Electromagnetic Mach principle

We will introduce a gauge model which an electromagnetic coupling constant and local mass are related to all the charge in the universe. we will use the standard Dirac action, but where the mass and the electromagnetic coupling constant are a function of the sum of all the charge in the universe, which represent Mach principle for electromagnetic coupling constant. The formalisation is not manifestly Lorentz invariant, however Lorentz invariance can be restored by performing a phase transformation of the Dirac field.Comment: 3 page

Confining Boundary conditions from dynamical Coupling Constants

It is shown that it is possible to consistently and gauge invariantly formulate models where the coupling constant is a non trivial function of a scalar field . In the $U(1)$ case the coupling to the gauge field contains a term of the form $g(\phi)j_\mu (A^{\mu} +\partial^{\mu}B)$ where $B$ is an auxiliary field and $j_\mu$ is the Dirac current. The scalar field $\phi$ determines the local value of the coupling of the gauge field to the Dirac particle. The consistency of the equations determine the condition $\partial^{\mu}\phi j_\mu = 0$ which implies that the Dirac current cannot have a component in the direction of the gradient of the scalar field. As a consequence, if $\phi$ has a soliton behaviour, like defining a bubble that connects two vacuua, we obtain that the Dirac current cannot have a flux through the wall of the bubble, defining a confinement mechanism where the fermions are kept inside those bags. Consistent models with time dependent fine structure constant can be also constructedComment: 4 pages, 3 figures. A new reference added and discussion expande

The effect of a non-volatile dust mantle on the energy balance of cometary surface layers

It is likely that large parts of a cometary surface layer consist of porous ices, which are covered by a thin layer of non-volatile debris, whose structure is also fluffy and porous. In this paper the results of model calculations are presented. The calculations show the effect of ice and dust pore sizes and of the dust mantle thickness upon the thermal behavior of such a dust-ice system, when it is irradiated by the sun. In particular, it is found that the average pore size of the ice and the dust material has a large influence both on the dust surface temperature and on the temperature at the dust-ice interface

Generating gestural timing from EMA data using articulatory resynthesis

As part of ongoing work to integrate an articulatory synthesizer into a modular TTS platform, a method is presented which allows gestural timings to be generated automatically from EMA data. Further work is outlined which will adapt the vocal tract model and phoneset to English using new articulatory data, and use statistical trajectory models

A Probabilistic Analysis of Kademlia Networks

Kademlia is currently the most widely used searching algorithm in P2P (peer-to-peer) networks. This work studies an essential question about Kademlia from a mathematical perspective: how long does it take to locate a node in the network? To answer it, we introduce a random graph K and study how many steps are needed to locate a given vertex in K using Kademlia's algorithm, which we call the routing time. Two slightly different versions of K are studied. In the first one, vertices of K are labelled with fixed IDs. In the second one, vertices are assumed to have randomly selected IDs. In both cases, we show that the routing time is about c*log(n), where n is the number of nodes in the network and c is an explicitly described constant.Comment: ISAAC 201

Halide binding by the purified halorhodopsin chromoprotein. II. New chloride-binding sites revealed by 35Cl NMR

Halorhodopsin is a light-driven chloride pump in the cell membrane of Halobacterium halobium. Recently, a polypeptide of apparent Mr = 20,000 has been purified that contains the halorhodopsin chromophore. Here we use 35Cl NMR to show that the purified chromoprotein possesses two previously unknown classes of chloride-binding sites. One class exhibits a low affinity (KD much greater than 1 M) for chloride and bromide. The second class exhibits a higher affinity (KD = 110 ± 50 mM) for chloride and also binds other anions according to the affinity series I-, SCN- greater than Br-, NO-3 greater than Cl- greater than F- , citrate. Both classes of NMR site remain intact at pH 11, indicating that the essential positive charges are provided by arginine. Also, both classes are unaffected by bleaching, suggesting that the sites are not in the immediate vicinity of the halorhodopsin chromophore. Although the chromoprotein also appears to contain the chloride- transport site (Steiner, M., Oesterhelt, D., Ariki, M., and Lanyi, J. K. (1984) J. Biol. Chem. 259, 2179-2184), this site was not detected by 35Cl NMR, suggesting that the transport site is in the interior of the protein where it is sampled slowly by chloride in the medium. It is proposed that the purified chromoprotein possesses a channel leading from the medium to the transport site and that the channel contains the high affinity NMR site which facilitates the migration of chloride between the medium and the transport site. We have also used 35Cl NMR to study chloride binding to purified monomeric bacteriorhodopsin; however, this protein contains no detectable chloride-binding sites