847 research outputs found
Phase diagram and complexity of mode-locked lasers: from order to disorder
We investigate mode-locking processes in lasers displaying a variable degree
of structural randomness, from standard optical cavities to multiple-scattering
media. By employing methods mutuated from spin-glass theory, we analyze the
mean-field Hamiltonian and derive a phase-diagram in terms of the pumping rate
and the degree of disorder. Three phases are found: i) paramagnetic,
corresponding to a noisy continuous wave emission, ii) ferromagnetic, that
describes the standard passive mode-locking, and iii) the spin-glass in which
the phases of the electromagnetic field are frozen in a exponentially large
number of configurations. The way the mode-locking threshold is affected by the
amount of disorder is quantified. The results are also relevant for other
physical systems displaying a random Hamiltonian, like Bose-Einstein
condensates and nonlinear optical beams.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
ORIGIN OF LIGHT SCATTERING FROM DISORDERED SYSTEMS
Anelastic light scattering is computed numerically for model disordered
systems (linear chains and 2-dimensional site and bond percolators), with and
without electrical disorder. A detailed analysis of the vibrational modes and
of their Raman activity evidences that two extreme mechanisms for scattering
may be singled out. One of these resembles scattering from finite size systems,
while the other mechanisms originates from spatial fluctuations of the
polarizability and is such that modes in even small frequency intervals may
have very different Raman activities. As a consequence, the average coupling
coefficient is the variance of a zero-average quantity. Our
analysis shows that for both linear chains and 2-dimensional percolators the
second mechanism dominates over the first, and therefore Raman scattering from
disordered systems is essentially due to spatial fluctuations.Comment: 12 pages, Latex, 7 figures available on request
Inflammation, neurodegeneration and protein aggregation in the retina as ocular biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease in the 3xTg-AD mouse model
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly. In the pathogenesis of AD a pivotal role is played by two neurotoxic proteins that aggregate and accumulate in the central nervous system: amyloid beta and hyper-phosphorylated tau. Accumulation of extracellular amyloid beta plaques and intracellular hyper-phosphorylated tau tangles, and consequent neuronal loss begins 10-15 years before any cognitive impairment. In addition to cognitive and behavioral deficits, sensorial abnormalities have been described in AD patients and in some AD transgenic mouse models. Retina can be considered a simple model of the brain, as some pathological changes and therapeutic strategies from the brain may be observed or applicable to the retina. Here we propose new retinal biomarkers that could anticipate the AD diagnosis and help the beginning and the follow-up of possible future treatments. We analyzed retinal tissue of triple-transgenic AD mouse model (3xTg-AD) for the presence of pathological hallmarks during disease progression. We found the presence of amyloid beta plaques, tau tangles, neurodegeneration, and astrogliosis in the retinal ganglion cell layer of 3xTg-AD mice, already at pre-symptomatic stage. Moreover, retinal microglia in pre-symptomatic mice showed a ramified, anti-inflammatory phenotype which, during disease progression, switches to a pro-inflammatory, less ramified one, becoming neurotoxic. We hypothesize retina as a window through which monitor AD-related neurodegeneration process
Vibrational origin of the fast relaxation processes in molecular glass-formers
We study the interaction of the relaxation processes with the density
fluctuations by molecular dynamics simulation of a flexible molecule model for
o-terphenyl (oTP) in the liquid and supercooled phases. We find evidence,
besides the structural relaxation, of a secondary vibrational relaxation whose
characteristic time, few ps, is slightly temperature dependent. This i)
confirms the result by Monaco et al. [Phys. Rev, E 62, 7595 (2000)] of the
vibrational nature of the fast relaxation observed in Brillouin Light
Scattering (BLS) experiments in oTP; and ii) poses a caveat on the
interpretation of the BLS spectra of molecular systems in terms of a purely
center of mass dynamics.Comment: RevTeX, 5 pages, 4 eps figure
Laser beam filamentation in fractal aggregates
We investigate filamentation of a cw laser beam in soft matter such as
colloidal suspensions and fractal gels. The process, driven by
electrostriction, is strongly affected by material properties, which are taken
into account via the static structure factor, and have impact on the statistics
of the light filaments.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Revised version with corrected figure 5. To be
published in Phys. Rev. Let
PAHs and PCBs affect functionally intercorrelated genes in the sea urchin paracentrotus lividus embryos
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) represent the most common pollutants in the marine sediments. Previous investigations demonstrated short-term sublethal effects of sediments polluted with both contaminants on the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus after 2 months of exposure in mesocosms. In particular, morphological malformations observed in P. lividus embryos deriving from adults exposed to PAHs and PCBs were explained at molecular levels by de novo transcriptome assembly and real-time qPCR, leading to the identification of several differentially expressed genes involved in key physiological processes. Here, we extensively explored the genes involved in the response of the sea urchin P. lividus to PAHs and PCBs. Firstly, 25 new genes were identified and interactomic analysis revealed that they were functionally connected among them and to several genes previously defined as molecular targets of response to the two pollutants under analysis. The expression levels of these 25 genes were followed by Real Time qPCR, showing that almost all genes analyzed were affected by PAHs and PCBs. These findings represent an important further step in defining the impacts of slight concentrations of such contaminants on sea urchins and, more in general, on marine biota, increasing our knowledge of molecular targets involved in responses to environmental stressors
Two benthic diatoms, nanofrustulum shiloi and striatella unipunctata, encapsulated in alginate beads, influence the reproductive efficiency of paracentrotus lividus by modulating the gene expression
Physiological effects of algal metabolites is a key step for the isolation of interesting bioactive compounds. Invertebrate grazers may be fed on live diatoms or dried, pelletized, and added to compound feeds. Any method may reveal some shortcomings, due to the leaking of wound-activated compounds in the water prior to ingestion. For this reason, encapsulation may represent an important step of bioassay-guided fractionation, because it may assure timely preservation of the active compounds. Here we test the effects of the inclusion in alginate (biocompatible and non-toxic delivery system) matrices to produce beads containing two benthic diatoms for sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus feeding. In particular, we compared the effects of a diatom whose influence on P. lividus was known (Nanofrustulum shiloi) and those of a diatom suspected to be harmful to marine invertebrates, because it is often present in blooms (Striatella unipunctata). Dried N. shiloi and S. unipunctata were offered for one month after encapsulation in alginate hydrogel beads and the larvae produced by sea urchins were checked for viability and malformations. The results indicated that N. shiloi, already known for its toxigenic effects on sea urchin larvae, fully conserved its activity after inclusion in alginate beads. On the whole, benthic diatoms affected the embryogenesis of P. lividus, altering the expression of several genes involved in stress response, development, skeletogenesis and detoxification processes. Interactomic analysis suggested that both diatoms activated a similar stress response pathway, through the up-regulation of hsp60, hsp70, NF-κB, 14-3-3 ε and MDR1 genes. This research also demonstrates that the inclusion in alginate beads may represent a feasible technique to isolate diatom-derived bioactive compounds
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