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At least 1,765 records · Page 98

A preliminary evaluation of immune stimulation following exposure to metal particles and ions using the mouse popliteal lymph node assay

The objective of this preliminary study was to evaluate the threshold for immune stimulation in mice following local exposure to metal particles and ions representative of normal-functioning cobalt-chromium (CoCr) metal-on-metal (MoM) hip implants. The popliteal lymph node assay (PLNA) was used in this study to assess immune responses in BALB/c mice following treatment with chromium-oxide (Cr{sub 2}O{sub 3}) particles, metal salts (CoCl{sub 2}, CrCl{sub 3} and NiCl{sub 2}), or Cr{sub 2}O{sub 3} particles together with metal salts using single-dose exposures representing approximately 10 days (0.000114 mg), 19 years (0.0800 mg), and 40 years (0.171 mg) of normal implant wear. The immune response elicited following treatment with Cr{sub 2}O{sub 3} particles together with metal salts was also assessed at four additional doses equivalent to approximately 1.5 months (0.0005 mg), 0.6 years (0.0025 mg), 2.3 years (0.01 mg), and 9.3 years (0.04 mg) of normal implant wear. Mice were injected subcutaneously (50 μL) into the right hind foot with the test article, or with the relevant vehicle control. The proliferative response of the draining lymph node cells (LNC) was measured four days after treatment, and stimulation indices (SI) were derived relative to vehicle controls. The PLNA was negative (SI < 3) for all Cr{sub 2}O{sub 3} particle doses, and was also negative at the lowest dose of the metal salt mixture, and the lowest four doses of the Cr{sub 2}O{sub 3} particles with metal salt mixture. The PLNA was positive (SI > 3) at the highest two doses of the metal salt mixture and the highest three doses of the Cr{sub 2}O{sub 3} particles with the metal salt mixture. The provisional NOAEL and LOAEL values identified in this study for immune activation corresponds to Co and Cr concentrations in the synovial fluid approximately 500 and 2000 times higher than that reported for normal-functioning MoM hip implants, respectively. Overall, these results indicate that normal wear conditions are unlikely to result in immune stimulation in individuals not previously sensitized to metals. - Highlights: • Immune responses in mice were assessed following treatment with Cr2O3 particles with metal salts. • The PLNA was negative (SI < 3) for all Cr2O3 particle doses. • A LOAEL for immune activation was identified at 0.04 mg of metal particles with metal salts. • A NOAEL for immune activation was identified at 0.01 mg of metal particles with metal salts.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Extent of Surface Force Additivity on Chemically Heterogeneous Substrates at Varied Orientations

Surface interactions between chemically mixed surfaces, as well as those among dissolved biomolecules, comprise distinct contributions from polar and hydrophobic moieties. These contributions are often context dependent. Approximate compliance to the Cassie additivity equation for the wetting free energies on mixed surfaces in water is, however, indicative of similarly additive forces between individual surface elements, suggesting a quadratic interpolation model for total force from the forces between pure surfaces. We use molecular dynamics/umbrella sampling simulations of parallel and nonparallel mixed surfaces with demonstrable Cassie-like behavior to verify how well the total surface force between the heterogeneous, molecularly rough surfaces can be approximated as a combination of forces among the homogeneous ones. When accounting for dissimilar distances of approach between functional groups of different types, our results for graphene surfaces with mixed methyl and nitrile coating show such a superposition to provide a reasonable first order approximation of interactions between the platelets. Deviations from additivity are more prominent in parallel-plate configurations, at high content of hydrophobic groups, and small separations. The inclusion of water polarizability does not visibly alter the observed behavior regardless of platelet orientations. The outcome of this study determines the necessary molecular conditions for observing force additivity that emphasize the context dependence of hydrophobic interaction in the presence of polar groups. This notion provides guidelines for the syntheses of new, chemically heterogeneous materials with tailored function-oriented properties in aqueous media.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Wavelets as basis functions to represent the coarse-graining potential in multiscale coarse graining approach

In this paper, we apply Multiresolution Analysis (MRA) to develop sparse but accurate representations for the Multiscale Coarse-Graining (MSCG) approximation to the many-body potential of mean force. We rigorously framed the MSCG method into MRA so that all the instruments of this theory become available together with a multitude of new basis functions, namely the wavelets. The coarse-grained (CG) force field is hierarchically decomposed at different resolution levels enabling to choose the most appropriate wavelet family for each physical interaction without requiring an a priori knowledge of the details localization. The representation of the CG potential in this new efficient orthonormal basis leads to a compression of the signal information in few large expansion coefficients. The multiresolution property of the wavelet transform allows to isolate and remove the noise from the CG force-field reconstruction by thresholding the basis function coefficients from each frequency band independently. We discuss the implementation of our wavelet-based MSCG approach and demonstrate its accuracy using two different condensed-phase systems, i.e. liquid water and methanol. Simulations of liquid argon have also been performed using a one-to-one mapping between atomistic and CG sites. The latter model allows to verify the accuracy of the method and to test different choices of wavelet families. Furthermore, the results of the computer simulations show that the efficiency and sparsity of the representation of the CG force field can be traced back to the mathematical properties of the chosen family of wavelets. This result is in agreement with what is known from the theory of multiresolution analysis of signals.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Communication: An effective linear-scaling atomic-orbital reformulation of the random-phase approximation using a contracted double-Laplace transformation

An atomic-orbital (AO) reformulation of the random-phase approximation (RPA) correlation energy is presented allowing to reduce the steep computational scaling to linear, so that large systems can be studied on simple desktop computers with fully numerically controlled accuracy. Our AO-RPA formulation introduces a contracted double-Laplace transform and employs the overlap-metric resolution-of-the-identity. First timings of our pilot code illustrate the reduced scaling with systems comprising up to 1262 atoms and 10 090 basis functions. .

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Energy Release Rate Approximation for Small Surface Cracks in Three-Dimensional Domains Using the Topological Derivative

The topological derivative describes the variation of a response functional with respect to infinitesimal changes in topology, such as the introduction of an infinitesimal crack or hole. In this three-dimensional fracture mechanics work, we propose an approximation of the energy release rate field associated with a small surface crack of any boundary location, direction, and orientation combination using the topological derivative. Furthermore, this work builds on the work of Silva et al. (“Energy Release Rate Approximation for Small Surface-Breaking Cracks Using the Topological Derivative,” J. Mech. Phys. Solids 59(5), pp. 925–939), in which the authors proposed an approximation of the energy release rate field which was limited to two-dimensional domains. The proposed method is computationally advantageous because it only requires a single analysis. By contrast, current boundary element and finite element-based methods require an analysis for each crack length-location-direction-orientation combination. Furthermore, the proposed method is evaluated on the non-cracked domain, obviating the need for refined meshes in the crack tip region.

42 ENGINEERING↗

SOPPA and CCSD vibrational corrections to NMR indirect spin-spin coupling constants of small hydrocarbons

We present zero-point vibrational corrections to the indirect nuclear spin-spin coupling constants in ethyne, ethene, cyclopropene and allene. The calculations have been carried out both at the level of the second order polarization propagator approximation (SOPPA) employing a new implementation in the DALTON program, at the density functional theory level with the B3LYP functional employing also the Dalton program and at the level of coupled cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) theory employing the implementation in the CFOUR program. Specialized coupling constant basis sets, aug-cc-pVTZ-J, have been employed in the calculations. We find that on average the SOPPA results for both the equilibrium geometry values and the zero-point vibrational corrections are in better agreement with the CCSD results than the corresponding B3LYP results. Furthermore we observed that the vibrational corrections are in the order of 5 Hz for the one-bond carbon-hydrogen couplings and about 1 Hz or smaller for the other couplings apart from the one-bond carbon-carbon coupling (11 Hz) and the two-bond carbon-hydrogen coupling (4 Hz) in ethyne. However, not for all couplings lead the inclusion of zero-point vibrational corrections to better agreement with experiment.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

ADIABATIC BLACK HOLE GROWTH IN SÉRSIC MODELS OF ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES

We have examined the effect of slow growth of a central black hole on spherical galaxies that obey Sérsic or R{sup 1/m} surface-brightness profiles. During such growth the actions of each stellar orbit are conserved, which allows us to compute the final distribution function (DF) if we assume that the initial DF is isotropic. We find that black hole growth leads to a central cusp or “excess light,” in which the surface brightness varies with radius as R{sup −1.3} (with a weak dependence on Sérsic index m), the line-of-sight velocity dispersion varies as R{sup −1/2}, and the velocity anisotropy is β≃−0.24 to −0.28 depending on m. The excess stellar mass in the cusp scales approximately linearly with the black hole mass, and is typically 0.5–0.85 times the black hole mass. This process may strongly influence the structure of nuclear star clusters in spheroidal galaxies if they contain black holes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Quinoa, Version 0.2

Quinoa is a set of computational tools that enables research and numerical analysis in fluid dynamics. At this time it remains a test-bed to experiment with various algorithms using fully asynchronous runtime systems. Currently, Quinoa consists of the following tools: (1) Walker, a numerical integrator for systems of stochastic differential equations in time. It is a mathematical tool to analyze and design the behavior of stochastic differential equations. It allows the estimation of arbitrary coupled statistics and probability density functions and is currently used for the design of statistical moment approximations for multiple mixing materials in variable-density turbulence. (2) Inciter, an overdecomposition-aware finite element field solver for partial differential equations using 3D unstructured grids. Inciter is used to research asynchronous mesh-based algorithms and to experiment with coupling asynchronous to bulk-synchronous parallel code. Two planned new features of Inciter, compared to the previous release (LA-CC-16-015), to be implemented in 2017, are (a) a simple Navier-Stokes solver for ideal single-material compressible gases, and (b) solution-adaptive mesh refinement (AMR), which enables dynamically concentrating compute resources to regions with interesting physics. Using the NS-AMR problem we plan to explore how to scale such high-load-imbalance simulations, representative of large production multiphysics codes, to very large problems on very large computers using an asynchronous runtime system. (3) RNGTest, a test harness to subject random number generators to stringent statistical tests enabling quantitative ranking with respect to their quality and computational cost. (4) UnitTest, a unit test harness, running hundreds of tests per second, capable of testing serial, synchronous, and asynchronous functions. (5) MeshConv, a mesh file converter that can be used to convert 3D tetrahedron meshes from and to either of the following formats: Gmsh, http://www.geuz.org/gmsh, Netgen, http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/netgen-mesher, ExodusII, http://sourceforge.net/projects/exodusii, HyperMesh, http://www.altairhyperworks.com/product/HyperMesh.

Bakosi, Jozsef↗

A Novel Feature of Valence Quark Distributions in Hadrons

Examining the evolution of the maximum of valence quark distribution, qV, weighted by Bjorken x, h(x,t)≡xqV(x,t), it is observed that h(x,t) at the peak becomes a one-parameter function; h(xp,t)=Φ(xp(t)), where xp is the position of the peak, t=logQ2, and Q2 is the resolution scale. This observation is used to derive a new model-independent relation which connects the partial derivative of the valence parton distribution functions (PDFs) in xp to the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) evolution equation through the xp derivative of the logarithm of the function Φ(xp(t)). A numerical analysis of this relation using empirical PDFs results in an observation of the exponential form of the Φ(xp(t))=h(xp,t)=CeDxp(t) for leading to next-to-next leading order approximations of PDFs for the range of Q2, covering four orders in magnitude. The exponent, D, of the observed “height-position” correlation function converges with the increase in the order of approximation. This result holds for all the PDF sets considered. A similar relation is observed also for the pion valence quark distribution, indicating that the obtained relation may be universal for any non-singlet partonic distribution. The observed “height-position” correlation is used also to indicate that no finite number of exchanges can describe the analytic behavior of the valence quark distribution at the position of the peak at fixed Q2.

Leon, Christopher↗

Revealing quasi-excitations in the low-density homogeneous electron gas with model exchange–correlation kernels

Time-dependent density functional theory within the linear response regime provides a solid mathematical framework to capture excitations. The accuracy of the theory, however, largely depends on the approximations for the exchange–correlation (xc) kernels. Away from the long-wavelength (or q = 0 short wave-vector) and zero-frequency (ω = 0) limit, the correlation contribution to the kernel becomes more relevant and dominant over exchange. The dielectric function, in principle, can encompass xc effects relevant to describe low-density physics. Furthermore, besides collective plasmon excitations, the dielectric function can reveal collective electron–hole excitations, often dubbed “ghost excitons.” Besides collective excitons, the physics of the low-density regime is rich, as exemplified by a static charge-density wave that was recently found for r s > 69, and was shown to be associated with softening of the plasmon mode. These excitations are seen to be present in much higher density 2D homogeneous electron gases of r s ≳ 4. Here, in this work, we perform a thorough analysis with xc model kernels for excitations of various nature. The uniform electron gas, as a useful model of real metallic systems, is used as a platform for our analysis. We highlight the relevance of exact constraints as we display and explain screening and excitations in the low-density region.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Analytical WKB theory for high-harmonic generation and its application to massive Dirac electrons

Here we propose an analytical approach to high-harmonic generation (HHG) for nonperturbative low-frequency and high-intensity fields based on the (Jeffreys-)Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) approximation. By properly taking into account Stokes phenomena of WKB solutions, we obtain wave functions that systematically include the repetitive dynamics of production and acceleration of electron-hole pairs and quantum interference due to phase accumulation between different pair production times (Stückelberg phase). Using the obtained wave functions without relying on any phenomenological assumptions, we explicitly compute electric current (including intra- and interband contributions) as the source of HHG for a massive Dirac system in (1+1) dimensions under an ac electric field. We demonstrate that the WKB approximation agrees well with numerical results obtained by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation and point out that the quantum interference is important in HHG. We also predict in the deep nonperturbative regime that (1) harmonic intensities oscillate with respect to electric-field amplitude E 0 and frequency Ω with a period determined by the Stückelberg phase, (2) the cutoff order of HHG is determined by 2eE 0 ℏΩ 2 , with e being the electron charge, and that (3) noninteger harmonics, controlled by the Stückelberg phase, appear as a transient effect. Our WKB theory is particularly suited for a parameter regime, where the Keldysh parameter γ = (Δ/2)Ω/eE 0 ,with Δ being the gap size, is small. This parameter regime corresponds to intense lasers in the terahertz regime for realistic massive Dirac materials. Our analysis implies that the so-called HHG plateau can be observed at the terahertz frequency within the current technology.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

The effect of driven electron-phonon coupling on the electronic conductance of a polar nanowire

A semi-classical model is proposed to explore the effect of electron-phonon coupling on the coherent electronic transport of a polar chain which is confined between two rigid leads in the presence of an external electric field. To this end, we construct the model by means of Green's function technique within the nearest neighbor tight-binding and harmonic approximations. For a time-periodic electric field, the atomic displacements from the equilibrium positions are obtained precisely. The result is then used to compute the electronic transport properties of the chain within the Peierls-type model. The numerical results indicate that the conductance of the system shows interesting behavior in some special frequencies. For each special frequency, there is an electronic quasi-state in which the scattering of electrons by vibrating atoms reaches maximum. The system electronic conductance decreases dramatically at the strong electron-phonon couplings and low electron energies. In the presence of damping forces, the electron-phonon interaction has a less significant effect on the conductance.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Density functional theory investigation of the LiIn 1- x Ga x Se 2 solid solution

Here, the electronic structure and optical properties of the LiIn 1-x Ga x Se 2 (x=0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1) solid solution were studied by density functional theory (DFT) with pure functionals. The exchange-correlation is treated within the local density approximation (LDA) and generalized-gradient approximation (GGA). The electronic structures for each respective compound are discussed in detail. Calculations reveal that gallium incorporation can be used to tune the optical-electrical properties of the solid solution and correlates with the lattice parameter. The band gap trend of the LiIn 1-x Ga x Se 2 system follows a nonlinear behavior between the LiInSe 2 and LiGaSe 2 ternary boundaries. The bowing parameter is estimated to be on the order of 0.1- 0.3 eV at the point. Low-temperature optical absorption revealed a 30% change in the temperature dependence of the band gap for the intermediate compound LiIn 0.6 Ga 0.4 Se 2 compared to ternary boundaries and suggests the heat capacity to be another control element through strain.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A Comparison of Exact and Model Exchange–Correlation Potentials for Molecules

Accurate exchange–correlation (XC) potentials for three-dimensional systems–via solution of the inverse density functional theory (DFT) problem–are now available to test the quality of DFT approximations. Herein, the exact XC potential for seven molecules–dihydrogen at four different bond-lengths, lithium hydride, water, and ortho-benzyne–are computed from full configuration interaction reference densities. These are compared to model XC potentials from nonlocal (B3LYP, HSE06, SCAN0, and M08-HX) and semilocal/local (SCAN, PBE, and PW92) XC functionals. Whereas for most systems, relative errors in the ground-state densities are O(10 –3 –10 –2 ) , the model XC potentials have much higher errors of O(10 –1 –10 0 ) . Among the model XC functionals, SCAN0 offers the best agreement with the exact XC potential, underlining the significance of satisfying exact conditions as well as including nonlocal effects in XC functionals. This work indicates that tests against the exact XC potential will provide a promising new direction for building more accurate XC functionals for DFT.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Mammograms restoration by using Wiener filter

Restoration of digital mammograms, as a pre-processing tool, using deconvolution procedures, is analysed. It implies, knowing Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) of the mammography device and the estimation of the mammogram’s noise. Wiener filter is used, as the most objective in mammograms restoration by deconvolution. Using MATLAB program the deconvolution procedures are conducted in two ways with different level of approximation. The first method approximates the noise/signal power ratio by a constant and the second method uses autocorrelation functions of the noise and signals. Abilities and limitations of the methods are analysed and checked by using the raw images of the bar-pattern due to better visualisation of the obtained results. The raw images are obtained at a Computed Radiography (CR) mammography device in Clinical Centre in Podgorica. It is found that quality of the restored image highly depends of knowledge of type and magnitude of noise. In the both methods spatial resolution of the restored images are improved, but much better in a case where autocorrelation functions of the noise and signal are used. This procedure is proposed as an objective pre-processing tool to put back imperfectness of mammography devices.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Correlation effects on spin-polarized electron-hole quantum bilayer

We present a numerical calculation for the intra- and interlayer pair-correlation functions, g{sub ll’}(r), of spin-polarized electron-hole quantum bilayers at zero temperature. The calculations of g{sub ll’}(r) are performed by including electron correlations within the dynamical version of the self-consistent mean-field approximation of Singwi, Tosi, Land and Sjölander (qSTLS). Our study reveals that the critical layer density decreases (increases) due to the inclusion of finite width (mass-asymmetry) effect during the phase-transition from charge-density wave to Wigner crystal ground-state by yielding the pronounced oscillatory behavior ing{sub ll}(r). The results are compared with recent findings of spin-polarized electron-hole quantum bilayers with mass-symmetry and zero width effects. To highlight the importance of dynamical character of correlations, we have also compared our results with the STLS results.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Changes in polarization dictate necessary approximations for modeling electronic deexcitation intensity: Application to x-ray emission

Accurate simulation of electronic excitations and deexcitations are critical for complementing complex spectroscopic experiments and can provide validation to theoretical approaches. Here, using a generalized framework, we contrast the accuracy and validity of orbital-constrained and linear-response approaches that build upon Kohn-Sham density functional theory (DFT) to simulate emission spectra of electronic origin and propose an efficient approximation, named many-body x-ray emission spectroscopy or MBXES, for simulating such processes. We show analytically as well as with computed examples that for electronic (de)excitation leading to an appreciable change in polarization (i.e., density rearrangement), the adiabatic approximation in a response-based formalism will be inadequate for the calculation of oscillator strength. Thus, such a change (e.g., in the net electrostatic dipole moment of a finite system) can be used as a metric for evaluating the applicability of the adiabatic response-based approach and can be particularly valuable in x-ray emission spectroscopy. On the other hand, MBXES, the flexible method introduced in this paper, can compute oscillator strengths accurately at a much lower computational expense on the basis of two DFT-based self-consistent field calculations. Using illustrative examples of emission spectra, the efficacy of the MBXES method is demonstrated by comparison with its parent theory, orbital-optimized DFT, and with experiments.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Gottfried Sum Rule in QCD Nonsinglet Analysis of DIS Fixed-Target Data

Deep-inelastic-scattering data from fixed-target experiments on the structure function F{sub 2} were analyzed in the valence-quark approximation at the next-to-next-to-leading-order accuracy level in the strong-coupling constant. In this analysis, parton distributions were parametrized by employing information from the Gottfried sum rule. The strong-coupling constant was found to be α{sub s}(M{sup 2}{sub Z}) = 0.1180 ± 0.0020 (total expt. error), which is in perfect agreement with the world-averaged value from an updated Particle Data Group (PDG) report, α{sup PDG}{sub s} (M{sup 2}{sub Z}) = 0.1181 ± 0.0011. Also, the value of 〈x〉{sub u−d} = 0.187 ± 0.021 found for the second moment of the difference in the u- and d-quark distributions complies very well with the most recent lattice result 〈x〉{sup LATTICE}{sub u−d} = 0.208 ± 0.024.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗