62 research outputs found
Nonlinear Landau damping in the ionosphere
A model is presented to explain the non-resonant waves which give rise to the diffuse resonance observed near 3/2 f sub H by the Alouette and ISIS topside sounders, where f sub H is the ambient electron cyclotron frequency. In a strictly linear analysis, these instability driven waves will decay due to Landau damping on a time scale much shorter than the observed time duration of the diffuse resonance. Calculations of the nonlinear wave particle coupling coefficients, however, indicate that the diffuse resonance wave can be maintained by the nonlinear Landau damping of the sounder stimulated 2f sub H wave. The time duration of the diffuse resonance is determined by the transit time of the instability generated and nonlinearly maintained diffuse resonance wave from the remote short lived hot region back to the antenna. The model is consistent with the Alouette/ISIS observations, and clearly demonstrates the existence of nonlinear wave-particle interactions in the ionosphere
Physiologically based in silico modelling to examine DNA adduct formation by different food-borne a,ß-unsaturated aldehydes at realistic low dietary exposure levels
Abstract (R.Kiwamoto ISBN 978-94-6257-284-3) Various α,β-unsaturated aldehydes are present in fruits, vegetables, spices, or processed products containing these items as natural constituents or as added food flavouring agents. Because of the α,β-unsaturated aldehyde moiety the β carbon in the molecule becomes electron deficient and the aldehydes react with electron rich molecules including DNA via Michael addition. The formation of DNA adducts raises a concern for genotoxicity, although formation of DNA adducts may not be significant at low doses relevant for dietary exposure in vivo because of adequate detoxification. This thesis therefore aimed at determining dose-dependent detoxification and DNA adduct formation of food-borne α,β-unsaturated aldehydes by using a physiologically based in silico modelling approach in order to contribute to the safety assessment of these aldehydes used as food flavourings instead of performing animal experiments. Physiologically based in silico models were developed for 18 α,β-unsaturated aldehydes. The model outcomes indicated that the DNA adduct formation by the 18 α,β-unsaturated aldehydes as food flavourings is negligible and does not raise a safety concern at their levels of intake resulting from their use as food flavourings. The application of QSAR models strongly accelerated the development process of the PBK/D models of the group of 18 compounds. Also, it was illustrated that physiologically based in silico models provide a very useful and powerful tool to facilitate a group evaluation and read-across for food-borne DNA reactive agents. PBK/D models developed for the group of compounds supported read-across from cinnamaldehyde which is known not to be genotoxic or carcinogenic in vivo to other aldehydes, by allowing comparison of dose-dependent DNA adduct formations. Altogether this thesis presented physiologically based in silico modelling as an approach to test relevance of positive in vitro genotoxicity results by DNA reactive compounds in vivo without using animal experiments. </p
Siglec-F-dependent negative regulation of allergen-induced eosinophilia depends critically on the experimental model
Siglec-8 and siglec-F are paralogous membrane proteins expressed on human and murine eosinophils respectively. They bind similar sialylated and sulphated glycans and mediate eosinophil apoptosis when cross-linked with antibodies or glycan ligands. In models of allergic eosinophilic airway inflammation, siglec-F was shown previously to be important for negatively regulating eosinophilia. It was proposed that this was due to siglec-F-dependent apoptosis, triggered via engagement with ligands that are upregulated on bronchial epithelium. Our aim was to further investigate the functions of siglec-F by comparing two commonly used models of ovalbumin-induced airway inflammation that differ in the dose and route of administration of ovalbumin. In confirmation of published results, siglec-F-deficient mice had enhanced lung tissue eosinophilia in response to intranasal ovalbumin delivered every other day. However, following aerosolised ovalbumin delivered daily, there was no influence of siglec-F deficiency on lung eosinophilia. Expression of siglec-F ligands in lung tissues was similar in both models of allergen induced inflammation. These data demonstrate that siglec-F-dependent regulation of eosinophilia is subtle and depends critically on the model used. The findings also indicate that mechanisms other than ligand-induced apoptosis may be important in siglec-F-dependent suppression of eosinophilia
Numerical Simulation of Vortex Crystals and Merging in N-Point Vortex Systems with Circular Boundary
In two-dimensional (2D) inviscid incompressible flow, low background
vorticity distribution accelerates intense vortices (clumps) to merge each
other and to array in the symmetric pattern which is called ``vortex
crystals''; they are observed in the experiments on pure electron plasma and
the simulations of Euler fluid. Vortex merger is thought to be a result of
negative ``temperature'' introduced by L. Onsager. Slight difference in the
initial distribution from this leads to ``vortex crystals''. We study these
phenomena by examining N-point vortex systems governed by the Hamilton
equations of motion. First, we study a three-point vortex system without
background distribution. It is known that a N-point vortex system with boundary
exhibits chaotic behavior for N\geq 3. In order to investigate the properties
of the phase space structure of this three-point vortex system with circular
boundary, we examine the Poincar\'e plot of this system. Then we show that
topology of the Poincar\'e plot of this system drastically changes when the
parameters, which are concerned with the sign of ``temperature'', are varied.
Next, we introduce a formula for energy spectrum of a N-point vortex system
with circular boundary. Further, carrying out numerical computation, we
reproduce a vortex crystal and a vortex merger in a few hundred point vortices
system. We confirm that the energy of vortices is transferred from the clumps
to the background in the course of vortex crystallization. In the vortex
merging process, we numerically calculate the energy spectrum introduced above
and confirm that it behaves as k^{-\alpha},(\alpha\approx 2.2-2.8) at the
region 10^0<k<10^1 after the merging.Comment: 30 pages, 11 figures. to be published in Journal of Physical Society
of Japan Vol.74 No.
Quasi-stationary States of Two-Dimensional Electron Plasma Trapped in Magnetic Field
We have performed numerical simulations on a pure electron plasma system
under a strong magnetic field, in order to examine quasi-stationary states that
the system eventually evolves into. We use ring states as the initial states,
changing the width, and find that the system evolves into a vortex crystal
state from a thinner-ring state while a state with a single-peaked density
distribution is obtained from a thicker-ring initial state. For those
quasi-stationary states, density distribution and macroscopic observables are
defined on the basis of a coarse-grained density field. We compare our results
with experiments and some statistical theories, which include the
Gibbs-Boltzmann statistics, Tsallis statistics, the fluid entropy theory, and
the minimum enstrophy state. From some of those initial states, we obtain the
quasi-stationary states which are close to the minimum enstrophy state, but we
also find that the quasi-stationary states depend upon initial states, even if
the initial states have the same energy and angular momentum, which means the
ergodicity does not hold.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
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