Search results for " potential"
showing 10 items of 2713 documents
Energy efficient modulation of dendritic processing functions
1998
The voltage dependent ionic conductances and the passive properties of the neural membrane determine how external inputs are processed by the dendritic tree, and define the computational characteristics of neurons. However, what controls these characteristics and how they are implemented at the single neuron level, in such a way that an external input results in the coding of the appropriate output, is essentially unknown. We show here that a slow inactivation of the Na+ channel, involved in the attenuation and/or failure of APs in the dendrites, acts as an active and energy efficient filter of synaptic input, and results in an activity-dependent control of the properties of individual neur…
Structure and dynamics of yukawa systems
1993
Abstract Results of molecular dynamics simulations modelling two component charge stabilized colloidal particles interacting via a Yukawa potential are presented. After cooling, the systems freeze into either substitutionally disordered imperfect crystals or into glasslike states. This freezing is characterized by the divergence of a suitable correlation time due to loss of ergodicity. Describing the structure by bond correlation functions, local orientational ordering is observed in the glassy states which is not present in the liquid. In the liquid the diffusion constant obeys an Arrhenius law. As can be deduced from the van Hove functions, in the crystal the particles only oscillate arou…
Escape from a metastable state with fluctuating barrier
2003
Abstract We investigate the escape of a Brownian particle from fluctuating metastable states. We find the conditions for the noise enhanced stability (NES) effect for periodical driving force. We obtain general equations useful to calculate the average escape time for randomly switching potential profiles. For piece-wise linear potential profile we reveal the noise enhanced stability (NES) effect, when the height of “reverse” potential barrier of metastable state is comparatively small. We obtain analytically the condition for the NES phenomenon and the average escape time as a function of parameters, which characterize the potential and the driving dichotomous noise.
Casimir-Polder forces, boundary conditions and fluctuations
2008
We review different aspects of the atom-atom and atom-wall Casimir-Polder forces. We first discuss the role of a boundary condition on the interatomic Casimir-Polder potential between two ground-state atoms, and give a physically transparent interpretation of the results in terms of vacuum fluctuations and image atomic dipoles. We then discuss the known atom-wall Casimir-Polder force for ground- and excited-state atoms, using a different method which is also suited for extension to time-dependent situations. Finally, we consider the fluctuation of the Casimir-Polder force between a ground-state atom and a conducting wall, and discuss possible observation of this force fluctuation.
Thermodynamic potentials for the infinite range Ising model with strong coupling
2003
Abstract The specific Gibbs free energy has been calculated for the infinite range Ising model with fixed and finite interaction strength. The model shows a temperature driven first-order phase transition that differs from the infinite ranged Ising model with weak coupling. In the temperature-field phase diagram the strong coupling model shows a line of first-order phase transitions that does not end in a critical point.
Noise driven translocation of short polymers in crowded solutions
2008
In this work we study the noise induced effects on the dynamics of short polymers crossing a potential barrier, in the presence of a metastable state. An improved version of the Rouse model for a flexible polymer has been adopted to mimic the molecular dynamics by taking into account both the interactions between adjacent monomers and introducing a Lennard-Jones potential between all beads. A bending recoil torque has also been included in our model. The polymer dynamics is simulated in a two-dimensional domain by numerically solving the Langevin equations of motion with a Gaussian uncorrelated noise. We find a nonmonotonic behaviour of the mean first passage time and the most probable tran…
Global stability of protein folding from an empirical free energy function
2013
The principles governing protein folding stand as one of the biggest challenges of Biophysics. Modeling the global stability of proteins and predicting their tertiary structure are hard tasks, due in part to the variety and large number of forces involved and the difficulties to describe them with sufficient accuracy. We have developed a fast, physics-based empirical potential, intended to be used in global structure prediction methods. This model considers four main contributions: Two entropic factors, the hydrophobic effect and configurational entropy, and two terms resulting from a decomposition of close-packing interactions, namely the balance of the dispersive interactions of folded an…
Escape Times in Fluctuating Metastable Potential and Acceleration of Diffusion in Periodic Fluctuating Potentials
2004
The problems of escape from metastable state in randomly flipping potential and of diffusion in fast fluctuating periodic potentials are considered. For the overdamped Brownian particle moving in a piecewise linear dichotomously fluctuating metastable potential we obtain the mean first-passage time (MFPT) as a function of the potential parameters, the noise intensity and the mean rate of switchings of the dichotomous noise. We find noise enhanced stability (NES) phenomenon in the system investigated and the parameter region of the fluctuating potential where the effect can be observed. For the diffusion of the overdamped Brownian particle in a fast fluctuating symmetric periodic potential w…
Building up adjusted indicators of students' evaluation of university courses using generalized item response models
2012
This article advances a proposal for building up adjusted composite indicators of the quality of university courses from students’ assessments. The flexible framework of Generalized Item Response Models is adopted here for controlling the sources of heterogeneity in the data structure that make evaluations across courses not directly comparable. Specifically, it allows us to: jointly model students’ ratings to the set of items which define the quality of university courses; explicitly consider the dimensionality of the items composing the evaluation form; evaluate and remove the effect of potential confounding factors which may affect students’ evaluation; model the intra-cluster variabilit…
Brownian motion in trapping enclosures: Steep potential wells, bistable wells and false bistability of induced Feynman-Kac (well) potentials
2019
We investigate signatures of convergence for a sequence of diffusion processes on a line, in conservative force fields stemming from superharmonic potentials $U(x)\sim x^m$, $m=2n \geq 2$. This is paralleled by a transformation of each $m$-th diffusion generator $L = D\Delta + b(x)\nabla $, and likewise the related Fokker-Planck operator $L^*= D\Delta - \nabla [b(x)\, \cdot]$, into the affiliated Schr\"{o}dinger one $\hat{H}= - D\Delta + {\cal{V}}(x)$. Upon a proper adjustment of operator domains, the dynamics is set by semigroups $\exp(tL)$, $\exp(tL_*)$ and $\exp(-t\hat{H})$, with $t \geq 0$. The Feynman-Kac integral kernel of $\exp(-t\hat{H})$ is the major building block of the relaxatio…