Overcritical Rotation of a Trapped Bose-Einstein Condensate

The rotational motion of an interacting Bose-Einstein condensate confined by a harmonic trap is investigated by solving the hydrodynamic equations of superfluids, with the irrotationality constraint for the velocity field. We point out the occurrence of an overcritical branch where the system can rotate with angular velocity larger than the oscillator frequencies. We show that in the case of isotropic trapping the system exhibits a bifurcation from an axisymmetric to a triaxial configuration, as a consequence of the interatomic forces. The dynamical stability of the rotational motion with respect to the dipole and quadrupole oscillations is explicitly discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 3 postscript figure

Colonisation resistance in the sand fly gut:Leishmania protects Lutzomyia longipalpis from bacterial infection

BACKGROUND: Phlebotomine sand flies transmit the haemoflagellate Leishmania, the causative agent of human leishmaniasis. The Leishmania promastigotes are confined to the gut lumen and are exposed to the gut microbiota within female sand flies. Here we study the colonisation resistance of yeast and bacteria in preventing the establishment of a Leishmania population in sand flies and the ability of Leishmania to provide colonisation resistance towards the insect bacterial pathogen Serratia marcescens that is also pathogenic towards Leishmania. METHODS: We isolated microorganisms from wild-caught and laboratory-reared female Lutzomyia longipalpis, identified as Pseudozyma sp. Asaia sp. and Ochrobactrum intermedium. We fed the females with a sugar meal containing the microorganisms and then subsequently fed them with a bloodmeal containing Leishmania mexicana and recorded the development of the Leishmania population. Further experiments examined the effect of first colonising the sand fly gut with L. mexicana followed by feeding with, Serratia marcescens, an insect bacterial pathogen. The mortality of the flies due to S. marcescens was recorded in the presence and absence of Leishmania. RESULTS: There was a reduction in the number of flies harbouring a Leishmania population that had been pre-fed with Pseudozyma sp. and Asaia sp. or O. intermedium. Experiments in which L. mexicana colonised the sand fly gut prior to being fed an insect bacterial pathogen, Serratia marcescens, showed that the survival of flies with a Leishmania infection was significantly higher compared to flies without Leishmania infection. CONCLUSIONS: The yeast and bacterial colonisation experiments show that the presence of sand fly gut microorganisms reduce the potential for Leishmania to establish within the sand fly vector. Sand flies infected with Leishmania were able to survive an attack by the bacterial pathogen that would have killed the insect and we concluded that Leishmania may benefit its insect host whilst increasing the potential to establish itself in the sand fly vector. We suggest that the increased ability of the sand fly to withstand a bacterial entomopathogen, due to the presence of the Leishmania, may provide an evolutionary pressure for the maintenance of the Leishmania-vector association

Expression pattern of glycoside hydrolase genes in Lutzomyia longipalpis reveals key enzymes involved in larval digestion

The sand fly Lutzomyia longipalpis is the most important vector of American Visceral Leishmaniasis. Adults are phytophagous (males and females) or blood feeders (females only), and larvae feed on solid detritus. Digestion in sand fly larvae has scarcely been studied, but some glycosidase activities putatively involved in microorganism digestion were already described. Nevertheless, the molecular nature of these enzymes, as the corresponding genes and transcripts, were not explored yet. Catabolism of microbial carbohydrates in insects generally involves β-1,3-glucanases, chitinases, and digestive lysozymes. In this work, the transcripts of digestive β-1,3-glucanase and chitinases were identified in the L. longipalpis larvae throughout analysis of sequences and expression patterns of glycoside hydrolases families 16, 18, and 22. The activity of one i-type lysozyme was also registered. Interestingly, this lysozyme seems to play a role in immunity, rather than digestion. This is the first attempt to identify the molecular nature of sand fly larval digestive enzymes

The dependence of dijet production on photon virtuality in ep collisions at HERA

The dependence of dijet production on the virtuality of the exchanged photon, Q^2, has been studied by measuring dijet cross sections in the range 0 < Q^2 < 2000 GeV^2 with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 38.6 pb^-1. Dijet cross sections were measured for jets with transverse energy E_T^jet > 7.5 and 6.5 GeV and pseudorapidities in the photon-proton centre-of-mass frame in the range -3 < eta^jet <0. The variable xg^obs, a measure of the photon momentum entering the hard process, was used to enhance the sensitivity of the measurement to the photon structure. The Q^2 dependence of the ratio of low- to high-xg^obs events was measured. Next-to-leading-order QCD predictions were found to generally underestimate the low-xg^obs contribution relative to that at high xg^obs. Monte Carlo models based on leading-logarithmic parton-showers, using a partonic structure for the photon which falls smoothly with increasing Q^2, provide a qualitative description of the data.Comment: 35 pages, 6 eps figures, submitted to Eur.Phys.J.

Dissociation of virtual photons in events with a leading proton at HERA

The ZEUS detector has been used to study dissociation of virtual photons in events with a leading proton, gamma^* p -> X p, in e^+p collisions at HERA. The data cover photon virtualities in two ranges, 0.03<Q^2<0.60 GeV^2 and 2<Q^2<100 GeV^2, with M_X>1.5 GeV, where M_X is the mass of the hadronic final state, X. Events were required to have a leading proton, detected in the ZEUS leading proton spectrometer, carrying at least 90% of the incoming proton energy. The cross section is presented as a function of t, the squared four-momentum transfer at the proton vertex, Phi, the azimuthal angle between the positron scattering plane and the proton scattering plane, and Q^2. The data are presented in terms of the diffractive structure function, F_2^D(3). A next-to-leading-order QCD fit to the higher-Q^2 data set and to previously published diffractive charm production data is presented

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

Performance and Operation of the CMS Electromagnetic Calorimeter

The operation and general performance of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter using cosmic-ray muons are described. These muons were recorded after the closure of the CMS detector in late 2008. The calorimeter is made of lead tungstate crystals and the overall status of the 75848 channels corresponding to the barrel and endcap detectors is reported. The stability of crucial operational parameters, such as high voltage, temperature and electronic noise, is summarised and the performance of the light monitoring system is presented

Mixture distribution modelling of the sensitivities of a digital 3-axis MEMS accelerometers large batch

Huge quantities of low-cost analogue or digital MEMS sensors, in the order of millions per week, are produced by manufacturers. Their use is broad, from consumer electronic devices to Industry 4.0, Internet of Things and Smart Cities. In many cases, such sensors have to be calibrated by accredited laboratories to provide traceable measurements. However, at present, such a massive number of sensors cannot be calibrated and large-scale calibration systems and procedures are still missing. A first step to implementing these methods can be based on the distribution of the sensitivities of the large batches produced. Such distribution is also useful for sensor network end-users who need a single sensitivity, with the associated uncertainty, to be attributed to the whole network. Recently, a large batch of 100 digital 3-axis MEMS accelerometers was calibrated with a primary calibration system developed at INRiM and suitable for 3-axis accelerometers. Distributions of their sensitivities as a function of axis and frequency were analyzed and their non-normal behaviour was shown. However, in the preliminary phase of the study, the calibration uncertainties were not considered in these distributions. Therefore, in this paper, a mixture distribution modelling, based on Monte Carlo simulations and aimed at including the calibration uncertainties in the sensitivity distributions, is implemented and the resulting distributions are compared to the previous ones in histogram form. These distributions are also fitted with Johnson's unbounded and bimodal functions to get continuous distributions. This paper represents a further step towards the development of large-scale statistical calibration methods