32,468 research outputs found
A chemically driven fluctuating ratchet model for actomyosin interaction
With reference to the experimental observations by T. Yanagida and his
co-workers on actomyosin interaction, a Brownian motor of fluctuating ratchet
kind is designed with the aim to describe the interaction between a Myosin II
head and a neighboring actin filament. Our motor combines the dynamics of the
myosin head with a chemical external system related to the ATP cycle, whose
role is to provide the energy supply necessary to bias the motion. Analytical
expressions for the duration of the ATP cycle, for the Gibbs free energy and
for the net displacement of the myosin head are obtained. Finally, by
exploiting a method due to Sekimoto (1997, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn., 66, 1234), a
formula is worked out for the amount of energy consumed during the ATP cycle.Comment: 15 pages. 1 figur
NMR relaxation rate in the field-induced octupolar liquid phase of spin-1/2 J1-J2 frustrated chains
In the spin-1/2 frustrated chain with nearest-neighbor ferromagnetic exchange
J1 and next-nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic exchange J2 under magnetic
field, magnetic multipolar-liquid (quadrupolar, octupolar, and hexadecapolar)
phases are widely expanded from the saturation down to a low-field regime.
Recently, we have clarified characteristic temperature and field dependence of
the NMR relaxation rate 1/T_1 in the quadrupolar phase. In this paper, we
examine those of 1/T_1 in the octupolar phase combining field theoretical
method with numerical data. The relevance of the results to quasi
one-dimensional J1-J2 magnets such as PbCuSO4(OH)2, Rb2Cu2Mo3O12 and Li2ZrCuO4
is shortly discussed.Comment: 6 pages (1 column), 3 figure
A human colonic crypt culture system to study regulation of stem cell-driven tissue renewal and physiological function
The intestinal epithelium is one of the most rapidly renewing tissues in the human body and fulfils vital physiological roles such as barrier function and transport of nutrients and fluid. Investigation of gut epithelial physiology in health and disease has been hampered by the lack of ex vivo models of the native human intestinal epithelium. Recently, remarkable progress has been made in defining intestinal stem cells and in generating intestinal organoid cultures. In parallel, we have developed a 3D culture system of the native human colonic epithelium that recapitulates the topological hierarchy of stem cell-driven tissue renewal and permits the physiological study of native polarized epithelial cells. Here we describe methods to establish 3D cultures of intact human colonic crypts and conduct real-time imaging of intestinal tissue renewal, cellular signalling, and physiological function, in conjunction with manipulation of gene expression by lentiviral or adenoviral transduction. Visualization of mRNA- and protein-expression patterns in cultured human colonic crypts, and cross-validation with crypts derived from fixed mucosal biopsies, is also described. Alongside studies using intestinal organoids, the near-native human colonic crypt culture model will help to bridge the gap that exists between investigation of colon cancer cell lines and/or animal (tissue) studies, and progression to clinical trials. To this end, the near native human colonic crypt model provides a platform to aid the development of novel strategies for the prevention of inflammatory bowel disease and cancer
Dynamical Coupled-Channels Effects on Pion Photoproduction
The electromagnetic pion production reactions are investigated within the
dynamical coupled-channels model developed in {\bf Physics Reports, 439, 193
(2007)}. The meson-baryon channels included in this study are , , , and the , and resonant components
of the channel. With the hadronic parameters of the model determined
in a recent study of scattering, we show that the pion photoproduction
data up to the second resonance region can be described to a very large extent
by only adjusting the bare helicity amplitudes, while the
non-resonant electromagnetic couplings are taken from previous works. It is
found that the coupled-channels effects can contribute about 10 - 20 % of the
production cross sections in the (1232) resonance region, and can
drastically change the magnitude and shape of the cross sections in the second
resonance region. The importance of the off-shell effects in a dynamical
approach is also demonstrated. The meson cloud effects as well as the
coupled-channels contributions to the form factors are found
to be mainly in the low region. For the magnetic M1
(1232) form factor, the results are close to that of the Sato-Lee Model.
Necessary improvements to the model and future developments are discussed.Comment: Corrected version. 14 pages, 10 figure
Nonlocal Landau theory of the magnetic phase diagram of highly frustrated magnetoelectric CuFeO
A nonlocal Landau-type free energy functional of the spin density is
developed to model the large variety of magnetic states which occur in the
magnetic field-temperature phase diagram of magnetoelectric CuFeO.
Competition among long-range quadratic exchange, biquadratic anti-symmetric
exchange, and trigonal anisotropy terms, consistent with the high-temperature
rhombohedral Rm crystal symmetry, are shown to all play important
roles in stabilizing the unusual combination of commensurate and incommensurate
spin structures in this highly frustrated triangular antiferromagnet. It is
argued that strong magnetoelastic coupling is largely responsible for the
nonlocal nature of the free energy. A key feature of the analysis is that an
electric polarization is induced by a canting of the non-collinear
incommensurate spin structure. Application of the model to ordered spin states
in the triangular antiferromagnets MnBr and NaFeO is also discussed.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figure
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