Additive-subtractive phase-modulated speckle interferometry: Fringe visibility under partial decorrelation

Additive-subtractive phase modulated speckle interferometry (ASPMSI) is a technique that minimizes the susceptibility of speckle methods to environmental noise while providing fringes of good visibility. The method requires the acquisition of two consecutive video frames of additive-speckle images of the same two deformed states of an object at a rapid enough rate such that ambient noise is not a problem. The additive-speckle images as expected are of very poor visibility due to the presence of the self-interference term. An interframe phase-modulation is introduced and the two additive-speckle images are digitally subtracted to improve the fringe visibility by removing the self-interference term. The ASPM-SI method works with in-plane and out-of-plane deformation sensitive ESPI as well as with displacement-gradient sensitive speckle-shearing interferometry. It is shown that the ASPM-SI scheme has higher visibility than conventional additive-SI and performs consistently better than subtractive-SI schemes in the presence of partial interframe speckle decorrelating optical noise. Furthermore, it is shown that the fringe visibility of the out-of-plane displacement sensitive interferometer which uses a protected reference beam separate from the object beam can be made to be essentially unity even at complete interframe decorrelation.     

Molecular dynamics simulations of the oligonucleotide with the modified phosphate/phosphonate internucleotide linkage

Impact of the internucleotide linkage modification by inserting a methylene group to the P-O bond (—O—PO ₂ ^— —O— chain changed for —O—PO ₂ ^— —CH₂—O—), on the modified oligonucleotide binding ability to the natural DNA strand was studied by molecular dynamics simulation. Complex of (dT)₁₁ with a deoxyadenosine undecamer containing alternating modified and natural internucleotide linkage was studied as a model system. The Amber force field was completed by a set of new parameters needed to model the modified part of the nucleotide. The simulations confirmed existence of a double-helical complex the melting point of which is considerably higher than 300 K. While the thymidine (unmodified) strand possesses a B-type secondary structure, the conformation of the adenosine (modified) strand is not stable at 300 K. The -ggt conformation of the modified linkages is highly preferred, temporary jumps to the -g-gt and ggt conformations were, however, observed.     

Quadratic Functionals with General Boundary Conditions

The purpose of this paper is to give the Reid ``Roundabout Theorem' for quadratic functionals with general boundary conditions. In particular, we describe the so-called coupled point and regularity condition introduced in [16] in terms of Riccati equation solutions. Accepted 27 February 1996     

Thermal diffusivity measurements in porous ceramics by photothermal methods

Received: 16 September 1996/Accepted: 6 January 1997     

Approximation in weighted Hardy spaces

This paper is concerned with several approximation problems in the weighted Hardy spacesH ^p(Ω) of analytic functions in the open unit disc D of the complex plane ℂ. We prove that ifX is a relatively closed subset of D, the class of uniform limits onX of functions inH ^p(Ω) coincides, moduloH ^p(Ω), with the space of uniformly continuous functions on a certain hull ofX which are holomorphic on its interior. We also solve the simultaneous approximation problems of describing Farrell and Mergelyan sets forH ^p(Ω), giving geometric characterizations for them. By replacing approximating polynomials by polynomial multipliers of outer functions, our results lead to characterizations of the same sets with respect to cyclic vectors in the classical Hardy spacesH ^p(D), 1 ⪯p < ∞. Dedicated to Professor Nácere Hayek on the occasion of his 75th birthday.     

The Nappi-Witten string in the light-cone gauge

Some of the motivations for as well as the main points of the quantization of the Nappi-Witten string in the light-cone gauge are reviewed.     

Luttinger liquid with asymmetric dispersion

We present an extension of the Tomonaga-Luttinger model in which left and right-moving particles have different Fermi velocities. We derive expressions for one-particle Green's functions, momentum-distributions, density of states, charge compressibility and conductivity as functions of both the velocity difference ε and the strength of the interaction β. This allows us to identify a novel restricted region in the parameter space in which the system keeps the main features of a Luttinger liquid but with an unusual behavior of the density of states and the static charge compressibility κ. In particular κ diverges on the boundary of the restricted region, indicating the occurrence of a phase transition. Received 20 May 2002 / Received in final form 23 August 2002 Published online 19 November 2002     

A branching process model for sand avalanches

An analytically solvable model for sand avalanches of noninteracting grains of sand, based on the Chapman-Kolmogorov equations, is presented. For a single avalanche, distributions of lifetimes, sizes of overflows and avalanches, and correlation functions are calculated. Some of these are exponentials, some are power laws. Spatially homogeneous distributions of avalanches are also studied. Computer simulations of avalanches of interacting grains of sand are compared to the solutions to the Chapman-Kolmogorov equations. We find that within the range of parameters explored in the simulation, the approximation of noninteracting grains of sand is a good one.     

Fatty acid binding site of mitochondrial uncoupling protein UCP2 as probed by EPR spectroscopy of spin-labeled fatty acids

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy of spin-labeled fatty acids was used to investigate their interaction withEscherichia coli-expressed human mitochondrial uncoupling protein UCP2 refolded from inclusion bodies in nonaethylene glycol monododecyl ether (C₁₂E₉) micelles. 5-DOXYL-stearic acid and 4-PROXYL-palmitic acid bound to UCP2 exhibited additional clearly separated h_+1I, h_?1I “immobile” peaks in the low- and high-field region, respectively, separated by 42 and 44 Gauss, and extensively reduced h_+1M, h_?1M “mobile” peaks, separated by about 30 G, whereas with 7-DOXYL-stearic acid the I and M peaks were smoothed together into one wide peak. Competition of 4-PROXYL-palmitic acid with added palmitic acid, arachidonic acid, and all-cis-8,11,14-eicosatrienoic acid and of 7-DOXYL-stearic acid with arachidonic acid was indicated by the disappearance of the h_+1I, h_?1I “immobile” peaks, whereas redistribution in micelles without protein was indicated by the rising of the h_+1M, h_?1M “mobile” peaks. In conclusion, a competition of palmitic, arachidonic, and eicosatrienoic acid within a putative fatty acid binding site was observed for mitochondrial uncoupling protein UCP2. This finding together with the observation of EPR spectra of highly immobilized probes exclusively in the presence of the recombinant UCP2 suggest the existence of a fatty acid binding site on UCP2 which is a prerequisite of the fatty acid cycling mechanism as previously postulated for UCP1.