3D Raman mapping of the collagen fibril orientation in human osteonal lamellae

AbstractChemical composition and fibrillar organization are the major determinants of osteonal bone mechanics. However, prominent methodologies commonly applied to investigate mechanical properties of bone on the micro scale are usually not able to concurrently describe both factors. In this study, we used polarized Raman spectroscopy (PRS) to simultaneously analyze structural and chemical information of collagen fibrils in human osteonal bone in a single experiment. Specifically, the three-dimensional arrangement of collagen fibrils in osteonal lamellae was assessed. By analyzing the anisotropic intensity of the amide I Raman band of collagen as a function of the orientation of the incident laser polarization, different parameters related to the orientation of the collagen fibrils and the degree of alignment of the fibrils were derived. Based on the analysis of several osteons, two major fibrillar organization patterns were identified, one with a monotonic and another with a periodically changing twist direction. These results confirm earlier reported twisted and oscillating plywood arrangements, respectively. Furthermore, indicators of the degree of alignment suggested the presence of disordered collagen within the lamellar organization of the osteon. The results show the versatility of the analytical PRS approach and demonstrate its capability in providing not only compositional, but also 3D structural information in a complex hierarchically structured biological material. The concurrent assessment of chemical and structural features may contribute to a comprehensive characterization of the microstructure of bone and other collagen-based tissues

On Renyi entropies characterizing the shape and the extension of the phase space representation of quantum wave functions in disordered systems

We discuss some properties of the generalized entropies, called Renyi entropies and their application to the case of continuous distributions. In particular it is shown that these measures of complexity can be divergent, however, their differences are free from these divergences thus enabling them to be good candidates for the description of the extension and the shape of continuous distributions. We apply this formalism to the projection of wave functions onto the coherent state basis, i.e. to the Husimi representation. We also show how the localization properties of the Husimi distribution on average can be reconstructed from its marginal distributions that are calculated in position and momentum space in the case when the phase space has no structure, i.e. no classical limit can be defined. Numerical simulations on a one dimensional disordered system corroborate our expectations.Comment: 8 pages with 2 embedded eps figures, RevTex4, AmsMath included, submitted to PR

Optimized generation of spatial qudits by using a pure phase spatial light modulator

We present a method for preparing arbitrary pure states of spatial qudits, namely, D-dimensional (D > 2) quantum systems carrying information in the transverse momentum and position of single photons. For this purpose, a set of D slits with complex transmission are displayed on a spatial light modulator (SLM). In a recent work we have shown a method that requires a single phase-only SLM to control independently the complex coefficients which define the quantum state of dimension D. The amplitude information was codified by introducing phase gratings inside each slit and the phase value of the complex transmission was added to the phase gratings. After a spatial filtering process we obtained in the image plane the desired qudit state. Although this method has proven to be a good alternative to compact the previously reported architectures, it presents some features that could be improved. In this paper we present an alternative scheme to codify the required phase values that minimizes the effects of temporal phase fluctuations associated to the SLM where the codification is carried on. In this scheme the amplitudes are set by appropriate phase gratings addressed at the SLM while the relative phases are obtained by a lateral displacement of these phase gratings. We show that this method improves the quality of the prepared state and provides very high fidelities of preparation for any state. An additional advantage of this scheme is that a complete 2\pi modulation is obtained by shifting the grating by one period, and hence the encoding is not limited by the phase modulation range achieved by the SLM. Numerical simulations, that take into account the phase fluctuations, show high fidelities for thousands of qubit states covering the whole Bloch sphere surface. Similar analysis are performed for qudits with D = 3 and D = 7.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Physicochemical quality of directly sold raw milk in Hungary

The importance of short food supply chains is increasing in the food sector, and direct selling is a promising alternative to commercial chains in dairy trade. Several channels and practices of direct raw milk sales exist in Hungary. Because short food supply chains in the Hungarian dairy sector have not yet been investigated in detail, we have little or no knowledge on the composition of directly sold raw milk. For this reason, a 9-month study was undertaken from June 2013 through February 2014, wherein directly sold raw bovine milk samples were tested for fat, protein, lactose, and solids-not-fat contents and for freezing point. A total of 21 direct sellers located in Budapest, Hungary were sampled twice a month. The results were compared to the official Hungarian raw milk quality data referring to the same period. The direct milk vendors involved in this study were found to sell raw milk with reduced levels of lactose and solids-not-fat and elevated freezing points, compared to the national raw milk data. The findings of this research underline the need for stricter regulations and control with respect to direct raw milk sales in the country

Analiza procesa izgaranja u peći za taljenje aluminija

The composition of gaseous combustion product leaving the chamber of aluminium melting furnace in TLM Šibenik was investigated by measurements and numerical analysis in order to reduce the fuel consumption and increase the capacity of the existing furnace. Investigations were motivated by the fact that the actual specific fuel consumption was considerably higher and the actual furnace production was considerably lower than the design values according to the furnace technical documentation and the previous reached values in practice.Sastav plinovitih produkata izgaranja koji napuštaju radni prostor peći za taljenje aluminija u TLM Šibenik je istraživan mjerenjima i numeričkom analizom u cilju da se smanji potrošnja goriva i poveća kapacitet postojeće peći. Istraživanja su bila motivirana činjenicom da je stvarna specifična potrošnja goriva znatno veća, a kapacitet peći znatno manji od projektiranih vrijednosti prema tehničkoj dokumentaciji peći i prethodno u praksi postignutih vrijednosti

Comment on ``Critical Behavior in Disordered Quantum Systems Modified by Broken Time--Reversal Symmetry''

In a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 1003 (1998)] Hussein and Pato employed the maximum entropy principle (MEP) in order to derive interpolating ensembles between any pair of universality classes in random matrix theory. They apply their formalism also to the transition from random matrix to Poisson statistics of spectra that is observed for the case of the Anderson-type metal-insulator transition. We point out the problems with the latter procedure.Comment: 1 page in PS, to appear in PRL Sept. 2