858 research outputs found
Effect of a standardised dietary restriction protocol on multiple laboratory strains of Drosophila melanogaster
Background:
Outcomes of lifespan studies in model organisms are particularly susceptible to variations in technical procedures. This is especially true of dietary restriction, which is implemented in many different ways among laboratories.
Principal Findings:
In this study, we have examined the effect of laboratory stock maintenance, genotype differences and microbial infection on the ability of dietary restriction (DR) to extend life in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. None of these factors block the DR effect.
Conclusions:
These data lend support to the idea that nutrient restriction genuinely extends lifespan in flies, and that any mechanistic discoveries made with this model are of potential relevance to the determinants of lifespan in other organisms
Real space first-principles derived semiempirical pseudopotentials applied to tunneling magnetoresistance
In this letter we present a real space density functional theory (DFT)
localized basis set semi-empirical pseudopotential (SEP) approach. The method
is applied to iron and magnesium oxide, where bulk SEP and local spin density
approximation (LSDA) band structure calculations are shown to agree within
approximately 0.1 eV. Subsequently we investigate the qualitative
transferability of bulk derived SEPs to Fe/MgO/Fe tunnel junctions. We find
that the SEP method is particularly well suited to address the tight binding
transferability problem because the transferability error at the interface can
be characterized not only in orbital space (via the interface local density of
states) but also in real space (via the system potential). To achieve a
quantitative parameterization, we introduce the notion of ghost semi-empirical
pseudopotentials extracted from the first-principles calculated Fe/MgO bonding
interface. Such interface corrections are shown to be particularly necessary
for barrier widths in the range of 1 nm, where interface states on opposite
sides of the barrier couple effectively and play a important role in the
transmission characteristics. In general the results underscore the need for
separate tight binding interface and bulk parameter sets when modeling
conduction through thin heterojunctions on the nanoscale.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Applied Physic
Dynamical and Stationary Properties of On-line Learning from Finite Training Sets
The dynamical and stationary properties of on-line learning from finite
training sets are analysed using the cavity method. For large input dimensions,
we derive equations for the macroscopic parameters, namely, the student-teacher
correlation, the student-student autocorrelation and the learning force
uctuation. This enables us to provide analytical solutions to Adaline learning
as a benchmark. Theoretical predictions of training errors in transient and
stationary states are obtained by a Monte Carlo sampling procedure.
Generalization and training errors are found to agree with simulations. The
physical origin of the critical learning rate is presented. Comparison with
batch learning is discussed throughout the paper.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figure
Gas injection in a liquid saturated porous medium. Influence of pressurization effects and liquid films
We study numerically and experimentally the displacement of a liquid by a gas in a two-dimensional model porous medium. In contrast with previous pore-network studies on drainage in porous media, the gas compressibility is fully taken account. The influence of the gas injection rate on the displacement pattern, breakthrough time and the evolution of the pressure in the gas phase due in part to gas compressibility are investigated. A good agreement is found between the simulations and the experiments as regards the invasion patterns. The agreement is also good on the drainage kinetics when the dynamic liquid films are taken into account
The Muonium Atom as a Probe of Physics beyond the Standard Model
The observed interactions between particles are not fully explained in the
successful theoretical description of the standard model to date. Due to the
close confinement of the bound state muonium () can be used as
an ideal probe of quantum electrodynamics and weak interaction and also for a
search for additional interactions between leptons. Of special interest is the
lepton number violating process of sponteanous conversion of muonium to
antimuonium.Comment: 15 pages,6 figure
Scaling and Crossover in the Large-N Model for Growth Kinetics
The dependence of the scaling properties of the structure factor on space
dimensionality, range of interaction, initial and final conditions, presence or
absence of a conservation law is analysed in the framework of the large-N model
for growth kinetics. The variety of asymptotic behaviours is quite rich,
including standard scaling, multiscaling and a mixture of the two. The
different scaling properties obtained as the parameters are varied are
controlled by a structure of fixed points with their domains of attraction.
Crossovers arising from the competition between distinct fixed points are
explicitely obtained. Temperature fluctuations below the critical temperature
are not found to be irrelevant when the order parameter is conserved. The model
is solved by integration of the equation of motion for the structure factor and
by a renormalization group approach.Comment: 48 pages with 6 figures available upon request, plain LaTe
An explicit formula for the coefficients in Laplace's method
Laplace's method is one of the fundamental techniques in the asymptotic
approximation of integrals. The coefficients appearing in the resulting
asymptotic expansion, arise as the coefficients of a convergent or asymptotic
series of a function defined in an implicit form. Due to the tedious
computation of these coefficients, most standard textbooks on asymptotic
approximations of integrals do not give explicit formulas for them.
Nevertheless, we can find some more or less explicit representations for the
coefficients in the literature: Perron's formula gives them in terms of
derivatives of an explicit function; Campbell, Fr\"oman and Walles simplified
Perron's method by computing these derivatives using an explicit recurrence
relation. The most recent contribution is due to Wojdylo, who rediscovered the
Campbell, Fr\"oman and Walles formula and rewrote it in terms of partial
ordinary Bell polynomials. In this paper, we provide an alternative
representation for the coefficients, which contains ordinary potential
polynomials. The proof is based on Perron's formula and a theorem of Comtet.
The asymptotic expansions of the gamma function and the incomplete gamma
function are given as illustrations.Comment: 14 pages, to appear in Constructive Approximatio
Abiotic StressâRelated Expressed Sequence Tags from the Diploid Strawberry Fragaria vesca
Strawberry ( spp.) is a eudicotyledonous plant that belongs to the Rosaceae family, which includes other agronomically important plants such as raspberry ( L.) and several tree-fruit species. Despite the vital role played by cultivated strawberry in agriculture, few stress-related gene expression characterizations of this crop are available. To increase the diversity of available transcriptome sequence, we produced 41,430 L. expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from plants growing under water-, temperature-, and osmotic-stress conditions as well as a combination of heat and osmotic stresses that is often found in irrigated fields. Clustering and assembling of the ESTs resulted in a total of 11,836 contigs and singletons that were annotated using Gene Ontology (GO) terms. Furthermore, over 1200 sequences with no match to available Rosaceae ESTs were found, including six that were assigned the âresponse to stressâ GO category. Analysis of EST frequency provided an estimate of steady state transcript levels, with 91 sequences exhibiting at least a 20-fold difference between treatments. This EST collection represents a useful resource to advance our understanding of the abiotic stress-response mechanisms in strawberry. The sequence information may be translated to valuable tree crops in the Rosaceae family, where whole-plant treatments are not as simple or practical
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