Variability of Disk Emission in Pre-Main Sequence and Related Stars. I. HD 31648 and HD 163296 - Isolated Herbig Ae Stars Driving Herbig-Haro Flows

Infrared photometry and spectroscopy covering a time span of a quarter century are presented for HD 31648 (MWC 480) and HD 163296 (MWC 275). Both are isolated Herbig Ae stars that exhibit signs of active accretion, including driving bipolar flows with embedded Herbig-Haro (HH) objects. HD 163296 was found to be relatively quiescent photometrically in its inner disk region, with the exception of a major increase in emitted flux in a broad wavelength region centered near 3 microns in 2002. In contrast, HD 31648 has exhibited sporadic changes in the entire 3-13 micron region throughout this span of time. In both stars the changes in the 1-5 micron flux indicate structural changes in the region of the disk near the dust sublimation zone, possibly causing its distance from the star to vary with time. Repeated thermal cycling through this region will result in the preferential survival of large grains, and an increase in the degree of crystallinity. The variability observed in these objects has important consequences for the interpretation of other types of observations. For example, source variability will compromise models based on interferometry measurements unless the interferometry observations are accompanied by nearly-simultaneous photometric data.Comment: 55 pages, 18 figures, 2 tables, Accepted by Ap

Comparison of Antibody Repertoires Produced by HIV-1 Infection, Other Chronic and Acute Infections, and Systemic Autoimmune Disease

Background Antibodies (Abs) produced during HIV-1 infection rarely neutralize a broad range of viral isolates; only eight broadly-neutralizing (bNt) monoclonal (M)Abs have been isolated. Yet, to be effective, an HIV-1 vaccine may have to elicit the essential features of these MAbs. The V genes of all of these bNt MAbs are highly somatically mutated, and the VH genes of five of them encode a long (≥20 aa) third complementarity-determining region (CDR-H3). This led us to question whether long CDR-H3s and high levels of somatic mutation (SM) are a preferred feature of anti-HIV bNt MAbs, or if other adaptive immune responses elicit them in general. Methodology and Principal Findings We assembled a VH-gene sequence database from over 700 human MAbs of known antigen specificity isolated from chronic (viral) infections (ChI), acute (bacterial and viral) infections (AcI), and systemic autoimmune diseases (SAD), and compared their CDR-H3 length, number of SMs and germline VH-gene usage. We found that anti-HIV Abs, regardless of their neutralization breadth, tended to have long CDR-H3s and high numbers of SMs. However, these features were also common among Abs associated with other chronic viral infections. In contrast, Abs from acute viral infections (but not bacterial infections) tended to have relatively short CDR-H3s and a low number of SMs, whereas SAD Abs were generally intermediate in CDR-H3 length and number of SMs. Analysis of VH gene usage showed that ChI Abs also tended to favor distal germline VH-genes (particularly VH1-69), especially in Abs bearing long CDR-H3s. Conclusions and Significance The striking difference between the Abs produced during chronic vs. acute viral infection suggests that Abs bearing long CDR-H3s, high levels of SM and VH1-69 gene usage may be preferentially selected during persistent infection

Using splitting methods in continuous digester modeling

The pulp and paper industry plays an important role in European economies. The chemical reactions that transform wood chips in pulp occur mainly in a complex moving bed reactor, the digester. Nowadays the use of mathematical models to simulate the transient behaviour of the digester in terms of temperature and compound concentrations represents a real need for industry because it allows simulation of experiments that can not be afforded or that might be very risky. The digester - the most critical piece of the equipment of a pulp mill - is a heterogeneous reactor with an almost cylindrical shape, where wood chips react with an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide, to remove the lignin from the cellulose fibers. From a mathematical point of view the dynamical behaviour of the reactor can be represented by a system of hyperbolic nonlinear partial differential equations. In this system, with 15 equations, we can identify three main types: the equations that describe the temperature and the concentration respectively of the solid, entrapped liquid and free liquid phase. Each of these type of equations present a certain complexity, its numerical simulation being a hard task. In this sense we point out the high nonlinearity of the functions that represent the chemical reactions; the discontinuities induced by the extraction and injection of the free liquor; the discontinuities in the convection velocity of the free liquor - positive where the liquid flown downwards and negative where the free liquid flows upwards. Numerical methods based on operator splitting, nonuniform refinement and some particular techniques to smooth discontinuities, are studied from a qualitative and quantitative viewpoint. Several simulations on temperature and concentrations of organic and inorganic compounds are presented. Special attention will be devoted to the effects induced in the process by discontinuities of wood chips composition.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TYC-4P2J0CT-1/1/eeeb9d8e5610d110621fbd0ad424387