Electric dipole rovibrational transitions in HD molecule

The rovibrational electric dipole transitions in the ground electronic state of the HD molecule are studied. A simple, yet rigorous formula is derived for the transition rates in terms of the electric dipole moment function $D(R)$, which is calculated in a wide range of $R$. Our numerical results for transition rates are in moderate agreement with experiments and previous calculations, but are at least an order of magnitude more accurate.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

Release of copper-amended particles from micronized copper-pressure-treated wood during mechanical abrasion

Background: We investigated the particles released due to abrasion of wood surfaces pressure-treated with micronized copper azole (MCA) wood preservative and we gathered preliminary data on its in vitro cytotoxicity for lung cells. The data were compared with particles released after abrasion of untreated, water (0% MCA)-pressure-treated, chromated copper (CC)-pressure-treated wood, and varnished wood. Size, morphology, and composition of the released particles were analyzed. Results: Our results indicate that the abrasion of MCA-pressure-treated wood does not cause an additional release of nanoparticles from the unreacted copper (Cu) carbonate nanoparticles from of the MCA formulation. However, a small amount of released Cu was detected in the nanosized fraction of wood dust, which could penetrate the deep lungs. The acute cytotoxicity studies were performed on a human lung epithelial cell line and human macrophages derived from a monocytic cell line. These cell types are likely to encounter the released wood particles after inhalation. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that under the experimental conditions chosen, MCA does not pose a specific additional nano-risk, i.e. there is no additional release of nanoparticles and no specific nano-toxicity for lung epithelial cells and macrophages

Relativistic calculation of the triton binding energy and its implications

First results for the triton binding energy obtained from the relativistic spectator or Gross equation are reported. The Dirac structure of the nucleons is taken into account. Numerical results are presented for a family of realistic OBE models with off-shell scalar couplings. It is shown that these off-shell couplings improve both the fits to the two-body data and the predictions for the binding energy.Comment: 5 pages, RevTeX 3.0, 1 figure (uses epsfig.sty

Time and dose dependency of bone-sarcomas in patients injected with radium-224

The time course and dose dependency of the incidence of bone-sarcomas among 900 German patients treated with high doses of radium-224 is analysed in terms of a proportional hazards model with a log-normal dependency of time to tumor and a linear-quadratic dose relation. The deduced dose dependency agrees well with a previous analysis in terms of a non-parametric proportional hazards model, and confirms the temporal distribution which has been used in the Radioepidemiological Tables of NIH. However, the linear-quadratic dose-response model gives a risk estimate for low doses which is somewhat less than half that obtained under the assumption of linearity. Dedicated to Prof. W. Jacobi on the occasion of his 60th birthday Work performed under Euratom contracts BI6-D-083-D, BI6-F-111-D, U.S. Department of Energy contract DE-AC 02-76 EV-00119, the U.S. National Cancer Institut

Spectral Properties of delta-Plutonium: Sensitivity to 5f Occupancy

By combining the local density approximation (LDA) with dynamical mean field theory (DMFT), we report a systematic analysis of the spectral properties of $\delta$-plutonium with varying $5f$ occupancy. The LDA Hamiltonian is extracted from a tight-binding (TB) fit to full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave (FP-LAPW) calculations. The DMFT equations are solved by the exact quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) method and the Hubbard-I approximation. We have shown for the first time the strong sensitivity of the spectral properties to the $5f$ occupancy, which suggests using this occupancy as a fitting parameter in addition to the Hubbard $U$. By comparing with PES data, we conclude that the ``open shell'' $5f^{5}$ configuration gives the best agreement, resolving the controversy over $5f$ ``open shell'' versus ``close shell'' atomic configurations in $\delta$-Pu.Comment: 6 pages, 2 embedded color figures, to appear in Physical Review

Antagonism of the mammalian target of rapamycin selectively mediates metabolic effects of epidermal growth factor receptor inhibition and protects human malignant glioma cells from hypoxia-induced cell death

Although inhibition of the epidermal growth factor receptor is a plausible therapy for malignant gliomas that, in vitro, enhances apoptosis, the results of clinical trials have been disappointing. The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a serine/threonine kinase that integrates starvation signals and generates adaptive responses that aim at the maintenance of energy homeostasis. Antagonism of mTOR has been suggested as a strategy to augment the efficacy of epidermal growth factor receptor inhibition by interfering with deregulated signalling cascades downstream of Akt. Here we compared effects of antagonism of mTOR utilizing rapamycin or a small hairpin RNA-mediated gene silencing to those of epidermal growth factor receptor inhibition or combined inhibition of epidermal growth factor receptor and mTOR in human malignant glioma cells. In contrast to epidermal growth factor receptor inhibition, mTOR antagonism neither induced cell death nor enhanced apoptosis induced by CD95 ligand or chemotherapeutic drugs. However, mTOR inhibition mimicked the hypoxia-protective effects of epidermal growth factor receptor inhibition by maintaining adenosine triphosphate levels. These in vitro experiments thus challenge the current view of mTOR as a downstream target of Akt that mediates antiapoptotic stimuli. Under the conditions of the tumour microenvironment, metabolic effects of inhibition of epidermal growth factor receptor, Akt and mTOR may adversely affect outcome by protecting the hypoxic tumour cell fractio

Study of relativistic bound states for scalar theories in Bethe-Salpeter and Dyson-Schwinger formalism

The Bethe-Salpeter equation for Wick-Cutkosky like models is solved in dressed ladder approximation. The bare vertex truncation of the Dyson-Schwinger equations for propagators is combined with the dressed ladder Bethe-Salpeter equation for the scalar S-wave bound state amplitudes. With the help of spectral representation the results are obtained directly in Minkowski space. We give a new analytic formula for the resulting equation simplifying the numerical treatment. The bare ladder approximation of Bethe-Salpeter equation is compared with the one with dressed ladder. The elastic electromagnetic form factors is calculated within the relativistic impulse approximation.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Electromagnetic Meson Form Factors in the Salpeter Model

We present a covariant scheme to calculate mesonic transitions in the framework of the Salpeter equation for $q\bar{q}$-states. The full Bethe Salpeter amplitudes are reconstructed from equal time amplitudes which were obtained in a previous paper\cite{Mue} by solving the Salpeter equation for a confining plus an instanton induced interaction. This method is applied to calculate electromagnetic form factors and decay widths of low lying pseudoscalar and vector mesons including predictions for CEBAF experiments. We also describe the momentum transfer dependence for the processes $\pi^0,\eta,\eta'\rightarrow\gamma\gamma^*$.Comment: 22 pages including 10 figure

Phase 2 - Parametric study of flight-induced pulmonary pathology Final report

Pulmonary pathological response data on four subjects after breathing conditioned atmosphere and being centrifuge

Benchmark performance of low-cost Sb2Se3 photocathodes for unassisted solar overall water splitting

Determining cost-effective semiconductors exhibiting desirable properties for commercial photoelectrochemical water splitting remains a challenge. Herein, we report a Sb2Se3 semiconductor that satisfies most requirements for an ideal high-performance photoelectrode, including a small band gap and favourable cost, optoelectronic properties, processability, and photocorrosion stability. Strong anisotropy, a major issue for Sb2Se3, is resolved by suppressing growth kinetics via close space sublimation to obtain high-quality compact thin films with favourable crystallographic orientation. The Sb2Se3 photocathode exhibits a high photocurrent density of almost 30mAcm(-2) at 0V against the reversible hydrogen electrode, the highest value so far. We demonstrate unassisted solar overall water splitting by combining the optimised Sb2Se3 photocathode with a BiVO4 photoanode, achieving a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 1.5% with stability over 10h under simulated 1 sun conditions employing a broad range of solar fluxes. Low-cost Sb2Se3 can thus be an attractive breakthrough material for commercial solar fuel production. While photoelectrochemical water splitting offers an integrated means to convert sunlight to a renewable fuel, cost-effective light-absorbers are rare. Here, authors report Sb2Se3 photocathodes for high-performance photoelectrochemical water splitting devices