210 research outputs found
Properties of the phi meson at high temperatures and densities
We calculate the spectral density of the phi meson in a hot bath of nucleons
and pions using a general formalism relating self-energy to the forward
scattering amplitude (FSA). In order to describe the low energy FSA, we use
experimental data along with a background term. For the high energy FSA, a
Regge parameterization is employed. We verify the resulting FSA using
dispersion techniques. We find that the position of the peak of the spectral
density is slightly shifted from its vacuum position and that its width is
considerably increased. The width of the spectral density at a temperature of
150 MeV and at normal nuclear density is more than 90 MeV.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, Poster presented at Quark Matter 200
Is it possible to formulate least action principle for dissipative systems?
A longstanding open question in classical mechanics is to formulate the least
action principle for dissipative systems. In this work, we give a general
formulation of this principle by considering a whole conservative system
including the damped moving body and its environment receiving the dissipated
energy. This composite system has the conservative Hamiltonian
where is the kinetic energy of the moving body, its potential
energy and the energy of the environment. The Lagrangian can be derived
by using the usual Legendre transformation where is the
total kinetic energy of the environment. An equivalent expression of this
Lagrangian is where is the energy dissipated by the
friction from the moving body into the environment from the beginning of the
motion. The usual variation calculus of least action leads to the correct
equation of the damped motion. We also show that this general formulation is a
natural consequence of the virtual work principle.Comment: 11 pages, no figur
Progress in Classical and Quantum Variational Principles
We review the development and practical uses of a generalized Maupertuis
least action principle in classical mechanics, in which the action is varied
under the constraint of fixed mean energy for the trial trajectory. The
original Maupertuis (Euler-Lagrange) principle constrains the energy at every
point along the trajectory. The generalized Maupertuis principle is equivalent
to Hamilton's principle. Reciprocal principles are also derived for both the
generalized Maupertuis and the Hamilton principles. The Reciprocal Maupertuis
Principle is the classical limit of Schr\"{o}dinger's variational principle of
wave mechanics, and is also very useful to solve practical problems in both
classical and semiclassical mechanics, in complete analogy with the quantum
Rayleigh-Ritz method. Classical, semiclassical and quantum variational
calculations are carried out for a number of systems, and the results are
compared. Pedagogical as well as research problems are used as examples, which
include nonconservative as well as relativistic systems
Modification of proteolytic activity matrix analysis (PrAMA) to measure ADAM10 and ADAM17 sheddase activities in cell and tissue lysates
Increases in expression of ADAM10 and ADAM17 genes and proteins have been evaluated, but not validated as cancer biomarkers. Specific enzyme activities better reflect enzyme cellular functions, and might be better biomarkers than enzyme genes or proteins. However, no high throughput assay is available to test this possibility. Recent studies have developed the high throughput real-time proteolytic activity matrix analysis (PrAMA) that integrates the enzymatic processing of multiple enzyme substrates with mathematical-modeling computation. The original PrAMA measures with significant accuracy the activities of individual metalloproteinases expressed on live cells. To make the biomarker assay usable in clinical practice, we modified PrAMA by testing enzymatic activities in cell and tissue lysates supplemented with broad-spectrum non-MP enzyme inhibitors, and by maximizing the assay specificity using systematic mathematical-modeling analyses. The modified PrAMA accurately measured the absence and decreases of ADAM10 sheddase activity (ADAM10sa) and ADAM17sa in ADAM10-/- and ADAM17-/- mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs), and ADAM10- and ADAM17-siRNA transfected human cancer cells, respectively. It also measured the restoration and inhibition of ADAM10sa in ADAM10-cDNA-transfected ADAM10-/- MEFs and GI254023X-treated human cancer cell and tissue lysates, respectively. Additionally, the modified PrAMA simultaneously quantified with significant accuracy ADAM10sa and ADAM17sa in multiple human tumor specimens, and showed the essential characteristics of a robust high throughput multiplex assay that could be broadly used in biomarker studies. Selectively measuring specific enzyme activities, this new clinically applicable assay is potentially superior to the standard protein- and gene-expression assays that do not distinguish active and inactive enzyme forms
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