Largest impact craters on Venus

High-resolution radar images from the Magellan spacecraft have allowed us to perform a detailed study on 25 large impact craters on Venus with diameters from 70 to 280 km. The dimension of these large craters is comparable with the characteristic thickness of the venusian lithosphere and the atmospheric scale height. Some physical parameters for the largest impact craters on Venus (LICV), such as depth, ring/diameter ratio, and range of ballistic ejecta deposits, have been obtained from the SAR images and the altimetry dataset produced by MIT. Data related to each of these parameters is discussed

Incompressible strips in dissipative Hall bars as origin of quantized Hall plateaus

We study the current and charge distribution in a two dimensional electron system, under the conditions of the integer quantized Hall effect, on the basis of a quasi-local transport model, that includes non-linear screening effects on the conductivity via the self-consistently calculated density profile. The existence of ``incompressible strips'' with integer Landau level filling factor is investigated within a Hartree-type approximation, and non-local effects on the conductivity along those strips are simulated by a suitable averaging procedure. This allows us to calculate the Hall and the longitudinal resistance as continuous functions of the magnetic field B, with plateaus of finite widths and the well-known, exactly quantized values. We emphasize the close relation between these plateaus and the existence of incompressible strips, and we show that for B values within these plateaus the potential variation across the Hall bar is very different from that for B values between adjacent plateaus, in agreement with recent experiments.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, All color onlin

Vaginal Candida parapsilosis: pathogen or bystander?

OBJECTIVE: Candida parapsilosis is an infrequent isolate on vaginal cultures; its role as a vaginal pathogen remains unstudied. This retrospective study of women with positive culture for C. parapsilosis sought to characterize the significance of this finding and its response to antifungal therapy. METHODS: From February 2001 to August 2002, we identified all individuals with positive fungal isolates among a population of women with chronic vulvovaginal symptoms. Charts of women with C. parapsilosis cultures were reviewed with regard to patient demographics, clinical presentation and therapeutic response. Mycological cure, defined as a negative fungal culture at the next office visit, and clinical cure, i.e. symptom resolution, were determined for each subject. RESULTS: A total of 582 women had positive vaginal cultures for 635 isolates, of which 54 (8.5%) were C. parapsilosis. The charts of 51 subjects with C. parapsilosis were available for review and follow-up cultures and clinical information were available for 39 (76.5%). Microscopy was positive in 9 (17.6%). Antifungal treatment resulted in mycological cure in 17/19 patients with fluconazole, 7/7 with butoconazole, 6/6 with boric acid, 1/1 with miconazole and occurred spontaneously in 6/7: 24/37 (64.9%) patients with a mycological cure experienced clinical cure. CONCLUSIONS: Although C. parapsilosis is often a cause of vaginal symptoms, it seems to respond to a variety of antifungal agents and may even be a transient vaginal colonizer

\u3cem\u3eIn vivo\u3c/em\u3e Imaging of Human Retinal Microvasculature Using Adaptive Optics Scanning Light Ophthalmoscope Fluorescein Angiography

The adaptive optics scanning light ophthalmoscope (AOSLO) allows visualization of microscopic structures of the human retina in vivo. In this work, we demonstrate its application in combination with oral and intravenous (IV) fluorescein angiography (FA) to the in vivo visualization of the human retinal microvasculature. Ten healthy subjects ages 20 to 38 years were imaged using oral (7 and/or 20 mg/kg) and/or IV (500 mg) fluorescein. In agreement with current literature, there were no adverse effects among the patients receiving oral fluorescein while one patient receiving IV fluorescein experienced some nausea and heaving. We determined that all retinal capillary beds can be imaged using clinically accepted fluorescein dosages and safe light levels according to the ANSI Z136.1-2000 maximum permissible exposure. As expected, the 20 mg/kg oral dose showed higher image intensity for a longer period of time than did the 7 mg/kg oral and the 500 mg IV doses. The increased resolution of AOSLO FA, compared to conventional FA, offers great opportunity for studying physiological and pathological vascular processes

Stiffness of the Crystal-Liquid Interface in a Hard-Sphere Colloidal System Measured from Capillary Fluctuations

Face-centered cubic single crystals of $σ=1.55 μm$ diameter hard-sphere silica colloidal particles were prepared by sedimentation onto (100) and (110) oriented templates. The crystals had a wide interface with the overlaying liquid that was parallel to the template. The location of the interface was determined by confocal microscopic location of the particles, followed by identification of the crystalline and liquid phases by a bond-orientation order parameter. Fluctuations in the height of the interface about its average position were recorded for several hundred configurations. The interfacial stiffness $γ̃$ was determined from the slope of the inverse squared Fourier components of the height profile vs the square of the wave number, according to the continuum capillary fluctuation method. The offset of the fit from the origin could quantitatively be accounted for by gravitational damping of the fluctuations. For the (100) interface, $γ̃ =(1.3±0.3)k_{B}T/σ^{2}$; for the (110) interface, $γ̃ =(1.0±0.2)k_{B}T/σ^{2}$. The interfacial stiffness of both interfaces was found to be isotropic in the plane. This is surprising for the (110), where crystallography predicts twofold symmetry. Sedimentation onto a (111) template yielded a randomly stacked hexagonal crystal with isotropic $γ̃ =0.66k_{B}T/σ^{2}$. This value, however, is less reliable than the two others due to imperfections in the crystal.Engineering and Applied SciencesPhysic

Volume 22, Number 3, September 2002 OLAC Newsletter

Digitized September 2002 issue of the OLAC Newsletter

Low-emissivity impact craters on Venus

An analysis of 144 impact craters on Venus has shown that 11 of these have floors with average emissivities lower than 0.8. The remaining craters have emissivities between 0.8 and 0.9, independent of the specific backscatter cross section of the crater floors. These 144 impact craters were chosen from a possible 164 craters with diameters greater than 30 km as identified by researchers for 89 percent of the surface of Venus. We have only looked at craters below 6053.5 km altitude because a mineralogical change causes high reflectivity/low emissivity above the altitude. We have also excluded all craters with diameters smaller than 30 km because the emissivity footprint at periapsis is 16 x 24 km and becomes larger at the poles

Comparison of Adaptive Optics Scanning Light Ophthalmoscopic Fluorescein Angiography and Offset Pinhole Imaging

Recent advances to the adaptive optics scanning light ophthalmoscope (AOSLO) have enabled finer in vivo assessment of the human retinal microvasculature. AOSLO confocal reflectance imaging has been coupled with oral fluorescein angiography (FA), enabling simultaneous acquisition of structural and perfusion images. AOSLO offset pinhole (OP) imaging combined with motion contrast post-processing techniques, are able to create a similar set of structural and perfusion images without the use of exogenous contrast agent. In this study, we evaluate the similarities and differences of the structural and perfusion images obtained by either method, in healthy control subjects and in patients with retinal vasculopathy including hypertensive retinopathy, diabetic retinopathy, and retinal vein occlusion. Our results show that AOSLO OP motion contrast provides perfusion maps comparable to those obtained with AOSLO FA, while AOSLO OP reflectance images provide additional information such as vessel wall fine structure not as readily visible in AOSLO confocal reflectance images. AOSLO OP offers a non-invasive alternative to AOSLO FA without the need for any exogenous contrast agent

Resolving long-range spatial correlations in jammed colloidal systems using photon correlation imaging

We introduce a new dynamic light scattering method, termed photon correlation imaging, which enables us to resolve the dynamics of soft matter in space and time. We demonstrate photon correlation imaging by investigating the slow dynamics of a quasi two-dimensional coarsening foam made of highly packed, deformable bubbles and a rigid gel network formed by dilute, attractive colloidal particles. We find the dynamics of both systems to be determined by intermittent rearrangement events. For the foam, the rearrangements extend over a few bubbles, but a small dynamical correlation is observed up to macroscopic length scales. For the gel, dynamical correlations extend up to the system size. These results indicate that dynamical correlations can be extremely long-ranged in jammed systems and point to the key role of mechanical properties in determining their nature.Comment: Published version (Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 085702 (2009)) The Dynamical Activity Mapsprovided as Supplementary Online Material are also available on http://w3.lcvn.univ-montp2.fr/~lucacip/dam/movies.ht

Full Court Press: Northwestern University, A New Challenge To The NCAA

In recent years, a host of issues have arisen between the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the college athletes who provide the labor from which the NCAA and its member universities derive their profits. Many of these issues have been heavily publicized and have spurred a heated debate over the status of college athletes and the future of the collegiate athletic system. This Article primarily focuses on the issue of college athletes’ status as employees for purposes of federal labor law. The significant increase in the popularity of college sports in recent years has led to conference realignment, facility building and arms race, governance issues and litigation. The student-athletes, the players in the highly lucrative college football and basketball games have been left behind. They have resorted to challenging the NCAA’s system in many different ways. Recently, football players at Northwestern University successfully petitioned their local Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board for a union representation election, arguing that they are employees of the University and as such are entitled to collective bargaining rights and other protections under the National Labor Relations Act. Northwestern University has rejected this argument and has appealed the Regional Director’s decision to the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C. This Article provides a background for the highly contested dispute, refutes some of the common arguments made against the potential unionization of college athletics, and discusses some of the potential implications if players can and do form a union