909 research outputs found
Does precipitation susceptibility vary with increasing cloud thickness in marine stratocumulus?
The relationship between precipitation rate and accumulation mode aerosol concentration in marine stratocumulus-topped boundary layers is investigated by applying the precipitation susceptibility metric to aircraft data obtained during the VOCALS Regional Experiment. A new method to calculate the precipitation susceptibility that incorporates non-precipitating clouds is introduced. The mean precipitation rate <i>R</i> over a segment of the data is expressed as the product of a drizzle fraction <i>f</i> and a drizzle intensity <i>I</i> (mean rate for drizzling columns). The susceptibility <i>S</i><sub>x</sub> is then defined as the fractional decrease in precipitation variable <i>x</i> = {<i>R</i>, <i>f</i>, <i>I</i>} per fractional increase in the concentration of aerosols with dry diameter >0.1 μm, with cloud thickness <i>h</i> held fixed. The precipitation susceptibility <i>S</i><sub>R</sub> is calculated using data from both precipitating and non-precipitating cloudy columns to quantify how aerosol concentrations affect the mean precipitation rate of all clouds of a given <i>h</i> range and not just the mean precipitation of clouds that are precipitating. <i>S</i><sub>R</sub> systematically decreases with increasing <i>h</i>, and this is largely because <i>S</i><sub>f</sub> decreases with <i>h</i> while <i>S</i><sub>I</sub> is approximately independent of <i>h</i>. In a general sense, <i>S</i><i>f</i> can be thought of as the effect of aerosols on the probability of precipitation, while <i>S</i><sub>I</sub> can be thought of as the effect of aerosols on the intensity of precipitation. Since thicker clouds are likely to precipitate regardless of ambient aerosol concentration, we expect <i>S</i><sub>f</sub> to decrease with increasing <i>h</i>. The results are broadly insensitive to the choice of horizontal averaging scale. Similar susceptibilities are found for both cloud base and near-surface drizzle rates. The analysis is repeated with cloud liquid water path held fixed instead of cloud thickness. Simple power law relationships relating precipitation rate to aerosol concentration or cloud droplet concentration do not capture this observed behavior
Expression of Tryptophan 2,3-Dioxygenase in Metastatic Uveal Melanoma
Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common primary eye malignancy in adults and up to 50% of patients subsequently develop systemic metastasis. Metastatic uveal melanoma (MUM) is highly resistant to immunotherapy. One of the mechanisms for resistance would be the immune-suppressive tumor microenvironment. Here, we have investigated the role of tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase (TDO) in UM. Both TDO and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) catalyze tryptophan and produce kynurenine, which could cause inhibition of T cell immune responses. We first studied the expression of TDO on tumor tissue specimens obtained from UM hepatic metastasis. High expression of TDO protein was confirmed in all hepatic metastasis. TDO was positive in both normal hepatocytes and the tumor cells with relatively higher expression in tumor cells. On the other hand, IDO protein remained undetectable in all of the MUM specimens. UM cell lines established from metastasis also expressed TDO protein and increasing kynurenine levels were detected in the supernatant of MUM cell culture. In TCGA database, higher TDO2 expression in primary UM significantly correlated to BAP1 mutation and monosomy 3. These results indicate that TDO might be one of the key mechanisms for resistance to immunotherapy in UM
Multi-Modes Phonon Softening in Two-Dimensional Electron-Lattice System
Phonon dispersion in a two-dimensional electron-lattice system described by a
two-dimensional square-lattice version of Su-Schrieffer-Heeger's model and
having the half-filled electronic band is studied theoretically at temperatures
higher than the mean field critical temperature of the Peierls transition. When
the temperature is lowered from the higher region down to the critical one,
softening of multi phonon modes which have wave vectors equal to the nesting
vector \vv{Q}=(\pi/a,\pi/a) with the lattice constant or parallel to
\vv{Q} is observed. Although both of the transverse and longitudinal modes
are softened at the critical temperature in the case of the wave vector equal
to \vv{Q}, only the transverse modes are softened for other wave vectors
parallel to \vv{Q}. This behavior is consistent with the Peierls distortions
at lower temperatures.Comment: 10 pages, 5 Figure
Photogeneration Dynamics of a Soliton Pair in Polyacetylene
Dynamical process of the formation of a soliton pair from a photogenerated
electron-hole pair in polyacetylene is studied numerically by adopting the SSH
Hamiltonian. A weak local disorder is introduced in order to trigger the
formation. Starting from an initial configuration with an electron at the
bottom of the conduction band and a hole at the top of the valence band,
separated by the Peierls gap, the time dependent Schrndinger
equation for the electron wave functions and the equation of motion for the
lattice displacements are solved numerically. After several uniform
oscillations of the lattice system at the early stage, a large distortion
corresponding to a pair of a soliton and an anti-soliton develops from a point
which is determined by the location and type of the disorder. In some cases,
two solitons run in opposite directions, leaving breather like oscillations
behind, and in other cases they form a bound state emitting acoustic lattice
vibrational modes.Comment: 16 pages 7 figure
Electronic and Magnetic Properties of Nanographite Ribbons
Electronic and magnetic properties of ribbon-shaped nanographite systems with
zigzag and armchair edges in a magnetic field are investigated by using a tight
binding model. One of the most remarkable features of these systems is the
appearance of edge states, strongly localized near zigzag edges. The edge state
in magnetic field, generating a rational fraction of the magnetic flux (\phi=
p/q) in each hexagonal plaquette of the graphite plane, behaves like a
zero-field edge state with q internal degrees of freedom. The orbital
diamagnetic susceptibility strongly depends on the edge shapes. The reason is
found in the analysis of the ring currents, which are very sensitive to the
lattice topology near the edge. Moreover, the orbital diamagnetic
susceptibility is scaled as a function of the temperature, Fermi energy and
ribbon width. Because the edge states lead to a sharp peak in the density of
states at the Fermi level, the graphite ribbons with zigzag edges show
Curie-like temperature dependence of the Pauli paramagnetic susceptibility.
Hence, it is shown that the crossover from high-temperature diamagnetic to
low-temperature paramagnetic behavior of the magnetic susceptibility of
nanographite ribbons with zigzag edges.Comment: 13 pages including 19 figures, submitted to Physical Rev
A-site Randomness Effect on Structural and Physical Properties of Ba-based Perovskite Manganites
The discovery of novel structural and physical properties in the -site
ordered manganite BaMnO ( = Y and rare earth elements) has
demanded new comprehension about perovskite manganese oxides. In the present
study, the -site disordered form, BaMnO, has been
investigated and compared with both BaMnO and
MnO (: Sr, Ca) in the structures and electromagnetic
properties. BaMnO has a primitive cubic perovskite cell
in the structure and magnetic glassy states are dominant as its ground state,
in contrast to the ordinary disordered MnO (: Sr, Ca).
In Pr-compounds with various degrees of Pr/Ba randomness at the -sites, the
-site disorder gradually suppresses both ferromagnetic and A-type
antiferromagnetic transitions and finally leads to a magnetic glassy state in
PrBaMnO. A peculiar behavior, multi-step magnetization
and resistivity change, has been observed in PrBaMnO.
These properties could be closely related to any spatial heterogeneity caused
by the random distribution of Ba and with much different
ionic radius.Comment: 9 pages, to be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 73 Aug. (2004
Enhanced optics for time-resolved singlet oxygen luminescence detection
Singlet oxygen luminescence dosimetry (SOLD) is a highly promising direct monitoring method for photodynamic therapy (PDT) in the treatment of cancer. Early SOLD systems have been hampered by inefficient excitation, poor optical collection and immature infrared single photon detection technology. We report carefully engineered improvements addressing all of these deficiencies. We use a supercontinuum source with a tunable filter to precisely target the peak absorption wavelength of the chosen photosensitizer; we have designed a compact and versatile optical package for precise alignment; we have successfully employed state-of-the-art superconducting photon counting technologies. Through these improvements, we can achieve real-time histogram acquisition from a photosensitizer in solution test sample. This setup opens the pathway to physiological SOLD studies for PDT dosimetry
Numerical study of the lattice vacancy effects on the single-channel electron transport of graphite ribbons
Lattice vacancy effects on electrical conductance of nanographite ribbon are
investigated by means of the Landauer approach using a tight binding model. In
the low-energy regime ribbons with zigzag boundary provide a single conducting
channel whose origin is connected with the presence of edge states. It is found
that the chemical potential dependence of conductance strongly depends on the
difference () of the number of removed A and B sublattice sites. The
large lattice vacancy with shows zero-conductance dips
in the single-channel region, however, the large lattice vacancy with
has no dip structure in this region. The connection between this
conductance rule and the Longuet-Higgins conjecture is also discussed
Semi-Phenomenological Analysis of Dynamics of Nonlinear Excitations in One-Dimensional Electron-Phonon System
The structure of moving nonlinear excitations in one-dimensional
electron-phonon systems is studied semi-phenomenologically by using an
effective action in which the width of the nonlinear excitation is treated as a
dynamical variable. The effective action can be derived from Su, Schrieffer and
Heeger's model or its continuum version proposed by Takayama, Lin-Liu and Maki
with an assumption that the nonlinear excitation moves uniformly without any
deformation except the change of its width. The form of the action is
essentially the same as that discussed by Bishop and coworkers in studying the
dynamics of the soliton in polyacetylene, though some details are different.
For the moving excitation with a velocity , the width is determined by
minimizing the effective action. A requirement that there must be a minimum in
the action as a function of its width provides a maximum velocity. The velocity
dependence of the width and energy can be determined. The motions of a soliton
in p olyacetylene and an acoustic polaron in polydiacetylene are studied within
this formulation. The obtained results are in good agreement with those of
numerical simulations.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, 7 Postscript figures, to be published in J. Phys.
Soc. Jpn. vol.65 (1996) No.
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