7,516 research outputs found
Quantum radiation from superluminal refractive index perturbations
We analyze in detail photon production induced by a superluminal refractive
index perturbation in realistic experimental operating conditions. The
interaction between the refractive index perturbation and the quantum vacuum
fluctuations of the electromagnetic field leads to the production of photon
pairs.Comment: 4 page
Physical interaction between MYCN oncogene and polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) in neuroblastoma: Functional and therapeutic implications
This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. © 2013 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.CLU (clusterin) is a tumor suppressor gene that we have previously shown to be negatively modulated by the MYCN proto-oncogene, but the mechanism of repression was unclear. Here, we show that MYCN inhibits the expression of CLU by direct interaction with the non-canonical E box sequence CACGCG in the 5′-flanking region. Binding of MYCN to the CLU gene induces bivalent epigenetic marks and recruitment of repressive proteins such as histone deacetylases and Polycomb members. MYCN physically binds in vitro and in vivo to EZH2, a component of the Polycomb repressive complex 2, required to repress CLU. Notably, EZH2 interacts with the Myc box domain 3, a segment of MYC known to be essential for its transforming effects. The expression of CLU can be restored in MYCN-amplified cells by epigenetic drugs with therapeutic results. Importantly, the anticancer effects of the drugs are ablated if CLU expression is blunted by RNA interference. Our study implies that MYC tumorigenesis can be effectively antagonized by epigenetic drugs that interfere with the recruitment of chromatin modifiers at repressive E boxes of tumor suppressor genes such as CLU.SPARKS, The Neuroblastoma Society,
a Wellcome Trust grant (to A. S.), and the Italian Association for Cancer
Research
Bowen ratio estimates of evapotranspiration for stands on the Virgin River in Southern Nevada
A Bowen ratio energy balance was conducted over a Tamarix ramosissima (saltcedar) stand growing in a riparian corridor along the Virgin River in southern Nevada. Measurements in two separate years were compared and contrasted on the basis of changes in growing conditions. In 1994, a drought year, record high temperatures, dry winds, and a falling water table caused partial wilt of outer smaller twigs in the canopy of many trees in the stand around the Bowen tower. Subsequently, evapotranspiration (ET) estimates declined dramatically over a 60‐day period (11 mm d−1 tod−1). In 1995, the Virgin River at the Bowen tower area changed its course, hydrologically isolating the Tamarix stand in the vicinity of the tower. In 1996, a 25% canopy loss was visually estimated for the Tamarix growing in the area of the tower. Higher soil temperatures relative to air temperatures were recorded in 1996 in response to this loss in canopy. With a more open canopy, thermally induced turbulence was observed in 1996. On day 160 of 1996, a 28°C rise over a 9‐hour period was correlated with increased wind speeds of greater than 4 m s−1. Subsequently, higher ET estimates were made in 1996 compared to 1994 (145 cm versus 75 cm). However, the energy balance was dominated by advection in 1996, with latent energy flux exceeding net radiation 65% of the measurement days compared to only 11% in 1994. We believe this advection was on a scale of the floodplain (hundreds of meters) as opposed to regional advection, since the majority of wind (90%) was in a N–S direction along the course of the river, and that a more open canopy allowed the horizontal transfer of energy into the Tamarix stand at the Bowen tower. Our results suggest that Tamarix has the potential to be both a low water user and a high water user, depending on moisture availability, canopy development, and atmospheric demand, and that advection can dominate energy balances and ET in aridland riparian zones such as the Virgin River
A new search for anomalous neutrino oscillations at the CERN-PS
The LSND experiment has observed a 3.8 sigma excess of anti-nu_e events from
an anti-nu_mu beam coming from pions at rest. If confirmed, the LSND anomaly
would imply new physics beyond the standard model, presumably in the form of
some additional sterile neutrinos. The MiniBooNE experiment at FNAL-Booster has
further searched for the LSND anomaly. Above 475 MeV, the nu_e result is
excluding the LSND anomaly to about 1.6 sigma but it introduces an unexplained,
new 3.0 sigma anomaly at lower energies, down to 200 MeV. The nu_e data have so
far an insufficient statistics to be conclusive with LSND's anti-nu_e. The
present proposal at the CERN-PS is based on two strictly identical LAr-TPC
detectors in the near and far positions, respectively at 127 and 850 m from the
neutrino (or antineutrino) target and focussing horn, observing the
electron-neutrino signal. This project will benefit from the already developed
technology of ICARUS T600, well tested on surface in Pavia, without the need of
any major R&D activity and without the added problems of an underground
experiment (CNGS-2). The superior quality of the Liquid Argon imaging TPC and
its unique electron - pi-zero discrimination allow full rejection of the NC
background, without efficiency loss for electron neutrino detection. In two
years of exposure, the far detector mass of 600 tons and a reasonable
utilization of the CERN-PS with the refurbished previous TT7 beam line will
allow to collect about 10^6 charged current events, largely adequate to settle
definitely the LSND anomaly.Comment: 23 pages, 17 figures, added watermark, better referencin
Spacetime geometries and light trapping in travelling refractive index perturbations
In the framework of transformation optics, we show that the propagation of a
locally superluminal refractive index perturbation (RIP) in a Kerr medium can
be described, in the eikonal approximation, by means of a stationary metric,
which we prove to be of Gordon type. Under suitable hypotheses on the RIP, we
obtain a stationary but not static metric, which is characterized by an
ergosphere and by a peculiar behaviour of the geodesics, which are studied
numerically, also accounting for material dispersion. Finally, the equation to
be satisfied by an event horizon is also displayed and briefly discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure
Eye-movements reveal semantic interference effects during the encoding of naturalistic scenes in long-term memory
Similarity-based semantic interference (SI) hinders memory recognition. Within long-term visual memory paradigms, the more scenes (or objects) from the same semantic category are viewed, the harder it is to recognize each individual instance. A growing body of evidence shows that overt attention is intimately linked to memory. However, it is yet to be understood whether SI mediates overt attention during scene encoding, and so explain its detrimental impact on recognition memory. In the current experiment, participants watched 372 photographs belonging to different semantic categories (e.g., a kitchen) with different frequency (4, 20, 40 or 60 images), while being eye-tracked. After 10 minutes, they were presented with the same 372 photographs plus 372 new photographs and asked whether they recognized (or not) each photo (i.e., old/new paradigm). We found that the more the SI, the poorer the recognition performance, especially for old scenes of which memory representations existed. Scenes more widely explored were better recognized, but for increasing SI, participants focused on more local regions of the scene in search for its potentially distinctive details. Attending to the centre of the display, or to scene regions rich in low-level saliency was detrimental to recognition accuracy, and as SI increased participants were more likely to rely on visual saliency. The complexity of maintaining faithful memory representations for increasing SI also manifested in longer fixation durations; in fact, a more successful encoding was also associated with shorter fixations. Our study highlights the interdependence between attention and memory during high-level processing of semantic information
Analogue Gravity and ultrashort laser pulse filamentation
Ultrashort laser pulse filaments in dispersive nonlinear Kerr media induce a
moving refractive index perturbation which modifies the space-time geometry as
seen by co-propagating light rays. We study the analogue geometry induced by
the filament and show that one of the most evident features of filamentation,
namely conical emission, may be precisely reconstructed from the geodesics. We
highlight the existence of favorable conditions for the study of analogue black
hole kinematics and Hawking type radiation.Comment: 4 pages, revised versio
Antiferromagnetic ordering and dipolar interactions of YbAlO
In this paper we report low-temperature magnetic properties of the rare-earth
perovskite material YbAlO. Results of elastic and inelastic neutron
scattering experiment, magnetization measurements along with the crystalline
electrical field (CEF) calculations suggest that the ground state of Yb moments
is a strongly anisotropic Kramers doublet, and the moments are confined in the
-plane, pointing at an angle of to the
-axis. With temperature decreasing below K, Yb moments
order into the coplanar, but non-collinear antiferromagnetic (AFM) structure
, where the moments are pointed along their easy-axes. In addition, we
highlight the importance of the dipole-dipole interaction, which selects the
type of magnetic ordering and may be crucial for understanding magnetic
properties of other rare-earth orthorhombic perovskites. Further analysis of
the broad diffuse neutron scattering shows that one-dimensional interaction
along the -axis is dominant, and suggests YbAlO as a new member of one
dimensional quantum magnets.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Evapotranspiration from a saltcedar-dominated desert floodplain: A scaling approach
The purpose of this study was to investigate evapotranspiration (ET) from a variety of scales (leaf to landscape) in saltcedar-dominated floodplain vegetation along the lower Virgin River of southern Nevada. Leaf-level gas exchange indicated that saltcedar exhibits similar stomatal conductance as the sympatric phreatophytes arrowweed, mesquite, and willow. However, sap flow in saltcedar was higher per unit sapwood area than the other species, suggesting that it maintains higher leaf area per unit sapwood area. At the stand level, saltcedar ET was found to exceed potential ET early in the summer when soils were moist and the water table was near the surface, but by late summer, after floodplain soils had dried and the water table had dropped, saltcedar ET was well below potential rates. Summer irrigation did not result in increased conductance of saltcedar for at least four weeks, suggesting that saltcedar does not utilize summer rainfall under normal conditions in the arid Mojave Desert
Crossover from itinerant to localized magnetic excitations through the metal-insulator transition in NaOsO
NaOsO undergoes a metal-insulator transition (MIT) at 410 K,
concomitant with the onset of antiferromagnetic order. The excitation spectra
have been investigated through the MIT by resonant inelastic x-ray scattering
(RIXS) at the Os L edge. Low resolution ( 300 meV)
measurements over a wide range of energies reveal that local electronic
excitations do not change appreciably through the MIT. This is consistent with
a picture in which structural distortions do not drive the MIT. In contrast,
high resolution ( 56 meV) measurements show that the
well-defined, low energy magnons in the insulating state weaken and dampen upon
approaching the metallic state. Concomitantly, a broad continuum of excitations
develops which is well described by the magnetic fluctuations of a nearly
antiferromagnetic Fermi liquid. By revealing the continuous evolution of the
magnetic quasiparticle spectrum as it changes its character from itinerant to
localized, our results provide unprecedented insight into the nature of the MIT
in \naoso. In particular, the presence of weak correlations in the paramagnetic
phase implies a degree of departure from the ideal Slater limit.Comment: Joint submission with Physical Review Letters [Phys. Rev. Lett. 120,
227203 (2018), accepted version at arXiv:1805.03176]. This article includes
further discussion about the calculations performed, models used, and so o
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