Spinning strings and minimal surfaces in AdS(3) with mixed 3-form fluxes

Motivated by the recent proposal for the S-matrix in AdS(3) x S-3 with mixed three form fluxes, we study classical folded string spinning in AdS(3) with both Ramond and Neveu-Schwarz three form fluxes. We solve the equations of motion of these strings and obtain their dispersion relation to the leading order in the Neveu-Schwarz flux b. We show that dispersion relation for the spinning strings with large spin S acquires a term given by -root lambda/2 pi b(2) log(2) S in addition to the usual root lambda/pi log S term where root lambda is proportional to the square of the radius of AdS(3). Using SO(2, 2) transformations and re-parmetrizations we show that these spinning strings can be related to light like Wilson loops in AdS(3) with Neveu-Schwarz flux b. We observe that the logarithmic divergence in the area of the light like Wilson loop is also deformed by precisely the same coefficient of the b(2) log(2) S term in the dispersion relation of the spinning string. This result indicates that the coefficient of b(2) log(2) S has a property similar to the coefficient of the log S term, known as cusp-anomalous dimension, and can possibly be determined to all orders in the coupling lambda using the recent proposal for the S-matrix.

The Self-Association of Graphane Is Driven by London Dispersion and Enhanced Orbital Interactions

We investigated the nature of the cohesive energy between graphane sheets via multiple CH center dot center dot center dot HC interactions, using density functional theory (DFT) including dispersion correction (Grimmes D3 approach) computations of n]graphane sigma dimers (n = 6-73). For comparison, we also evaluated the binding between graphene sheets that display prototypical pi/pi interactions. The results were analyzed using the block-localized wave function (BLW) method, which is a variant of ab initio valence bond (VB) theory. BLW interprets the intermolecular interactions in terms of frozen interaction energy (Delta E-F) composed of electrostatic and Pauli repulsion interactions, polarization (Delta E-pol), charge-transfer interaction (Delta E-CT), and dispersion effects (Delta E-disp). The BLW analysis reveals that the cohesive energy between graphane sheets is dominated by two stabilizing effects, namely intermolecular London dispersion and two-way charge transfer energy due to the sigma CH -> sigma*(HC) interactions. The shift of the electron density around the nonpolar covalent C-H bonds involved in the intermolecular interaction decreases the C-H bond lengths uniformly by 0.001 angstrom. The Delta E-CT term, which accounts for similar to 15% of the total binding energy, results in the accumulation of electron density in the interface area between two layers. This accumulated electron density thus acts as an electronic glue for the graphane layers and constitutes an important driving force in the self-association and stability of graphane under ambient conditions. Similarly, the double faced adhesive tape style of charge transfer interactions was also observed among graphene sheets in which it accounts for similar to 18% of the total binding energy. The binding energy between graphane sheets is additive and can be expressed as a sum of CH center dot center dot center dot HC interactions, or as a function of the number of C-H bonds.

Self-assembly of Metallamacrocycles Employing a New Benzil-based Organometallic Bisplatinum(II) Acceptor

A benzil-based semi-rigid dinuclear organometallic acceptor 4,4'-bistrans-Pt(PEt3)(2)(NO3)(ethynyl)]benzil (bisPt-NO3) containing a Pt-ethynyl functionality was synthesized in good yield and characterized by multinuclear NMR (H-1, P-31, and C-13), electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), and single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis of the iodide analogue bisPt-I. The stoichiometric (1:1) combination of the acceptor bisPt-NO3 separately with four different ditopic donors (L-1-L-4; L-1 = 9-ethyl-3,6-di(1H-imidazol-1-yl)-9H-carbazole, L-2 = 1,4-bis((1H-imidazol-1-yl)methyl)benzene, L-3 = 1,3-bis((1H-imidazol-1-yl)methyl)benzene and L-4 = 9,10-bis((1H-imidazol-1-yl) methyl)anthracene) yielded four 2 + 2] self-assembled metallacycles M-1-M-4 in quantitative yields, respectively. All these newly synthesized assemblies were characterized by various spectroscopic techniques (NMR, IR, ESI-MS) and their sizes/shapes were predicted through geometry optimization employing the PM6 semi-empirical method. The benzil moiety was introduced in the backbone of the acceptor bisPt-NO3 due to the interesting structural feature of long carbonyl C-C bond (similar to 1.54 angstrom), which enabled us to probe the role of conformational flexibility on size and shapes of the resulting coordination ensembles.

A self-assembling polycationic nanocarrier that exhibits exceptional gene transfection efficiency

The lack of an efficient and safe carrier is a major impediment in the field of gene therapy. Although gelatin (GT), a naturally derived polymer, is widely used in drug delivery applications, it is unable to bind DNA efficiently. In this study, a novel polycationic gene carrier was prepared by conjugation of low molecular weight polyethyleneimine (LPEI) with GT through 4-bromonaphthaleic anhydride as a coupling agent to avoid self crosslinking. Self-assembly of LPEI conjugated GT (GT-LPEI) with plasmid DNA (pDNA) yielded nanoparticles with high gene complexation ability to form similar to 250 nm cylindrical nanoparticles with a zeta potential of similar to 27 mV. GT-LPEI showed exceptionally high transfection efficiency (> 90%) in various mammalian cells including primary stem cells with minimal cytotoxicity. The transfection efficiency of GT-LPEI significantly surpassed that of many commercial reagents. The high gene transfection expression was confirmed in vivo. Thus, GT-LPEI is shown to be a promising nonviral carrier for potential use in gene therapy.

Vesicular Nanostructure Formation by Self-Assembly of Anisotropic Penta-phenol-Substituted Fullerene in Water

A study on self-assembly of anisotropically substituted penta-aryl fullerenes in water has been reported. The penta-phenol-substituted amphiphilic fullerene derivative C60Ph5(OH)(5)],exhibited self-assembled vesicular nanostructures in water under the experimental conditions. The size of the vesicles Was observed to depend upon the kinetics of self-assembly and could be varied from similar to 300 to similar to 70 nm. Our mechanistic study indicated that the self-assembly of C60Ph5(OH)(5) is driven by extensive intermolecular as well as water-mediated hydrogen :bonding along with fullerene-fullerene hydrophobic interaction in water. The cumulative effect of these interactions is responsible for the stability of vesicular structures even on the removal of solvent. The substitution of phenol with anisole resulted in different packing and interaction of the fullerene derivative, as Indicated in the molecular dynamics studies, thus resulting in different self-assembled nanostructures. The hollow vesicles were further encapsulated with a hydrophobic conjugated polymer and water-soluble dye as guest molecules. Such confinement of pi-conjugated polymers in fullerene has significance in bulk heterojunction devices for efficient exciton diffusion.

The Pressure Transient Analysis Of Deformation Of Fractal Medium

The assumption of constant rock properties in pressure-transient analysis of stress-sensitive reservoirs can cause significant errors in the estimation of temporal and spatial variation of pressure. In this article, the pressure transient response of the fractal medium in stress-sensitive reservoirs was studied by using the self-similarity solution method and the regular perturbation method. The dependence of permeability on pore pressure makes the flow equation strongly nonlinear. The nonlinearities associated with the governing equation become weaker by using the logarithm transformation. The perturbation solutions for a constant pressure production and a constant rate production of a linear-source well were obtained by using the self-similarity solution method and the regular perturbation method in an infinitely large system, and inquire into the changing rule of pressure when the fractal and deformation parameters change. The plots of typical pressure curves were given in a few cases, and the results can be applied to well test analysis.

Self-similarity limits of genomic signatures

It is shown that metric representation of DNA sequences is one-to-one. By using the metric representation method, suppression of nucleotide strings in the DNA sequences is determined. For a DNA sequence, an optimal string length to display genomic signature in chaos game representation is obtained by eliminating effects of the finite sequence. The optimal string length is further shown as a self-similarity limit in computing information dimension. By using the method, self-similarity limits of bacteria complete genomic signatures are further determined.

A generalized model for the effective thermal conductivity of porous media based on self-similarity

A generalized model for the effective thermal conductivity of porous media is derived based on the fact that statistical self-similarity exists in porous media. The proposed model assumes that porous media consist of two portions: randomly distributed non-touching particles and self-similarly distributed particles contacting each other with resistance. The latter are simulated by Sierpinski carpets with side length L = 13 and cutout size C = 3, 5, 7 and 9, respectively, depending upon the porosity concerned. Recursive formulae are presented and expressed as a function of porosity, ratio of areas, ratio of component thermal conductivities and contact resistance, and there is no empirical constant and every parameter has a clear physical meaning. The model predictions are compared with the existing experimental data, and good agreement is found in a wide range of porosity of 0.14-0.80, and this verifies the validity of the proposed model.

Fractal geometry model for effective thermal conductivity of three-phase porous media

An approximate model, a fractal geometry model, for the effective thermal conductivity of three-phase/unsaturated porous media is proposed based on the thermal-electrical analogy technique and on statistical self-similarity of porous media. The proposed thermal conductivity model is expressed as a function of porosity (related to stage n of Sierpinski carpet), ratio of areas, ratio of component thermal conductivities, and saturation. The recursive algorithm for the thermal conductivity by the proposed model is presented and found to be quite simple. The model predictions are compared with the existing measurements. Good agreement is found between the present model predictions and the existing experimental data. This verifies the validity of the proposed model. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.

Determinants of self-reported smoking and misclassification during pregnancy, and analysis of optimal cut-off points for urinary cotinine: a cross-sectional study

10 p.

Subdiffusion of nonlinear waves in quasiperiodic potentials

19 p.

Synthetic molecular machines for active self-assembly : prototype algorithms, designs, and experimental study

Computer science and electrical engineering have been the great success story of the twentieth century. The neat modularity and mapping of a language onto circuits has led to robots on Mars, desktop computers and smartphones. But these devices are not yet able to do some of the things that life takes for granted: repair a scratch, reproduce, regenerate, or grow exponentially fast–all while remaining functional.

This thesis explores and develops algorithms, molecular implementations, and theoretical proofs in the context of “active self-assembly” of molecular systems. The long-term vision of active self-assembly is the theoretical and physical implementation of materials that are composed of reconfigurable units with the programmability and adaptability of biology’s numerous molecular machines. En route to this goal, we must first find a way to overcome the memory limitations of molecular systems, and to discover the limits of complexity that can be achieved with individual molecules.

One of the main thrusts in molecular programming is to use computer science as a tool for figuring out what can be achieved. While molecular systems that are Turing-complete have been demonstrated [Winfree, 1996], these systems still cannot achieve some of the feats biology has achieved.

One might think that because a system is Turing-complete, capable of computing “anything,” that it can do any arbitrary task. But while it can simulate any digital computational problem, there are many behaviors that are not “computations” in a classical sense, and cannot be directly implemented. Examples include exponential growth and molecular motion relative to a surface.

Passive self-assembly systems cannot implement these behaviors because (a) molecular motion relative to a surface requires a source of fuel that is external to the system, and (b) passive systems are too slow to assemble exponentially-fast-growing structures. We call these behaviors “energetically incomplete” programmable behaviors. This class of behaviors includes any behavior where a passive physical system simply does not have enough physical energy to perform the specified tasks in the requisite amount of time.

As we will demonstrate and prove, a sufficiently expressive implementation of an “active” molecular self-assembly approach can achieve these behaviors. Using an external source of fuel solves part of the the problem, so the system is not “energetically incomplete.” But the programmable system also needs to have sufficient expressive power to achieve the specified behaviors. Perhaps surprisingly, some of these systems do not even require Turing completeness to be sufficiently expressive.

Building on a large variety of work by other scientists in the fields of DNA nanotechnology, chemistry and reconfigurable robotics, this thesis introduces several research contributions in the context of active self-assembly.

We show that simple primitives such as insertion and deletion are able to generate complex and interesting results such as the growth of a linear polymer in logarithmic time and the ability of a linear polymer to treadmill. To this end we developed a formal model for active-self assembly that is directly implementable with DNA molecules. We show that this model is computationally equivalent to a machine capable of producing strings that are stronger than regular languages and, at most, as strong as context-free grammars. This is a great advance in the theory of active self- assembly as prior models were either entirely theoretical or only implementable in the context of macro-scale robotics.

We developed a chain reaction method for the autonomous exponential growth of a linear DNA polymer. Our method is based on the insertion of molecules into the assembly, which generates two new insertion sites for every initial one employed. The building of a line in logarithmic time is a first step toward building a shape in logarithmic time. We demonstrate the first construction of a synthetic linear polymer that grows exponentially fast via insertion. We show that monomer molecules are converted into the polymer in logarithmic time via spectrofluorimetry and gel electrophoresis experiments. We also demonstrate the division of these polymers via the addition of a single DNA complex that competes with the insertion mechanism. This shows the growth of a population of polymers in logarithmic time. We characterize the DNA insertion mechanism that we utilize in Chapter 4. We experimentally demonstrate that we can control the kinetics of this re- action over at least seven orders of magnitude, by programming the sequences of DNA that initiate the reaction.

In addition, we review co-authored work on programming molecular robots using prescriptive landscapes of DNA origami; this was the first microscopic demonstration of programming a molec- ular robot to walk on a 2-dimensional surface. We developed a snapshot method for imaging these random walking molecular robots and a CAPTCHA-like analysis method for difficult-to-interpret imaging data.

Measurement of small vibration amplitudes of a rough surface by an interferometer with a self-pumped phase-conjugate mirror

The application of a Michelson interferometer with a self-pumped phase-conjugate mirror to measure small vibration amplitudes of a rough surface is described. The distorted wave front of the light that is diffusely reflected from the rough surface is restored by phase conjugation to provide an interference signal with a high signal-to-noise ratio. The vibration amplitudes of a stainless-steel sample are measured with a precision of similar to 5 nm. (C) 2000 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 120.3180, 190.5040, 120.7280.

Application of Entropy and Fractal Dimension Analyses to the Pattern Recognition of Contaminated Fish Responses in Aquaculture

The objective of the work was to develop a non-invasive methodology for image acquisition, processing and nonlinear trajectory analysis of the collective fish response to a stochastic event. Object detection and motion estimation were performed by an optical flow algorithm in order to detect moving fish and simultaneously eliminate background, noise and artifacts. The Entropy and the Fractal Dimension (FD) of the trajectory followed by the centroids of the groups of fish were calculated using Shannon and permutation Entropy and the Katz, Higuchi and Katz-Castiglioni's FD algorithms respectively. The methodology was tested on three case groups of European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), two of which were similar (C1 control and C2 tagged fish) and very different from the third (C3, tagged fish submerged in methylmercury contaminated water). The results indicate that Shannon entropy and Katz-Castiglioni were the most sensitive algorithms and proved to be promising tools for the non-invasive identification and quantification of differences in fish responses. In conclusion, we believe that this methodology has the potential to be embedded in online/real time architecture for contaminant monitoring programs in the aquaculture industry.

Estudo do comportamento caótico e determinação de dimensão fractal em modelos pré-inflacionários não compactos

O caos determinístico é um dos aspectos mais interessantes no que diz respeito à teoria moderna dos sistemas dinâmicos, e está intrinsecamente associado a pequenas variações nas condições iniciais de um dado modelo. Neste trabalho, é feito um estudo acerca do comportamento caótico em dois casos específicos. Primeiramente, estudam-se modelos préinflacionários não-compactos de Friedmann-Robertson-Walker com campo escalar minimamente acoplado e, em seguida, modelos anisotrópicos de Bianchi IX. Em ambos os casos, o componente material é um fluido perfeito. Tais modelos possuem constante cosmológica e podem ser estudados através de uma descrição unificada, a partir de transformações de variáveis convenientes. Estes sistemas possuem estruturas similares no espaço de fases, denominadas centros-sela, que fazem com que as soluções estejam contidas em hipersuperfícies cuja topologia é cilíndrica. Estas estruturas dominam a relação entre colapso e escape para a inflação, que podem ser tratadas como bacias cuja fronteira pode ser fractal, e que podem ser associadas a uma estrutura denominada repulsor estranho. Utilizando o método de contagem de caixas, são calculadas as dimensões características das fronteiras nos modelos, o que envolve técnicas e algoritmos de computação numérica, e tal método permite estudar o escape caótico para a inflação.