5,225 research outputs found
Pattern formation of indirect excitons in coupled quantum wells
Using a nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation including short-range two-body
attraction and three-body repulsion, we investigate the spatial distribution of
indirect excitons in semiconductor coupled quantum wells. The results obtained
can interpret the experimental phenomenon that annular exciton cloud first
contracts then expands when the number of confined excitons is increased in
impurity potential well, as observed by Lai \emph{et al.} [Lai ,
Science \textbf{303}, 503 (2004)]. In particular, the model reconciles the
patterns of exciton rings reported by Butov \emph{et al.} [Butov ,
Nature \textbf{418}, 751 (2002)]. At higher densities, the model predicts much
richer patterns, which could be tested by future experiments.Comment: 5 Revtex4 pages, 3 figure
Ellipsometric measurements of the refractive indices of linear alkylbenzene and EJ-301 scintillators from 210 to 1000 nm
We report on ellipsometric measurements of the refractive indices of LAB-PPO,
Nd-doped LAB-PPO and EJ-301 scintillators to the nearest +/-0.005, in the
wavelength range 210-1000 nm.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Simple Ginzburg-Landau Theory for Vortices in a Crystal Lattice
We study the Ginzburg-Landau model with a nonlocal quartic term as a simple
phenomenological model for superconductors in the presence of coupling between
the vortex lattice and the underlying crystal lattice. In mean-field theory,
our model is consistent with a general oblique vortex lattice ranging from a
triangular lattice to a square lattice. This simple formulation enables us to
study the effect of thermal fluctuations in the vortex liquid regime. We
calculate the structure factor of the vortex liquid nonperturbatively and find
Bragg-like peaks with four-fold symmetry appearing in the structure factor even
though there is only a short-range crystalline order.Comment: Revised version with new title and additional results for the vortex
liquid regime, to be published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 5 pages RevTeX, 1 figure
include
Teleportation via thermally entangled state of a two-qubit Heisenberg XX chain
We find that quantum teleportation, using the thermally entangled state of
two-qubit Heisenberg XX chain as a resource, with fidelity better than any
classical communication protocol is possible. However, a thermal state with a
greater amount of thermal entanglement does not necessarily yield better
fidelity. It depends on the amount of mixing between the separable state and
maximally entangled state in the spectra of the two-qubit Heisenberg XX model.Comment: 5 pages, 1 tabl
Memory consolidation in the cerebellar cortex
Several forms of learning, including classical conditioning of the eyeblink, depend upon the cerebellum. In examining mechanisms of eyeblink conditioning in rabbits, reversible inactivations of the control circuitry have begun to dissociate aspects of cerebellar cortical and nuclear function in memory consolidation. It was previously shown that post-training cerebellar cortical, but not nuclear, inactivations with the GABA(A) agonist muscimol prevented consolidation but these findings left open the question as to how final memory storage was partitioned across cortical and nuclear levels. Memory consolidation might be essentially cortical and directly disturbed by actions of the muscimol, or it might be nuclear, and sensitive to the raised excitability of the nuclear neurons following the loss of cortical inhibition. To resolve this question, we simultaneously inactivated cerebellar cortical lobule HVI and the anterior interpositus nucleus of rabbits during the post-training period, so protecting the nuclei from disinhibitory effects of cortical inactivation. Consolidation was impaired by these simultaneous inactivations. Because direct application of muscimol to the nuclei alone has no impact upon consolidation, we can conclude that post-training, consolidation processes and memory storage for eyeblink conditioning have critical cerebellar cortical components. The findings are consistent with a recent model that suggests the distribution of learning-related plasticity across cortical and nuclear levels is task-dependent. There can be transfer to nuclear or brainstem levels for control of high-frequency responses but learning with lower frequency response components, such as in eyeblink conditioning, remains mainly dependent upon cortical memory storage
Diet-induced gene expression of isolated pancreatic islets from a polygenic mouse model of the metabolic syndrome
AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: Numerous new genes have recently been identified in genome-wide association studies for type 2 diabetes. Most are highly expressed in beta cells and presumably play important roles in their function. However, these genes account for only a small proportion of total risk and there are likely to be additional candidate genes not detected by current methodology. We therefore investigated islets from the polygenic New Zealand mouse (NZL) model of diet-induced beta cell dysfunction to identify novel genes and pathways that may play a role in the pathogenesis of diabetes. METHODS: NZL mice were fed a diabetogenic high-fat diet (HF) or a diabetes-protective carbohydrate-free HF diet (CHF). Pancreatic islets were isolated by laser capture microdissection (LCM) and subjected to genome-wide transcriptome analyses. RESULTS: In the prediabetic state, 2,109 islet transcripts were differentially regulated (>1.5-fold) between HF and CHF diets. Of the genes identified, 39 (e.g. Cacna1d, Chd2, Clip2, Igf2bp2, Dach1, Tspan8) correlated with data from the Diabetes Genetics Initiative and Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium genome-wide scans for type 2 diabetes, thus validating our approach. HF diet induced early changes in gene expression associated with increased cell-cycle progression, proliferation and differentiation of islet cells, and oxidative stress (e.g. Cdkn1b, Tmem27, Pax6, Cat, Prdx4 and Txnip). In addition, pathway analysis identified oxidative phosphorylation as the predominant gene-set that was significantly upregulated in response to the diabetogenic HF diet. CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION: We demonstrated that LCM of pancreatic islet cells in combination with transcriptional profiling can be successfully used to identify novel candidate genes for diabetes. Our data strongly implicate glucose-induced oxidative stress in disease progression
The Stability of the Replica Symmetric State in Finite Dimensional Spin Glasses
According to the droplet picture of spin glasses, the low-temperature phase
of spin glasses should be replica symmetric. However, analysis of the stability
of this state suggested that it was unstable and this instability lends support
to the Parisi replica symmetry breaking picture of spin glasses. The
finite-size scaling functions in the critical region of spin glasses below T_c
in dimensions greater than 6 can be determined and for them the replica
symmetric solution is unstable order by order in perturbation theory.
Nevertheless the exact solution can be shown to be replica-symmetric. It is
suggested that a similar mechanism might apply in the low-temperature phase of
spin glasses in less than six dimensions, but that a replica symmetry broken
state might exist in more than six dimensions.Comment: 5 pages. Modified to include a paragraph on the relation of this work
to that of Newman and Stei
HCC incidence after hepatitis C cure among patients with advanced fibrosis or cirrhosis: A meta-analysis
Background and aims: HCV cure reduces but does not eliminate the risk of HCC. HCC surveillance is recommended in populations where the incidence exceeds 1.5% per year. In cirrhosis, HCC surveillance should continue after HCV cure, although it is uncertain if this should be indefinite. For patients with advanced fibrosis (F3), guidelines are inconsistent in their recommendations. We evaluated the incidence of HCC after HCV cure among patients with F3 fibrosis or cirrhosis. Approach and results: This systematic review and meta-analysis identified 44 studies (107,548 person-years of follow-up) assessing the incidence of HCC after HCV cure among patients with F3 fibrosis or cirrhosis. The incidence of HCC was 2.1 per 100 person-years (95% CI, 1.9-2.4) among patients with cirrhosis and 0.5 per 100 person-years (95% CI, 0.3-0.7) among patients with F3 fibrosis. In a meta-regression analysis among patients with cirrhosis, older age (adjusted rate ratio [aRR] per 10-year increase in mean/median age, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.00-1.73) and prior decompensation (aRR per 10% increase in the proportion of patients with prior decompensation, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.01-1.12) were associated with an increased incidence of HCC. Longer follow-up after HCV cure was associated with a decreased incidence of HCC (aRR per year increase in mean/median follow-up, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.79-0.96). Conclusions: Among patients with cirrhosis, the incidence of HCC decreases over time after HCV cure and is lowest in patients with younger age and compensated cirrhosis. The substantially lower incidence in F3 fibrosis is below the recommended threshold for cost-effective screening. The results should encourage the development of validated predictive models that better identify at-risk individuals, especially among patients with F3 fibrosis
First-principles extrapolation method for accurate CO adsorption energies on metal surfaces
We show that a simple first-principles correction based on the difference
between the singlet-triplet CO excitation energy values obtained by DFT and
high-level quantum chemistry methods yields accurate CO adsorption properties
on a variety of metal surfaces.
We demonstrate a linear relationship between the CO adsorption energy and the
CO singlet-triplet splitting, similar to the linear dependence of CO adsorption
energy on the energy of the CO 2* orbital found recently {[Kresse {\em et
al.}, Physical Review B {\bf 68}, 073401 (2003)]}. Converged DFT calculations
underestimate the CO singlet-triplet excitation energy ,
whereas coupled-cluster and CI calculations reproduce the experimental . The dependence of on is used
to extrapolate for the top, bridge and hollow sites for the
(100) and (111) surfaces of Pt, Rh, Pd and Cu to the values that correspond to
the coupled-cluster and CI value. The correction
reproduces experimental adsorption site preference for all cases and obtains
in excellent agreement with experimental results.Comment: Table sent as table1.eps. 3 figure
- …