New Measurements of the EMC Effect in Few-Body Nuclei

Measurements of the EMC effect show that the quark distributions in nuclei are not simply the sum of the quark distributions of the constituent nucleons. However, interpretation of the EMC effect is limited by the lack of a reliable baseline calculation of the effects of Fermi motion and nucleon binding. We present preliminary results from JLab experiment E03-103, a precise measurement of the EMC effect in few-body and heavy nuclei. These data emphasize the large-x region, where binding and Fermi motion effects dominate, and thus will provide much better constraints on the effects of binding. These data will also allow for comparisons to calculations for few-body nuclei, where the uncertainty in the nuclear structure is minimized.Comment: Proceedings from talk at the Topical Group on Hadron Physics meeting, Nashville Tennessee, October 22-24, 2006. 9 pages, 6 figure

The dopaminergic midbrain participates in human episodic memory formation: Evidence from genetic imaging

Recent data from animal studies raise the possibility that dopaminergic neuromodulation promotes the encoding of novel stimuli. We investigated a possible role for the dopaminergic midbrain in human episodic memory by measuring how polymorphisms in dopamine clearance pathways affect encoding-related brain activity (functional magnetic resonance imaging) in an episodic memory task. In 51 young, healthy adults, successful episodic encoding was associated with activation of the substantia nigra. This midbrain activation was modulated by a functional variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) polymorphism in the dopamine transporter (DAT1) gene. Despite no differences in memory performance between genotype groups, carriers of the (low expressing) 9-repeat allele of the DAT1 VNTR showed relatively higher midbrain activation when compared with subjects homozygous for the 10-repeat allele, who express DAT1 at higher levels. The catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) Val108/158Met polymorphism, which is known to modulate enzyme activity, affected encoding-related activity in the right prefrontal cortex (PFC) and in occipital brain regions but not in the midbrain. Moreover, subjects homozygous for the (low activity) Met allele showed stronger functional coupling between the PFC and the hippocampus during encoding. Our finding that genetic variations in the dopamine clearance pathways affect encoding-related activation patterns in midbrain and PFC provides strong support for a role of dopaminergic neuromodulation in human episodic memory formation. It also supports the hypothesis of anatomically and functionally distinct roles for DAT1 and COMT in dopamine metabolism, with DAT1 modulating rapid, phasic midbrain activity and COMT being particularly involved in prefrontal dopamine clearance

The effect of coating architecture and defects on the corrosion behaviour of a PVD multilayer Inconel 625/Cr coating

This paper investigates the effect of substrate surface finish and deposition conditions of PVD multilayer Inconel 625/Cr coatings on their ability to act as a corrosion-barrier. The corrosion-barrier performance of the coatings was characterized by potentiodynamic testing and salt-spray testing followed by image analysis of the exposed surface; further coating properties were investigated through XRD, SEM, EDX and scratch testing. The results show that multilayering produced the expected improvement in scratch resistance however it did not affect corrosion behaviour. Interrupting the deposition process did not decrease the defect density. Defect density was observed to reduce with decreasing substrate surface finish. The corrosion barrier performance of the multilayer Inconel 625/Cr coating (bp100 nm) was greatly improved for coatings deposited on a polished substrate. For the multilayer Inconel 625/Cr coating system used in this work multilayering and process interruption did not prevent defects from limiting the corrosion barrier effectiveness of the coatings. Corrosion barrier performance was successfully enhanced by the use of low roughness substrates to minimise the defect density

Correlated Strength in Nuclear Spectral Function

We have carried out an (e,e'p) experiment at high momentum transfer and in parallel kinematics to measure the strength of the nuclear spectral function S(k,E) at high nucleon momenta k and large removal energies E. This strength is related to the presence of short-range and tensor correlations, and was known hitherto only indirectly and with considerable uncertainty from the lack of strength in the independent-particle region. This experiment confirms by direct measurement the correlated strength predicted by theory.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev. Let

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationA cell's morphology plays an important role in its function. Thus, the size, shape, and structure of cells can be strikingly different across biology. In order to create this variation, cells must divide and differentiate in specific and regulated ways. In this dissertation, I describe work using C. elegans sperm to understand the programs controlling development of specialized cells. During development, sperm undergo meiotic division and differentiation to become polarized, motile, and capable of fusing with oocytes. From studying these processes, I identified two genes that are important both for sperm development and in contexts beyond reproductive biology. The first chapters of this dissertation describe a new function for the conserved t-SNARE syntaxin 7 (syx-7) in cytokinesis, the process that separates cells from one another following nuclear division. Without syx-7, sperm complete most steps of division, but the final abscission fails. During cytokinesis in animal cells, an actin ring forms between newly partitioning cells. However, it is not currently understood how vesicle traffic is spatiotemporally coupled to actin during cytokinesis. As syx-7 sperm progress through division, actin becomes mislocalized, providing one of the first examples of a specific component of vesicle trafficking machinery with an impact on actin localization during cytokinesis. Additionally, a specialized lysosome-like organelle is disrupted in syx-7 sperm, raising interesting questions about the link between this family of organelles and cell division. If a functional contribution is established, this would represent a new role for lysosome-like organelles, which, when disrupted, cause several human disorders. The later chapters of this work focus on the final steps of sperm differentiation: cell polarization and acquisition of motility. Our lab identified a signaling pathway that induces sperm motility in response to an extracellular protease. Here, I describe discovery of snf-10, a Solute Carrier 6 (SLC6) family gene, which provides the first link connecting the protease signal to changes in sperm physiology, and ultimately motility. Positive regulation by a protease is a novel finding for a member of the SLC6 family, a group of genes that have numerous roles in human physiology, but have been studied in limited contexts

Mandatory processing of irrelevant fearful face features in visual search

Faces expressing fear may attract attention in an automatic bottom-up fashion. Here we address this issue with magneto-encephalographic (MEG) recordings in subjects performing a demanding visual search combined with the presentation of irrelevant neutral or fearful faces. The impact of the faces 'emotional expression on attentional selection was assessed by analyzing the N2pc component-a modulation of the event-related magnetic field response known to reflect attentional focusing in visual search. We observed that lateralized fearful faces elicited an N2pc approximately between 240 and 400 msec in ventral extrastriate cortex that was independent of the N2pc reflecting target selection in visual search. Despite their clear influence on neural processing, fearful faces did not significantly influence behavioral performance. To clarify this discrepancy, we further performed an MEG experiment in which the demands of the search task were reduced. Under those conditions, lateralized fearful faces elicited an N2pc response that was again independent of the N2pc response to the search target. Behavioral performance was, however, influenced in a significant manner, suggesting that for behavioral effects to appear, sufficient attentional resources need to be left unoccupied by the search task-a notion put forward by the perceptual load theory. Our observations are taken to indicate that irrelevant fearful faces influence attentional processing in extrastriate visual cortex in an automatic fashion and independent of other task-relevant attentional operations. However, this may not necessarily be echoed at the behavioral level as long as task-relevant selection operations exhaust attentional resources