Search results for " polar"
showing 10 items of 1091 documents
Clostridium difficile Toxins Disrupt Epithelial Barrier Function by Altering Membrane Microdomain Localization of Tight Junction Proteins
2001
ABSTRACT The anaerobic bacterium Clostridium difficile is the etiologic agent of pseudomembranous colitis. C. difficile toxins TcdA and TcdB are UDP-glucosyltransferases that monoglucosylate and thereby inactivate the Rho family of GTPases (W. P. Ciesla, Jr., and D. A. Bobak, J. Biol. Chem. 273:16021–16026, 1998). We utilized purified reference toxins of C. difficile , TcdA-10463 (TcdA) and TcdB-10463 (TcdB), and a model intestinal epithelial cell line to characterize their influence on tight-junction (TJ) organization and hence to analyze the mechanisms by which they contribute to the enhanced paracellular permeability and disease pathophysiology of pseudomembranous colitis. The increase i…
Influence of the filling factor on the spectral properties of plasmonic crystals
2006
Plasmonics crystals (PCs) comprised of finite-size triangular lattices of gold bumps deposited on a gold thin film are studied by means of a near-field optical microscope. The plasmonic crystals fabricated by electron-beam lithography are illuminated by an incident surface plasmon polariton excited in the Kretschmann-Raether configuration at the gold/air thin-film interface for incident free-space wavelengths in the range $740--820\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{nm}$. Based on the measurement of the surface plasmon polariton (SPP) damping distance in the crystals, the existence of a band gap for an incident SPP traveling along the two symmetry axes $\ensuremath{\Gamma}M$ and $\ensuremath…
Electrical resistivity and induced polarization tomographies to test the efficiency and safety of the new landfill of Bellolampo (Palermo, Italy)
2016
A geophysical study by means of electrical resistivity and induced polarization tomographies was carried out in the landfill site of Bellolampo (Palermo, Italy) to check the integrity of the landfill liner and to detect possible leachate plumes. Preliminarily, synthetic tests were performed, simulating acquisition data along profiles placed above resistivity distribution, suitable to represent landfills protected with an high-density polyethylene (HDPE) liner at the bottom or with possible leachate plumes. Optimized array data sets for parallel measurements have been tested in order to assess the resolution and the effectiveness of tomographic images, comparing inversions with and without t…
A computational study of some electric and magnetic properties of gaseous BF3 and BCl3
2005
We present the results of an extended computational study of the electric and magnetic properties connected to Cotton-Mouton birefringences, on the trifluoro- and trichloroborides in the gas phase. The electric dipole polarizabilities, magnetizabilities, quadrupole moments, and higher-order hypersusceptibilities—expressed as quadratic and cubic frequency-dependent response functions—are computed within Hartree-Fock, density-functional, and coupled-cluster response theories employing singly and doubly augmented correlation-consistent basis sets and London orbitals in the magnetic property calculations. The results, which illustrate the capability of time-dependent density-functional theory f…
Nonlinear mode coupling in a birefringent microstructured fiber tuned by externally applied hydrostatic pressure
2015
We studied the effect of power coupling between two linearly polarized modes, which occurs during nonlinear propagation in an externally tuned birefringent microstructured fiber. We investigated both experimentally and numerically the possibility of measuring hydrostatic pressure by tracking the nonlinear power coupling between the fiber polarization modes. We analyzed the impact of the fiber length exposed to pressure and the input polarization state on the coupling efficiency. We also revealed that the observation of nonlinear power coupling between the polarization modes is limited by linear coupling occurring in the leadthroughs to the pressure chamber. Moreover, we demonstrated that th…
The NHXM observatory
2011
Exploration of the X-ray sky has established X-ray astronomy as a fundamental astrophysical discipline. While our knowledge of the sky below 10 keV has increased dramatically (∼8 orders of magnitude) by use of grazing incidence optics, we still await a similar improvement above 10 keV, where to date only collimated instruments have been used. Also ripe for exploration is the field of X-ray polarimetry, an unused fundamental tool to understand the physics and morphology of X-ray sources. Here we present a novel mission, the New Hard X-ray Mission (NHXM) that brings together for the first time simultaneous high-sensitivity, hard-X-ray imaging, broadband spectroscopy and polarimetry. NHXM will…
Properties of erythrocyte light refraction in diabetic patients.
2001
Since hyperglycaemia changes the erythrocyte cell membrane fluidity and impairs cell deformity, our goal was to characterize hemoglobin and red blood cell (RBC) light refractive property changes in diabetic patients. Microscopic investigation was carried out on intact and fixed RBCs. To determine the refractive index (RI): smears of peripheral blood were air dried and fixed for 3 min in methanol. Mixtures of polyvinylpyrolidine and buffer of different pH (1:1) were used as embedding media. Intact RBCs were mixed with a buffered embedding medium, placed on a slide and overlaid with a coverslip. Interference microscopy was used for RI measurements at 18 different pH (pH=2-13). The results sho…
Territorial tripolarization in Bolivia : genesis and current situation
2012
The Bolivian urban system is outstanding : three major cities concentrate about half of the nation’s population and employment. Their territories’ trajectories lead us to question their economic role in the face of the successful economic achievement of Potosi and Tarija, territories well endowed in natural resources. We wanted to highlight the Bolivian current territorial tripolarization, firstly by studying its emergence, through the study of their economical history; secondly, by investigating the most recent economical data in order to display the strengths and weaknesses of this tripolarized system. Each component of the tripole is situated in a different geographical setting. In the W…
Dipole Moments and the Direction of the Transition Dipole Moment of Some Intramolecular Exciplexes
1988
The dipole moments of some intramolecular exciplex systems have been determined from the effect of an electric field on their fluorescence and are compared to those estimated from solvent shift measurements. The charge transfer between the donor and acceptor subunits is between 0.6 and 0.9 of a full charge transfer. The face-to-face type exciplexes show considerable deviations from the general behaviour what might be due to some admixture of locally excited configurations to the exciplex wave function, in this way reducing the dipole moment values and changing the direction of the transition dipole moment.
High-pressure x-ray absorption study of GaTe including polarization
2000
The evolution of the local structure in GaTe under pressure is studied by x-ray absorption spectroscopy experiments at the Ga K-edge (10.368 keV) on oriented single crystals. Taking advantage of the linearly polarized character of synchrotron radiation, the pressure evolution of both the Ga-Te and the in-plane Ga-Ga bond lengths could be determined, in spite of the small amplitude of the latter. Our measurements show that both distances are much less compressible than what could be inferred from the bulk compressibility, which evidences a strong variation of Ga-Ga-Te and Te-Ga-Te angles under pressure. The Te-Te intralayer distance perpendicular to the layers is observed to increase with in…