Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold

Peer reviewe

Intrinsic thermal vibrations of suspended doubly clamped single-wall carbon nanotubes

We report the observation of thermally driven mechanical vibrations of suspended doubly clamped carbon nanotubes, grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Several experimental procedures are used to suspend carbon nanotubes. The vibration is observed as a blurring in images taken with a scanning electron microscope. The measured vibration amplitudes are compared with a model based on linear continuum mechanics.Comment: pdf including figures, see: http://www.unibas.ch/phys-meso/Research/Papers/2003/NT-Thermal-Vibrations.pd

Extinctions and Correlations for Uniformly Discrete Point Processes with Pure Point Dynamical Spectra

The paper investigates how correlations can completely specify a uniformly discrete point process. The setting is that of uniformly discrete point sets in real space for which the corresponding dynamical hull is ergodic. The first result is that all of the essential physical information in such a system is derivable from its $n$-point correlations, $n= 2, 3, >...$. If the system is pure point diffractive an upper bound on the number of correlations required can be derived from the cycle structure of a graph formed from the dynamical and Bragg spectra. In particular, if the diffraction has no extinctions, then the 2 and 3 point correlations contain all the relevant information.Comment: 16 page

On the modulation instability development in optical fiber systems

Extensive numerical simulations were performed to investigate all stages of modulation instability development from the initial pulse of pico-second duration in photonic crystal fiber: quasi-solitons and dispersive waves formation, their interaction stage and the further propagation. Comparison between 4 different NLS-like systems was made: the classical NLS equation, NLS system plus higher dispersion terms, NLS plus higher dispersion and self-steepening and also fully generalized NLS equation with Raman scattering taken into account. For the latter case a mechanism of energy transfer from smaller quasi-solitons to the bigger ones is proposed to explain the dramatical increase of rogue waves appearance frequency in comparison to the systems when the Raman scattering is not taken into account.Comment: 9 pages, 54 figure

Quantum theory of electromechanical noise and momentum transfer statistics

A quantum mechanical theory is developed for the statistics of momentum transferred to the lattice by conduction electrons. Results for the electromechanical noise power in the semiclassical diffusive transport regime agree with a recent theory based on the Boltzmann-Langevin equation. All moments of the transferred momentum are calculated for a single-channel conductor with a localized scatterer, and compared with the known statistics of transmitted charge.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Electromechanical instability in suspended carbon nanotubes

We have theoretically investigated electromechanical properties of freely suspended carbon nanotubes when a current is injected into the tubes using a scanning tunneling microscope. We show that a shuttle-like electromechanical instability can occur if the bias voltage exceeds a dissipation-dependent threshold value. An instability results in large amplitude vibrations of the carbon nanotube bending mode, which modify the current-voltage characteristics of the system

Characterization of defect structures in nanocrystalline materials by X-ray line profile analysis

X-ray line profile analysis is a powerful alternative tool for determining dislocation densities, dislocation type, crystallite and subgrain size and size-distributions, and planar defects, especially the frequency of twin boundaries and stacking faults. The method is especially useful in the case of submicron grain size or nanocrystalline materials, where X-ray line broadening is a well pronounced effect, and the observation of defects with very large density is often not easy by transmission electron microscopy. The fundamentals of X-ray line broadening are summarized in terms of the different qualitative breadth methods, and the more sophisticated and more quantitative whole pattern fitting procedures. The efficiency and practical use of X-ray line profile analysis is shown by discussing its applications to metallic, ceramic, diamond-like and polymer nanomaterials

Quantum Dynamics in Non-equilibrium Strongly Correlated Environments

We consider a quantum point contact between two Luttinger liquids coupled to a mechanical system (oscillator). For non-vanishing bias, we find an effective oscillator temperature that depends on the Luttinger parameter. A generalized fluctuation-dissipation relation connects the decoherence and dissipation of the oscillator to the current-voltage characteristics of the device. Via a spectral representation, this result is generalized to arbitrary leads in a weak tunneling regime.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Antagonistic regulation of mRNA expression and splicing by CELF and MBNL proteins

RNA binding proteins of the conserved CUGBP1, Elav-like factor (CELF) family contribute to heart and skeletal muscle development and are implicated in myotonic dystrophy (DM). To understand their genome-wide functions, we analyzed the transcriptome dynamics following induction of CELF1 or CELF2 in adult mouse heart and of CELF1 in muscle by RNA-seq, complemented by crosslinking/immunoprecipitation-sequencing (CLIP-seq) analysis of mouse cells and tissues to distinguish direct from indirect regulatory targets. We identified hundreds of mRNAs bound in their 3′ UTRs by both CELF1 and the developmentally induced MBNL1 protein, a threefold greater overlap in target messages than expected, including messages involved in development and cell differentiation. The extent of 3′ UTR binding by CELF1 and MBNL1 predicted the degree of mRNA repression or stabilization, respectively, following CELF1 induction. However, CELF1's RNA binding specificity in vitro was not detectably altered by coincubation with recombinant MBNL1. These findings support a model in which CELF and MBNL proteins bind independently to mRNAs but functionally compete to specify down-regulation or localization/stabilization, respectively, of hundreds of mRNA targets. Expression of many alternative 3′ UTR isoforms was altered following CELF1 induction, with 3′ UTR binding associated with down-regulation of isoforms and genes. The splicing of hundreds of alternative exons was oppositely regulated by these proteins, confirming an additional layer of regulatory antagonism previously observed in a handful of cases. The regulatory relationships between CELFs and MBNLs in control of both mRNA abundance and splicing appear to have evolved to enhance developmental transitions in major classes of heart and muscle genes.Myotonic Dystrophy FoundationNational Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant OD017865-02)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award 0821391)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R01GM085319)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant RC2HG005624