155 research outputs found
A new path to measure antimatter free fall
We propose an experiment to measure the free fall acceleration of neutral antihydrogen atoms. The originality of this path is to first produce the Hbar+ ion
Long-Term Vibration Monitoring of the Effects of Temperature and Humidity on PC Girders with and without Fly Ash considering ASR Deterioration
金沢大学理工研究域環境デザイン学系Structural responses have been used as inputs in the evaluation procedures of civil structures for years. Apart from the degradation of a structure itself, changes in the environmental conditions affect its characteristics. For adequate maintenance, it is necessary to quantify the environment-induced changes and discriminate them from the effects due to damage. This study investigates the variation in the vibration responses of prestressed concrete (PC) girders, which were deteriorated because of the alkali-silica reaction (ASR), concerning ambient temperature and humidity. Three PC girders were exposed to outdoor weather conditions outside the laboratory, one of which had a selected amount of fly ash in its mixture to mitigate the ASR. The girders were periodically vibration tested for one and a half years. It was found that when the temperature and humidity increased, the frequencies and damping ratios decreased in proportion. No apparent variation in the mode shapes could be identified. A finite element model was proposed for numerical verification, the results of which were in good agreement with the measured changes in the natural frequencies. Moreover, the different dynamic performances of the three specimens indicated that the fly ash significantly affected the vibrations of the PC girders under ASR deterioration. © 2017 Tuan Minh Ha et al
Preliminary Results from Recent Measurements of the Antiprotonic Helium Hyperfine Structure
We report on preliminary results from a systematic study of the hyperfine
(HF) structure of antiprotonic helium. This precise measurement which was
commenced in 2006, has now been completed. Our initial analysis shows no
apparent density or power dependence and therefore the results can be averaged.
The statistical error of the observable M1 transitions is a factor of 60
smaller than that of three body quantum electrodynamic (QED) calculations,
while their difference has been resolved to a precision comparable to theory (a
factor of 10 better than our first measurement). This difference is sensitive
to the antiproton magnetic moment and agreement between theory and experiment
would lead to an increased precision of this parameter, thus providing a test
of CPT invariance.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Asthma Prevention by Lactobacillus Rhamnosus in a Mouse Model is Associated With CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ T Cells
OntoCAT -- simple ontology search and integration in Java, R and REST/JavaScript
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Ontologies have become an essential asset in the bioinformatics toolbox and a number of ontology access resources are now available, for example, the EBI Ontology Lookup Service (OLS) and the NCBO BioPortal. However, these resources differ substantially in mode, ease of access, and ontology content. This makes it relatively difficult to access each ontology source separately, map their contents to research data, and much of this effort is being replicated across different research groups.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>OntoCAT provides a seamless programming interface to query heterogeneous ontology resources including OLS and BioPortal, as well as user-specified local OWL and OBO files. Each resource is wrapped behind easy to learn Java, Bioconductor/R and REST web service commands enabling reuse and integration of ontology software efforts despite variation in technologies. It is also available as a stand-alone MOLGENIS database and a Google App Engine application.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>OntoCAT provides a robust, configurable solution for accessing ontology terms specified locally and from remote services, is available as a stand-alone tool and has been tested thoroughly in the ArrayExpress, MOLGENIS, EFO and Gen2Phen phenotype use cases.</p> <p>Availability</p> <p><url>http://www.ontocat.org</url></p
Lysozyme transgenic goats’ milk positively impacts intestinal cytokine expression and morphology
In addition to its well-recognized antimicrobial properties, lysozyme can also modulate the inflammatory response. This ability may be particularly important in the gastrointestinal tract where inappropriate inflammatory reactions can damage the intestinal epithelium, leading to significant health problems. The consumption of milk from transgenic goats producing human lysozyme (hLZ) in their milk therefore has the potential to positively impact intestinal health. In order to investigate the effect of hLZ-containing milk on the inflammatory response, young pigs were fed pasteurized milk from hLZ or non-transgenic control goats and quantitative real-time PCR was performed to assess local expression of TNF-α, IL-8, and TGF-β1 in the small intestine. Histological changes were also investigated, specifically looking at villi width, length, crypt depth, and lamina propria thickness along with cell counts for intraepithelial lymphocytes and goblet cells. Significantly higher expression of anti-inflammatory cytokine TGF-β1 was seen in the ileum of pigs fed pasteurized milk containing hLZ (P = 0.0478), along with an increase in intraepithelial lymphocytes (P = 0.0255), and decrease in lamina propria thickness in the duodenum (P = 0.0001). Based on these results we conclude that consuming pasteurized milk containing hLZ does not induce an inflammatory response and improves the health of the small intestine in pigs
Production of phi mesons at mid-rapidity in sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC
We present the first results of meson production in the K^+K^- decay channel
from Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV as measured at mid-rapidity by
the PHENIX detector at RHIC. Precision resonance centroid and width values are
extracted as a function of collision centrality. No significant variation from
the PDG accepted values is observed. The transverse mass spectra are fitted
with a linear exponential function for which the derived inverse slope
parameter is seen to be constant as a function of centrality. These data are
also fitted by a hydrodynamic model with the result that the freeze-out
temperature and the expansion velocity values are consistent with the values
previously derived from fitting single hadron inclusive data. As a function of
transverse momentum the collisions scaled peripheral.to.central yield ratio RCP
for the is comparable to that of pions rather than that of protons. This result
lends support to theoretical models which distinguish between baryons and
mesons instead of particle mass for explaining the anomalous proton yield.Comment: 326 authors, 24 pages text, 23 figures, 6 tables, RevTeX 4. To be
submitted to Physical Review C as a regular article. Plain text data tables
for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications
are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm
Effective Rheology of Bubbles Moving in a Capillary Tube
We calculate the average volumetric flux versus pressure drop of bubbles
moving in a single capillary tube with varying diameter, finding a square-root
relation from mapping the flow equations onto that of a driven overdamped
pendulum. The calculation is based on a derivation of the equation of motion of
a bubble train from considering the capillary forces and the entropy production
associated with the viscous flow. We also calculate the configurational
probability of the positions of the bubbles.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
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