281 research outputs found
Natural age dispersion arising from the analysis of broken crystals, part I. Theoretical basis and implications for the apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronometer
Over the last decade major progress has been made in developing both the theoretical and practical aspects of apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronometry and it is now standard practice, and generally seen as best practice, to analyse single grain aliquots. These individual prismatic crystals are often broken and are fragments of larger crystals that have broken during mineral separation along the weak basal cleavage in apatite. This is clearly indicated by the common occurrence of only 1 or no clear crystal terminations present on separated apatite grains, and evidence of freshly broken ends when grains are viewed using a scanning electron microscope. This matters because if the 4He distribution within the whole grain is not homogeneous, because of partial loss due to thermal diffusion for example, then the fragments will all yield ages different from each other and from the whole grain age. Here we use a numerical model with a finite cylinder geometry to approximate 4He ingrowth and thermal diffusion within hexagonal prismatic apatite crystals. This is used to quantify the amount and patterns of inherent, natural age dispersion that arises from analysing broken crystals. A series of systematic numerical experiments were conducted to explore and quantify the pattern and behaviour of this source of dispersion using a set of 5 simple thermal histories that represent a range of plausible geological scenarios. In addition some more complex numerical experiments were run to investigate the pattern and behaviour of grain dispersion seen in several real data sets. The results indicate that natural dispersion of a set of single fragment ages (defined as the range divided by the mean) arising from fragmentation alone varies from c. 7% even for rapid (c. 10 ∘C/Ma), monotonic cooling to over 50% for protracted, complex histories that cause significant diffusional loss of 4He. The magnitude of dispersion arising from fragmentation scales with the grain cylindrical radius, and is of a similar magnitude to dispersion expected from differences in absolute grain size alone (spherical equivalent radii of 40 to 150 μm). This source of dispersion is significant compared with typical analytical uncertainties on individual grain analyses (c. 6%) and standard deviations on multiple grain analyses from a single sample (c. 10-20%). Where there is a significant difference in the U and Th concentration of individual grains (eU), the effect of radiation damage accumulation on 4He diffusivity (assessed using the RDAAM model of Flowers et al. (2009)) is the primary cause of dispersion for samples that have experienced a protracted thermal history, and can cause dispersion in excess of 100% for realistic ranges of eU conentration (i.e. 5-100 ppm). Expected natural dispersion arising from the combined effects of reasonable variations in grain size (radii 40-125 μm), eU concentration (5-150 ppm) and fragmentation would typically exceed 100% for complex thermal histories. In addition to adding a significant component of natural dispersion to analyses, the effect of fragmentation also acts to decouple and corrupt expected correlations between grain ages and absolute grain size and to a lesser extent between grain age and effective uranium concentration (eU). Considering fragmentation explicitly as a source of dispersion and analysing how the different sources of natural dispersion all interact with each other provides a quantitative framework for understanding patterns of dispersion that otherwise appear chaotic. An important outcome of these numerical experiments is that they demonstrate that the pattern of age dispersion arising from fragmentation mimics the pattern of 4He distribution within the whole grains, thus providing an important source of information about the thermal history of the sample. We suggest that if the primary focus of a study is to extract the thermal history information from (U-Th)/He analyses then sampling and analytical strategies should aim to maximise the natural dispersion of grain ages, not minimise it, and should aim to analyse circa 20-30 grains from each sample. The key observations and conclusions drawn here are directly applicable to other thermochronometers, such as the apatite, rutile and titanite U-Pb systems, where the diffusion domain is approximated by the physical grain size
A Replica Inference Approach to Unsupervised Multi-Scale Image Segmentation
We apply a replica inference based Potts model method to unsupervised image
segmentation on multiple scales. This approach was inspired by the statistical
mechanics problem of "community detection" and its phase diagram. Specifically,
the problem is cast as identifying tightly bound clusters ("communities" or
"solutes") against a background or "solvent". Within our multiresolution
approach, we compute information theory based correlations among multiple
solutions ("replicas") of the same graph over a range of resolutions.
Significant multiresolution structures are identified by replica correlations
as manifest in information theory overlaps. With the aid of these correlations
as well as thermodynamic measures, the phase diagram of the corresponding Potts
model is analyzed both at zero and finite temperatures. Optimal parameters
corresponding to a sensible unsupervised segmentation correspond to the "easy
phase" of the Potts model. Our algorithm is fast and shown to be at least as
accurate as the best algorithms to date and to be especially suited to the
detection of camouflaged images.Comment: 26 pages, 22 figure
The Spine of the Cosmic Web
We present the SpineWeb framework for the topological analysis of the Cosmic
Web and the identification of its walls, filaments and cluster nodes. Based on
the watershed segmentation of the cosmic density field, the SpineWeb method
invokes the local adjacency properties of the boundaries between the watershed
basins to trace the critical points in the density field and the separatrices
defined by them. The separatrices are classified into walls and the spine, the
network of filaments and nodes in the matter distribution. Testing the method
with a heuristic Voronoi model yields outstanding results. Following the
discussion of the test results, we apply the SpineWeb method to a set of
cosmological N-body simulations. The latter illustrates the potential for
studying the structure and dynamics of the Cosmic Web.Comment: Accepted for publication HIGH-RES version:
http://skysrv.pha.jhu.edu/~miguel/SpineWeb
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Quantifying the evolution of soil fabric during shearing using directional parameters
Over the past 50 years, experimental studies have repeatedly demonstrated that the mechanical behaviour of sand is sensitive to the material fabric, that is, the arrangement of the grains. Up until now there have been relatively few attempts to describe this fabric quantitatively. Much of our understanding of the link between the particle movements and interactions and the macro-scale response of granular materials, including sand, comes from discrete-element modelling and experiments on ‘analogue’ sands with simple, idealised shapes. This paper investigates methods of quantifying the directional fabric of a real sand and its evolution under loading. Statistical analyses of the distribution of fabric directional data in terms of particle, contact normal, branch vector and void orientations were carried out at different stages of shearing deformation. The data show that the initial particle orientation fabric that develops during the deposition of the material tends to persist during shearing, while in the post-peak regime the contact normals seem to be reoriented along the direction of the major principal stress. Different patterns were observed within the shear
band, as both the particles and the contact normal vectors appeared to rotate along the shear plane
Statistical Gaussian Model of Image Regions in Stochastic Watershed Segmentation
International audienceStochastic watershed is an image segmentation technique based on mathematical morphology which produces a probability density function of image contours. Estimated probabilities depend mainly on local distances between pixels. This paper introduces a variant of stochastic watershed where the probabilities of contours are computed from a Gaussian model of image regions. In this framework, the basic ingredient is the distance between pairs of regions, hence a distance between normal distributions. Hence several alternatives of statistical distances for normal distributions are compared, namely Bhattacharyya distance, Hellinger metric distance and Wasserstein metric distance
Interaction de l’Als3p de Candida albicans avec les plaquettes sanguines
Date du colloque : 05/2008</p
Recognition of Candida albicans Als3 by the germ tube-specific monoclonal antibody 3D9.3
Monoclonal antibody 3D9.3 (MAb 3D9.3) reacts with the surface of Candida albicans germ tubes and recognizes a protein epitope. We used a two-step chromatography procedure to purify and identify the antigen (3D9) from C. albicans strain 66396 germ tubes. MAb 3D9.3 recognized two intense protein bands at 140 and 180 kDa. A comparative analysis between theoretical and experimental mass spectrum peaks showed that both bands corresponded to Als3. This conclusion was supported by lack of reactivity between MAb 3D9.3 and an als3Δ/als3Δ mutant strain, and the fact that an immunoglobulin preparation enriched for Als3 specificity recognized the purified 3D9 antigen. PCR demonstrated that C. albicans strain 66396 has two different-sized ALS3 alleles that correspond to the two purified protein bands. Strain- and species-specificity of the 3D9 epitope were studied with various C. albicans strains and Candida species, such as closely related Candida dubliniensis. The 3D9 epitope was detected only in C. albicans, demonstrating the utility of MAb 3D9.3 for differentiation between C. albicans and C. dubliniensis. Adhesion assays demonstrated that MAb 3D9.3 blocks adhesion of C. albicans germ tubes to human buccal epithelial cells and vascular endothelial cells
Crystal structures of self-assembled nanotubes from flexible macrocycles by weak interactions
8 páginas, 7 figuras, 2 tablas, 2 esquemas.Herein we report the crystal structures of tubular self-assemblies of flexible macrooligolides. The assembly is driven by the propensity of the macrocycles to create nearly flat structures displaying a void space within them and the cooperativity of weak directional interactions such as dipole–dipole interactions and CH***Ohydrogen bonds and non-directional interactions such as van der Waals contacts. The significance of the stereochemistry and the size of the cavity in the formation of the nanotubes are also studied.This research was supported by the Spanish MICINN-FEDER
(CTQ2008-03334/BQU, CTQ2008-06806-C02-01/BQU and
CTQ2008-06754-C04-01/PPQ), the MSC (RTICC RD06/0020/
1046) and the Canary Islands FUNCIS (PI 01/06).Peer reviewe
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