11,537 research outputs found
The relationship between amyloid structure and cytotoxicity
Self-assembly of proteins and peptides into amyloid structures has been the subject of intense and focused research due to their association with neurodegenerative, age-related human diseases and transmissible prion diseases in humans and mammals. Of the disease associated amyloid assemblies, a diverse array of species, ranging from small oligomeric assembly intermediates to fibrillar structures, have been shown to have toxic potential. Equally, a range of species formed by the same disease associated amyloid sequences have been found to be relatively benign under comparable monomer equivalent concentrations and conditions. In recent years, an increasing number of functional amyloid systems have also been found. These developments show that not all amyloid structures are generically toxic to cells. Given these observations, it is important to understand why amyloid structures may encode such varied toxic potential despite sharing a common core molecular architecture. Here, we discuss possible links between different aspects of amyloidogenic structures and assembly mechanisms with their varied functional effects. We propose testable hypotheses for the relationship between amyloid structure and its toxic potential in the context of recent reports on amyloid sequence, structure, and toxicity relationships
Interacting Dark Energy: Possible Explanation for 21-cm Absorption at Cosmic Dawn
A recent observation points to an excess in the expected 21-cm brightness
temperature from cosmic dawn. In this paper, we present an alternative
explanation of this phenomenon, an interaction in the dark sector. Interacting
dark energy models have been extensively studied recently and there is a whole
variety of such in the literature. Here we particularize to a specific model in
order to make explicit the effect of an interaction.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Discussion improved, new references, conclusions
unchanged. Accepted in EPJ
Minimal mechanisms for vegetation patterns in semiarid regions
The minimal ecological requirements for formation of regular vegetation
patterns in semiarid systems have been recently questioned. Against the general
belief that a combination of facilitative and competitive interactions is
necessary, recent theoretical studies suggest that, under broad conditions,
nonlocal competition among plants alone may induce patterns. In this paper, we
review results along this line, presenting a series of models that yield
spatial patterns when finite-range competition is the only driving force. A
preliminary derivation of this type of model from a more detailed one that
considers water-biomass dynamics is also presented. Keywords: Vegetation
patterns, nonlocal interactionsComment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Instability and new phases of higher-dimensional rotating black holes
It has been conjectured that higher-dimensional rotating black holes become
unstable at a sufficiently large value of the rotation, and that new black
holes with pinched horizons appear at the threshold of the instability. We
search numerically, and find, the stationary axisymmetric perturbations of
Myers-Perry black holes with a single spin that mark the onset of the
instability and the appearance of the new black hole phases. We also find new
ultraspinning Gregory-Laflamme instabilities of rotating black strings and
branes.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. The instability of the black hole is argued to
appear at the second zero mode. The first zero mode is not associated to a
new branch of black hole solution
Detection of Single Ion Spectra by Coulomb Crystal Heating
The coupled motion of ions in a radiofrequency trap has been used to connect
the frequency- dependent laser-induced heating of a sympathetically cooled
spectroscopy ion with changes in the fluorescence of a laser-cooled control
ion. This technique, sympathetic heating spectroscopy, is demonstrated using
two isotopes of calcium. In the experiment, a few scattered photons from the
spectroscopy ion are transformed into a large deviation from the steady-state
fluorescence of the control ion. This allows us to detect an optical transition
where the number of scattered photons is below our fluorescence detection
limit. Possible applications of the technique to molecular ion spectroscopy are
briefly discussed.Comment: 7 Pages,10 Figure
Neutrinos and the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe
The discovery of neutrino oscillations provides a solid evidence for nonzero
neutrino masses and leptonic mixing. The fact that neutrino masses are so tiny
constitutes a puzzling problem in particle physics. From the theoretical
viewpoint, the smallness of neutrino masses can be elegantly explained through
the seesaw mechanism. Another challenging issue for particle physics and
cosmology is the explanation of the matter-antimatter asymmetry observed in
Nature. Among the viable mechanisms, leptogenesis is a simple and
well-motivated framework. In this talk we briefly review these aspects, making
emphasis on the possibility of linking neutrino physics to the cosmological
baryon asymmetry originated from leptogenesis.Comment: 8 pages, 1 table, 1 figure; Based on talk given at the Symposium
STARS2011, 1 - 4 May 2011, Havana, Cuba; to be published in the Proceeding
Monte Carlo analysis of critical phenomenon of the Ising model on memory stabilizer structures
We calculate the critical temperature of the Ising model on a set of graphs
representing a concatenated three-bit error-correction code. The graphs are
derived from the stabilizer formalism used in quantum error correction. The
stabilizer for a subspace is defined as the group of Pauli operators whose
eigenvalues are +1 on the subspace. The group can be generated by a subset of
operators in the stabilizer, and the choice of generators determines the
structure of the graph. The Wolff algorithm, together with the histogram method
and finite-size scaling, is used to calculate both the critical temperature and
the critical exponents of each structure. The simulations show that the choice
of stabilizer generators, both the number and the geometry, has a large effect
on the critical temperature.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, 5 table
The XDSPRES CL-based package for reducing OSIRIS cross-dispersed spectra
We present a description of the CL-based package XDSPRES, which aims at being
a complete reducing facility for cross-dispersed spectra taken with the Ohio
State Infrared Imager/Spectrometer, as installed at the SOAR telescope. This
instrument provides spectra in the range between 1.2um and 2.35um in a single
exposure, with resolving power of R ~ 1200. XDSPRES consists of two tasks,
namely xdflat and doosiris. The former is a completely automated code for
preparing normalized flat field images from raw flat field exposures. Doosiris
was designed to be a complete reduction pipeline, requiring a minimum of user
interaction. General steps towards a fully reduced spectrum are explained, as
well as the approach adopted by our code. The software is available to the
community through the web site http://www.if.ufrgs.br/~ruschel/software.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figure
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