Physics

ABSTRACT A novel nanometer-scale electronic technology, called nanoelectronics is emerging. Nanoelectronic discrete devices, such as resonant tunneling diodes and transistors, single-electron transistors, bistable quantum-cells, quantum interference devices, etc. have been proposed and built. Technology and physics of the devices are reasonably well understood, but there exists a gap between device physics and nanoelectronic systems integration. In this paper it is shown that in case of local quantum coherence, i.e., if coherence is restricted to the internal dynamics of Coulomb-coupled devices, system dynamics can be described by a set of coupled ordinary nonlinear differential equations. In this case virtual charges, voltages and currents, obeying Kirchoff's equations, can be assigned to the dynamic variables of the state equations, thus circuit models can be introduced. We also show that edge-driven arrays performing ground state computing are locally passive systems if the Coulomb-coupled devices are excited by the input signals only. In order to perform signal processing or computing, external energy should be pumped into the array, and the pumped array should be locally active. Adiabatic pumping is one way of injecting energy to the signal path

... This work was supported in part by grants from the National Science Foundation (ECS#0224266, U Varshney) and Air Force Office of Scientific Research (T Steiner ... B 68 205210 [22] Potashnik SJ, Ku KC, Mahendiran R, Chun SH, Wang RF, Samarth N and Schiffer P 2002 Phys. ...

Nature is the international weekly journal of science: a magazine style journal that publishes full-length research papers in all disciplines of science, as well as News and Views, reviews, news, features, commentaries, web focuses and more, covering all branches of science and ...

Pompe disease is a recessively inherited and often fatal disorder caused by the deficiency of acid α-glucosidase, an enzyme encoded by the GAA gene and needed to break down glycogen in lysosomes. This glycogen storage disease type II has been reported also in Swedish Lapphund dogs. Here we describe the genetic defect in canine Pompe disease and show that three related breeds from Scandinavia carry the same mutation. The affected dogs are homozygous for the GAA c.2237G>A mutation leading to a premature stop codon at amino acid position 746. The corresponding mutation has previously been reported in humans and causes infantile Pompe disease in combination with a second fully deleterious mutation. The affected dogs from both the Finnish as well as the Swedish breed mimic infantile-onset Pompe disease genetically, but also clinico-pathologically. Therefore this canine model provides a valuable tool for preclinical studies aimed at the development of gene therapy in Pompe disease.

This short text summarizes the work in biology proposed in our book, Perspectives on Organisms, where we analyse the unity proper to organisms by looking at it from different viewpoints. We discuss the theoretical roles of biological time, complexity, theoretical symmetries, singularities and critical transitions. We explicitly borrow from the conclusions in some key chapters and introduce them by a reflection on "incompleteness", also proposed in the book. We consider that incompleteness is a fundamental notion to understand the way in which we construct knowledge. Then we will introduce an approach to biological dynamics where randomness is central to the theoretical determination: randomness does not oppose biological stability but contributes to it by variability, adaptation, and diversity. Then, evolutionary and ontogenetic trajectories are continual changes of coherence structures involving symmetry changes within an ever-changing global stability.

In this study, five different bacteria with their different strains were isolated and characterized. Contact angles were measured by a captive-bubble technique. Surface-free energies were calculated from the contact angles. Hydrophobicities also were evaluated by rho-xylene adhesion. The zeta potentials and surface charges of the bacteria were obtained. The contact angles of the gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria were within the range of 48 degrees-69 degrees and 43.5 degrees-55 degrees, respectively, while corresponding surface-free energies were in the limits of 45.4-51.6 erg/cm-2 and 51.7-61.8 erg/cm-2, respectively. The rho-xylene adhesions were parallel to hydrophobicities defined by contact angles, and 32.2-80.3% and 2.3-36.6% for the gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria, respectively. The zeta potentials for these bacteria were from -650.2 to +17.5 mV and from -159.6 to -6.0 mV, respectively. Most of the bacteria were negatively charged, except the CNS-2 and CPS-1 strains. In the second part of the study, attachment of these bacteria to Vicryl sutures and their DMAEMA and AAc plasma-treated forms were investigated. Hydrophobic bacteria attached more to hydrophobic Vicryl sutures. Both plasma treatments caused significant drops in bacterial attachment in most cases. Effects of AAc plasma treatment were more pronounced.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has six major genotypes, and patients infected with genotype 1 respond less well to interferon-based therapy than other genotypes. African American patients respond to interferon alpha-based therapy at about half the rate of Caucasian Americans. The effect of HCV's genetic variation on treatment outcome in both racial groups is poorly understood. We determined the near full-length pre-therapy consensus sequences from 94 patients infected with HCV genotype 1a or 1b undergoing treatment with peginterferon alpha-2a and ribavirin through the Virahep-C study. The sequences were stratified by genotype, race and treatment outcome to identify HCV genetic differences associated with treatment efficacy. HCV sequences from patients who achieved sustained viral response were more diverse than sequences from non-responders. These inter-patient diversity differences were found primarily in the NS5A gene in genotype 1a and in core and NS2 in genotype 1b. These differenc...

Two decades of research have not established whether tropical insect herbivores are dominated by specialists or generalists. This impedes our understanding of species coexistence in diverse rainforest communities. Host specificity and species richness of tropical insects are also key parameters in mapping global patterns of biodiversity. Here we analyse data for over 900 herbivorous species feeding on 51 plant species in New Guinea and show that most herbivorous species feed on several closely related plant species. Because species-rich genera are dominant in tropical floras, monophagous herbivores are probably rare in tropical forests. Furthermore, even between phylogenetically distant hosts, herbivore communities typically shared a third of their species. These results do not support the classical view that the coexistence of herbivorous species in the tropics is a consequence of finely divided plant resources; non-equilibrium models of tropical diversity should instead be considered. Low host specificity of tropical herbivores reduces global estimates of arthropod diversity from 31 million (ref. 1) to 4 6 million species. This finding agrees with estimates based on taxonomic collections, reconciling an order of magnitude discrepancy between extrapolations of global diversity based on ecological samples of tropical communities with those based on sampling regional faunas.