List Distinguishing Parameters of Trees

A coloring of the vertices of a graph G is said to be distinguishing} provided no nontrivial automorphism of G preserves all of the vertex colors. The distinguishing number of G, D(G), is the minimum number of colors in a distinguishing coloring of G. The distinguishing chromatic number of G, chi_D(G), is the minimum number of colors in a distinguishing coloring of G that is also a proper coloring. Recently the notion of a distinguishing coloring was extended to that of a list distinguishing coloring. Given an assignment L= {L(v) : v in V(G)} of lists of available colors to the vertices of G, we say that G is (properly) L-distinguishable if there is a (proper) distinguishing coloring f of G such that f(v) is in L(v) for all v. The list distinguishing number of G, D_l(G), is the minimum integer k such that G is L-distinguishable for any list assignment L with |L(v)| = k for all v. Similarly, the list distinguishing chromatic number of G, denoted chi_{D_l}(G) is the minimum integer k such that G is properly L-distinguishable for any list assignment L with |L(v)| = k for all v. In this paper, we study these distinguishing parameters for trees, and in particular extend an enumerative technique of Cheng to show that for any tree T, D_l(T) = D(T), chi_D(T)=chi_{D_l}(T), and chi_D(T) <= D(T) + 1.Comment: 10 page

The Effects of Physical Activity on Markers of Hepatic Lipid Metabolism during Weight Cycling

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has emerged as the leading cause of liver disease and develops when the rate of hepatic triglyceride formation exceeds the rate of disposal. Weight loss is often prescribed to treat NAFLD; however, only one in six obese or overweight individuals who lose weight through diet are successful at maintaining weight loss resulting in weight regain (i.e., weight cycling). Purpose: To determine the effect of physical activity on the prevention of hepatic steatosis and expression of lipogenic genes during weight cycling. Methods: To induce obesity, male C57BL/6 mice were fed a 60% fat diet for 10-weeks. Following weight gain, mice were randomly assigned to a 10% fat diet either with (Diet+PA) or without (Diet) physical activity to induce weight loss for 8 weeks. Physical activity consisted of unrestricted access to running wheels. Following weight loss, the Diet and Diet+PA groups were switched back to a 60% fat diet for 10 weeks to cause weight regain. The Diet+PA had continued access to physical activity during weight regain. Age-matched lean and obese control mice were fed either a 10% fat diet (LF) or 60% fat diet (HF) for the entire 28 weeks of the study. Significant differences (P\u3c0.05) between groups were identified by one-way ANOVA. Results: Following weight regain, body mass of the Diet+PA was significantly lower than the HF (47.8 vs. 55.3 g) and Diet (47.8 vs. 53.9 g). No significant difference in body mass was observed between Diet and HF groups. The Diet+PA had significantly lower plasma cholesterol levels compared to HF (230.5 vs. 254.5 mg/dL) and Diet (230.5 vs. 271.9 mg/dL). In addition, the Diet+PA group had significantly lower total hepatic lipid (23.2 vs. 26.5%) when compared with Diet, which was associated with 60%, 50%, and 40% lower expression of lipogenic genes Fasn, Srebp1c, and Chrebp, respectively. No difference was noted between Diet and Diet+PA for the expression of lipogenic genes Scd1 and Acc1. Conclusions: These data suggests that the continued physical activity during weight cycling resulted in lower weight regain and reduced the accumulation of hepatic lipid by decreased de novo lipogenesis. Overall, the reduced expression of lipogenic related genes might point to a potential protective mechanism that physical activity has on the development of NAFLD during weight cycling

The Effects of Physical Activity on Markers of Adipose Inflammation during Weight Cycling

Weight loss using diet and exercise are the main treatment strategies for obesity; however, weight loss is rarely maintained resulting in weight regain or weight cycling. Obesity is associated with chronic low-grade inflammation resulting in the release of adipokines and activation of macrophages (M1) accelerating the development of insulin resistance. In contrast, the M2 macrophage phenotype is characterized by blocking inflammatory responses and promoting tissue repair. Despite the effectiveness of exercise on preventing comorbidities of obesity during weight-loss, the influence of physical activity during weight cycling on markers of adipose inflammation remains unclear. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the role of physical activity on the expression of inflammatory markers in adipose tissue during weight cycling. Methods: Male C57BL/6 mice were randomly assigned to one of three groups for 28 weeks: a high-fat diet obese control (HFD; 60% kcal from fat), an alternating high-low-high fat diet group (Diet; 60%/10%/60% kcal from fat) to simulate weight cycling, or a diet-matched weight cycling group that had unrestricted access to running wheels (Diet+PA). After weight regain, MCP-1, CD11c, CD163, F4/80, TLR4, and TNFα mRNA levels were quantified in perigonadal adipose tissue using qRT-PCR. A one-way ANOVA was used to identify significant differences between groups with significance set at PWeight cycling without physical activity resulted in obesity and insulin resistance when compared to HFD obese controls. Interestingly, compared to the HFD control group, the Diet group demonstrated significantly greater expression of F4/80 (+50%), CD11c (+113%), TLR4 (+77%), and TNFα (+72%) mRNA, which may represent greater macrophage infiltration and M1 macrophage polarization. Physical activity during weight cycling resulted in lower weight regain compared to both HFD and Diet groups; however, mice still developed insulin resistance and increased expression of TLR4 (+76%), TNFα (+94%), and CD11c (+58%) suggesting increased M1 macrophage activation when compared to the HFD group. Conclusions: The data presented suggests weight cycling may accelerate the development of adipose dysfunction, and unrestricted physical activity appears to have minimal effects on the negative inflammatory effects of weight cycling

Geology for Environmental Planning in Marion County, Indiana

Marion County is the center of a large and rapidly growing urban-industrial complex in the heartland of Indiana. The boundaries of the county and of Indianapolis, the state capital, are the same as a result of the UNIGOV concept. The rapid growth of Indianapolis and its suburbs makes effective land-use planning important for Marion County. This report is designed to provide information, based on the geologic setting of the area, that can be used for effective and environmentally sound development of the county

Distinction between the Poole-Frenkel and tunneling models of electric field-stimulated carrier emission from deep levels in semiconductors

The enhancement of the emission rate of charge carriers from deep-level defects in electric field is routinely used to determine the charge state of the defects. However, only a limited number of defects can be satisfactorily described by the Poole-Frenkel theory. An electric field dependence different from that expected from the Poole-Frenkel theory has been repeatedly reported in the literature, and no unambiguous identification of the charge state of the defect could be made. In this article, the electric field dependencies of emission of carriers from DX centers in AlxGa1-xAs:Te, Cu pairs in silicon, and Ge:Hg have been studied applying static and terahertz electric fields, and analyzed by using the models of Poole-Frenkel and phonon assisted tunneling. It is shown that phonon assisted tunneling and Poole-Frenkel emission are two competitive mechanisms of enhancement of emission of carriers, and their relative contribution is determined by the charge state of the defect and by the electric-field strength. At high-electric field strengths carrier emission is dominated by tunneling independently of the charge state of the impurity. For neutral impurities, where Poole-Frenkel lowering of the emission barrier does not occur, the phonon assisted tunneling model describes well the experimental data also in the low-field region. For charged impurities the transition from phonon assisted tunneling at high fields to Poole-Frenkel effect at low fields can be traced back. It is suggested that the Poole-Frenkel and tunneling models can be distinguished by plotting logarithm of the emission rate against the square root or against the square of the electric field, respectively. This analysis enables one to unambiguously determine the charge state of a deep-level defect

Unbiased Global Optimization of Lennard-Jones Clusters for N <= 201 by Conformational Space Annealing Method

We apply the conformational space annealing (CSA) method to the Lennard-Jones clusters and find all known lowest energy configurations up to 201 atoms, without using extra information of the problem such as the structures of the known global energy minima. In addition, the robustness of the algorithm with respect to the randomness of initial conditions of the problem is demonstrated by ten successful independent runs up to 183 atoms. Our results indicate that the CSA method is a general and yet efficient global optimization algorithm applicable to many systems.Comment: revtex, 4 pages, 2 figures. Physical Review Letters, in pres

Performance characterization and near-realtime monitoring of MUSE adaptive optics modes at Paranal

The Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) is an integral field spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope Unit Telescope 4, capable of laser guide star assisted and tomographic adaptive optics using the GALACSI module. Its observing capabilities include a wide field (1 square arcmin), ground layer AO mode (WFM-AO) and a narrow field (7.5"x7.5"), laser tomography AO mode (NFM-AO). The latter has had several upgrades in the 4 years since commissioning, including an optimisation of the control matrices for the AO system and a new sub-electron noise detector for its infra-red low order wavefront sensor. We set out to quantify the NFM-AO system performance by analysing $\sim$230 spectrophotometric standard star observations taken over the last 3 years. To this end we expand upon previous work, designed to facilitate analysis of the WFM-AO system performance. We briefly describe the framework that will provide a user friendly, semi-automated way for system performance monitoring during science operations. We provide the results of our performance analysis, chiefly through the measured Strehl ratio and full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the core of the point spread function (PSF) using two PSF models, and correlations with atmospheric conditions. These results will feed into a range of applications, including providing a more accurate prediction of the system performance as implemented in the exposure time calculator, and the associated optimization of the scientific output for a given set of limiting atmospheric conditions.Comment: SPIE proceedings (2022), Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems I