47,296 research outputs found
Modulation of swimming in the gastropod Melibe leonina by nitric oxide
Nitric oxide (NO) is a gaseous intercellular messenger produced by the enzyme nitric oxide synthase. It has been implicated as a neuromodulator in several groups of animals, including gastropods, crustaceans and mammals. In this study, we investigated the effects of NO on the swim motor program produced by isolated brains and by semi-intact preparations of the nudibranch Melibe leonina. The NO donors sodium nitroprusside (SNP, 1 mmol l–1) and S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP, 1 mmol l–1) both had a marked effect on the swim motor program expressed in isolated brains, causing an increase in the period of the swim cycle and a more erratic swim rhythm. In semi-intact preparations, the effect of NO donors was manifested as a significant decrease in the rate of actual swimming. An NO scavenger, reduced oxyhemoglobin, eliminated the effects of NO donors on isolated brains, supporting the assumption that the changes in swimming induced by donors were actually due to NO. The cGMP analogue 8-bromoguanosine 3′,5′-cyclic monophosphate (1 mmol l–1) produced effects that mimicked those of NO donors, suggesting that NO is working via a cGMP-dependent mechanism. These results, in combination with previous histological studies indicating the endogenous presence of nitric oxide synthase, suggest that NO is used in the central nervous system of Melibe leonina to modulate swimming
Coulomb gauge confinement in the heavy quark limit
The relationship between the nonperturbative Green's functions of Yang-Mills
theory and the confinement potential is investigated. By rewriting the
generating functional of quantum chromodynamics in terms of a heavy quark mass
expansion in Coulomb gauge, restricting to leading order in this expansion and
considering only the two-point functions of the Yang-Mills sector, the
rainbow-ladder approximation to the gap and Bethe-Salpeter equations is shown
to be exact in this case and an analytic, nonperturbative solution is
presented. It is found that there is a direct connection between the string
tension and the temporal gluon propagator. Further, it is shown that for the
4-point quark correlation functions, only confined bound states of
color-singlet quark-antiquark (meson) and quark-quark (baryon) pairs exist.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure
Gills as Possible Accessory Circulatory Pumps in Limulus polyphemus
Heart electrical activity (ECGs), gill closer muscle potentials (EMGs), and blood pressures in the heart and the branchiocardiac canals, were measured in adult horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) during various activities. During ventilation, hyperventilation, and swimming, large transient increases in pressures (10-35 cm H2O) occur in the branchiocardiac canals, which carry blood from the gills to the heart. These pulses of positive pressure are related to, and apparently caused by, gill plate closing. During quiescent periods, with no ventilatory activity, there are no pressure pulses in the canals, but the pressure is still greater than zero. We found covariation of heart and ventilation rates during intermittent ventilation, hyperventilation, gill cleaning, and swimming, as well as evidence of transient periods of phasic coordination. The heart appears to be weakly entrained to the gill rhythm by phasic cardioregulatory nerve input. The preferred phase of heartbeats, with respect to gill rhythm, was 0.5, or 180 degrees out of phase. In some animals, intra-cardiac pressures were enhanced when the heart and gill rhythms were entrained. We suggest that rhythmic movements of the gill plates enhance the flow of low pressure blood returning from the body to the heart. Thus, ventilatory appendage movements may constitute an accessory blood pumping mechanism in Limulus
Intensity-Correlation Spectroscopy
A survey is given of techniques for spectroscopic analysis using intensity fluctuations. Particular attention is given to counting times, the role of macroscopic sources and detectors, and the electronic constraints placed on the observations
How did leading indicator forecasts perform during the 2001 recession?
Economic indicators ; Economic conditions ; Recessions
A flight-test evaluation of a go-around control system for a twin engine powered-lift STOL airplane
An automatic go-around control system was evaluated on the Augmentor Wing Jet Short Takeoff and Landing (STOL) Research Airplane (AWJSRA) as part of a study of an automatic landing system for a powered-lift STOL airplane. The results of the evaluation indicate that the go-around control system can successfully transition the airplane to a climb configuration from any initiation point during the glide-slope track or the flare maneuver prior to touchdown
Habitable Zone Lifetime of Exoplanets around Main Sequence Stars
Funding: Dean's Scholarship at the University of East Anglia.The potential habitability of newly discovered exoplanets is initially assessed by determining whether their orbits fall within the circumstellar habitable zone of their star. However, the habitable zone (HZ) is not static in time or space, and its boundaries migrate outward at a rate proportional to the increase in luminosity of a star undergoing stellar evolution, possibly including or excluding planets over the course of the star’s main sequence lifetime. We describe the time that a planet spends within the HZ as its ‘‘habitable zone lifetime.’’ The HZ lifetime of a planet has strong astrobiological implications and is especially important when considering the evolution of complex life, which is likely to require a longer residence time within the HZ. Here, we present results from a simple model built to investigate the evolution of the ‘‘classic’’ HZ over time, while also providing estimates for the evolution of stellar luminosity over time in order to develop a ‘‘hybrid’’ HZ model. These models return estimates for the HZ lifetimes of Earth and 7 confirmed HZ exoplanets and 27 unconfirmed Kepler candidates. The HZ lifetime for Earth ranges between 6.29 and 7.79 · 109 years (Gyr). The 7 exoplanets fall in a range between ∼1 and 54.72 Gyr, while the 27 Kepler candidate planets’ HZ lifetimes range between 0.43 and 18.8 Gyr. Our results show that exoplanet HD 85512b is no longer within the HZ, assuming it has an Earth analog atmosphere. The HZ lifetime should be considered in future models of planetary habitability as setting an upper limit on the lifetime of any potential exoplanetary biosphere, and also for identifying planets of high astrobiological potential for continued observational or modeling campaigns.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
Leading order infrared quantum chromodynamics in Coulomb gauge
A truncation scheme for the Dyson-Schwinger equations of quantum
chromodynamics in Coulomb gauge within the first order formalism is presented.
The truncation is based on an Ansatz for the Coulomb kernel occurring in the
action. Results at leading loop order and in the infrared are discussed for
both the Yang-Mills and quark sectors. It is found that the resulting equations
for the static gluon and quark propagators agree with those derived in a
quasi-particle approximation to the canonical Hamiltonian approach. Moreover, a
connection to the heavy quark limit is established. The equations are analyzed
numerically and it is seen that in both the gluonic and quark sectors, a
nontrivial dynamical infrared mass scale emerges.Comment: 27 pages, 11 figure
Understanding Astrophysical Noise from Stellar Surface Magneto-Convection
To obtain cm/s precision, stellar surface magneto-convection must be
disentangled from observed radial velocities (RVs). In order to understand and
remove the convective signature, we create Sun-as-a-star model observations
based on a 3D magnetohydrodynamic solar simulation. From these Sun-as-a-star
model observations, we find several line characteristics are correlated with
the induced RV shifts. The aim of this campaign is to feed directly into future
high precision RV studies, such as the search for habitable, rocky worlds, with
forthcoming spectrographs such as ESPRESSO.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; presented at the 18th Cambridge Workshop on Cool
Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun (CoolStars18); to appear in the
proceedings of Lowell Observatory (9-13 June 2014), edited by G. van Belle &
H. Harris. Updated with correct y-axis units on righthand plot in figure
Perturbation Theory of Coulomb Gauge Yang-Mills Theory Within the First Order Formalism
Perturbative Coulomb gauge Yang-Mills theory within the first order formalism
is considered. Using a differential equation technique and dimensional
regularization, analytic results for both the ultraviolet divergent and finite
parts of the two-point functions at one-loop order are derived. It is shown how
the non-ultraviolet divergent parts of the results are finite at spacelike
momenta with kinematical singularities on the light-cone and subsequent branch
cuts extending into the timelike region.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure
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