Variational theory of flux-line liquids

We formulate a variational (Hartree like) description of flux line liquids which improves on the theory we developed in an earlier paper [A.M. Ettouhami, Phys. Rev. B 65, 134504 (2002)]. We derive, in particular, how the massive term confining the fluctuations of flux lines varies with temperature and show that this term vanishes at high enough temperatures where the vortices behave as freely fluctuating elastic lines.Comment: 10 pages, 1 postscript figur

Thinking beyond the hybrid:“actually-existing” cities “after neoliberalism” in Boyle <i>et al.</i>

In their article, ‘The spatialities of actually existing neoliberalism in Glasgow, 1977 to present’, Mark Boyle, Christopher McWilliams and Gareth Rice (2008) usefully problematise our current understanding of neoliberal urbanism. Our response is aimed at developing a sympathetic but critical approach to Boyle et al's understanding of neoliberal urbanism as illustrated by the Glasgow example. In particular, the counterposing by Boyle et al of a 'hybrid, mutant' model to a 'pure' model of neoliberalism for us misrepresents existing models of neoliberalism as a perfectly finished object rather than a roughly mottled process. That they do not identify any ‘pure’ model leads them to create a straw construct against which they can claim a more sophisticated, refined approach to the messiness of neoliberal urbanism. In contrast, we view neoliberalism as a contested and unstable response to accumulation crises at various scales of analysis

Vortex wandering in a forest of splayed columnar defects

We investigate the scaling properties of single flux lines in a random pinning landscape consisting of splayed columnar defects. Such correlated defects can be injected into Type II superconductors by inducing nuclear fission or via direct heavy ion irradiation. The result is often very efficient pinning of the vortices which gives, e.g., a strongly enhanced critical current. The wandering exponent \zeta and the free energy exponent \omega of a single flux line in such a disordered environment are obtained analytically from scaling arguments combined with extreme-value statistics. In contrast to the case of point disorder, where these exponents are universal, we find a dependence of the exponents on details in the probability distribution of the low lying energies of the columnar defects. The analytical results show excellent agreement with numerical transfer matrix calculations in two and three dimensions.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure

Interaction effects in non-Hermitian models of vortex physics

Vortex lines in superconductors in an external magnetic field slightly tilted from randomly-distributed parallel columnar defects can be modeled by a system of interacting bosons in a non-Hermitian vector potential and a random scalar potential. We develop a theory of the strongly-disordered non-Hermitian boson Hubbard model using the Hartree-Bogoliubov approximation and apply it to calculate the complex energy spectra, the vortex tilt angle and the tilt modulus of (1+1)-dimensional directed flux line systems. We construct the phase diagram associated with the flux-liquid to Bose-glass transition and find that, close to the phase boundary, the tilted flux liquid phase is characterized by a band of localized excitations, with two mobility edges in its low-energy spectrum.Comment: 19 pages, 19 figures, To appear in Phys. Rev.

Vortex Pinning and the Non-Hermitian Mott Transition

The boson Hubbard model has been extensively studied as a model of the zero temperature superfluid/insulator transition in Helium-4 on periodic substrates. It can also serve as a model for vortex lines in superconductors with a magnetic field parallel to a periodic array of columnar pins, due to a formal analogy between the vortex lines and the statistical mechanics of quantum bosons. When the magnetic field has a component perpendicular to the pins, this analogy yields a non-Hermitian boson Hubbard model. At integer filling, we find that for small transverse fields, the insulating phase is preserved, and the transverse field is exponentially screened away from the boundaries of the superconductor. At larger transverse fields, a ``superfluid'' phase of tilted, entangled vortices appears. The universality class of the transition is found to be that of vortex lines entering the Meissner phase at H_{c1}, with the additional feature that the direction of the tilted vortices at the transition bears a non-trivial relationship to the direction of the applied magnetic field. The properties of the Mott Insulator and flux liquid phases with tilt are also discussed.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures included in text; to appear in Physical Review

Effects of frequent machine milking and suckling in early lactation on blood plasma ion homoeostasis in high-yielding dairy cows

SUMMARY Groups of nine or ten cows were assigned, after calving, to treatments in which they were (i) machine milked three times daily (M3), (ii) machine milked six times daily (M6) or (iii) suckled three times daily in addition to being machine milked three times daily (S). Treatments were administered during the first 6 weeks postpartum. On one day, at weeks 1 and 6 postpartum, blood samples were collected from all cows at 30-min intervals between 06.00 and 13.00 h and these were analysed for plasma osmolality and plasma concentrations of Na + , K + and Cl − . Milk yield was significantly higher in suckled cows than in cows milked six times daily, but significantly lower in cows milked three times daily. In cows milked six times daily, and to a greater extent in suckled cows, there was a reduction in plasma osmolality and monovalent ion concentrations (Na + , K + and Cl − ), which could increase the susceptibility of the cows to water intoxication. Moreover, suckling or milking the cows six times daily was associated with increased fluctuations in plasma osmolality and plasma Cl − concentrations. The decrease in plasma osmolality and ion concentration and the increased variation in plasma osmolality and Cl − were probably related to increased water intake and may be indicative of a severe challenge to homoeostasis regulation

Trust and distrust in contradictory information transmission

We analyse the problem of contradictory information distribution in networks of agents with positive and negative trust. The networks of interest are built by ranked agents with different epistemic attitudes. In this context, positive trust is a property of the communication between agents required when message passing is executed bottom-up in the hierarchy, or as a result of a sceptic agent checking information. These two situations are associated with a confirmation procedure that has an epistemic cost. Negative trust results from refusing verification, either of contradictory information or because of a lazy attitude. We offer first a natural deduction system called SecureNDsim to model these interactions and consider some meta-theoretical properties of its derivations. We then implement it in a NetLogo simulation to test experimentally its formal properties. Our analysis concerns in particular: conditions for consensus-reaching transmissions; epistemic costs induced by confirmation and rejection operations; the influence of ranking of the initially labelled nodes on consensus and costs; complexity results

Proteolysis of Human Thrombin Generates Novel Host Defense Peptides

The coagulation system is characterized by the sequential and highly localized activation of a series of serine proteases, culminating in the conversion of fibrinogen into fibrin, and formation of a fibrin clot. Here we show that C-terminal peptides of thrombin, a key enzyme in the coagulation cascade, constitute a novel class of host defense peptides, released upon proteolysis of thrombin in vitro, and detected in human wounds in vivo. Under physiological conditions, these peptides exert antimicrobial effects against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, mediated by membrane lysis, as well as immunomodulatory functions, by inhibiting macrophage responses to bacterial lipopolysaccharide. In mice, they are protective against P. aeruginosa sepsis, as well as lipopolysaccharide-induced shock. Moreover, the thrombin-derived peptides exhibit helical structures upon binding to lipopolysaccharide and can also permeabilize liposomes, features typical of “classical” helical antimicrobial peptides. These findings provide a novel link between the coagulation system and host-defense peptides, two fundamental biological systems activated in response to injury and microbial invasion

Measure-Based Inconsistency-Tolerant Maintenance of Database Integrity

[EN] To maintain integrity, constraint violations should be prevented or repaired. However, it may not be feasible to avoid inconsistency, or to repair all violations at once. Based on an abstract concept of violation measures, updates and repairs can be checked for keeping inconsistency bounded, such that integrity violations are guaranteed to never get out of control. This measure-based approach goes beyond conventional methods that are not meant to be applied in the presence of inconsistency. It also generalizes recently introduced concepts of inconsistency-tolerant integrity maintenance.Partially supported by FEDER and the Spanish grants TIN2009-14460-C03 and TIN2010-17139Decker, H. (2013). Measure-Based Inconsistency-Tolerant Maintenance of Database Integrity. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 7693:149-173. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36008-4_7S1491737693Abiteboul, S., Hull, R., Vianu, V.: Foundations of Databases. 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Springer, Heidelberg (2011)Decker, H.: Causes of the Violation of Integrity Constraints for Supporting the Quality of Databases. In: Murgante, B., Gervasi, O., Iglesias, A., Taniar, D., Apduhan, B.O. (eds.) ICCSA 2011, Part V. LNCS, vol. 6786, pp. 283–292. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)Decker, H.: Inconsistency-tolerant Integrity Checking based on Inconsistency Metrics. In: König, A., Dengel, A., Hinkelmann, K., Kise, K., Howlett, R.J., Jain, L.C. (eds.) KES 2011, Part II. LNCS, vol. 6882, pp. 548–558. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)Decker, H.: Partial Repairs that Tolerate Inconsistency. In: Eder, J., Bielikova, M., Tjoa, A.M. (eds.) ADBIS 2011. LNCS, vol. 6909, pp. 389–400. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)Decker, H.: Consistent Explanations of Answers to Queries in Inconsistent Knowledge Bases. In: Roth-Berghofer, T., Tintarev, N., Leake, D. (eds.) Explanation-aware Computing, Proc. IJCAI 2011 Workshop ExaCt 2011, pp. 71–80 (2011), http://exact2011.workshop.hm/index.phpDecker, H., Martinenghi, D.: Classifying integrity checking methods with regard to inconsistency tolerance. In: Proc. PPDP 2008, pp. 195–204. ACM Press (2008)Decker, H., Martinenghi, D.: Modeling, Measuring and Monitoring the Quality of Information. In: Heuser, C.A., Pernul, G. (eds.) ER 2009. LNCS, vol. 5833, pp. 212–221. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)Decker, H., Martinenghi, D.: Inconsistency-tolerant Integrity Checking. IEEE TKDE 23(2), 218–234 (2011)Decker, H., Muñoz-Escoí, F.D.: Revisiting and Improving a Result on Integrity Preservation by Concurrent Transactions. In: Meersman, R., Dillon, T., Herrero, P. (eds.) OTM 2010 Workshops. LNCS, vol. 6428, pp. 297–306. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)Dung, P., Kowalski, R., Toni, F.: Dialectic Proof Procedures for Assumption-based Admissible Argumentation. 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Functional characterization of the human myosin-7a motor domain

Myosin-7a participates in auditory and visual processes. Defects in MYO7A, the gene encoding the myosin-7a heavy chain, are causative for Usher syndrome 1B, the most frequent cause of deaf-blindness in humans. In the present study, we performed a detailed kinetic and functional characterization of the isolated human myosin-7a motor domain to elucidate the details of chemomechanical coupling and the regulation of motor function. A rate-limiting, slow ADP release step causes long lifetimes of strong actin-binding intermediates and results in a high duty ratio. Moreover, our results reveal a Mg2+-sensitive regulatory mechanism tuning the kinetic and mechanical properties of the myosin-7a motor domain. We obtained direct evidence that changes in the concentration of free Mg2+ ions affect the motor properties of human myosin-7a using an in vitro motility assay system. Our results suggest that in a cellular environment, compartment-specific fluctuations in free Mg2+ ions can mediate the conditional switching of myosin-7a between cargo moving and tension bearing modes