Experimental study of equilibrium air total radiation

Experimental study of equilibrium air total radiatio

Hypervelocity heat transfer studies in simulated planetary atmospheres final report

Hypervelocity heat transfer studies in simulated planetary atmosphere

Reduced Retinal Microvascular Density, Improved Forepaw Reach, Comparative Microarray and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis with c-jun Targeting DNA Enzyme

Retinal neovascularization is a critical component in the pathogenesis of common ocular disorders that cause blindness, and treatment options are limited. We evaluated the therapeutic effect of a DNA enzyme targeting c-jun mRNA in mice with pre-existing retinal neovascularization. A single injection of Dz13 in a lipid formulation containing N-[1-(2,3-dioleoyloxy)propyl]-N,N,N-trimethylammonium methyl-sulfate and 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine inhibited c-Jun expression and reduced retinal microvascular density. The DNAzyme inhibited retinal microvascular density as effectively as VEGF-A antibodies. Comparative microarray and gene expression analysis determined that Dz13 suppressed not only c-jun but a range of growth factors and matrix-degrading enzymes. Dz13 in this formulation inhibited microvascular endothelial cell proliferation, migration and tubule formation in vitro. Moreover, animals treated with Dz13 sensed the top of the cage in a modified forepaw reach model, unlike mice given a DNAzyme with scrambled RNA-binding arms that did not affect c-Jun expression. These findings demonstrate reduction of microvascular density and improvement in forepaw reach in mice administered catalytic DNA.This work was supported by grants from Cancer Institute NSW and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Photoelectrochemical water splitting: silicon photocathodes for hydrogen evolution

The development of low cost, scalable, renewable energy technologies is one of today's most pressing scientific challenges. We report on progress towards the development of a photoelectrochemical water-splitting system that will use sunlight and water as the inputs to produce renewable hydrogen with oxygen as a by-product. This system is based on the design principle of incorporating two separate, photosensitive inorganic semiconductor/liquid junctions to collectively generate the 1.7-1.9 V at open circuit needed to support both the oxidation of H_2O (or OH^-) and the reduction of H^+ (or H_2O). Si microwire arrays are a promising photocathode material because the high aspect-ratio electrode architecture allows for the use of low cost, earth-abundant materials without sacrificing energy-conversion efficiency, due to the orthogonalization of light absorption and charge-carrier collection. Additionally, the high surfacearea design of the rod-based semiconductor array inherently lowers the flux of charge carriers over the rod array surface relative to the projected geometric surface of the photoelectrode, thus lowering the photocurrent density at the solid/liquid junction and thereby relaxing the demands on the activity (and cost) of any electrocatalysts. Arrays of Si microwires grown using the Vapor Liquid Solid (VLS) mechanism have been shown to have desirable electronic light absorption properties. We have demonstrated that these arrays can be coated with earth-abundant metallic catalysts and used for photoelectrochemical production of hydrogen. This development is a step towards the demonstration of a complete artificial photosynthetic system, composed of only inexpensive, earth-abundant materials, that is simultaneously efficient, durable, and scalable

On-demand microwave generator of shaped single photons

We demonstrate the full functionality of a circuit that generates single microwave photons on demand, with a wave packet that can be modulated with a near-arbitrary shape. We achieve such a high tunability by coupling a superconducting qubit near the end of a semi-infinite transmission line. A dc superconducting quantum interference device shunts the line to ground and is employed to modify the spatial dependence of the electromagnetic mode structure in the transmission line. This control allows us to couple and decouple the qubit from the line, shaping its emission rate on fast time scales. Our decoupling scheme is applicable to all types of superconducting qubits and other solid-state systems and can be generalized to multiple qubits as well as to resonators.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures. Published versio

Decomposition of the visible and dark matter in the Einstein ring 0047-2808 by semi-linear inversion

We measure the mass density profile of the lens galaxy in the Einstein ring system 0047-2808 using our semi-linear inversion method developed in an earlier paper. By introducing an adaptively gridded source plane, we are able to eliminate the need for regularisation of the inversion. This removes the problem of a poorly defined number of degrees of freedom, encountered by inversion methods that employ regularisation, and so allows a proper statistical comparison between models. We confirm the results of Wayth et al. (2004), that the source is double, and that a power-law model gives a significantly better fit that the singular isothermal ellipsoid model. We measure a slope alpha=2.11+/-0.04. We find, further, that a dual-component constant M/L baryonic + dark halo model gives a significantly better fit than the power-law model, at the 99.7% confidence level. The inner logarithmic slope of the dark halo profile is found to be 0.87^{+0.69}_{-0.61} (95% CL), consistent with the predictions of CDM simulations of structure formation. We determine an unevolved B-band mass to light ratio for the baryons (only) of 3.05^{+0.53}_{-0.90} h_65 M_sol/L_Bsol (95% CL). This is the first measurement of the baryonic M/L of a single galaxy by purely gravitational lens methods. The baryons account for 65^{+10}_{-18}% (95% CL) of the total projected mass, or, assuming spherical symmetry, 84^{+12}_{-24}% (95% CL) of the total three-dimensional mass within the mean radius of 1.16'' (7.5 h_65^{-1} kpc) traced by the ring. Finally, at the level of >3sigma, we find that the halo mass is rounder than the baryonic distribution and that the two components are offset in orientation from one another.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, accepted by ApJ on 17/12/05. This version corrects various typo