7,494 research outputs found
Spectral properties of the X-ray binary pulsar LMC X-4 during different intensity states
We present spectral variations of the binary X-ray pulsar LMC X-4 observed
with the RXTE/PCA during different phases of its 30.5 day long third period.
Only out of eclipse data were used for this study. The 3-25 keV spectrum,
modeled with high energy cut-off power-law and iron line emission is found to
show strong dependence on the intensity state. Correlations between the Fe line
emission flux and different parameters of the continuum are presented here.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Autotrophic and Heterotrophic Growth Conditions Modify Biomolecole Production in the Microalga Galdieria sulphuraria (Cyanidiophyceae, Rhodophyta)
Algae have multiple similarities with fungi, with both belonging to the Thallophyte, a polyphyletic group of non-mobile organisms grouped together on the basis of similar characteristics, but not sharing a common ancestor. The main difference between algae and fungi is noted in their metabolism. In fact, although algae have chlorophyll-bearing thalloids and are autotrophic organisms, fungi lack chlorophyll and are heterotrophic, not able to synthesize their own nutrients. However, our studies have shown that the extremophilic microalga Galderia sulphuraria (GS) can also grow very well in heterotrophic conditions like fungi. This study was carried out using several approaches such as scanning electron microscope (SEM), gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), and infrared spectrophotometry (ATR-FTIR). Results showed that the GS, strain ACUF 064, cultured in autotrophic (AGS) and heterotrophic (HGS) conditions, produced different biomolecules. In particular, when grown in HGS, the algae (i) was 30% larger, with an increase in carbon mass that was 20% greater than AGS; (ii) produced higher quantities of stearic acid, oleic acid, monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), and ergosterol; (iii) produced lower quantities of fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) such as methyl palmytate, and methyl linoleate, saturated fatty acids (SFAs), and poyliunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). ATR-FTIR and principal component analysis (PCA) statistical analysis confirmed that the macromolecular content of HGS was significantly different from AGS. The ability to produce different macromolecules by changing the trophic conditions may represent an interesting strategy to induce microalgae to produce different biomolecules that can find applications in several fields such as food, feed, nutraceutical, or energy production
Effects of pressure on the ferromagnetic state of the CDW compound SmNiC2
We report the pressure response of charge-density-wave (CDW) and
ferromagnetic (FM) phases of the rare-earth intermetallic SmNiC2 up to 5.5 GPa.
The CDW transition temperature (T_{CDW}), which is reflected as a sharp
inflection in the electrical resistivity, is almost independent of pressure up
to 2.18 GPa but is strongly enhanced at higher pressures, increasing from 155.7
K at 2.2 GPa to 279.3 K at 5.5 GPa. Commensurate with the sharp increase in
T_{CDW}, the first-order FM phase transition, which decreases with applied
pressure, bifurcates into the upper (T_{M1}) and lower (T_c) phase transitions
and the lower transition changes its nature to second order above 2.18 GPa.
Enhancement both in the residual resistivity and the Fermi-liquid T^2
coefficient A near 3.8 GPa suggests abundant magnetic quantum fluctuations that
arise from the possible presence of a FM quantum critical point.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Numerical simulation of strongly nonlinear and dispersive waves using a Green-Naghdi model
We investigate here the ability of a Green-Naghdi model to reproduce strongly
nonlinear and dispersive wave propagation. We test in particular the behavior
of the new hybrid finite-volume and finite-difference splitting approach
recently developed by the authors and collaborators on the challenging
benchmark of waves propagating over a submerged bar. Such a configuration
requires a model with very good dispersive properties, because of the
high-order harmonics generated by topography-induced nonlinear interactions. We
thus depart from the aforementioned work and choose to use a new Green-Naghdi
system with improved frequency dispersion characteristics. The absence of dry
areas also allows us to improve the treatment of the hyperbolic part of the
equations. This leads to very satisfying results for the demanding benchmarks
under consideration
Optimizing the computation of overriding
We introduce optimization techniques for reasoning in DLN---a recently
introduced family of nonmonotonic description logics whose characterizing
features appear well-suited to model the applicative examples naturally arising
in biomedical domains and semantic web access control policies. Such
optimizations are validated experimentally on large KBs with more than 30K
axioms. Speedups exceed 1 order of magnitude. For the first time, response
times compatible with real-time reasoning are obtained with nonmonotonic KBs of
this size
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Carbonyl sulfide and carbon disulfide: Large-scale distributions over the western Pacific and emissions from Asia during TRACE-P
An extensive set of carbonyl sulfide (OCS) and carbon disulfide (CS2) observations were made as part of the NASA Transport and Chemical Evolution over the Pacific (TRACE-P) project, which took place in the early spring 2001. TRACE-P sampling focused on the western Pacific region but in total included the geographic region 110°E to 290°E longitude, 5°N to 50°N latitude, and 0–12 km altitude. Substantial OCS and CS2 enhancements were observed for a great many air masses of Chinese and Japanese origin during TRACE-P. Over the western Pacific, mean mixing ratios of long-lived OCS and shorter-lived CS2 showed a gradual decrease by about 10% and a factor of 5–10, respectively, from the surface to 8–10 km altitude, presumably because land-based sources dominated their distribution during February through April 2001. The highest mean OCS and CS2levels (580 and 20 pptv, respectively, based on 2.5° × 2.5° latitude bins) were observed below 2 km near the coast of Asia, at latitudes between 25°N and 35°N, where urban Asian outflow was strongest. Ratios of OCS versus CO for continental SE Asia were much lower compared to Chinese and Japanese signatures and were strongly associated with biomass burning/biofuel emissions. We present a new inventory of anthropogenic Asian emissions (including biomass burning) for OCS and CS2 and compare it to emission estimates based on regional relationships of OCS and CS2 to CO and CO2. The OCS and CS2 results for the two methods compare well for continental SE Asia and Japan plus Korea and also for Chinese CS2 emissions. However, it appears that the inventory underestimates Chinese emissions of OCS by about 30–100%. This difference may be related to the fact that we did not include natural sources such as wetland emissions in our inventory, although the contributions from such sources are believed to be at a seasonal low during the study period. Uncertainties in OCS emissions from Chinese coal burning, which are poorly characterized, likely contribute to the discrepancy
The RCSB Protein Data Bank: views of structural biology for basic and applied research and education.
The RCSB Protein Data Bank (RCSB PDB, http://www.rcsb.org) provides access to 3D structures of biological macromolecules and is one of the leading resources in biology and biomedicine worldwide. Our efforts over the past 2 years focused on enabling a deeper understanding of structural biology and providing new structural views of biology that support both basic and applied research and education. Herein, we describe recently introduced data annotations including integration with external biological resources, such as gene and drug databases, new visualization tools and improved support for the mobile web. We also describe access to data files, web services and open access software components to enable software developers to more effectively mine the PDB archive and related annotations. Our efforts are aimed at expanding the role of 3D structure in understanding biology and medicine
Star formation history of mass-selected galaxies in the ELAIS-N1 Field
We measure the specific star formation rates of \textit{K}-band selected
galaxies from the ELAIS-N1 by stacking GMRT data at 610 MHz. We identify a
sample of SFGs, spanning and
, using a
combination of multi-wavelength diagnostics obtained from the deep LoTSS
multi-wavelength catalogue. We measure the flux densities in the radio map and
estimate the radio SFR in order to probe the nature of the galaxies below the
noise and confusion limits. The massive galaxies in our sample have the lowest
sSFRs which is in agreement with previous studies. For the different
populations, we show that the sSFR-mass relation steepens with redshift, with
an average slope of for
the whole sample, and for
the SFGs. Our results indicate that galaxy populations undergo 'downsizing',
whereby most massive galaxies form their stars earlier and more rapidly than
low mass galaxies. Both populations show a strong decrease in their sSFR toward
the present epoch. The sSFR evolution with redshift is best described by a
power law , where for all galaxies, and for SFGs. Comparing our measured
sSFRs to results from literature, we find a general agreement in the
\textit{sSFR-M} plane.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
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