Issues in the statistical mechanics of steady sedimentation

A critical review is presented of recent experimental and theoretical work on the steady sedimentation of particulate suspensions in viscous fluids. The point of view is that of a practitioner of non-equilibrium statistical physics rather than classical fluid mechanics.     

Model-based speech enhancement using a bone-conducted signal

Codebook-based single-microphone noise suppressors, which exploit prior knowledge about speech and noise statistics, provide better performance in nonstationary noise. However, as the enhancement involves a joint optimization over speech and noise codebooks, this results in high computational complexity. A codebook-based method is proposed that uses a reference signal observed by a bone-conduction microphone, and a mapping between air- and bone-conduction codebook entries generated during an offline training phase. A smaller subset of air-conducted speech codebook entries that accurately models the clean speech signal is selected using this reference signal. Experiments support the expected improvement in performance at low computational complexity.     

A facile domino protocol for the regioselective synthesis and discovery of novel 2-amino-5-arylthieno-[2,3-b]thiophenes as antimycobacterial agents

A series of novel 2-amino-5-arylthieno[2,3-b]thiophenes has been synthesized regioselectively from the reaction of 5-aryldihydro-3(2H)-thiophenones with ethyl cyanoacetate/malononitrile and sulfur powder in the presence of morpholine under thermal as well as microwave irradiation conditions. This transformation presumably occurs via domino Gewald reaction-dehydrogenation sequence. The 2-amino-5-arylthieno[2,3-b]thiophenes were evaluated for their in vitro activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv (MTB) and multi-drug resistant M. tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Among 12 compounds screened, ethyl 2-amino-5-(1-naphthyl)thieno[2,3-b]thiophene-3-carboxylate was found to be the most active compound with MIC of 1.1 μM against MTB and MDR-TB.     

Nonequilibrium noise and instabilities in membranes with active pumps

We study the statistical properties and dynamics of flexible fluid membranes containing active transmembrane proteins and find that such active membranes can be either stable or unstable to small disturbances, depending on the signs of certain crucial parameters characterising the protein-membrane interaction. A major finding is that the shape-fluctuation spectrum in the stable case for a zero-tension active membrane has the same form over a large range of length scales as at equilibrium, but with a nonequilibrium “noise temperature” determined by the activity.     

The Heisenberg ferromagnet in spin coherent state representation

A new approach to Heisenberg ferromagnet using the spin coherent state representation is developed. The differential operator representation of spin angular momentum operators is used to derive thec-number analogs of the basic quantum mechanical equations, viz., the Schrödinger, Bloch and Liouville equations for the Heisenberg ferromagnet. As an important illustration of our formulation, which has noad hoc assumptions and does not use any boson representation, the excitation spectrum for one, two and three spin waves is obtained. In these cases it is also shown that eigenvalue spectrum can be obtained by completely ignoring the kinematical interactions.     

Projection-speckle digital-correlation method for surface-displacement measurement

A whole-field projection-speckle technique to measure out of plane displacements of initially flat structures has been presented. The method is based on digital correlation of images obtained from a TV camera. An improved digital-correlation function has been derived and described along with the analysis scheme. An instrumentation system based on a desktop computer has been set up to implement the method. Experimental results from simple static tests have been used to validate the technique.     

Nonlinear chiral models: Soliton solutions and spatio-temporal chaos

Nonlinear effective Lagrangian models with a chiral symmetry have been used to describe strong interactions at low energy, for a long time. The Skyrme model and the chiral quark-meson model are two such models, which have soliton solutions which can be identified with the baryons. We describe the various kinds of soliton states in these nonlinear models and discuss their physical significance and uses in this review. We also study these models from the view point of classical nonlinar dynamical systems. We consider fluctuations around theB=1 soliton solutions of these models (B, being the baryon number) and solve the spherically symmetric, time-dependent systems. Numerical studies indicate that the phase space around the Skyrme soliton solution exhibits spatio-temporal chaos. It is remarkable that topological solitons signifying stability/order and spatio-temporal chaos coexist in this model. In contrast with this, the soliton of the quark-meson model is stable even for large perturbations.     

One-electron oxidation of DNA: the effect of replacement of cytosine with 5-methylcytosine on long-distance radical cation transport and reaction

One-electron oxidation of duplex DNA generates a radical cation that migrates through the nucleobases until it is trapped by an irreversible reaction with water or oxygen. The trapping site is often a GG step, because this site has a relatively low ionization potential and this causes the radical cation to pause there momentarily. Modifications to guanine that lower its ionization potential convert it to a better trap for the radical cation. One such modification is the formation of the Watson-Crick base pair with cytosine, which is reported to very significantly decrease its ionization potential. Methylation of cytosine to form 5-methylcytosine (5-MeC) is a naturally occurring reaction in genomic DNA that may be associated with regions of enhanced oxidative damage. The G.5-MeC base pair is reported to be more rapidly oxidized than normal G.C base pairs. We examined the oxidation of DNA oligomers that were substituted in part with 5-MeC. Irradiation of a covalently linked anthraquinone group injects a radical cation into the DNA and results in strand cleavage after piperidine treatment. For the sequences examined, substitution of 5-MeC for C has no measurable effect on the reactions. Cytosine methylation is not a general cause of enhanced oxidative damage in DNA.