1,260 research outputs found
Stable spinning optical solitons in three dimensions
We introduce spatiotemporal spinning solitons (vortex tori) of the
three-dimensional nonlinear Schrodinger equation with focusing cubic and
defocusing quintic nonlinearities. The first ever found completely stable
spatiotemporal vortex solitons are demonstrated. A general conclusion is that
stable spinning solitons are possible as a result of competition between
focusing and defocusing nonlinearities.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, accepted to Phys. Rev. Let
Controlling collapse in Bose-Einstein condensates by temporal modulation of the scattering length
We consider, by means of the variational approximation (VA) and direct
numerical simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation, the dynamics of 2D
and 3D condensates with a scattering length containing constant and
harmonically varying parts, which can be achieved with an ac magnetic field
tuned to the Feshbach resonance. For a rapid time modulation, we develop an
approach based on the direct averaging of the GP equation,without using the VA.
In the 2D case, both VA and direct simulations, as well as the averaging
method, reveal the existence of stable self-confined condensates without an
external trap, in agreement with qualitatively similar results recently
reported for spatial solitons in nonlinear optics. In the 3D case, the VA again
predicts the existence of a stable self-confined condensate without a trap. In
this case, direct simulations demonstrate that the stability is limited in
time, eventually switching into collapse, even though the constant part of the
scattering length is positive (but not too large). Thus a spatially uniform ac
magnetic field, resonantly tuned to control the scattering length, may play the
role of an effective trap confining the condensate, and sometimes causing its
collapse.Comment: 7 figure
Early Potent Protection against Heterologous SIVsmE660 Challenge Following Live Attenuated SIV Vaccination in Mauritian Cynomolgus Macaques
Background: Live attenuated simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) vaccines represent the most effective means of vaccinating macaques against pathogenic SIV challenge. However, thus far, protection has been demonstrated to be more effective against homologous than heterologous strains. Immune correlates of vaccine-induced protection have also been difficult to identify, particularly those measurable in the peripheral circulation. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we describe potent protection in 6 out of 8 Mauritian-derived cynomolgus macaques (MCM) against heterologous virus challenge with the pathogenic, uncloned SIVsmE660 viral stock following vaccination with live attenuated SIVmac251/C8. MCM provided a characterised host genetic background with limited Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) and TRIM5α allelic diversity. Early protection, observed as soon as 3 weeks post-vaccination, was comparable to that of 20 weeks vaccination. Recrudescence of vaccine virus was most pronounced in breakthrough cases where simultaneous identification of vaccine and challenge viruses by virus-specific PCR was indicative of active co-infection. Persistence of the vaccine virus in a range of lymphoid tissues was typified by a consistent level of SIV RNA positive cells in protected vaccinates. However, no association between MHC class I /II haplotype or TRIM5α polymorphism and study outcome was identified. Conclusion/Significance: This SIV vaccine study, conducted in MHC-characterised MCM, demonstrated potent protection against the pathogenic, heterologous SIVsmE660 challenge stock after only 3 weeks vaccination. This level of protection against this viral stock by intravenous challenge has not been hitherto observed. The mechanism(s) of protection by vaccination with live attenuated SIV must account for the heterologous and early protection data described in this study, including those which relate to the innate immune system
Time-of-flight mass measurements of neutron-rich chromium isotopes up to N = 40 and implications for the accreted neutron star crust
We present the mass excesses of 59-64Cr, obtained from recent time-of-flight
nuclear mass measurements at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory
at Michigan State University. The mass of 64Cr is determined for the first
time, with an atomic mass excess of -33.48(44) MeV. We find a significantly
different two-neutron separation energy S2n trend for neutron-rich isotopes of
chromium, removing the previously observed enhancement in binding at N=38.
Additionally, we extend the S2n trend for chromium to N=40, revealing behavior
consistent with the previously identified island of inversion in this region.
We compare our results to state-of-the-art shell-model calculations performed
with a modified Lenzi-Nowacki-Poves-Sieja interaction in the fp shell,
including the g9/2 and d5/2 orbits for the neutron valence space. We employ our
result for the mass of 64Cr in accreted neutron star crust network calculations
and find a reduction in the strength and depth of electron-capture heating from
the A=64 isobaric chain, resulting in a cooler than expected accreted neutron
star crust. This reduced heating is found to be due to the >1-MeV reduction in
binding for 64Cr with respect to values from commonly used global mass models.Comment: Accepted to Physical Review
Rotating optical soliton clusters
We introduce the concept of soliton clusters -- multi-soliton bound states in
a homogeneous bulk optical medium, and reveal a key physical mechanism for
their stabilization associated with a staircase-like phase distribution that
induces a net angular momentum and leads to cluster rotation. The ringlike
soliton clusters provide a nontrivial generalization of the concepts of
two-soliton spiraling, optical vortex solitons, and necklace-type optical
beams.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
A theory of -dissipative solvers for scalar conservation laws with discontinuous flux
We propose a general framework for the study of contractive semigroups
of solutions to conservation laws with discontinuous flux. Developing the ideas
of a number of preceding works we claim that the whole admissibility issue is
reduced to the selection of a family of "elementary solutions", which are
certain piecewise constant stationary weak solutions. We refer to such a family
as a "germ". It is well known that (CL) admits many different contractive
semigroups, some of which reflects different physical applications. We revisit
a number of the existing admissibility (or entropy) conditions and identify the
germs that underly these conditions. We devote specific attention to the
anishing viscosity" germ, which is a way to express the "-condition" of
Diehl. For any given germ, we formulate "germ-based" admissibility conditions
in the form of a trace condition on the flux discontinuity line (in the
spirit of Vol'pert) and in the form of a family of global entropy inequalities
(following Kruzhkov and Carrillo). We characterize those germs that lead to the
-contraction property for the associated admissible solutions. Our
approach offers a streamlined and unifying perspective on many of the known
entropy conditions, making it possible to recover earlier uniqueness results
under weaker conditions than before, and to provide new results for other less
studied problems. Several strategies for proving the existence of admissible
solutions are discussed, and existence results are given for fluxes satisfying
some additional conditions. These are based on convergence results either for
the vanishing viscosity method (with standard viscosity or with specific
viscosities "adapted" to the choice of a germ), or for specific germ-adapted
finite volume schemes
Trim17, novel E3 ubiquitin-ligase, initiates neuronal apoptosis
Accumulating data indicate that the ubiquitin-proteasome system controls apoptosis by regulating the level and the function of key regulatory proteins. In this study, we identified Trim17, a member of the TRIM/RBCC protein family, as one of the critical E3 ubiquitin ligases involved in the control of neuronal apoptosis upstream of mitochondria. We show that expression of Trim17 is increased both at the mRNA and protein level in several in vitro models of transcription-dependent neuronal apoptosis. Expression of Trim17 is controlled by the PI3K/Akt/GSK3 pathway in cerebellar granule neurons (CGN). Moreover, the Trim17 protein is expressed in vivo, in apoptotic neurons that naturally die during post-natal cerebellar development. Overexpression of active Trim17 in primary CGN was sufficient to induce the intrinsic pathway of apoptosis in survival conditions. This pro-apoptotic effect was abolished in Bax(-/-) neurons and depended on the E3 activity of Trim17 conferred by its RING domain. Furthermore, knock-down of endogenous Trim17 and overexpression of dominant-negative mutants of Trim17 blocked trophic factor withdrawal-induced apoptosis both in CGN and in sympathetic neurons. Collectively, our data are the first to assign a cellular function to Trim17 by showing that its E3 activity is both necessary and sufficient for the initiation of neuronal apoptosis. Cell Death and Differentiation (2010) 17, 1928-1941; doi: 10.1038/cdd.2010.73; published online 18 June 201
Disease-associated XMRV sequences are consistent with laboratory contamination.
BACKGROUND: Xenotropic murine leukaemia viruses (MLV-X) are endogenous gammaretroviruses that infect cells from many species, including humans. Xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus (XMRV) is a retrovirus that has been the subject of intense debate since its detection in samples from humans with prostate cancer (PC) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Controversy has arisen from the failure of some studies to detect XMRV in PC or CFS patients and from inconsistent detection of XMRV in healthy controls. RESULTS: Here we demonstrate that Taqman PCR primers previously described as XMRV-specific can amplify common murine endogenous viral sequences from mouse suggesting that mouse DNA can contaminate patient samples and confound specific XMRV detection. To consider the provenance of XMRV we sequenced XMRV from the cell line 22Rv1, which is infected with an MLV-X that is indistinguishable from patient derived XMRV. Bayesian phylogenies clearly show that XMRV sequences reportedly derived from unlinked patients form a monophyletic clade with interspersed 22Rv1 clones (posterior probability >0.99). The cell line-derived sequences are ancestral to the patient-derived sequences (posterior probability >0.99). Furthermore, pol sequences apparently amplified from PC patient material (VP29 and VP184) are recombinants of XMRV and Moloney MLV (MoMLV) a virus with an envelope that lacks tropism for human cells. Considering the diversity of XMRV we show that the mean pairwise genetic distance among env and pol 22Rv1-derived sequences exceeds that of patient-associated sequences (Wilcoxon rank sum test: p = 0.005 and p < 0.001 for pol and env, respectively). Thus XMRV sequences acquire diversity in a cell line but not in patient samples. These observations are difficult to reconcile with the hypothesis that published XMRV sequences are related by a process of infectious transmission. CONCLUSIONS: We provide several independent lines of evidence that XMRV detected by sensitive PCR methods in patient samples is the likely result of PCR contamination with mouse DNA and that the described clones of XMRV arose from the tumour cell line 22Rv1, which was probably infected with XMRV during xenografting in mice. We propose that XMRV might not be a genuine human pathogen
- …