Chiral molecular films as electron polarizers and polarization modulators

Recent experiments on electron scattering through molecular films have shown that chiral molecules can be efficient sources of polarized electrons even in the absence of heavy nuclei as source of a strong spin-orbit interaction. We show that self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of chiral molecules are strong electron polarizers due to the high density effect of the monolayers and explicitly compute the scattering amplitude off a helical molecular model of carbon atoms. Longitudinal polarization is shown to be the signature of chiral scattering. For elastic scattering, we find that at least double scattering events must take place for longitudinal polarization to arise. We predict energy windows for strong polarization, determined by the energy dependences of spin-orbit strength and multiple scattering probability. An incoherent mechanism for polarization amplification is proposed, that increases the polarization linearly with the number of helix turns, consistent with recent experiments on DNA SAMs.Comment: 5 Pages, 4 figure

Nod1 signaling overcomes resistance of S. pneumoniae to opsonophagocytic killing

Airway infection by the Gram-positive pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae (Sp) leads to recruitment of neutrophils but limited bacterial killing by these cells. Co-colonization by Sp and a Gram-negative species, Haemophilus influenzae (Hi), provides sufficient stimulus to induce neutrophil and complement-mediated clearance of Sp from the mucosal surface in a murine model. Products from Hi, but not Sp, also promote killing of Sp by ex vivo neutrophil-enriched peritoneal exudate cells. Here we identify the stimulus from Hi as its peptidoglycan. Enhancement of opsonophagocytic killing was facilitated by signaling through nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-1 (Nod1), which is involved in recognition of γ-D-glutamyl-meso-diaminopimelic acid (meso-DAP) contained in cell walls of Hi but not Sp. Neutrophils from mice treated with Hi or compounds containing meso-DAP, including synthetic peptidoglycan fragments, showed increased Sp killing in a Nod1-dependent manner. Moreover, Nod1-/- mice showed reduced Hi-induced clearance of Sp during co-colonization. These observations offer insight into mechanisms of microbial competition and demonstrate the importance of Nod1 in neutrophil-mediated clearance of bacteria in vivo

Ion and polymer dynamics in polymer electrolytes PPO-LiClO4: II. 2H and 7Li NMR stimulated-echo experiment

We use 2H NMR stimulated-echo spectroscopy to measure two-time correlation functions characterizing the polymer segmental motion in polymer electrolytes PPO-LiClO4 near the glass transition temperature Tg. To investigate effects of the salt on the polymer dynamics, we compare results for different ether oxygen to lithium ratios, namely, 6:1, 15:1, 30:1 and infinity. For all compositions, we find nonexponential correlation functions, which can be described by a Kohlrausch function. The mean correlation times show quantitatively that an increase of the salt concentration results in a strong slowing down of the segmental motion. Consistently, for the high 6:1 salt concentration, a high apparent activation energy E_a=4.1eV characterizes the temperature dependence of the mean correlation times at Tg < T< 1.1T_g, while smaller values E_a=2.5eV are observed for moderate salt contents. The correlation functions are most nonexponential for 15:1 PPO-LiClO4, whereas the stretching is reduced for higher and lower salt concentrations. A similar dependence of the correlation functions on the evolution time in the presence and in the absence of ions indicates that addition of salt hardly affects the reorientational mechanism. For all compositions, mean jump angles of about 15 degree characterize the segmental reorientation. In addition, comparison of results from 2H and 7Li NMR stimulated-echo experiments suggests a coupling of ion and polymer dynamics in 15:1 PPO-LiClO4.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figure

The Formal Dynamism of Categories: Stops vs. Fricatives, Primitivity vs. Simplicity

Minimalist Phonology (MP; Pöchtrager 2006) constructs its theory based on the phonological epistemological principle (Kaye 2001) and exposes the arbitrary nature of standard Government Phonology (sGP) and strict-CV (sCV), particularly with reference to their confusion of melody and structure. For Pöchtrager, these are crucially different, concluding that place of articulation is melodic (expressed with elements), while manner of articulation is structural. In this model, the heads (xN and xO) can license and incorporate the length of the other into their own interpretation, that is xN influences xO projections as well as its own and vice versa. This dynamism is an aspect of the whole framework and this paper in particular will show that stops and fricatives evidence a plasticity of category and that, although fricatives are simpler in structure, stops are the more primitive of the two. This will be achieved phonologically through simply unifying the environment of application of the licensing forces within Pöchtrager's otherwise sound onset structure. In doing so, we automatically make several predictions about language acquisition and typology and show how lenition in Qiang (Sino-Tibetan) can be more elegantly explained

Effects Of Length, Complexity, And Grammatical Correctness On Stuttering In Spanish-Speaking Preschool Children

Purpose: To explore the effects of utterance length, syntactic complexity, and grammatical correctness on stuttering in the spontaneous speech of young, monolingual Spanish-speaking children. Method: Spontaneous speech samples of 11 monolingual Spanish-speaking children who stuttered, ages 35 to 70 months, were examined. Mean number of syllables, total number of clauses, utterance complexity (i.e., containing no clauses, simple clauses, or subordinate and/or conjoined clauses), and grammatical correctness (i.e., the presence or absence of morphological and syntactical errors) in stuttered and fluent utterances were compared. Results: Findings revealed that stuttered utterances in Spanish tended to be longer and more often grammatically incorrect, and contain more clauses, including more subordinate and/or conjoined clauses. However, when controlling for the interrelatedness of syllable number and clause number and complexity, only utterance length and grammatical incorrectness were significant predictors of stuttering in the spontaneous speech of these Spanish-speaking children. Use of complex utterances did not appear to contribute to the prediction of stuttering when controlling for utterance length. Conclusions: Results from the present study were consistent with many earlier reports of English-speaking children. Both length and grammatical factors appear to affect stuttering in Spanish-speaking children. Grammatical errors, however, served as the greatest predictor of stuttering.Communication Sciences and Disorder

VLBI for Gravity Probe B. V. Proper Motion and Parallax of the Guide Star, IM Pegasi

We present the principal astrometric results of the very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) program undertaken in support of the Gravity Probe B (GP-B) relativity mission. VLBI observations of the GP-B guide star, the RS CVn binary IM Pegasi (HR 8703), yielded positions at 35 epochs between 1997 and 2005. We discuss the statistical assumptions behind these results and our methods for estimating the systematic errors. We find the proper motion of IM Peg in an extragalactic reference frame closely related to the International Celestial Reference Frame 2 (ICRF2) to be -20.83 +- 0.03 +- 0.09 mas/yr in right ascension and -27.27 +- 0.03 +- 0.09 mas/yr in declination. For each component the first uncertainty is the statistical standard error and the second is the total standard error (SE) including plausible systematic errors. We also obtain a parallax of 10.37 +- 0.07 mas (distance: 96.4 +- 0.7 pc), for which there is no evidence of any significant contribution of systematic error. Our parameter estimates for the ~25-day-period orbital motion of the stellar radio emission have SEs corresponding to ~0.10 mas on the sky in each coordinate. The total SE of our estimate of IM Peg's proper motion is ~30% smaller than the accuracy goal set by the GP-B project before launch: 0.14 mas/yr for each coordinate of IM Peg's proper motion. Our results ensure that the uncertainty in IM Peg's proper motion makes only a very small contribution to the uncertainty of the GP-B relativity tests.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Serie

On the low-temperature lattice thermal transport in nanowires

We propose a theory of low temperature thermal transport in nano-wires in the regime where a competition between phonon and flexural modes governs the relaxation processes. Starting with the standard kinetic equations for two different types of quasiparticles we derive a general expression for the coefficient of thermal conductivity. The underlying physics of thermal conductance is completely determined by the corresponding relaxation times, which can be calculated directly for any dispersion of quasiparticles depending on the size of a system. We show that if the considered relaxation mechanism is dominant, then at small wire diameters the temperature dependence of thermal conductivity experiences a crossover from $T^{1/2}$ to $T^3$-dependence. Quantitative analysis shows reasonable agreement with resent experimental results.Comment: 12 pages, 3 eps figure

Applied Plasma Research

Contains reports on three research projects.National Science Foundation (Grant GK-10472