47,781 research outputs found
Mitochondrial Molecular Adaptations and Life History Strategies Coevolve in Plants
Messenger RNA secondary structure prevents mutations at functionally important sites. Mutations at exposed sites would cause micro-adaptations, niche-specialization, and therefore, can be thought to promote K-strategists. Exposing, rather than protecting, conserved sites, is also potentially adaptive because they probably promote macro-adaptive changes. This presumably fits r-strategists: their population dynamics tolerate decreased survival. We found that helix-forming tendencies are greater at evolutionary conserved sites of plant mitochondrial mRNAs than at evolutionary variable sites in a majority (73%) of species–gene combinations. K-strategists preferentially protect conserved sites in short genes, r-strategists protect them most in larger genes. This adaptive scenario resembles our earlier findings in chloroplast genes. Protection levels at various codon positions also display disparity with respect to life history strategies of the plants. Conserved site protection increases overall mRNA folding stabilities for some genes, while decreases it for some others. This contrast exists between homologous genes of r- and K- strategists. Such compensating interactions between variability, mRNA size, codon position, and secondary structure factors within r- and K-strategists are most likely, molecular adaptations of plants belonging to the two extreme life history strategies. Our results suggest coevolution between molecular and ecological adaptive strategies
Wind tunnel tests on a tail-less swept wing span-distributed cargo aircraft configuration
The configuration consisted of a 30 deg -swept, untapered, untwisted wing utilizing a low-moment cambered airfoil of 20 percent streamwise thickness designed for low wave drag at M = 0.6, C sub L = 0.4. The tests covered a range of Mach numbers 0.3 to 0.725 and chord Reynolds number 1,100,000 to 2,040,000, angles of attack up to model buffet and sideslip angles + or - 4 deg. Configuration build up, wing pod filleting, airfoil modification and trailing edge control deflection effects were briefly investigated. Three wing tip vertical tail designs were also tested. Wing body filleting and a simple airfoil modification both produced increments to maximum lift/drag ratio. Addition of pods eliminated pitch instability of the basic wing. While the magnitude of these benefits probably was Reynolds number sensitive, they underline the potential for improving the aerodynamics of the present configuration. The cruise parameter (product of Mach number and lift/drag ratio) attained a maximum close to the airfoil design point. The configuration was found to be positively stable with normal control effectiveness about all three axes in the Mach number and C sub L range of interest
Two Modes of Solid State Nucleation - Ferrites, Martensites and Isothermal Transformation Curves
When a crystalline solid such as iron is cooled across a structural
transition, its final microstructure depends sensitively on the cooling rate.
For instance, an adiabatic cooling across the transition results in an
equilibrium `ferrite', while a rapid cooling gives rise to a metastable twinned
`martensite'. There exists no theoretical framework to understand the dynamics
and conditions under which both these microstructures obtain. Existing theories
of martensite dynamics describe this transformation in terms of elastic strain,
without any explanation for the occurence of the ferrite. Here we provide
evidence for the crucial role played by non-elastic variables, {\it viz.},
dynamically generated interfacial defects. A molecular dynamics (MD) simulation
of a model 2-dimensional (2d) solid-state transformation reveals two distinct
modes of nucleation depending on the temperature of quench. At high
temperatures, defects generated at the nucleation front relax quickly giving
rise to an isotropically growing `ferrite'. At low temperatures, the defects
relax extremely slowly, forcing a coordinated motion of atoms along specific
directions. This results in a twinned critical nucleus which grows rapidly at
speeds comparable to that of sound. Based on our MD results, we propose a
solid-state nucleation theory involving the elastic strain and non-elastic
defects, which successfully describes the transformation to both a ferrite and
a martensite. Our work provides useful insights on how to formulate a general
dynamics of solid state transformations.Comment: 3 pages, 4 B/W + 2 color figure
New features of global climatology revealed by satellite-derived oceanic rainfall maps
Quantitative rainfall maps over the oceanic areas of the globe were derived from the Nimbus 5 Electrically Scanning Microwave Radiometer (ESMR) data. Analysis of satellite derived oceanic rainfall maps reveal certain distinctive characteristics of global patterns for the years 1973-74. The main ones are (1) the forking of the Intertropical Convergence Zone in the Pacific, (2) a previously unrecognized rain area in the South Atlantic, (3) the bimodal behavior of rainbelts in the Indian Ocean and (4) the large interannual variability in oceanic rainfall. These features are discussed
Transport in Luttinger Liquids
We give a brief introduction to Luttinger liquids and to the phenomena of
electronic transport or conductance in quantum wires. We explain why the
subject of transport in Luttinger liquids is relevant and fascinating and
review some important results on tunneling through barriers in a
one-dimensional quantum wire and the phenomena of persistent currents in
mesoscopic rings. We give a brief description of our own work on transport
through doubly-crossed Luttinger liquids and transport in the Schulz-Shastry
exactly solvable Luttinger-like model.Comment: Latex file, 15 pages, four eps figure
Theory of Hysteresis Loop in Ferromagnets
We consider three mechanisms of hysteresis phenomena in alternating magnetic
field: the domain wall motion in a random medium, the nucleation and the
retardation of magnetization due to slow (critical) fluctuations. We construct
quantitative theory for all these processes. The hysteresis is characterized by
two dynamic threshold fields, by coercive field and by the so-called reversal
field. Their ratios to the static threshold field is shown to be function of
two dimensionless variables constituted from the frequency and amplitude of the
ac field as well as from some characteristics of the magnet. The area and the
shape of the hysteresis loop are found. We consider different limiting cases in
which power dependencies are valid. Numerical simulations show the domain wall
formation and propagation and confirm the main theoretical predictions. Theory
is compared with available experimental data.Comment: RevTex, 13 pages, 8 figures (PostScript), acknowledgements adde
The electrostatic profile of consecutive Cβ atoms applied to protein structure quality assessment.
The structure of a protein provides insight into its physiological interactions with other components of the cellular soup. Methods that predict putative structures from sequences typically yield multiple, closely-ranked possibilities. A critical component in the process is the model quality assessing program (MQAP), which selects the best candidate from this pool of structures. Here, we present a novel MQAP based on the physical properties of sidechain atoms. We propose a method for assessing the quality of protein structures based on the electrostatic potential difference (EPD) of Cβ atoms in consecutive residues. We demonstrate that the EPDs of Cβ atoms on consecutive residues provide unique signatures of the amino acid types. The EPD of Cβ atoms are learnt from a set of 1000 non-homologous protein structures with a resolution cuto of 1.6 Å obtained from the PISCES database. Based on the Boltzmann hypothesis that lower energy conformations are proportionately sampled more, and on Annsen's thermodynamic hypothesis that the native structure of a protein is the minimum free energy state, we hypothesize that the deviation of observed EPD values from the mean values obtained in the learning phase is minimized in the native structure. We achieved an average specificity of 0.91, 0.94 and 0.93 on hg_structal, 4state_reduced and ig_structal decoy sets, respectively, taken from the Decoys `R' Us database. The source code and manual is made available at https://github.com/sanchak/mqap and permanently available on 10.5281/zenodo.7134
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