403 research outputs found
Partitioning of phenanthrene by root cell walls and cell wall fractions of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)
Plant cells have been reported to play an important role in the uptake of organic contaminants. This study was undertaken to provide an insight into the role of the root cell walls and their subfractions on sorption of phenanthrene to roots of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Root cell walls were isolated and further sequentially fractioned by removing pectin, hemicellulose one, and hemicellulose two. They were characterized by elemental analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and solid-state (13)C NMR. Root cell walls had a greater proportion of aromatic carbon and exhibited a lower polarity than the bulk roots. There was a stepwise increase in aromatic carbon content and a decrease in polarity following the sequential fractionation. The sorption affinity of phenanthrene increased gradually following the sequential extraction of root cells. A significant positive correlation between the sorption affinity K(OC) values and the aromatic carbon contents (r(2) = 0.896, p < 0.01) and a negative correlation between the sorption affinity K(OC) values and polarity ((O + N)/C) of root cell fractions (r(2) = 0.920, p < 0.01) were obtained. Improved modeling was achieved for phenanthrene sorption by involving the contribution of root cell walls as a source of root carbohydrates instead of using root lipids alone, which further confirms the significant contribution of root cell walls to phenanthrene sorption on wheat roots. The results provide evidence for the importance of the root cell walls in the partitioning of phenanthrene by plant roots
On the Origin of Peak-dip-hump Structure in the In-plane Optical Conductivity of the High Cuprates; Role of Antiferromagnetic Spin Fluctuations of Short Range Order
An improved U(1) slave-boson approach is applied to study the optical
conductivity of the two dimensional systems of antiferromagnetically correlated
electrons over a wide range of hole doping and temperature. Interplay between
the spin and charge degrees of freedom is discussed to explain the origin of
the peak-dip-hump structure in the in-plane conductivity of high
cuprates. The role of spin fluctuations of short range order(spin singlet pair)
is investigated. It is shown that the spin fluctuations of the short range
order can cause the mid-infrared hump, by exhibiting a linear increase of the
hump frequency with the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg coupling strength
Higgs-Boson Production Associated with a Single Bottom Quark in Supersymmetric QCD
Due to the enhancement of the couplings between Higgs boson and bottom quarks
in the minimal sypersymmetric standard model (MSSM), the cross section of the
process pp(p\bar{p}) \to h^0b(h^0\bar{b})+X at hadron colliders can be
considerably enhanced. We investigated the production of Higgs boson associated
with a single high-p_T bottom quark via subprocess bg(\bar{b}g) \to
h^0b(h^0\bar{b}) at hadron colliders including the next-to-leading order (NLO)
QCD corrections in MSSM. We find that the NLO QCD correction in the MSSM
reaches 50%-70% at the LHC and 60%-85% at the Fermilab Tevatron in our chosen
parameter space.Comment: accepted by Phys. Rev.
Edge magnetoplasmons in periodically modulated structures
We present a microscopic treatment of edge magnetoplasmons (EMP's) within the
random-phase approximation for strong magnetic fields, low temperatures, and
filling factor , when a weak short-period superlattice potential is
imposed along the Hall bar. The modulation potential modifies both the spatial
structure and the dispersion relation of the fundamental EMP and leads to the
appearance of a novel gapless mode of the fundamental EMP. For sufficiently
weak modulation strengths the phase velocity of this novel mode is almost the
same as the group velocity of the edge states but it should be quite smaller
for stronger modulation. We discuss in detail the spatial structure of the
charge density of the renormalized and the novel fundamental EMP's.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Charge Deficiency, Charge Transport and Comparison of Dimensions
We study the relative index of two orthogonal infinite dimensional
projections which, in the finite dimensional case, is the difference in their
dimensions. We relate the relative index to the Fredholm index of appropriate
operators, discuss its basic properties, and obtain various formulas for it. We
apply the relative index to counting the change in the number of electrons
below the Fermi energy of certain quantum systems and interpret it as the
charge deficiency. We study the relation of the charge deficiency with the
notion of adiabatic charge transport that arises from the consideration of the
adiabatic curvature. It is shown that, under a certain covariance,
(homogeneity), condition the two are related. The relative index is related to
Bellissard's theory of the Integer Hall effect. For Landau Hamiltonians the
relative index is computed explicitly for all Landau levels.Comment: 23 pages, no figure
Anomalous c-axis charge dynamics in copper oxide materials
Within the t-J model, the c-axis charge dynamics of the copper oxide
materials in the underdoped and optimally doped regimes is studied by
considering the incoherent interlayer hopping. It is shown that the c-axis
charge dynamics is mainly governed by the scattering from the in-plane
fluctuation. In the optimally doped regime, the c-axis resistivity is a linear
in temperatures, and shows the metallic-like behavior for all temperatures,
while the c-axis resistivity in the underdoped regime is characterized by a
crossover from the high temperature metallic-like behavior to the low
temperature semiconducting-like behavior, which are consistent with experiments
and numerical simulations.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, Three figures are adde
Broken-Symmetry States in Quantum Hall Superlattices
We argue that broken-symmetry states with either spatially diagonal or
spatially off-diagonal order are likely in the quantum Hall regime, for clean
multiple quantum well (MQW) systems with small layer separations. We find that
for MQW systems, unlike bilayers, charge order tends to be favored over
spontaneous interlayer coherence. We estimate the size of the interlayer
tunneling amplitude needed to stabilize superlattice Bloch minibands by
comparing the variational energies of interlayer-coherent superlattice miniband
states with those of states with charge order and states with no broken
symmetries. We predict that when coherent miniband ground states are stable,
strong interlayer electronic correlations will strongly enhance the
growth-direction tunneling conductance and promote the possibility of Bloch
oscillations.Comment: 9 pages LaTeX, 4 figures EPS, to be published in PR
Revisiting the -Meson Production at the Hadronic Colliders
The production of heavy-flavored hadron at the hadronic colliders provides a
challenging opportunity to test the validity of pQCD predictions. There are two
mechanisms for the hadroproduction, i.e. the gluon-gluon fusion
mechanism via the subprocess and the
extrinsic heavy quark mechanism via the subprocesses and , both of which shall have sizable
contributions in proper kinematic region. Different from the
fixed-flavor-number scheme (FFNS) previously adopted in the literature, we
study the hadroproduction under the general-mass
variable-flavor-number scheme (GM-VFNS), in which we can consistently deal with
the double counting problem from the above two mechanisms. Properties for the
hadroproduction are discussed. To be useful reference, a
comparative study of FFNS and GM-VFNS is presented. Both of which can provide
reasonable estimations for the hadroproduction. At the Tevatron,
the difference between these two schemes is small, however such difference is
obvious at the LHC. The forthcoming more precise data on LHC shall provide a
good chance to check which scheme is more appropriate to deal with the
-meson production and to further study the heavy quark components in
hadrons.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables. To match the published version. To be
published in Eur.Phys.J.
Anaemia in schoolchildren in eight countries in Africa and Asia
Objective: To report on the haemoglobin concentrations and prevalence of anaemia in schoolchildren in eight countries in Africa and Asia.
Design: Blood samples were collected during surveys of the health of schoolchildren as a part of programmes to develop school-based health services.
Setting: Rural schools in Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania and Vietnam.
Subjects: Nearly 14 000 children enrolled in basic education in three age ranges (7-11 years, 12-14 years and >/= 15 years) which reflect the new UNICEF/WHO
thresholds to define anaemia.
Results: Anaemia was found to be a severe public health problem (defined as >40% anaemic) in five African countries for children aged 7-11 years and in four of the same countries for children aged 12-14 years. Anaemia was not a public health problem in the children studied in the two Asian countries. More boys than girls were anaemic, and children who enrolled late in school were more likely to be
anaemic than children who enrolled closer to the correct age. The implications of the four new thresholds defining anaemia for school-age children are examined.
Conclusions: Anaemia is a significant problem in schoolchildren in sub-Saharan Africa. School-based health services which provide treatments for simple conditions
that cause blood loss, such as worms, followed by multiple micronutrient supplements including iron, have the potential to provide relief from a large burden of anaemia
Small Polarons in Transition Metal Oxides
The formation of polarons is a pervasive phenomenon in transition metal oxide
compounds, with a strong impact on the physical properties and functionalities
of the hosting materials. In its original formulation the polaron problem
considers a single charge carrier in a polar crystal interacting with its
surrounding lattice. Depending on the spatial extension of the polaron
quasiparticle, originating from the coupling between the excess charge and the
phonon field, one speaks of small or large polarons. This chapter discusses the
modeling of small polarons in real materials, with a particular focus on the
archetypal polaron material TiO2. After an introductory part, surveying the
fundamental theoretical and experimental aspects of the physics of polarons,
the chapter examines how to model small polarons using first principles schemes
in order to predict, understand and interpret a variety of polaron properties
in bulk phases and surfaces. Following the spirit of this handbook, different
types of computational procedures and prescriptions are presented with specific
instructions on the setup required to model polaron effects.Comment: 36 pages, 12 figure
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