3,979 research outputs found
Calculation of the separation streamlines of barchans and transverse dunes
We use FLUENT to calculate the wind profile over barchans and transverse
dunes. The form of the streamlines of flow separation at the lee side of the
dunes is determined for a symmetric barchan dune in three dimensions, and for
the height profile of a measured transverse dune field in the Len\c{c}\'ois
Maranhenses.Comment: 6 pages including 5 figures. Proceedings of PSIS 200
Cosmic-Ray Events as Background in Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes
The dominant background for observations of gamma-rays in the energy region
above 50 GeV with Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes are cosmic-ray
events. The images of most of the cosmic ray showers look significantly
different from those of gamma-rays and are therefore easily discriminated.
However, a small fraction of events seems to be indistinguishable from
gamma-rays. This constitutes an irreducible background to the observation of
high-energy gamma-ray sources, and limits the sensitivity achievable with a
given instrument. Here, a Monte Carlo study of gamma-like cosmic-ray events is
presented. The nature of gamma-like cosmic-ray events, the shower particles
that are responsible for the gamma-like appearance, and the dependence of these
results on the choice of the hadronic interaction model are investigated. Most
of the gamma-like cosmic ray events are characterised by the production of
high-energy pi0's early in the shower development which dump most of the shower
energy into electromagnetic sub-showers. Also Cherenkov light from single muons
can mimic gamma-rays in close-by pairs of telescopes. Differences of up to 25%
in the collection area for gamma-like proton showers between QGSJet/FLUKA and
Sibyll/FLUKA simulations have been found.Comment: Accepted by Journal of Astroparticle Physic
Ab-initio study of the relation between electric polarization and electric field gradients in ferroelectrics
The hyperfine interaction between the quadrupole moment of atomic nuclei and
the electric field gradient (EFG) provides information on the electronic charge
distribution close to a given atomic site. In ferroelectric materials, the loss
of inversion symmetry of the electronic charge distribution is necessary for
the appearance of the electric polarization. We present first-principles
density functional theory calculations of ferroelectrics such as BaTiO3, KNbO3,
PbTiO3 and other oxides with perovskite structures, by focusing on both EFG
tensors and polarization. We analyze the EFG tensor properties such as
orientation and correlation between components and their link with electric
polarization. This work supports previous studies of ferroelectric materials
where a relation between EFG tensors and polarization was observed, which may
be exploited to study ferroelectric order when standard techniques to measure
polarization are not easily applied.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 5 tables, corrected typos, as published in Phys.
Rev.
The Activation-induced Deaminase Functions in a Postcleavage Step of the Somatic Hypermutation Process
Activation of B cells by antigen fuels two distinct molecular modifications of immunoglobulin (Ig) genes. Class-switch recombination (CSR) replaces the Igμ heavy chain constant region with a downstream constant region gene, thereby altering the effector function of the resulting antibodies. Somatic hypermutation (SHM) introduces point mutations into the variable regions of Ig genes, thereby changing the affinity of antibody for antigen. Mechanistic overlap between the two reactions has been suggested by the finding that both require the activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID). It has been proposed that AID initiates both CSR and SHM by activating a common nuclease. Here we provide evidence that cells lacking AID, or expressing a dominant negative form of the protein, are still able to incur DNA lesions in SHM target sequences. The results indicate that an intact cytidine deaminase motif is required for AID function, and that AID acts downstream of the initial DNA lesions in SHM
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