Birth and evolution of a dense coronal loop in a complex flare region

<p><b>Context:</b> During the 14th/15th of April 2002, several flares occurred in NOAA active region complex 9893/9910. Two of these were previously interpreted as having anomalously high coronal column densities.</p> <p><b>Aims:</b> We develop a scenario using multiwavelength observations to explain the high coronal column density (1020 cm-2) present at the onset of the 14th April 2002 M3.7 hard X-ray event.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> Prior to this event a series of flares occurred in close temporal and spatial proximity. We observe the sequence of flares in a multiwavelength regime from radio to hard X-rays. This allows us to study the particle acceleration and plasma evaporation in these events.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> The observations of these flares lead us to propose a sequence of reconnections between multiple systems of loops in a 3 dimensional field geometry. We suggest that the dense loops in the M3.7 event can be explained as being already filled with plasma from the earlier events; these loops then themselves become unstable or reconnect leading to particle acceleration into an overdense coronal environment. We explore the possibility that a high-beta disruption is behind the instability of these dense loops, leading to the 14th April 2002 M3.7 event and the observation of hard X-rays in the corona at energies up to ≈ 50 keV.</p&gt

Production Research in China

(First paragraph) China is the world’s largest emerging economy. In recent years, China has moved to an increasingly market-oriented economy that opens to international trade and investment. At the same time, the popularity of China as a manufacturing base, assembling goods for sale worldwide is growing. In addition to global manufacturers who have built their own plants in China, many manufacturing companies are outsourcing production to Chinese subcontractors and branding the products with their own logos. In today’s China, production research is becoming more and more important; advanced production research becomes an important enabler to make its manufacturing industry competitive. Although China has different financial, legal, and physical infrastructure, production researchers in China have successfully proven that production research can help to manage global manufacturing competition

Estrogen Deficiency and Diet Differentially Regulate Goblet Cell Count and Inflammation in Gut

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Bacteria-Resistant, Transparent, Free-standing Films Prepared from Complex Coacervates

We report the fabrication, properties, and bacteria-resistance of polyelectrolyte complex (PEC) coatings and free-standing films. Poly(4-styrenesulfonic acid), poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride), and salt were spin-coated into PEC films. After thermal annealing in a humid environment, highly transparent, mechanically strong, and chemically robust films were formed. Notably, we demonstrate that PEC coatings significantly reduce the attachment of Escherichia coli K12 without killing the microorganisms. We suggest that forming bacteria-resistant surface coatings from commercially available polymers holds the potential for use across a wide range of applications, including high-touch surfaces in medical settings

The Additional Line Component within the Iron K\alpha Profile in MCG-6-30-15: Evidence for Blob Ejection?

The EPIC data of MCG -6-30-15 observed by XMM-Newton were analyzed for the complexities of the iron K-alpha line. Here we report that the additional line component (ALC) at 6.9 keV undoubtedly appears within the broad iron Kalpha; line profile at the high state, whereas it disappears at the low state. These state-dependent behaviors exclude several possible origins and suggest an origin of the ALC in matter being ejected from the vicinity of the black hole. At the low state, the newborn blob ejected from the accretion disk is so Thomson-thick that hard X-rays are blocked from ionizing the old blobs, leading to the disappearance of the ALC. When the blob becomes Thomson-thin as a result of expansion, the hard X-ray will penetrate it and ionize the old ones, emitting the ALC at the high state. The blob ejection is the key to switching the ALC on or off.Comment: 6 pages, 4 Figure

Light-Front Quantization and AdS/QCD: An Overview

We give an overview of the light-front holographic approach to strongly coupled QCD, whereby a confining gauge theory, quantized on the light front, is mapped to a higher-dimensional anti de Sitter (AdS) space. The framework is guided by the AdS/CFT correspondence incorporating a gravitational background asymptotic to AdS space which encodes the salient properties of QCD, such as the ultraviolet conformal limit at the AdS boundary at $z \to 0$, as well as modifications of the geometry in the large $z$ infrared region to describe confinement and linear Regge behavior. There are two equivalent procedures for deriving the AdS/QCD equations of motion: one can start from the Hamiltonian equation of motion in physical space time by studying the off-shell dynamics of the bound state wavefunctions as a function of the invariant mass of the constituents. To a first semiclassical approximation, where quantum loops and quark masses are not included, this leads to a light-front Hamiltonian equation which describes the bound state dynamics of light hadrons in terms of an invariant impact variable $\zeta$ which measures the separation of the partons within the hadron at equal light-front time. Alternatively, one can start from the gravity side by studying the propagation of hadronic modes in a fixed effective gravitational background. Both approaches are equivalent in the semiclassical approximation. This allows us to identify the holographic variable $z$ in AdS space with the impact variable $\zeta$. Light-front holography thus allows a precise mapping of transition amplitudes from AdS to physical space-time. The internal structure of hadrons is explicitly introduced and the angular momentum of the constituents plays a key role.Comment: Invited talk presented by GdT at the XIV School of Particles and Fields, Morelia, Mexico, November 8-12, 201

The Association of Virulence Factors with Genomic Islands

Background: It has been noted that many bacterial virulence factor genes are located within genomic islands (GIs; clusters of genes in a prokaryotic genome of probable horizontal origin). However, such studies have been limited to single genera or isolated observations. We have performed the first large-scale analysis of multiple diverse pathogens to examine this association. We additionally identified genes found predominantly in pathogens, but not non-pathogens, across multiple genera using 631 complete bacterial genomes, and we identified common trends in virulence for genes in GIs. Furthermore, we examined the relationship between GIs and clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats (CRISPRs) proposed to confer resistance to phage. Methodology/Principal Findings: We show quantitatively that GIs disproportionately contain more virulence factors than the rest of a given genome (p,1E-40 using three GI datasets) and that CRISPRs are also over-represented in GIs. Virulence factors in GIs and pathogen-associated virulence factors are enriched for proteins having more ‘‘offensive’ ’ functions, e.g. active invasion of the host, and are disproportionately components of type III/IV secretion systems or toxins. Numerous hypothetical pathogen-associated genes were identified, meriting further study. Conclusions/Significance: This is the first systematic analysis across diverse genera indicating that virulence factors are disproportionately associated with GIs. ‘‘Offensive’ ’ virulence factors, as opposed to host-interaction factors, may more ofte

Self-bias and the emotionality of foreign languages

Article first published online: June 13, 2018Foreign language contexts impose a relative psychological and emotional distance in bilinguals. In our previous studies, we demonstrated that the use of a foreign language changes the strength of the seemingly automatic emotional responses in the self-paradigm, showing a robust asymmetry in the self-bias effect in a native and a foreign language context. Namely, larger effects were found in the native language, suggesting an emotional blunting in the foreign language context. In the present study, we investigated the source of these effects by directly comparing whether they stem from a language’s foreignness versus its non-nativeness. We employed the same self-paradigm (a simple perceptual matching task of associating simple geometric shapes with the labels “you,” “friend,” and “other”), testing unbalanced Spanish–Basque–English trilinguals. We applied the paradigm to three language contexts: native, non-native but contextually present (i.e., non-native local), and non-native foreign. Results showed a smaller self-bias only in the foreign language pointing to the foreign-language-induced psychological/emotional distance as the necessary prerequisite for foreign language effects. Furthermore, we explored whether perceived emotional distance towards foreign languages in Spanish–English bilinguals modulates foreign language effects. Results suggest that none of the different indices of emotional distance towards the foreign language obtained via questionnaires modulated the self-biases in the foreign language contexts. Our results further elucidate the deeply rooted and automatic nature of foreign-language-driven differential emotional processing.This research has been partially funded by grants PSI2015-65689-P and SEV-2015-0490 from the Spanish Government, AThEME-613465 from the European Union, and a 2016 BBVA Foundation Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators awarded to the last author (J.A.D.)

Coincidence between transcriptome analyses on different microarray platforms using a parametric framework

A parametric framework for the analysis of transcriptome data is demonstrated to yield coincident results when applied to data acquired using two different microarray platforms. Discrepancies among transcriptome studies are frequently reported, casting doubt on the reliability of collected data. The inconsistency among observations can be largely attributed to differences among the analytical frameworks employed for data analysis. The existing frameworks normalizes data against a standard determined from the data to be analyzed. In the present study, a parametric framework based on a strict model for normalization is applied to data acquired using an in-house printed chip and GeneChip. The framework is based on a common statistical characteristic of microarray data, and each data is normalized on the basis of a linear relationship with this model. In the proposed framework, the expressional changes observed and genes selected are coincident between platforms, achieving superior universality of data compared to other methods