933 research outputs found
The 1985 Chile earthquake: Structural characteristics and damage statistics for the building inventory in Vina del Mar
The Chile earthquake of 3 March 1985 resulted in an effective peak
acceleration of 0.36g in the coastal city of Vina del Mar. The city
had an inventory of over 400 reinforced concrete buildings ranging in
height from 5 to 23 stories. The observed behavior of the buildings is
interpreted in relation to the physical characteristics of the
structural systems.National Science Foundation Grant ECE 86-0378
Experimental determination of the 6s^2 ^1S_0 -> 5d6s ^3 D_1 magnetic-dipole transition amplitude in atomic ytterbium
We report on a measurement of the highly forbidden 6s^2 ^1S_0 \to 5d6s ^3
D_1 magnetic-dipole transition in atomic ytterbium using the
Stark-interference technique. This amplitude is important in interpreting a
future parity nonconservation experiment that exploits the same transition. We
find , where the larger uncertainty comes from the previously
measured vector transition polarizability . The amplitude is small
and should not limit the precision of the parity nonconservation experiment.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures Paper resubmitted with minor corrections and
additions based on comments from referee
Dedicator of cytokinesis 4 : a potential prognostic and predictive biomarker within the metastatic spread of breast cancer to bone
Metastasis to bone occurs in over 70% of patients with advanced breast cancer resulting in skeletal complications, including pathological fractures, hypercalcaemia, and bone pain. Significant advances have been made in the treatment of bone metastases, including the use of antiresorptive drugs, such as bisphosphonates, as well as antibody-based therapies targeting key signalling intermediates within the process of cancer-mediated bone destruction. Despite these advances, treatment is not without side effects, including osteonecrosis of the jaw therefore biomarkers predictive of which patients are at high risk of developing bone spread are required to enable personalized medicine initiatives within this important disease area. We used proteomic analysis to compare the protein expression within (1) a parental triple negative human breast cancer cell line, (2) a fully bone homing cell line and (3) a lung homing cell line. The bone and lung homing cell-lines were derived by intra-cardiac injection of fluorescently labelled cells within immune-compromised mice. Proteomics identified Dedicator of Cytokinesis 4 as a biomarker predictive of bone spread, and this finding was further supported by the observation that high levels of Dedicator of Cytokinesis 4 within primary breast tumours were predictive of breast cancer spread to bone. Here, we provide an overview of this study and put the findings into context
Off-Diagonal Hyperfine Interaction and Parity Non-conservation in Cesium
We have performed relativistic many-body calculations of the hyperfine
interaction in the and states of Cs, including the off-diagonal
matrix element. The calculations were used to determine the accuracy of the
semi-empirical formula for the electromagnetic transition amplitude
induced by the hyperfine interaction. We have found that even
though the contribution of the many-body effects into the matrix elements is
very large, the square root formula remains valid to the accuracy of a fraction of .
The result for the M1-amplitude is used in the interpretation of the
parity-violation measurement in the transition in Cs which claims a
possible deviation from the Standard model.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, LaTeX, Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Nuclear Spin-Isospin Correlations, Parity Violation, and the Problem
The strong interaction effects of isospin- and spin-dependent nucleon-nucleon
correlations observed in many-body calculations are interpreted in terms of a
one-pion exchange mechanism. Including such effects in computations of nuclear
parity violating effects leads to enhancements of about 10%. A larger effect
arises from the one-boson exchange nature of the parity non-conserving nucleon-
nucleon interaction, which depends on both weak and strong meson-nucleon
coupling constants. Using values of the latter that are constrained by
nucleon-nucleon phase shifts leads to enhancements of parity violation by
factors close to two. Thus much of previously noticed discrepancies between
weak coupling constants extracted from different experiments can be removed.Comment: 8 pages 2 figures there should have been two figures in v
Trajectories of Quality of Life after Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation: Secondary Analysis of BMT CTN 0902 Data
Quality of life is increasingly recognized as an important secondary endpoint of hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). The current study examined the extent to which attrition results in biased estimates of patient quality of life. The study also examined whether patients differ in terms of trajectories of quality of life in the first six months post-transplant. A secondary data analysis was conducted of 701 participants who enrolled in the Blood and Marrow Transplantation Clinical Trials Network (BMT CTN) 0902 trial. Participants completed the SF-36, a measure of quality of life, prior to transplant and 100 and 180 days post-transplant. Results indicated that attrition resulted in slightly biased overestimates of quality of life but the amount of overestimation remained stable over time. Patients could be grouped into three distinct classes based on physical quality of life: 1) low and stable; 2) average and declining, then stable; and 3) average and stable. Four classes of patients emerged for mental quality of life: 1) low and stable; 2) average, improving, then stable; 3) higher than average (by almost 1 SD) and stable; and 4) average and stable. Taken together, these data provide a more comprehensive understanding of quality of life that can be used to educate HCT recipients and their caregivers
The anapole moment and nucleon weak interactions
From the recent measurement of parity nonconservation (PNC) in the Cs atom we
have extracted the constant of the nuclear spin dependent electron-nucleon PNC
interaction, ; the anapole moment constant, ; the strength of the PNC proton-nucleus potential, ; the -meson-nucleon interaction constant,
; and the strength of the neutron-nucleus potential, .Comment: Uses RevTex, 12 pages. We have added an explanation of the effect of
finite nuclear siz
The Local Bubble and Interstellar Material Near the Sun
The properties of interstellar matter (ISM) at the Sun are regulated by our
location with respect to the Local Bubble (LB) void in the ISM. The LB is
bounded by associations of massive stars and fossil supernovae that have
disrupted natal ISM and driven intermediate velocity ISM into the LB interior
void. The Sun is located in such a driven ISM parcel. The Local Fluff has a
bulk velocity of 19 km/s in the LSR, and an upwind direction towards the center
of the gas and dust ring formed by the Loop I supernova remnant interaction
with the LB. When the ram pressure of the LIC is included in the total LIC
pressure, and if magnetic thermal and cosmic ray pressures are similar, the LIC
appears to be in pressure equilibrium with the local hot bubble plasma.Comment: Proceedings of Symposium on the Composition of Matter, honoring
Johannes Geiss on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Space Science Reviews
(in press
Possible origins of macroscopic left-right asymmetry in organisms
I consider the microscopic mechanisms by which a particular left-right (L/R)
asymmetry is generated at the organism level from the microscopic handedness of
cytoskeletal molecules. In light of a fundamental symmetry principle, the
typical pattern-formation mechanisms of diffusion plus regulation cannot
implement the "right-hand rule"; at the microscopic level, the cell's
cytoskeleton of chiral filaments seems always to be involved, usually in
collective states driven by polymerization forces or molecular motors. It seems
particularly easy for handedness to emerge in a shear or rotation in the
background of an effectively two-dimensional system, such as the cell membrane
or a layer of cells, as this requires no pre-existing axis apart from the layer
normal. I detail a scenario involving actin/myosin layers in snails and in C.
elegans, and also one about the microtubule layer in plant cells. I also survey
the other examples that I am aware of, such as the emergence of handedness such
as the emergence of handedness in neurons, in eukaryote cell motility, and in
non-flagellated bacteria.Comment: 42 pages, 6 figures, resubmitted to J. Stat. Phys. special issue.
Major rewrite, rearranged sections/subsections, new Fig 3 + 6, new physics in
Sec 2.4 and 3.4.1, added Sec 5 and subsections of Sec
Precise calculation of parity nonconservation in cesium and test of the standard model
We have calculated the 6s-7s parity nonconserving (PNC) E1 transition
amplitude, E_{PNC}, in cesium. We have used an improved all-order technique in
the calculation of the correlations and have included all significant
contributions to E_{PNC}. Our final value E_{PNC} = 0.904 (1 +/- 0.5 %) \times
10^{-11}iea_{B}(-Q_{W}/N) has half the uncertainty claimed in old calculations
used for the interpretation of Cs PNC experiments. The resulting nuclear weak
charge Q_{W} for Cs deviates by about 2 standard deviations from the value
predicted by the standard model.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figure
- …