52 research outputs found
Temperature and ac Effects on Charge Transport in Metallic Arrays of Dots
We investigate the effects of finite temperature, dc pulse, and ac drives on
the charge transport in metallic arrays using numerical simulations. For finite
temperatures there is a finite conduction threshold which decreases linearly
with temperature. Additionally we find a quadratic scaling of the
current-voltage curves which is independent of temperature for finite
thresholds. These results are in excellent agreement with recent experiments on
2D metallic dot arrays. We have also investigated the effects of an ac drive as
well as a suddenly applied dc drive. With an ac drive the conduction threshold
decreases for fixed frequency and increasing amplitude and saturates for fixed
amplitude and increasing frequency. For sudden applied dc drives below
threshold we observe a long time power law conduction decay.Comment: 6 pages, 7 postscript figure
Geographical and temporal distribution of SARS-CoV-2 clades in the WHO European Region, January to June 2020
We show the distribution of SARS-CoV-2 genetic clades over time and between countries and outline potential genomic surveillance objectives. We applied three available genomic nomenclature systems for SARS-CoV-2 to all sequence data from the WHO European Region available during the COVID-19 pandemic until 10 July 2020. We highlight the importance of real-time sequencing and data dissemination in a pandemic situation. We provide a comparison of the nomenclatures and lay a foundation for future European genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2.Peer reviewe
Mutations in the Gabrb1 gene promote alcohol consumption through increased tonic inhibition
Alcohol dependence is a common, complex and debilitating disorder with genetic and environmental influences. Here we show that alcohol consumption increases following mutations to the γ-aminobutyric acidA receptor (GABAAR) β1 subunit gene (Gabrb1). Using N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea mutagenesis on an alcohol-averse background (F1 BALB/cAnN x C3H/HeH), we develop a mouse model exhibiting strong heritable preference for ethanol resulting from a dominant mutation (L285R) in Gabrb1. The mutation causes spontaneous GABA ion channel opening and increases GABA sensitivity of recombinant GABAARs, coupled to increased tonic currents in the nucleus accumbens, a region long-associated with alcohol reward. Mutant mice work harder to obtain ethanol, and are more sensitive to alcohol intoxication. Another spontaneous mutation (P228H) in Gabrb1 also causes high ethanol consumption accompanied by spontaneous GABA ion channel opening and increased accumbal tonic current. Our results provide a new and important link between GABAAR function and increased alcohol consumption that could underlie some forms of alcohol abuse
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