Collisions of Slow Highly Charged Ions with Surfaces

Progress in the study of collisions of multiply charged ions with surfaces is reviewed with the help of a few recent examples. They range from fundamental quasi-one electron processes to highly complex ablation and material modification processes. Open questions and possible future directions will be discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 16 figures, review pape

Cold Induction of EARLI1, a Putative Arabidopsis Lipid Transfer Protein, Is Light and Calcium Dependent

As sessile organisms, plants must adapt to their environment. One approach toward understanding this adaptation is to investigate environmental regulation of gene expression. Our focus is on the environmental regulation of EARLI1, which is activated by cold and long-day photoperiods. Cold activation of EARLI1 in short-day photoperiods is slow, requiring several hours at 4ºC to detect an increase in mRNA abundance. EARLI1 is not efficiently cold-activated in etiolated seedlings, suggesting that photomorphogenesis is necessary for its cold activation. Cold activation of EARLI1 is inhibited in the presence of the calcium channel blocker lanthanum chloride or the calcium chelator EGTA. Addition of the calcium ionophore Bay K8644 results in cold-independent activation of EARLI1. These data suggest that EARLI1 is not an immediate target of the cold response, and that calcium flux affects its expression. EARLI1 is a putative secreted protein and has motifs found in lipid transfer proteins. Over-expression of EARLI1 in transgenic plants results in reduced electrolyte leakage during freezing damage, suggesting that EARLI1 may affect membrane or cell wall stability in response to low temperature stress

A Particle-based Multiscale Solver for Compressible Liquid-Vapor Flow

To describe complex flow systems accurately, it is in many cases important to account for the properties of fluid flows on a microscopic scale. In this work, we focus on the description of liquid-vapor flow with a sharp interface between the phases. The local phase dynamics at the interface can be interpreted as a Riemann problem for which we develop a multiscale solver in the spirit of the heterogeneous multiscale method, using a particle-based microscale model to augment the macroscopic two-phase flow system. The application of a microscale model makes it possible to use the intrinsic properties of the fluid at the microscale, instead of formulating (ad-hoc) constitutive relations

Pulmonary Hypertension in Patients with Chronic Fibrosing Idiopathic Interstitial Pneumonias

Background Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a common finding in patients with chronic fibrosing idiopathic interstitial pneumonias (IIP). Little is known about the response to pulmonary vasodilator therapy in this patient population. COMPERA is an international registry that prospectively captures data from patients with various forms of PH receiving pulmonary vasodilator therapies. Methods We retrieved data from COMPERA to compare patient characteristics, treatment patterns, response to therapy and survival in newly diagnosed patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) and PH associated with IIP (PH-IIP). Results Compared to patients with IPAH (n = 798), patients with PH-IIP (n = 151) were older and predominantly males. Patients with PH-IIP were treated predominantly with phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors (88% at entry, 87% after 1 year). From baseline to the first follow-up visit, the median improvement in 6MWD was 30 m in patients with IPAH and 24.5 m in patients with PH-IIP (p = 0.457 for the difference between both groups). Improvements in NYHA functional class were observed in 22.4% and 29.5% of these patients, respectively (p = 0.179 for the difference between both groups). Survival rates were significantly worse in PH-IIP than in IPAH (3-year survival 34.0 versus 68.6%; p<0.001). Total lung capacity, NYHA class IV, and mixed-venous oxygen saturation were independent predictors of survival in patients with PH-IIP. Conclusions Patients with PH-IIP have a dismal prognosis. Our results suggest that pulmonary vasodilator therapy may be associated with short-term functional improvement in some of these patients but it is unclear whether this treatment affects survival

Negative length orbits in normal-superconductor billiard systems

The Path-Length Spectra of mesoscopic systems including diffractive scatterers and connected to superconductor is studied theoretically. We show that the spectra differs fundamentally from that of normal systems due to the presence of Andreev reflection. It is shown that negative path-lengths should arise in the spectra as opposed to normal system. To highlight this effect we carried out both quantum mechanical and semiclassical calculations for the simplest possible diffractive scatterer. The most pronounced peaks in the Path-Length Spectra of the reflection amplitude are identified by the routes that the electron and/or hole travels.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures include

Carbohydrate and protein contents of grain dusts in relation to dust morphology.

Grain dusts contain a variety of materials which are potentially hazardous to the health of workers in the grain industry. Because the characterization of grain dusts is incomplete, we are defining the botanical, chemical, and microbial contents of several grain dusts collected from grain elevators in the Duluth-Superior regions of the U.S. Here, we report certain of the carbohydrate and protein contents of dusts in relation to dust morphology. Examination of the gross morphologies of the dusts revealed that, except for corn, each dust contained either husk or pericarp (seed coat in the case of flax) fragments in addition to respirable particles. When viewed with the light microscope, the fragments appeared as elongated, pointed structures. The possibility that certain of the fragments within corn, settled, and spring wheat were derived from cell walls was suggested by the detection of pentoses following colorimetric assay of neutralized 2 N trifluoroacetic acid hydrolyzates of these dusts. The presence of pentoses together with the occurrence of proteins within water washings of grain dusts suggests that glycoproteins may be present within the dusts. With scanning electron microscopy, each dust was found to consist of a distinct assortment of particles in addition to respirable particles. Small husk fragments and "trichome-like" objects were common to all but corn dust

Vibrational properties of hexagonal boron nitride by Inelastic X-ray scattering and ab initio calculations

The phonon dispersion relations of bulk hexagonal boron nitride have been determined from inelastic x-ray scattering measurements and analyzed by ab initio calculations. Experimental data and calculations show an outstanding agreement and reconcile the controversies raised by recent experimental data obtained by electron-energy loss spectroscopy and second-order Raman scattering

Conductance of Open Quantum Billiards and Classical Trajectories

We analyse the transport phenomena of 2D quantum billiards with convex boundary of different shape. The quantum mechanical analysis is performed by means of the poles of the S-matrix while the classical analysis is based on the motion of a free particle inside the cavity along trajectories with a different number of bounces at the boundary. The value of the conductance depends on the manner the leads are attached to the cavity. The Fourier transform of the transmission amplitudes is compared with the length of the classical paths. There is good agreement between classical and quantum mechanical results when the conductance is achieved mainly by special short-lived states such as whispering gallery modes (WGM) and bouncing ball modes (BBM). In these cases, also the localization of the wave functions agrees with the picture of the classical paths. The S-matrix is calculated classically and compared with the transmission coefficients of the quantum mechanical calculations for five modes in each lead. The number of modes coupled to the special states is effectively reduced.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures (jpg), 2 table

Exciton-plasmon states in nanoscale materials: breakdown of the Tamm-Dancoff approximation

Within the Tamm-Dancoff approximation ab initio approaches describe excitons as packets of electron-hole pairs propagating only forward in time. However, we show that in nanoscale materials excitons and plasmons hybridize, creating exciton--plasmon states where the electron-hole pairs oscillate back and forth in time. Then, as exemplified by the trans-azobenzene molecule and carbon nanotubes, the Tamm-Dancoff approximation yields errors as large as the accuracy claimed in ab initio calculations. Instead, we propose a general and efficient approach that avoids the Tamm--Dancoff approximation, and correctly describes excitons, plasmons and exciton-plasmon states