8,608 research outputs found
Self-diffusion of polymers in cartilage as studied by pulsed field gradient NMR
Pulsed field gradient (PFG) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) was used to investigate the self-diffusion behaviour of polymers in cartilage. Polyethylene glycol and dextran with different molecular weights and in different concentrations were used as model compounds to mimic the diffusion behaviour of metabolites of cartilage. The polymer self-diffusion depends extremely on the observation time: The short-time self-diffusion coefficients (diffusion time Delta approximately 15 ms) are subjected to a rather non-specific obstruction effect that depends mainly on the molecular weights of the applied polymers as well as on the water content of the cartilage. The observed self-diffusion coefficients decrease with increasing molecular weights of the polymers and with a decreasing water content of the cartilage. In contrast, the long-time self-diffusion coefficients of the polymers in cartilage (diffusion time Delta approximately 600 ms) reflect the structural properties of the tissue. Measurements at different water contents, different molecular weights of the polymers and varying observation times suggest that primarily the collagenous network of cartilage but also the entanglements of the polymer chains themselves are responsible for the observed restricted diffusion. Additionally, anomalous restricted diffusion was shown to occur already in concentrated polymer solutions
Effect of Optical Coating and Surface Treatments on Mechanical Loss in Fused Silica
We report on the mechanical loss in fused silica samples with various surface
treatments and compare them with samples having an optical coating. Mild
surface treatments such as washing in detergent or acetone were not found to
affect the mechanical loss of flame-drawn fused silica fibers stored in air.
However, mechanical contact (with steel calipers) significantly increased the
loss. The application of a high-reflective optical coating of the type used for
the LIGO test masses was found to greatly increase the mechanical loss of
commercially polished fused silica microscope slides. We discuss the
implications for the noise budget of interferometers.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in the Proceedings of
the Third Eduardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, July 12-16, 1999.
Updated version contains a correction of Eq. 3 and an estimate for the loss
angle of a LIGO coating. (Neither of these revisions are included in the
version published in the conference proceedings.
Improving the lattice axial vector current
For Wilson and clover fermions traditional formulations of the axial vector
current do not respect the continuum Ward identity which relates the divergence
of that current to the pseudoscalar density. Here we propose to use a
point-split or one-link axial vector current whose divergence exactly satisfies
a lattice Ward identity, involving the pseudoscalar density and a number of
irrelevant operators. We check in one-loop lattice perturbation theory with
SLiNC fermion and gauge plaquette action that this is indeed the case including
order effects. Including these operators the axial Ward identity remains
renormalisation invariant. First preliminary results of a nonperturbative check
of the Ward identity are also presented.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings of the 33rd International Symposium
on Lattice Field Theory, 14-18 July 2015, Kobe, Japa
Functional consequences of sphingomyelinase-induced changes in erythrocyte membrane structure.
Inflammation enhances the secretion of sphingomyelinases (SMases). SMases catalyze the hydrolysis of sphingomyelin into phosphocholine and ceramide. In erythrocytes, ceramide formation leads to exposure of the removal signal phosphatidylserine (PS), creating a potential link between SMase activity and anemia of inflammation. Therefore, we studied the effects of SMase on various pathophysiologically relevant parameters of erythrocyte homeostasis. Time-lapse confocal microscopy revealed a SMase-induced transition from the discoid to a spherical shape, followed by PS exposure, and finally loss of cytoplasmic content. Also, SMase treatment resulted in ceramide-associated alterations in membrane-cytoskeleton interactions and membrane organization, including microdomain formation. Furthermore, we observed increases in membrane fragility, vesiculation and invagination, and large protein clusters. These changes were associated with enhanced erythrocyte retention in a spleen-mimicking model. Erythrocyte storage under blood bank conditions and during physiological aging increased the sensitivity to SMase. A low SMase activity already induced morphological and structural changes, demonstrating the potential of SMase to disturb erythrocyte homeostasis. Our analyses provide a comprehensive picture in which ceramide-induced changes in membrane microdomain organization disrupt the membrane-cytoskeleton interaction and membrane integrity, leading to vesiculation, reduced deformability, and finally loss of erythrocyte content. Understanding these processes is highly relevant for understanding anemia during chronic inflammation, especially in critically ill patients receiving blood transfusions
Renormalization of local quark-bilinear operators for Nf=3 flavors of SLiNC fermions
The renormalization factors of local quark-bilinear operators are computed
non-perturbatively for flavors of SLiNC fermions, with emphasis on the
various procedures for the chiral and continuum extrapolations. The simulations
are performed at a lattice spacing fm, and for five values of the
pion mass in the range of 290-465 MeV, allowing a safe and stable chiral
extrapolation. Emphasis is given in the subtraction of the well-known pion pole
which affects the renormalization factor of the pseudoscalar current. We also
compute the inverse propagator and the Green's functions of the local bilinears
to one loop in perturbation theory. We investigate lattice artifacts by
computing them perturbatively to second order as well as to all orders in the
lattice spacing. The renormalization conditions are defined in the RI-MOM
scheme, for both the perturbative and non-perturbative results. The
renormalization factors, obtained at different values of the renormalization
scale, are translated to the scheme and are evolved
perturbatively to 2 GeV. Any residual dependence on the initial renormalization
scale is eliminated by an extrapolation to the continuum limit. We also study
the various sources of systematic errors.
Particular care is taken in correcting the non-perturbative estimates by
subtracting lattice artifacts computed to one loop perturbation theory using
the same action. We test two different methods, by subtracting either the
contributions, or the complete (all orders in )
one-loop lattice artifacts.Comment: 33 pages, 27 figures, 6 table
Kondo-lattice model: Application to the temperature-dependent electronic structure of EuO(100) films
We present calculations for the temperature-dependent electronic structure
and magnetic properties of thin ferromagnetic EuO films. The treatment is based
on a combination of a multiband-Kondo lattice model with first-principles
TB-LMTO band structure calculations. The method avoids the problem of
double-counting of relevant interactions and takes into account the correct
symmetry of the atomic orbitals. We discuss the temperature-dependent
electronic structures of EuO(100) films in terms of quasiparticle densities of
states and quasiparticle band structures. The Curie temperature T_C of the EuO
films turns out to be strongly thickness-dependent, starting from a very low
value = 15K for the monolayer and reaching the bulk value at about 25 layers
Connected and disconnected quark contributions to hadron spin
By introducing an external spin operator to the fermion action, the quark
spin fractions of hadrons are determined from the linear response of the hadron
energies using the Feynman-Hellmann (FH) theorem. At our SU(3)-flavour
symmetric point, we find that the connected quark spin fractions are
universally in the range 55-70\% for vector mesons and octet and decuplet
baryons. There is an indication that the amount of spin suppression is quite
sensitive to the strength of SU(3) breaking. We also present first preliminary
results applying the FH technique to calculations of quark-line disconnected
contributions to hadronic matrix elements of axial and tensor operators. At the
SU(3)-flavour symmetric point we find a small negative contribution to the
nucleon spin from disconnected quark diagrams, while the corresponding tensor
matrix elements are consistent with zero.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 32nd International Symposium on Lattice Field
Theor
Isospin splittings of meson and baryon masses from three-flavor lattice QCD + QED
Lattice QCD simulations are now reaching a precision where isospin breaking
effects become important. Previously, we have developed a program to
systematically investigate the pattern of flavor symmetry beaking within QCD
and successfully applied it to meson and baryon masses involving up, down and
strange quarks. In this Letter we extend the calculations to QCD + QED and
present our first results on isospin splittings in the pseudoscalar meson and
baryon octets. In particular, we obtain the nucleon mass difference of
M_n-M_p=1.35(18)(8)\,\mbox{MeV} and the electromagnetic contribution to the
pion splitting M_{\pi^+}-M_{\pi^0}=4.60(20)\,\mbox{MeV}. Further we report
first determination of the separation between strong and electromagnetic
contributions in the scheme.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, text and figures added, Journal versio
OPTIS - a satellite-based test of Special and General Relativity
A new satellite based test of Special and General Relativity is proposed. For
the Michelson-Morley experiment we expect an improvement of at least three
orders of magnitude, and for the Kennedy-Thorndike experiment an improvement of
more than one order of magnitude. Furthermore, an improvement by two orders of
the test of the universality of the gravitational red shift by comparison of an
atomic clock with an optical clock is projected.
The tests are based on ultrastable optical cavities, an atomic clock and a
comb generator.Comment: To appear in Class. Quantum Gra
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