3,275 research outputs found
Critical phenomena in the Random Ising Model.
SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D68361/86 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo
Kinetics of acute hepatitis B virus infection in humans
Using patient data from a unique single source outbreak of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, we have characterized the kinetics of acute HBV infection by monitoring viral turnover in the serum during the late incubation and clinical phases of the disease in humans. HBV replicates rapidly with minimally estimated doubling times ranging between 2.2 and 5.8 d (mean 3.7 ± 1.5 d). After a peak viral load in serum of nearly 1010 HBV DNA copies/ml is attained, clearance of HBV DNA follows a two or three phase decay pattern with an initial rapid decline characterized by mean half-life (t1/2) of 3.7 ± 1.2 d, similar to the t1/2 observed in the noncytolytic clearance of covalently closed circular DNA for other hepadnaviruses. The final phase of virion clearance occurs at a variable rate (t1/2 of 4.8 to 284 d) and may relate to the rate of loss of infected hepatocytes. Free virus has a mean t1/2 of at most 1.2 ± 0.6 d. We estimate a peak HBV production rate of at least 1013 virions/day and a maximum production rate of an infected hepatocyte of 200–1,000 virions/day, on average. At this peak rate of virion production we estimate that every possible single and most double mutations would be created each day
Lattice dynamics effects on small polaron properties
This study details the conditions under which strong-coupling perturbation
theory can be applied to the molecular crystal model, a fundamental theoretical
tool for analysis of the polaron properties. I show that lattice dimensionality
and intermolecular forces play a key role in imposing constraints on the
applicability of the perturbative approach. The polaron effective mass has been
computed in different regimes ranging from the fully antiadiabatic to the fully
adiabatic. The polaron masses become essentially dimension independent for
sufficiently strong intermolecular coupling strengths and converge to much
lower values than those tradition-ally obtained in small-polaron theory. I find
evidence for a self-trapping transition in a moderately adiabatic regime at an
electron-phonon coupling value of .3. Our results point to a substantial
independence of the self-trapping event on dimensionality.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
Growth, microstructure, and failure of crazes in glassy polymers
We report on an extensive study of craze formation in glassy polymers.
Molecular dynamics simulations of a coarse-grained bead-spring model were
employed to investigate the molecular level processes during craze nucleation,
widening, and breakdown for a wide range of temperature, polymer chain length
, entanglement length and strength of adhesive interactions between
polymer chains. Craze widening proceeds via a fibril-drawing process at
constant drawing stress. The extension ratio is determined by the entanglement
length, and the characteristic length of stretched chain segments in the
polymer craze is . In the craze, tension is mostly carried by the
covalent backbone bonds, and the force distribution develops an exponential
tail at large tensile forces. The failure mode of crazes changes from
disentanglement to scission for , and breakdown through scission
is governed by large stress fluctuations. The simulations also reveal
inconsistencies with previous theoretical models of craze widening that were
based on continuum level hydrodynamics
Are mega-events a solution to address physical inactivity? Interrogating the London 2012 Paralympic sport participation legacies among people with disabilities
Understanding why non-active people with disabilities have not participated in more sport since the London 2012 Paralympic Games is the focus of this paper. This research reviews the constraints preventing people with disabilities from participating in more sport, and the role the London 2012 Paralympic Games plays in this. Eighty-one people with disabilities in England who are non-active completed an online questionnaire exploring their constraints to participating in more sport. The data suggests attitudes towards the London 2012 Paralympic Games were not an important reason for the lack of sport participation: instead, systemic and social barriers are more constraining to participation in more sport. A factor analysis identified four components that constrain non-active people with disabilities: sport provision; economic; unawareness of how to include people with disabilities in sporting activities; and access to sport participation opportunities. The four components explained 72.93% of the total variance. It is recommended mega sporting events are not used as a policy intervention to increase sport participation of people with disabilities, as this does not account for constraining social and systemic barriers to sports participation. Instead, bottom-up solutions designed and managed in conjunction with people with disabilities may be more effective
Fast Algorithm for Partial Covers in Words
A factor of a word is a cover of if every position in lies
within some occurrence of in . A word covered by thus
generalizes the idea of a repetition, that is, a word composed of exact
concatenations of . In this article we introduce a new notion of
-partial cover, which can be viewed as a relaxed variant of cover, that
is, a factor covering at least positions in . We develop a data
structure of size (where ) that can be constructed in time which we apply to compute all shortest -partial covers for a
given . We also employ it for an -time algorithm computing
a shortest -partial cover for each
Some mechanisms of "spontaneous" polarization of superfluid He-4
Previously, a quantum "tidal" mechanism of polarization of the atoms of He-II
was proposed, according to which, as a result of interatomic interaction, each
atom of He-II acquires small fluctuating dipole and multipole moments, oriented
chaotically on the average. In this work, we show that, in the presence of a
temperature or density gradient in He-II, the originally chaotically oriented
tidal dipole moments of the atoms become partially ordered, which results in
volume polarization of He-II. It is found that the gravitational field of the
Earth induces electric induction U =10(-7)V in He-II (for vessel dimensions of
the order of 10 cm). We study also the connection of polarization and
acceleration, and discuss a possible nature of the electric signal dU = kdT/2e
observed by A.S. Rybalko in experiments with second sound.Comment: 13 pages; the calculation is extended and refined; v4: reconstructio
Calculation of excited polaron states in the Holstein model
An exact diagonalization technique is used to investigate the low-lying
excited polaron states in the Holstein model for the infinite one-dimensional
lattice. For moderate values of the adiabatic ratio, a new and comprehensive
picture, involving three excited (coherent) polaron bands below the phonon
threshold, is obtained. The coherent contribution of the excited states to both
the single-electron spectral density and the optical conductivity is evaluated
and, due to the invariance of the Hamiltonian under the space inversion, the
two are shown to contain complementary information about the single-electron
system at zero temperature. The chosen method reveals the connection between
the excited bands and the renormalized local phonon excitations of the
adiabatic theory, as well as the regime of parameters for which the electron
self-energy has notable non-local contributions. Finally, it is shown that the
hybridization of two polaron states allows a simple description of the ground
and first excited state in the crossover regime.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, submitted to PR
Effects of dimensionality and anisotropy on the Holstein polaron
We apply weak-coupling perturbation theory and strong-coupling perturbation
theory to the Holstein molecular crystal model in order to elucidate the
effects of anisotropy on polaron properties in D dimensions. The ground state
energy is considered as a primary criterion through which to study the effects
of anisotropy on the self-trapping transition, the self-trapping line
associated with this transition, and the adiabatic critical point. The effects
of dimensionality and anisotropy on electron-phonon correlations and polaronic
mass enhancement are studied, with particular attention given to the polaron
radius and the characteristics of quasi-1D and quasi-2D structures.
Perturbative results are confirmed by selected comparisons with variational
calculations and quantum Monte Carlo data
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