Charakterisierung einer horizontal transferierten Region im Escherichia coli Stamm ECOR31

Im Escherichia coli Stamm ECOR31 konnte erstmals eine atypische Insertionsstelle der weit verbreiteten Pathogenitätsinsel Yersinia-HPI beschrieben werden. Statt dem asnT-tRNA-Gen findet sich am Integrase-Ende der HPI eine weitere, offenbar horizontal transferierte Region, die RegX genannt wurde. Diese besitzt eine Größe von 24196 Basenpaaren und unterscheidet sich mit einem G+C-Gehalt von 47,9% vom E. coli-Kerngenom. Weder auf DNA noch auf Protein-Ebene existieren höhere Homologien zu E. coli-DNA. Nach Anfertigung einer Cosmid-Bank wurde die gesamte Region sequenziert und annotiert. RegX weist eine mosaikartige Struktur auf, mit Punktmutationen, Deletionen und Insertionen. Sie besteht aus 22 offenen Leserastern und alle potentiellen Gene und deren Translationsprodukte wurden durch Vergleiche mit der NCBI-Datenbank charakterisiert. Die Transkription verschiedener Gen-Cluster und deren Operonstruktur wurde mittels RT-PCR nachgewiesen. Die DNA-Region enthält eine interessante Anhäufung von putativen Aufnahme-Systemen für divalente Metallionen, wie Eisen, Zink, Mangan. Zudem beheimatet die Region X Regulatorgene ähnlich zu Fur und Zur und Zink-abhängige Enzyme. Im Gesamtvergleich der Region X ergeben sich die höchsten Homologien zu Teilen des Plasmids pLVPK von Klebsiella pneumoniae CG43 30. Anhand der strukturellen Unterschiede der Sequenzen mit Punktmutationen und Rekombinations-Ereignissen kann der anhaltende Wandel bakterieller Genome nachvollzogen werden. Des Weiteren wurde die Verbreitung dieser Region unter klinisch relevanten Enterobacteriaceae und Pseudomonaceae untersucht. Von 530 gescreenten Bakterien konnte ein Klebsiella pneumoniae Stamm isoliert werden, der in der groben Struktur identisch zu der untersuchten Region von ECOR31 ist. In diesem Isolat, das aus der Blutkultur eines Patienten mit Sepsis stammt, konnte sowohl die gesamte Region X, als auch die benachbarte Yersinia-HPI und die atypische Insertionsstelle der HPI nachgewiesen werden. Es ist davon auszugehen, dass die untersuchte Region auf einem konjugativen Klebsiella-Plasmid lokalisiert ist und so zusammen mit der HPI horizontal zwischen verschiedenen Spezies übertragen werden kann

On the symmetry of a Preisach map

At the very heart of the successful phenomenological model of magnetic hysteresis there is the so called Preisach distribution. In the existing literature it is implicitly assumed, that this distribution has a mirror symmetry. We show, by simple and convincing example, that this common assumption is plainly wrong. Dropping it, we gain the ability to model not only the usual hysteresis loops (major and minor) more accurately than ever before, but also those displaying the exchange bias effect, what is impossible within the framework of the symmetrical Preisach model. It is hoped, that our observation paves the way towards the unified description of all the hysteretic systems, including, but not necessarily limited to, superconductors, (multi)layered structures, nanocrystalline materials, patterned media, and - perhaps - the other non-magnetic hysteretic phenomena.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Presented at the European Conference "Physics of Magnetism'05", Poznan (Poland), June 24-27, 2005. Accepted for publication in physica status solidi (b) (C) 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinhei

Subharmonics and Aperiodicity in Hysteresis Loops

We show that it is possible to have hysteretic behavior for magnets that does not form simple closed loops in steady state, but must cycle multiple times before returning to its initial state. We show this by studying the zero-temperature dynamics of the 3d Edwards Anderson spin glass. The specific multiple varies from system to system and is often quite large and increases with system size. The last result suggests that the magnetization could be aperiodic in the large system limit for some realizations of randomness. It should be possible to observe this phenomena in low-temperature experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Theory of Thermal Remagnetization of Permanent Magnets

A self-consistent mean-field theory explaining the thermal remagnetization (TR) of polycrystalline permanent magnets is given. The influence of the environment of a grain is treated by an inclusion approximation, relating the field inside the grain to the local field outside by means of an internal demagnetization factor $n$. For the switching fields and the fluctuations of the local fields around the mean field Gaussian distributions of widths \sigmas and \sigmaf resp. are assumed. The isothermal hysteresis curve, the recoil curves, and the TR in dependence on the model parameters $n$, \sigmas, and \sigmaf are calculated. Furthermore, the influence of the initial temperature and the strong dependence of the TR on the demagnetization factor of the sample are studied, and it is shown that for reasonable parameter sets TR effects up to 100 % are possible. The theoretical results correspond well with the experimental situation.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figures, Latex2e, accepted for publication in JMM

Fingerprinting Hysteresis

We test the predictive power of first-oder reversal curve (FORC) diagrams using simulations of random magnets. In particular, we compute a histogram of the switching fields of the underlying microscopic switching units along the major hysteresis loop, and compare to the corresponding FORC diagram. We find qualitative agreement between the switching-field histogram and the FORC diagram, yet differences are noticeable. We discuss possible sources for these differences and present results for frustrated systems where the discrepancies are more pronounced.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Reversal-Field Memory in the Hysteresis of Spin Glasses

We report a novel singularity in the hysteresis of spin glasses, the reversal-field memory effect, which creates a non-analyticity in the magnetization curves at a particular point related to the history of the sample. The origin of the effect is due to the existence of a macroscopic number of "symmetric clusters" of spins associated with a local spin-reversal symmetry of the Hamiltonian. We use First Order Reversal Curve (FORC) diagrams to characterize the effect and compare to experimental results on thin magnetic films. We contrast our results on spin glasses to random magnets and show that the FORC technique is an effective "magnetic fingerprinting" tool.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Stochastic model of hysteresis

The methods of the probability theory have been used in order to build up a new model of hysteresis. It turns out that the reversal points of the control parameter (e. g., the magnetic field) are Markov points which determine the stochastic evolution of the process. It has been shown that the branches of the hysteresis loop are converging to fixed limit curves when the number of cyclic back-and-forth variations of the control parameter between two consecutive reversal points is large enough. This convergence to limit curves gives a clear explanation of the accommodation process. The accommodated minor loops show the return-point memory property but this property is obviously absent in the case of non-accommodated minor loops which are not congruent and generally not closed. In contrast to the traditional Preisach model the reversal point susceptibilities are non-zero finite values. The stochastic model can provide a good approximation of the Raylaigh quadratic law when the external parameter varies between two sufficiently small values.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figure

Return to return point memory

We describe a new class of systems exhibiting return point memory (RPM) that are different from those discussed before in the context of ferromagnets. We show numerically that one dimensional random Ising antiferromagnets have RPM, when configurations evolve from a large field. However, RPM is violated when started from some stable configurations at finite field unlike in the ferromagnetic case. This implies that the standard approach to understanding ferromagnetic RPM systems will fail for this case. We also demonstrate RPM with a set of variables that keep track of spin flips at each site. Conventional RPM for the spin configuration is a projection of this result, suggesting that spin flip variables might be a more fundamental representation of the dynamics. We also present a mapping that embeds the antiferromagnetic chain in a two dimensional ferromagnetic model, and prove RPM for spin exchange dynamics in the interior of the chain with this mapping

Barkhausen Noise in a Relaxor Ferroelectric

Barkhausen noise, including both periodic and aperiodic components, is found in and near the relaxor regime of a familiar relaxor ferroelectric, PbMg$_{1/3}$Nb$_{2/3}$O$_3$, driven by a periodic electric field. The temperature dependences of both the amplitude and spectral form show that the size of the coherent dipole moment changes shrink as the relaxor regime is entered, contrary to expectations based on some simple models.Comment: 4 pages RevTeX4, 5 figures; submitted to Phys Rev Let

Magnetic hysteresis in Ising-like dipole-dipole model

Using zero temperature Monte Carlo simulations we have studied the magnetic hysteresis in a three-dimensional Ising model with nearest neighbor exchange and dipolar interaction. The average magnetization of spins located inside a sphere on a cubic lattice is determined as a function of magnetic field varied periodically. The simulations have justified the appearance of hysteresis and allowed us to have a deeper insight into the series of metastable states developed during this process.Comment: REVTEX, 10 pages including 4 figure