663 research outputs found
Theory of Melting and the Optical Properties of Gold/DNA Nanocomposites
We describe a simple model for the melting and optical properties of a
DNA/gold nanoparticle aggregate. The optical properties at fixed wavelength
change dramatically at the melting transition, which is found to be higher and
narrower in temperature for larger particles, and much sharper than that of an
isolated DNA link. All these features are in agreement with available
experiments. The aggregate is modeled as a cluster of gold nanoparticles on a
periodic lattice connected by DNA bonds, and the extinction coefficient is
computed using the discrete dipole approximation. Melting takes place as an
increasing number of these bonds break with increasing temperature. The melting
temperature corresponds approximately to the bond percolation threshold.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure. To be published in Phys. Rev.
Using morphological diagnosis and molecular markers to assess the clonal fidelity of micropropagated Echinacea purpurea regenerants
Both morphological characteristics and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers were used to validate the genetic fidelity of 1 080 field-grown Echinacea purpurea plants regenerated from leaf explants of donor T5-9. Morphological diagnosis revealed that 1 067 out of 1 080 regenerants were normal, while 13 regenerants were aberrant. AFLP analysis was further performed to assess DNA variations among donor, 43 sampled normal regenerants and all 13 aberrant regenerants. Seven primer combinations generated 471 fragments among donor and normal regenerants, of which 9 fragments were polymorphic. The same primer pairs generated 484 fragments for aberrant regenerants, of which 417 fragments were polymorphic. UPGMA clustering indicated that 42 normal regenerants and donor fell into same cluster at similarity scale of > 0.99, while all 13 aberrant regenerants and one morphologically normal regenerant comprised the other clusters. AFLP analysis indicated that these 14 regenerants are off-types
Correlated Errors in Quantum Error Corrections
We show that errors are not generated correlatedly provided that quantum bits
do not directly interact with (or couple to) each other. Generally, this
no-qubits-interaction condition is assumed except for the case where two-qubit
gate operation is being performed. In particular, the no-qubits-interaction
condition is satisfied in the collective decoherence models. Thus, errors are
not correlated in the collective decoherence. Consequently, we can say that
current quantum error correcting codes which correct single-qubit-errors will
work in most cases including the collective decoherence.Comment: no correction, 3 pages, RevTe
Structure Formation, Melting, and the Optical Properties of Gold/DNA Nanocomposites: Effects of Relaxation Time
We present a model for structure formation, melting, and optical properties
of gold/DNA nanocomposites. These composites consist of a collection of gold
nanoparticles (of radius 50 nm or less) which are bound together by links made
up of DNA strands. In our structural model, the nanocomposite forms from a
series of Monte Carlo steps, each involving reaction-limited cluster-cluster
aggregation (RLCA) followed by dehybridization of the DNA links. These links
form with a probability which depends on temperature and particle
radius . The final structure depends on the number of monomers (i. e. gold
nanoparticles) , , and the relaxation time. At low temperature, the
model results in an RLCA cluster. But after a long enough relaxation time, the
nanocomposite reduces to a compact, non-fractal cluster. We calculate the
optical properties of the resulting aggregates using the Discrete Dipole
Approximation. Despite the restructuring, the melting transition (as seen in
the extinction coefficient at wavelength 520 nm) remains sharp, and the melting
temperature increases with increasing as found in our previous
percolation model. However, restructuring increases the corresponding link
fraction at melting to a value well above the percolation threshold. Our
calculated extinction cross section agrees qualitatively with experiments on
gold/DNA composites. It also shows a characteristic ``rebound effect,''
resulting from incomplete relaxation, which has also been seen in some
experiments. We discuss briefly how our results relate to a possible sol-gel
transition in these aggregates.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure
First-principles study of nucleation, growth, and interface structure of Fe/GaAs
We use density-functional theory to describe the initial stages of Fe film
growth on GaAs(001), focusing on the interplay between chemistry and magnetism
at the interface. Four features appear to be generic: (1) At submonolayer
coverages, a strong chemical interaction between Fe and substrate atoms leads
to substitutional adsorption and intermixing. (2) For films of several
monolayers and more, atomically abrupt interfaces are energetically favored.
(3) For Fe films over a range of thicknesses, both Ga- and As-adlayers
dramatically reduce the formation energies of the films, suggesting a
surfactant-like action. (4) During the first few monolayers of growth, Ga or As
atoms are likely to be liberated from the interface and diffuse to the Fe film
surface. Magnetism plays an important auxiliary role for these processes, even
in the dilute limit of atomic adsorption. Most of the films exhibit
ferromagnetic order even at half-monolayer coverage, while certain
adlayer-capped films show a slight preference for antiferromagnetic order.Comment: 11 two-column pages, 12 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Production and Decay of D_1(2420)^0 and D_2^*(2460)^0
We have investigated and final states and
observed the two established charmed mesons, the with mass
MeV/c and width MeV/c and
the with mass MeV/c and width
MeV/c. Properties of these final states, including
their decay angular distributions and spin-parity assignments, have been
studied. We identify these two mesons as the doublet predicted
by HQET. We also obtain constraints on {\footnotesize } as a function of the cosine of the relative phase of the two
amplitudes in the decay.Comment: 15 pages in REVTEX format. hardcopies with figures can be obtained by
sending mail to: [email protected]
Measurement of the branching fraction for
We have studied the leptonic decay of the resonance into tau
pairs using the CLEO II detector. A clean sample of tau pair events is
identified via events containing two charged particles where exactly one of the
particles is an identified electron. We find . The result is consistent with
expectations from lepton universality.Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX, two Postscript figures available upon request, CLNS
94/1297, CLEO 94-20 (submitted to Physics Letters B
Measurement of the Decay Asymmetry Parameters in and
We have measured the weak decay asymmetry parameters (\aLC ) for two \LC\
decay modes. Our measurements are \aLC = -0.94^{+0.21+0.12}_{-0.06-0.06} for
the decay mode and \aLC = -0.45\pm 0.31 \pm
0.06 for the decay mode . By combining these
measurements with the previously measured decay rates, we have extracted the
parity-violating and parity-conserving amplitudes. These amplitudes are used to
test models of nonleptonic charmed baryon decay.Comment: 11 pages including the figures. Uses REVTEX and psfig macros. Figures
as uuencoded postscript. Also available as
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLNS/1995/CLNS95-1319.p
Exploring mechanisms of lipid nanoparticle-mucus interactions in healthy and cystic fibrosis conditions
Mucus forms the first defense line of human lungs, and as such hampers the efficient delivery of therapeutics to the underlying epithelium. This holds particularly true for genetic cargo such as CRISPR-based gene editing tools which cannot readily surmount the mucosal barrier. While lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) emerge as versatile non-viral gene delivery systems that can help overcome the delivery challenge, many knowledge gaps remain, especially for diseased states such as cystic fibrosis (CF). This study provides fundamental insights into Cas9 mRNA or ribonucleoprotein-loaded LNP-mucus interactions in healthy and diseased states by assessing the impact of the genetic cargo, mucin sialylation, mucin concentration, ionic strength, pH, and polyethylene glycol (PEG) concentration and nature on LNP diffusivity leveraging experimental approaches and Brownian dynamics (BD) simulations. Taken together, this study identifies key mucus and LNP characteristics that are critical to enabling a rational LNP design for transmucosal delivery
Study of the B^0 Semileptonic Decay Spectrum at the Upsilon(4S) Resonance
We have made a first measurement of the lepton momentum spectrum in a sample
of events enriched in neutral B's through a partial reconstruction of B0 -->
D*- l+ nu. This spectrum, measured with 2.38 fb**-1 of data collected at the
Upsilon(4S) resonance by the CLEO II detector, is compared directly to the
inclusive lepton spectrum from all Upsilon(4S) events in the same data set.
These two spectra are consistent with having the same shape above 1.5 GeV/c.
From the two spectra and two other CLEO measurements, we obtain the B0 and B+
semileptonic branching fractions, b0 and b+, their ratio, and the production
ratio f+-/f00 of B+ and B0 pairs at the Upsilon(4S). We report b+/b0=0.950
(+0.117-0.080) +- 0.091, b0 = (10.78 +- 0.60 +- 0.69)%, and b+ = (10.25 +- 0.57
+- 0.65)%. b+/b0 is equivalent to the ratio of charged to neutral B lifetimes,
tau+/tau0.Comment: 14 page, postscript file also available at
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
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