefit of using an adaptive fraction size.
The essence of adaptive fractionation is to increase the fraction size when
the tumor and organ-at-risk (OAR) are far apart (a "favorable" anatomy) and to
decrease the fraction size when they are close together. Given that a fixed
prescribed dose must be delivered to the tumor over the course of the
treatment, such an approach results in a lower cumulative dose to the OAR when
compared to that resulting from standard fractionation. We first establish a
benchmark by using the DP algorithm to solve the problem exactly. In this case,
we characterize the structure of an optimal policy, which provides guidance for
our choice of heuristics. We develop two intuitive, numerically near-optimal
heuristic policies, which could be used for more complex, high-dimensional
problems. Furthermore, one of the heuristics requires only a statistic of the
motion probability distribution, making it a reasonable method for use in a
realistic setting. Numerically, we find that the amount of decrease in dose to
the OAR can vary significantly (5 - 85%) depending on the amount of motion in
the anatomy, the number of fractions, and the range of fraction sizes allowed.
In general, the decrease in dose to the OAR is more pronounced when: (i) we
have a high probability of large tumor-OAR distances, (ii) we use many
fractions (as in a hyper-fractionated setting), and (iii) we allow large daily
fraction size deviations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
Magnetic Properties of Ab initio Model for Iron-Based Superconductors LaFeAsO
By using variational Monte Carlo method, we examine an effective low-energy
model for LaFeAsO derived from an ab initio downfolding scheme. We show that
quantum and many-body fluctuations near a quantum critical point largely reduce
the antiferromagnetic (AF) ordered moment and the model not only quantitatively
reproduces the small ordered moment in LaFeAsO, but also explains the diverse
dependence on LaFePO, BaFe2As2 and FeTe. We also find that LaFeAsO is under
large orbital fluctuations, sandwiched by the AF Mott insulator and weakly
correlated metals. The orbital fluctuations and Dirac-cone dispersion hold keys
for the diverse magnetic properties.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Momentum--dependent nuclear mean fields and collective flow in heavy ion collisions
We use the Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck model to simulate the dynamical
evolution of heavy ion collisions and to compare the effects of two
parametrizations of the momentum--dependent nuclear mean field that have
identical properties in cold nuclear matter. We compare with recent data on
nuclear flow, as characterized by transverse momentum distributions and flow
() variables for symmetric and asymmetric systems. We find that the precise
functional dependence of the nuclear mean field on the particle momentum is
important. With our approach, we also confirm that the difference between
symmetric and asymmetric systems can be used to pin down the density and
momentum dependence of the nuclear self consistent one--body potential,
independently. All the data can be reproduced very well with a
momentum--dependent interaction with compressibility K = 210 MeV.Comment: 15 pages in ReVTeX 3.0; 12 postscript figures uuencoded; McGill/94-1
Survivin as a therapeutic target in Sonic hedgehog-driven medulloblastoma.
Medulloblastoma (MB) is a highly malignant brain tumor that occurs primarily in children. Although surgery, radiation and high-dose chemotherapy have led to increased survival, many MB patients still die from their disease, and patients who survive suffer severe long-term side effects as a consequence of treatment. Thus, more effective and less toxic therapies for MB are critically important. Development of such therapies depends in part on identification of genes that are necessary for growth and survival of tumor cells. Survivin is an inhibitor of apoptosis protein that regulates cell cycle progression and resistance to apoptosis, is frequently expressed in human MB and when expressed at high levels predicts poor clinical outcome. Therefore, we hypothesized that Survivin may have a critical role in growth and survival of MB cells and that targeting it may enhance MB therapy. Here we show that Survivin is overexpressed in tumors from patched (Ptch) mutant mice, a model of Sonic hedgehog (SHH)-driven MB. Genetic deletion of survivin in Ptch mutant tumor cells significantly inhibits proliferation and causes cell cycle arrest. Treatment with small-molecule antagonists of Survivin impairs proliferation and survival of both murine and human MB cells. Finally, Survivin antagonists impede growth of MB cells in vivo. These studies highlight the importance of Survivin in SHH-driven MB, and suggest that it may represent a novel therapeutic target in patients with this disease
Cbx3 inhibits vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation, migration, and neointima formation
This work was supported by British Heart Foundation (FS/09/044/28007, PG/11/40/28891, PG/13/45/30326, PG/15/11/31279, PG/15/86/31723, and PG/16/1/31892 to QX). This work forms part of the research portfolio for the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre at Barts
Differential flow in heavy-ion collisions at balance energies
A strong differential transverse collective flow is predicted for the first
time to occur in heavy-ion collisions at balance energies. We also give a novel
explanation for the disappearance of the total transverse collective flow at
the balance energies. It is further shown that the differential flow especially
at high transverse momenta is a useful microscope capable of resolving the
balance energy's dual sensitivity to both the nuclear equation of state and
in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections in the reaction dynamics.Comment: Phys. Rev. Lett. (1999) in pres
The prescribed mean curvature equation in weakly regular domains
We show that the characterization of existence and uniqueness up to vertical
translations of solutions to the prescribed mean curvature equation, originally
proved by Giusti in the smooth case, holds true for domains satisfying very
mild regularity assumptions. Our results apply in particular to the
non-parametric solutions of the capillary problem for perfectly wetting fluids
in zero gravity. Among the essential tools used in the proofs, we mention a
\textit{generalized Gauss-Green theorem} based on the construction of the weak
normal trace of a vector field with bounded divergence, in the spirit of
classical results due to Anzellotti, and a \textit{weak Young's law} for
-minimizers of the perimeter.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure --- The results on the weak normal trace of vector
fields have been now extended and moved in a self-contained paper available
at: arXiv:1708.0139
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