5,972 research outputs found
Dynamic Model and Phase Transitions for Liquid Helium
This article presents a phenomenological dynamic phase transition theory --
modeling and analysis -- for superfluids. As we know, although the
time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau model has been successfully used in
superconductivity, and the classical Ginzburg-Landau free energy is still
poorly applicable to liquid helium in a quantitative sense. The study in this
article is based on 1) a new dynamic classification scheme of phase
transitions, 2) new time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau models for general
equilibrium transitions, and 3) the general dynamic transition theory. The
results in this article predict the existence of a unstable region H, where
both solid and liquid He II states appear randomly depending on fluctuations
and the existence of a switch point M on the lambda-curve, where the
transitions changes types
Transmural intestinal wall permeability in severe ischemia after enteral protease inhibition.
In intestinal ischemia, inflammatory mediators in the small intestine's lumen such as food byproducts, bacteria, and digestive enzymes leak into the peritoneal space, lymph, and circulation, but the mechanisms by which the intestinal wall permeability initially increases are not well defined. We hypothesize that wall protease activity (independent of luminal proteases) and apoptosis contribute to the increased transmural permeability of the intestine's wall in an acutely ischemic small intestine. To model intestinal ischemia, the proximal jejunum to the distal ileum in the rat was excised, the lumen was rapidly flushed with saline to remove luminal contents, sectioned into equal length segments, and filled with a tracer (fluorescein) in saline, glucose, or protease inhibitors. The transmural fluorescein transport was determined over 2 hours. Villi structure and epithelial junctional proteins were analyzed. After ischemia, there was increased transmural permeability, loss of villi structure, and destruction of epithelial proteins. Supplementation with luminal glucose preserved the epithelium and significantly attenuated permeability and villi damage. Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inhibitors (doxycycline, GM 6001), and serine protease inhibitor (tranexamic acid) in the lumen, significantly reduced the fluorescein transport compared to saline for 90 min of ischemia. Based on these results, we tested in an in-vivo model of hemorrhagic shock (90 min 30 mmHg, 3 hours observation) for intestinal lesion formation. Single enteral interventions (saline, glucose, tranexamic acid) did not prevent intestinal lesions, while the combination of enteral glucose and tranexamic acid prevented lesion formation after hemorrhagic shock. The results suggest that apoptotic and protease mediated breakdown cause increased permeability and damage to the intestinal wall. Metabolic support in the lumen of an ischemic intestine with glucose reduces the transport from the lumen across the wall and enteral proteolytic inhibition attenuates tissue breakdown. These combined interventions ameliorate lesion formation in the small intestine after hemorrhagic shock
Bulk properties of light deformed nuclei derived from a medium-modified meson-exchange interaction
Deformed Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov calculations for finite nuclei are carried
out. As residual interaction, a Brueckner G-matrix derived from a
meson-exchange potential is taken. Phenomenological medium modifications of the
meson masses are introduced. The binding energies, radii, and deformation
parameters of the Carbon, Oxygen, Neon, and Magnesium isotope chains are found
to be in good agreement with the experimental data.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX2e, elsart, 4 eps-figures includes with graphic
Some Secrets of Fluorescent Proteins: Distinct Bleaching in Various Mounting Fluids and Photoactivation of cyan fluorescent proteins at YFP-Excitation
Background
The use of spectrally distinct variants of green fluorescent protein (GFP) such as cyan or yellow mutants (CFP and YFP, respectively) is very common in all different fields of life sciences, e.g. for marking specific proteins or cells or to determine protein interactions. In the latter case, the quantum physical phenomenon of fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) is exploited by specific microscopy techniques to visualize proximity of proteins.

Methodology/Principal Findings
When we applied a commonly used FRET microscopy technique - the increase in donor (CFP)-fluorescence after bleaching of acceptor fluorophores (YFP), we obtained good signals in live cells, but very weak signals for the same samples after fixation and mounting in commercial microscopy mounting fluids. This observation could be traced back to much faster bleaching of CFP in these mounting media. Strikingly, the opposite effect of the mounting fluid was observed for YFP and also for other proteins such as Cerulean, TFP or Venus. The changes in photostability of CFP and YFP were not caused by the fixation but directly dependent on the mounting fluid. Furthermore we made the interesting observation that the CFP-fluorescence intensity increases by about 10 - 15% after illumination at the YFP-excitation wavelength – a phenomenon, which was also observed for Cerulean. This photoactivation of cyan fluorescent proteins at the YFP-excitation can cause false-positive signals in the FRET-microscopy technique that is based on bleaching of a yellow FRET acceptor.

Conclusions/Significance
Our results show that photostability of fluorescent proteins differs significantly for various media and that CFP bleaches significantly faster in commercial mounting fluids, while the opposite is observed for YFP and some other proteins. Moreover, we show that the FRET microscopy technique that is based on bleaching of the YFP is prone to artifacts due to photoactivation of cyan fluorescent proteins under these conditions
Recovery of the persistent current induced by the electron-electron interaction in mesoscopic metallic rings
Persistent currents in mesoscopic metallic rings induced by static magnetic
fields are investigated by means of a Hamiltonian which incorporates diagonal
disorder and the electron-electron interaction through a Hubbard term ().
Correlations are included up to second order perturbation theory which is shown
to work accurately for of the order of the hopping integral. If disorder is
not very strong, interactions increase the current up to near its value for a
clean metal. Averaging over ring lengths eliminates the first Fourier component
of the current and reduces its value, which remains low after interactions are
included.Comment: uuencoded gzipped tar file containing the manuscript (tex file) and
four figures (postscript files). Accepted for publication in Solid State
Communications. Send e-mail to: [email protected]
Surrounding species diversity improves subtropical seedlings’ carbon dynamics
Increasing biodiversity has been linked to higher primary productivity in terrestrial ecosystems. However, the underlying ecophysiological mechanisms remain poorly understood. We investigated the effects of surrounding species richness (monoculture, two- and four-species mixtures) on the ecophysiology of Lithocarpus glaber seedlings in experimental plots in subtropical China. A natural rain event isotopically labelled both the water uptaken by the L.glaber seedlings and the carbon in new photoassimilates through changes of photosynthetic discrimination. We followed the labelled carbon (C) and oxygen (O) in the plant-soil-atmosphere continuum. We measured gas-exchange variables (C assimilation, transpiration and above- and belowground respiration) and C-13 in leaf biomass, phloem, soil microbial biomass, leaf- and soil-respired CO2 as well as O-18 in leaf and xylem water. The C-13 signal in phloem and respired CO2 in L.glaber in monoculture lagged behind those in species mixture, showing a slower transport of new photoassimilates to and through the phloem in monoculture. Furthermore, leaf-water O-18 enrichment above the xylem water in L.glaber increased after the rain in lower diversity plots suggesting a lower ability to compensate for increased transpiration. Lithocarpus glaber in monoculture showed higher C assimilation rate and water-use efficiency. However, these increased C resources did not translate in higher growth of L.glaber in monoculture suggesting the existence of larger nongrowth-related C sinks in monoculture. These ecophysiological responses of L.glaber, in agreement with current understanding of phloem transport are consistent with a stronger competition for water resources in monoculture than in species mixtures. Therefore, increasing species diversity in the close vicinity of the studied plants appears to alleviate physiological stress induced by water competition and to counterbalance the negative effects of interspecific competition on assimilation rates for L.glaber by allowing a higher fraction of the C assimilated to be allocated to growth in species mixture than in monoculture.Peer reviewe
Surrounding species diversity improves subtropical seedlings’ carbon dynamics
Increasing biodiversity has been linked to higher primary productivity in terrestrial ecosystems. However, the underlying ecophysiological mechanisms remain poorly understood. We investigated the effects of surrounding species richness (monoculture, two- and four-species mixtures) on the ecophysiology of Lithocarpus glaber seedlings in experimental plots in subtropical China. A natural rain event isotopically labelled both the water uptaken by the L. glaber seedlings and the carbon in new photoassimilates through changes of photosynthetic discrimination. We followed the labelled carbon (C) and oxygen (O) in the plant–soil–atmosphere continuum. We measured gas-exchange variables (C assimilation, transpiration and above- and belowground respiration) and δ13C in leaf biomass, phloem, soil microbial biomass, leaf- and soil-respired CO2 as well as δ18O in leaf and xylem water. The 13C signal in phloem and respired CO2 in L. glaber in monoculture lagged behind those in species mixture, showing a slower transport of new photoassimilates to and through the phloem in monoculture. Furthermore, leaf-water 18O enrichment above the xylem water in L. glaber increased after the rain in lower diversity plots suggesting a lower ability to compensate for increased transpiration. Lithocarpus glaber in monoculture showed higher C assimilation rate and water-use efficiency. However, these increased C resources did not translate in higher growth of L. glaber in monoculture suggesting the existence of larger nongrowth-related C sinks in monoculture. These ecophysiological responses of L. glaber, in agreement with current understanding of phloem transport are consistent with a stronger competition for water resources in monoculture than in species mixtures. Therefore, increasing species diversity in the close vicinity of the studied plants appears to alleviate physiological stress induced by water competition and to counterbalance the negative effects of interspecific competition on assimilation rates for L. glaber by allowing a higher fraction of the C assimilated to be allocated to growth in species mixture than in monoculture
Long-Range Correlations and the Momentum Distribution in Nuclei
The influence of correlations on the momentum distribution of nucleons in
nuclei is evaluated starting from a realistic nucleon-nucleon interaction. The
calculations are performed directly for the finite nucleus \,^{16}O making
use of the Green's function approach. The emphasis is focused on the
correlations induced by the excitation modes at low energies described within a
model-space of shell-model configurations including states up to the sdg shell.
Our analysis demonstrates that these long-range correlations do not produce any
significant enhancement of the momentum distribution at high missing momenta
and low missing energies. This is in agreement with high resolution
experiments for this nucleus. We also try to simulate the corresponding effects
in large nuclei by quenching the energy-spacing between single-particle orbits.
This yields a sizable enhancement of the spectral function at large momenta and
small energy. Such behavior could explain the deviation of the momentum
distribution from the mean field prediction, which has been observed in
experiments on heavy nuclei like Pb
Weak ferromagnetism and internal magnetoelectric effect in LiFePO
The magnetic, thermodynamic, and pyroelectric properties of LiFePO
single crystals are investigated with emphasis on the magnetoelectric
interaction of the electrical polarization with the magnetic order parameter.
The magnetic order below T 27 K is found to be a canted
antiferromagnet with a weak ferromagnetic component along the axis. A sharp
peak of the pyroelectric current at T proves the strong internal
magnetoelectric interaction resulting in a sizable polarization decrease at the
onset of magnetic order. The magnetoelectric effect in external magnetic fields
combines a linear and a quadratic field dependence below T. Thermal
expansion data show a large uniaxial magnetoelastic response and prove the
existence of strong spin lattice coupling. LiFePO is a polar compound
with a strong interaction of the magnetic order parameter with the electric
polarization and the lattice.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Stability and asynchrony of local communities but less so diversity increase regional stability of Inner Mongolian grassland
Extending knowledge on ecosystem stability to larger spatial scales is urgently needed because present local-scale studies are generally ineffective in guiding management and conservation decisions of an entire region with diverse plant communities. We investigated stability of plant productivity across spatial scales and hierarchical levels of organization and analyzed impacts of dominant species, species diversity, and climatic factors using a multisite survey of Inner Mongolian grassland. We found that regional stability across distant local communities was related to stability and asynchrony of local communities. Using only dominant instead of all-species dynamics explained regional stability almost equally well. The diversity of all or only dominant species had comparatively weak effects on stability and synchrony, whereas a lower mean and higher variation of precipitation destabilized regional and local communities by reducing population stability and synchronizing species dynamics. We demonstrate that, for semi-arid temperate grassland with highly uneven species abundances, the stability of regional communities is increased by stability and asynchrony of local communities and these are more affected by climate rather than species diversity. Reduced amounts and increased variation of precipitation in the future may compromise the sustainable provision of ecosystem services to human well-being in this region
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