5,267 research outputs found
Development of 〈110〉 texture in copper thin films
Author name used in this publication: C. H. Woo2001-2002 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe
Influence of corruption on economic growth rate and foreign investments
In order to investigate whether government regulations against corruption can
affect the economic growth of a country, we analyze the dependence between
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita growth rates and changes in the
Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). For the period 1999-2004 on average for all
countries in the world, we find that an increase of CPI by one unit leads to an
increase of the annual GDP per capita by 1.7 %. By regressing only European
transition countries, we find that CPI = 1 generates increase of the
annual GDP per capita by 2.4 %. We also analyze the relation between foreign
direct investments received by different countries and CPI, and we find a
statistically significant power-law functional dependence between foreign
direct investment per capita and the country corruption level measured by the
CPI. We introduce a new measure to quantify the relative corruption between
countries based on their respective wealth as measured by GDP per capita.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, elsart styl
Quantitative relations between corruption and economic factors
We report quantitative relations between corruption level and economic
factors, such as country wealth and foreign investment per capita, which are
characterized by a power law spanning multiple scales of wealth and investments
per capita. These relations hold for diverse countries, and also remain stable
over different time periods. We also observe a negative correlation between
level of corruption and long-term economic growth. We find similar results for
two independent indices of corruption, suggesting that the relation between
corruption and wealth does not depend on the specific measure of corruption.
The functional relations we report have implications when assessing the
relative level of corruption for two countries with comparable wealth, and for
quantifying the impact of corruption on economic growth and foreign
investments.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure
Kinetics-limited surface structures at the nanoscale
Author name used in this publication: C. H. Woo2002-2003 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe
Engineering kinetic barriers in copper metallization
Author name used in this publication: C. H. Woo2002-2003 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe
Copper thin film of alternating textures
Author name used in this publication: C. H. Woo2002-2003 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe
Geometric discord and Measurement-induced nonlocality for well known bound entangled states
We employ geometric discord and measurement induced nonlocality to quantify
non classical correlations of some well-known bipartite bound entangled states,
namely the two families of Horodecki's (, and
dimensional) bound entangled states and that of Bennett etal's in
dimension. In most of the cases our results are analytic and both
the measures attain relatively small value. The amount of quantumness in the
bound entangled state of Benatti etal and the state
having the same matrix representation (in computational basis) is same.
Coincidently, the Werner and isotropic states also exhibit the
same property, when seen as dimensional states.Comment: V2: Title changed, one more state added; 11 pages (single column), 2
figures, accepted in Quantum Information Processin
The Quantized Hall Insulator: A New Insulator in Two-Dimensions
Quite generally, an insulator is theoretically defined by a vanishing
conductivity tensor at the absolute zero of temperature. In classical
insulators, such as band insulators, vanishing conductivities lead to diverging
resistivities. In other insulators, in particular when a high magnetic field
(B) is added, it is possible that while the magneto-resistance diverges, the
Hall resistance remains finite, which is known as a Hall insulator. In this
letter we demonstrate experimentally the existence of another, more exotic,
insulator. This insulator, which terminates the quantum Hall effect series in a
two-dimensional electron system, is characterized by a Hall resistance which is
approximately quantized in the quantum unit of resistance h/e^2. This insulator
is termed a quantized Hall insulator. In addition we show that for the same
sample, the insulating state preceding the QHE series, at low-B, is of the HI
kind.Comment: 4 page
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Cathelicidin preserves intestinal barrier function in polymicrobial sepsis.
ObjectivesThe intestinal epithelium compartmentalizes the sterile bloodstream and the commensal bacteria in the gut. Accumulating evidence suggests that this barrier is impaired in sepsis, aggravating systemic inflammation. Previous studies reported that cathelicidin is differentially expressed in various tissues in sepsis. However, its role in sepsis-induced intestinal barrier dysfunction has not been investigated.DesignTo examine the role of cathelicidin in polymicrobial sepsis, cathelicidin wild-(Cnlp+/+) and knockout (Cnlp-/-) mice underwent cecal-ligation and puncture (CLP) followed by the assessment of septic mortality and morbidity as well as histological, biochemical, immunological, and transcriptomic analyses in the ileal tissues. We also evaluated the prophylactic and therapeutic efficacies of vitamin D3 (an inducer of endogenous cathelicidin) in the CLP-induced murine polymicrobial sepsis model.ResultsThe ileal expression of cathelicidin was increased by three-fold after CLP, peaking at 4 h. Knockout of Cnlp significantly increased 7-day mortality and was associated with a higher murine sepsis score. Alcian-blue staining revealed a reduced number of mucin-positive goblet cells, accompanied by reduced mucin expression. Increased number of apoptotic cells and cleavage of caspase-3 were observed. Cnlp deletion increased intestinal permeability to 4kD fluorescein-labeled dextran and reduced the expression of tight junction proteins claudin-1 and occludin. Notably, circulating bacterial DNA load increased more than two-fold. Transcriptome analysis revealed upregulation of cytokine/inflammatory pathway. Depletion of Cnlp induced more M1 macrophages and neutrophils compared with the wild-type mice after CLP. Mice pre-treated with cholecalciferol (an inactive form of vitamin D3) or treated with 1alpha, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (an active form of VD3) had decreased 7-day mortality and significantly less severe symptoms. Intriguingly, the administration of cholecalciferol after CLP led to worsened 7-day mortality and the associated symptoms.ConclusionsEndogenous cathelicidin promotes intestinal barrier integrity accompanied by modulating the infiltration of neutrophils and macrophages in polymicrobial sepsis. Our data suggested that 1alpha, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 but not cholecalciferol is a potential therapeutic agent for treating sepsis
Atomic-scale images of charge ordering in a mixed-valence manganite
Transition-metal perovskite oxides exhibit a wide range of extraordinary but
imperfectly understood phenomena. Charge, spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of
freedom all undergo order-disorder transitions in regimes not far from where
the best-known of these phenomena, namely high-temperature superconductivity of
the copper oxides, and the 'colossal' magnetoresistance of the manganese
oxides, occur. Mostly diffraction techniques, sensitive either to the spin or
the ionic core, have been used to measure the order. Unfortunately, because
they are only weakly sensitive to valence electrons and yield superposition of
signals from distinct mesoscopic phases, they cannot directly image mesoscopic
phase coexistence and charge ordering, two key features of the manganites. Here
we describe the first experiment to image charge ordering and phase separation
in real space with atomic-scale resolution in a transition metal oxide. Our
scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) data show that charge order is correlated
with structural order, as well as with whether the material is locally metallic
or insulating, thus giving an atomic-scale basis for descriptions of the
manganites as mixtures of electronically and structurally distinct phases.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 19 reference
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