Study of the peak effect phenomenon in single crystals of 2H-NbSe2

The weakly pinned single crystals of the hexagonal 2H-NbSe₂ compound have emerged as prototypes for determining and characterizing the phase boundaries of the possible order-disorder transformations in the vortex matter. We present here a status report based on the ac and dc magnetization measurements of the peak effect phenomenon in three crystals of 2H-NbSe₂, in which the critical current densities vary over two orders of magnitude. We sketch the generic vortex phase diagram of a weakly pinned superconductor, which also utilizes theoretical proposals. We also establish the connection between the metastability effects and pinning.     

Protein kinase A type I activates a CRE-element more efficiently than protein kinase A type II regardless of C subunit isoform

Background  

Protein kinase A type I (PKAI) and PKAII are expressed in most of the eukaryotic cells examined. PKA is a major receptor for cAMP and specificity is achieved partly through tissue-dependent expression and subcellular localization of subunits with different biochemical properties. In addition posttranslational modifications help fine tune PKA activity, distribution and interaction in the cell. In spite of this the functional significance of two forms of PKA in one cell has not been fully determined. Here we have tested the ability of PKAI and PKAII formed by expression of the regulatory (R) subunits RIα or RIIα in conjunction with Cα1 or Cβ2 to activate a co-transfected luciferace reporter gene, controlled by the cyclic AMP responsive element-binding protein (CREB) in vivo.     

Lattice‐Boltzmann and meshless point collocation solvers for fluid flow and conjugate heat transfer

The applicability and performance of the lattice‐Boltzmann (LB) and meshless point collocation methods as CFD solvers in flow and conjugate heat transfer processes are investigated in this work. Lid‐driven cavity flow and flow in a slit with an obstacle including heat transfer are considered as case studies. A comparison of the computational efficiency accuracy of the two methods with that of a finite volume method as implemented in a commercial package (ANSYS CFX, ANSYS Inc., Canonsburg, PA) is made. Utilizing the analogy between heat and mass transfer, an advection–diffusion LB model was adopted to simulate the heat transfer part of the slit flow problem followed by a rigorous mapping of the mass transfer variables to the heat transfer quantities of interest, thus circumventing the need for a thermal LB model. Direct comparison among the results of the three methods revealed excellent agreement over a wide range of Reynolds and Prandtl number values. Furthermore, an integrated computational scheme is proposed, utilizing the rapid convergence of the LB model in the flow part of the conjugate heat transfer problem with that of the meshless collocation method for the heat transfer part. The meshless treatment remains sufficiently rapid even for conduction‐controlled processes in contrast to the LB method, which is very rapid in the convection‐controlled case only. A single, common computational grid, composed of regularly distributed nodes is used, saving significant computational and coding time and ensuring convergence of the discrete Laplacian operator in the heat transfer part of the computations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Excited atomic state of Li

An optical transition of 3489 A has been shown to arise from Li using beam foil spectroscopic technique. The mean life of the state emitting this radiation has been measured to be 2.23 ä 0.08 n sec.     

ESR study of exchange coupled pairs in copper diethyldithiocarbamate—explanation of the low temperature hyperfine anomaly

A study of the hyperfine interaction in the ESR of Cu-Cu pairs in single crystals of copper diethyldithiocarbamate as a function of temperature has shown distinct differences in the hyperfine structure in the two fine structure transitions at 20 K, the spectrum not having the same hyperfine intensity pattern in the low field fine structure transition in contrast to that of the high field transition. The details of the structure of both the fine structure transitions in the 20 K spectrum have now been explained by recognizing the fact that the mixing of the nuclear spin states caused by the anisotropic hyperfine interaction affects the electron spin states | + 1 > and | −> differently. This has incidentally led to a determination of the sign ofD confirming the earlier model. The anomalous hyperfine structure is found to become symmetric at 77 K and 300 K. It is proposed that the reason for this lies in the dynamics of spin-lattice interaction which limits the lifetime of the spin states in each of the electronic levels | − 1 >, | 0 > and | + 1 > The estimate of spin-lattice relaxation time agrees with those indicated from other studies. The model proposed here for the hyperfine interaction of pairs in the electronic triplet state is of general validity.     

Novel methodology for 3D reconstruction of carotid arteries and plaque characterization based upon magnetic resonance imaging carotid angiography data

In this study, we present a novel methodology that allows reliable segmentation of the magnetic resonance images (MRIs) for accurate fully automated three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of the carotid arteries and semiautomated characterization of plaque type. Our approach uses active contours to detect the luminal borders in the time-of-flight images and the outer vessel wall borders in the T(1)-weighted images. The methodology incorporates the connecting components theory for the automated identification of the bifurcation region and a knowledge-based algorithm for the accurate characterization of the plaque components. The proposed segmentation method was validated in randomly selected MRI frames analyzed offline by two expert observers. The interobserver variability of the method for the lumen and outer vessel wall was -1.60%±6.70% and 0.56%±6.28%, respectively, while the Williams Index for all metrics was close to unity. The methodology implemented to identify the composition of the plaque was also validated in 591 images acquired from 24 patients. The obtained Cohen's k was 0.68 (0.60-0.76) for lipid plaques, while the time needed to process an MRI sequence for 3D reconstruction was only 30 s. The obtained results indicate that the proposed methodology allows reliable and automated detection of the luminal and vessel wall borders and fast and accurate characterization of plaque type in carotid MRI sequences. These features render the currently presented methodology a useful tool in the clinical and research arena.     

An accurate, stable and efficient domain-type meshless method for the solution of MHD flow problems

The aim of the present paper is the development of an efficient numerical algorithm for the solution of magnetohydrodynamics flow problems for regular and irregular geometries subject to Dirichlet, Neumann and Robin boundary conditions. Toward this, the meshless point collocation method (MPCM) is used for MHD flow problems in channels with fully insulating or partially insulating and partially conducting walls, having rectangular, circular, elliptical or even arbitrary cross sections. MPC is a truly meshless and computationally efficient method. The maximum principle for the discrete harmonic operator in the meshfree point collocation method has been proven very recently, and the convergence proof for the numerical solution of the Poisson problem with Dirichlet boundary conditions have been attained also. Additionally, in the present work convergence is attained for Neumann and Robin boundary conditions, accordingly. The shape functions are constructed using the Moving Least Squares (MLS) approximation. The refinement procedure with meshless methods is obtained with an easily handled and fully automated manner. We present results for Hartmann number up to 10⁵${10}^5$. The numerical evidences of the proposed meshless method demonstrate the accuracy of the solutions after comparing with the exact solution and the conventional FEM and BEM, for the Dirichlet, Neumann and Robin boundary conditions of interior problems with simple or complex boundaries.     

Effect of three-body forces on the lattice dynamics of noble metals

A simple method to generate an effective electron-ion interaction pseudopotential from the energy wave number characteristic obtained by first principles calculations has been suggested. This effective potential has been used, in third order perturbation, to study the effect of three-body forces on the lattice dynamics of noble metals. It is found that three-body forces, in these metals, do play an important role. The inclusion of such three-body forces appreciably improves the agreement between the experimental and theoretical phonon dispersion curves.     

An immersed boundary vector potential-vorticity meshless solver of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equation

We present a strong form meshless solver for numerical solution of the nonstationary, incompressible, viscous Navier–Stokes equations in two (2D) and three dimensions (3D). We solve the flow equations in their stream function-vorticity (in 2D) and vector potential-vorticity (in 3D) formulation, by extending to 3D flows the boundary condition-enforced immersed boundary method, originally introduced in the literature for 2D problems. We use a Cartesian grid, uniform or locally refined, to discretize the spatial domain. We apply an explicit time integration scheme to update the transient vorticity equations, and we solve the Poisson type equation for the stream function or vector potential field using the meshless point collocation method. Spatial derivatives of the unknown field functions are computed using the discretization-corrected particle strength exchange method. We verify the accuracy of the proposed numerical scheme through commonly used benchmark and example problems. Excellent agreement with the data from the literature was achieved. The proposed method was shown to be very efficient, having relatively large critical time steps.