Slowly cycling Rho kinase-dependent actomyosin cross-bridge slippage explains intrinsic high compliance of detrusor smooth muscle

Biological soft tissues are viscoelastic because they display timeindependent pseudoelasticity and time-dependent viscosity. However, there is evidence that the bladder may also display plasticity, defined as an increase in strain that is unrecoverable unless work is done by the muscle. In the present study, an electronic lever was used to induce controlled changes in stress and strain to determine whether rabbit detrusor smooth muscle (rDSM) is best described as viscoelastic or viscoelastic plastic. Using sequential ramp loading and unloading cycles, stress-strain and stiffness-stress analyses revealed that rDSM displayed reversible viscoelasticity, and that the viscous component was responsible for establishing a high stiffness at low stresses that increased only modestly with increasing stress compared with the large increase produced when the viscosity was absent and only pseudoelasticity governed tissue behavior. The study also revealed that rDSM underwent softening correlating with plastic deformation and creep that was reversed slowly when tissues were incubated in a Ca2+ -containing solution. Together, the data support a model of DSM as a viscoelastic-plastic material, with the plasticity resulting from motor protein activation. This model explains the mechanism of intrinsic bladder compliance as slipping cross bridges, predicts that wall tension is dependent not only on vesicle pressure and radius but also on actomyosin cross-bridge activity, and identifies a novel molecular target for compliance regulation, both physiologically and therapeutically

Physical routes for the synthesis of kesterite

This paper provides an overview of the physical vapor technologies used to synthesize Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 thin films as absorber layers for photovoltaic applications. Through the years, CZT(S,Se) thin films have been fabricated using sequential stacking or co-sputtering of precursors as well as using sequential or co-evaporation of elemental sources, leading to high-efficient solar cells. In addition, pulsed laser deposition of composite targets and monograin growth by the molten salt method were developed as alternative methods for kesterite layers deposition. This review presents the growing increase of the kesterite-based solar cell efficiencies achieved over the recent years. A historical description of the main issues limiting this efficiency and of the experimental pathways designed to prevent or limit these issues is provided and discussed as well. Afinal section is dedicated to the description of promising process steps aiming at further improvements of solar cell efficiency, such as alkali doping and bandgap grading1. R Caballero and M León acknowledge financial support via the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities project (WINCOST, ENE2016-80788-C5-2-R) and thank H2020 EU Programme under the project INFINITE-CELL (H2020-MSCA-RISE-2017-777968). 2. S Canulescu and J Schou acknowledge the support from Innovation Fund Denmark. 3. D-H Kim acknowledges financial support via the DGIST R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and ICT, KOREA (18-BD-05). 4.C. Malerba acknowledges the support from the Italian Ministry of Economic development in the framework of the Operating Agreement with ENEA for the Research on the Electric System. 5.A Redinger acknowledges financial support via the FNR Attract program, Project : SUNSPOT, Nr.11244141. 6. E Saucedo thanks H2020 EU Programme under the projects STARCELL (H2020-NMBP-03-2016-720907) and INFINITE-CELL (H2020-MSCA-RISE-2017-777968), the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities for the IGNITE project (ENE2017-87671-C3-1-R), and the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF, FEDER Programa Competitivitat de Catalunya 2007–2013). IREC belong to the SEMS (Solar Energy Materials and Systems) Consolidated Research Group of the ‘Generalitat de Catalunya’ (Ref. 2017 SGR 862). 7. Taltech acknowledges financial support via the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research funding project IUT19-28 and the European Union Regional Development Fund, Project TK141. 8. B Vermang has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Grant Agreement No 715027

Neutralino Dark Matter in Mirage Mediation

We study the phenomenology of neutralino dark matter (DM) in mirage mediation scenario of supersymmetry breaking which results from the moduli stabilization in some string/brane models. Depending upon the model parameters, especially the anomaly to modulus mediation ratio determined by the moduli stabilization mechanism, the nature of the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) changes from Bino-like neutralino to Higgsino-like one via Bino-Higgsino mixing region. For the Bino-like LSP, the standard thermal production mechanism can give a right amount of relic DM density through the stop/stau-neutralino coannihilation or the pseudo-scalar Higgs resonance process. We also examine the prospect of direct and indirect DM detection in various parameter regions of mirage mediation. Neutralino DM in galactic halo might be detected by near future direct detection experiments in the case of Bino-Higgsino mixed LSP. The gamma ray flux from Galactic Center might be detectable also if the DM density profile takes a cuspy shape.Comment: One reference adde

Extended Smoothed Boundary Method for Solving Partial Differential Equations with General Boundary Conditions on Complex Boundaries

In this article, we describe an approach for solving partial differential equations with general boundary conditions imposed on arbitrarily shaped boundaries. A continuous function, the domain parameter, is used to modify the original differential equations such that the equations are solved in the region where a domain parameter takes a specified value while boundary conditions are imposed on the region where the value of the domain parameter varies smoothly across a short distance. The mathematical derivations are straightforward and generically applicable to a wide variety of partial differential equations. To demonstrate the general applicability of the approach, we provide four examples herein: (1) the diffusion equation with both Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions; (2) the diffusion equation with both surface diffusion and reaction; (3) the mechanical equilibrium equation; and (4) the equation for phase transformation with the presence of additional boundaries. The solutions for several of these cases are validated against corresponding analytical and semi-analytical solutions. The potential of the approach is demonstrated with five applications: surface-reaction-diffusion kinetics with a complex geometry, Kirkendall-effect-induced deformation, thermal stress in a complex geometry, phase transformations affected by substrate surfaces, and a self-propelled droplet.Comment: This document is the revised version of arXiv:0912.1288v

Age structure, dispersion and diet of a population of stoats (Mustela erminea) in southern Fiordland during the decline phase of the beechmast cycle

The dispersion, age structure and diet of stoats (Mustela erminea) in beech forest in the Borland and Grebe Valleys, Fiordland National Park, were examined during December and January 2000/01, 20 months after a heavy seed-fall in 1999. Thirty trap stations were set along a 38-km transect through almost continuous beech forest, at least 1 km apart. Mice were very scarce (nights, C/100TN) along two standard index lines placed at either end of the transect, compared with November 1999 (>60/100TN), but mice were detected (from footprints in stoat tunnels) along an 8 km central section of the transect (stations 14-22). Live trapping with one trap per station (total 317.5 trap nights) in December 2000 caught 2 female and 23 male stoats, of which 10 (including both females) were radio collared. The minimum range lengths of the two females along the transect represented by the trap line were 2.2 and 6.0 km; those of eight radio-tracked males averaged 2.9 ± 1.7 km. Stations 14-22 tended to be visited more often, by more marked individual stoats, than the other 21 stations. Fenn trapping at the same 30 sites, but with multiple traps per station (1333.5 trap nights), in late January 2001 collected carcasses of 35 males and 28 females (including 12 of the marked live-trapped ones). Another two marked males were recovered dead. The stoat population showed no sign of chronic nutritional stress (average fat reserve index = 2.8 on a scale of 1-4 where 4 = highest fat content); and only one of 63 guts analysed was empty. Nevertheless, all 76 stoats handled were adults with 1-3 cementum annuli in their teeth, showing that reproduction had failed that season. Prey categories recorded in descending frequency of occurrence were birds, carabid beetle (ground beetle), weta, possum, rat, and mouse. The frequencies of occurrence of mice and birds in the diet of these stoats (10% and 48%, respectively) were quite different from those in stoats collected in Pig Creek, a tributary of the Borland River (87%, 5%), 12 months previously when mice were still abundant. Five of the six stoat guts containing mice were collected within 1 km of stations 14-22

Maximal Temperature in Flux Compactifications

Thermal corrections have an important effect on moduli stabilization leading to the existence of a maximal temperature, beyond which the compact dimensions decompactify. In this note, we discuss generality of our earlier analysis and apply it to the case of flux compactifications. The maximal temperature is again found to be controlled by the supersymmetry breaking scale, T_{crit} \sim \sqrt{m_{3/2} M_P}.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures. v2:comment and references adde

Metastable Vacua in Flux Compactifications and Their Phenomenology

In the context of flux compactifications, metastable vacua with a small positive cosmological constant are obtained by combining a sector where supersymmetry is broken dynamically with the sector responsible for moduli stabilization, which is known as the F-uplifting. We analyze this procedure in a model-independent way and study phenomenological properties of the resulting vacua.Comment: 21 pages, 19 figures; v2: matches version published in JHE

Vacuum Stability Bound on Extended GMSB Models

Extensions of GMSB models were explored to explain the recent reports of the Higgs boson mass around 124-126 GeV. Some models predict a large mu term, which can spoil the vacuum stability of the universe. We study two GMSB extensions: i) the model with a large trilinear coupling of the top squark, and ii) that with extra vector-like matters. In both models, the vacuum stability condition provides upper bounds on the gluino mass if combined with the muon g-2. The whole parameter region is expected to be covered by LHC at sqrt{s} = 14 TeV. The analysis is also applied to the mSUGRA models with the vector-like matters.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figure