Change In Decay Rate Research Articles

Quasiparticle decay in a one-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixture

In a one-dimensional weakly interacting Bose-Fermi mixture one branch of elementary excitations is well described by the Bogoliubov spectrum. Here we use the microscopic theory to study the decay of such quasiparticle excitations. The main scattering process which leads to their decay is the backscattering of a Bogoliubov quasiparticle off the Fermi sea, where a particle-hole pair is excited. For a low-momentum quasiparticle (phonon) of momentum $q$, we find that the decay rate scales as $q^3$ provided $q$ is smaller than the Fermi momentum $k_F$, while in the opposite case the decay behaves as $q^2$. If the ratio of the masses of fermions and bosons equals to the ratio of the boson-fermion and the boson-boson interaction strengths, the decay rate changes dramatically. It scales as $q^7$ for $q<k_F$ while we find $q^6$ scaling at $q>k_F$. For a high momentum Bogoliubov quasiparticle, we find a constant decay rate for $q<k_F$, while it scales as $1/q$ for $q>k_F$. We also find an analytic expression for the decay rate in the crossover region between low and high momenta. The decay rate is a continuous, but nonanalytic function of the momentum at $q=k_F$. In the special case when the parameters of our system correspond to the integrable model, we observe that the decay rate vanishes.

Erratum to: Change in decay rates of dioxin-like compounds in Yusho patients.

Erratum to: Change in decay rates of dioxin-like compounds in Yusho patients.

Change in decay rates of dioxin-like compounds in Yusho patients

BackgroundOnce ingested, dioxins and dioxin-like compounds are excreted extremely slowly. Excretion can be evaluated by its half-life. Half-lives estimated from observed concentrations are affected by excretion and ongoing exposure. We investigated the change in apparent half-life using a theoretical model based on exposure to dioxin and dioxin-like compounds.MethodsWe carried out longitudinal measurements of the blood concentration of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds in a Yusho cohort during 2002 to 2010. We estimated the change in decay rates of 2,3,4,7,8-PeCDF and octachlorodibenzodioxin (OCDD) using a second-order equation.ResultsWe found that the decay rate of OCDD increased, whereas the decay rate of 2,3,4,7,8-PeCDF of patients with a relatively high concentration of 2,3,4,7,8-PeCDF decreased. OCDD results were in accordance with decreasing levels of dioxin and dioxin-like compounds in the environment. The decay rate of OCDD in the body was affected by the decay rate of OCDD in the environment by ingestion because it was near the steady-state. In contrast, the decay rate of 2,3,4,7,8-PeCDF in the body was affected less by ingestion from the environment because it was far higher than in the steady-state.ConclusionWe demonstrated that the level of 2,3,4,7,8-PeCDF in the environment is decreasing. The excretion half-life is longer than the environmental half-life, thus the excretion half-life in a Yusho patient is increased.

Fundamental uncertainty equations for nuclear dating applied to the 140Ba-140La and 227Th-223Ra chronometers

Basic equations for age dating through activity ratio measurements are presented and applied to nuclear chronometers based on parent-daughter decay. Uncertainty propagation formulae are derived which relate the relative uncertainty on the half-lives and measured activity ratios with the relative uncertainty on the calculated time of a nuclear event. Particular attention is paid to the case of relatively short-lived radionuclides for which the change in decay rate during the measurement is non-negligible. Mathematical solutions are presented to correct the perceived activity ratio and adapt the uncertainty propagation formulae to complete the uncertainty budget. The formulae have been applied to 140Ba-140La chronometry, which is particularly useful for dating a nuclear explosion through measurement of the produced activity ratio of 140La and 140Ba in a finite time interval. They were also applied to the 227Th-223Ra parent-daughter pair produced for therapeutic use. The impact of inaccuracies in the nuclear decay data on the performance of these nuclear chronometers is shown and discussed.

Dynamics of a membrane interacting with an active wall.

Active motions of a biological membrane can be induced by nonthermal fluctuations that occur in the outer environment of the membrane. We discuss the dynamics of a membrane interacting hydrodynamically with an active wall that exerts random velocities on the ambient fluid. Solving the hydrodynamic equations of a bound membrane, we first derive a dynamic equation for the membrane fluctuation amplitude in the presence of different types of walls. Membrane two-point correlation functions are calculated for three different cases: (i) a static wall, (ii) an active wall, and (iii) an active wall with an intrinsic time scale. We focus on the mean squared displacement (MSD) of a tagged membrane describing the Brownian motion of a membrane segment. For the static wall case, there are two asymptotic regimes of MSD (∼t^{2/3} and ∼t^{1/3}) when the hydrodynamic decay rate changes monotonically. In the case of an active wall, the MSD grows linearly in time (∼t) in the early stage, which is unusual for a membrane segment. This linear-growth region of the MSD is further extended when the active wall has a finite intrinsic time scale.

MoS2/WS2/BN-Silver Thin-Film Hybrid Architectures Displaying Enhanced Fluorescence via Surface Plasmon Coupled Emission for Sensing Applications

Extremely thin layers of MoS2, WS2, and BN have come to the fore as a “beyond graphene” class of emerging 2D-materials that display many interesting properties and have wide technological applications. In this study, we report the first time engineering of these novel nano 2D-materials as efficient spacer layer components in silver (Ag) based thin-film stacks that generated up to 17-fold enhancement in the emission intensity of rhodamine B (RhB) fluorophore molecules; based on the surface plasmon coupled emission (SPCE) platform. The exceptional mechanical, thermal, and chemical stability of these 2D-spacer layers enabled effective surface passivation of Ag thin-films. The superior signal enhancements observed from the different 2D-spacer substrates may be attributed to optimal changes in radiative decay rates of excited RhB states. In a manner not reported before, we demonstrate the tunability of SPCE signal enhancements, on choosing spacer materials of appropriate refractive index. In this work, we furt...

Tunable fluorescence lifetime of Eu-PMMA films with plasmonic nanostructures for multiplexing.

A method to tune fluorescence lifetime of Eu-PMMA films is proposed, which consists of self-assembled gold nanorods on glass substrate covered by Eu-PMMA shell. The fluorescence lifetime is tunable in a wide range, and depends on aspect ratio and mutual distance of gold nanorods. In a single red color emission channel, more than six distinct fluorescence lifetime populations ranging from 356 to 513 μs are obtained. Through theoretical calculation, we attribute tunable fluorescence lifetime to the change of radiative and nonradiative decay rate and density of photon states. In addition, we use these as-prepared Eu-PMMA films for security data storage to demonstrate optical multiplexing applications. The optical multiplexing experiments show an interesting pseudo-information "8" and conceal the real messages "2" and "6".

Ficus hirta fruits extract incorporated into an alginate-based edible coating for Nanfeng mandarin preservation

An edible coating based on 1.5% sodium alginate (SA), 0.7% citric acid and 1.0% sucrose ester with and without Ficus hirta (FH) fruit extract was applied to Nanfeng mandarins to preserve their postharvest quality. Changes in decay rate, weight loss, quality parameters, respiration rate, and enzymatic activities of the coated and control samples were assessed at 10-day intervals for a 100-day storage period at 6°C. The decay rate, weight loss, respiration rate and maleicdialdehyde (MDA) content were much lower in the FH-SA coated samples than in the control group. During the middle and later periods of storage, Nanfeng mandarin treated with FH-SA coating maintained good fruit quality. The FH-SA coating treatment enhanced the activities of antioxidant and defense-related enzymes such as superoxyde dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), chitinase (CHI), β-1,3-glucanase (GLU), and phenylalanine ammonialyase (PAL), and stimulated the accumulation of phenolic compounds. Our study suggests that FH-SA coating has the potential to enhance the long term quality and storage of Nanfeng mandarin.

Position-dependent oscillated decay of a two-level atom immersed in a two-dimensional photon fluid

A Weisskopf–Wigner theory has been used to investigate the spontaneous emission of a two-level atom placed in a photon superfluid. It is found that the atom decays exponentially. However, the atomic decay rate changes periodically with the position of the atom and it is minimal when the atom is located at the wave nodes. The largest decay rate of the atom in photon superfluid has the same order of magnitude as it is in vacuum of free space. Moreover, the analytical result shows that the decay of an atom in photon superfluid, compared with that in planar cavity without photon superfluid, will be inhibited. The physical origin of atomic decay inhibition is also discussed.

Isolation of Nascent Transcripts with Click Chemistry.

Steady-state levels of cellular RNA are determined by both transcriptional rate and RNA half-life. Commonly used methods for transcriptional analysis are only capable of profiling total RNA and do not distinguish changes in synthesis and decay rates. Hence, a better understanding of the temporal dynamics of cellular response for a given condition at the transcriptional level requires techniques for the analysis of nascent transcripts. Here we describe a protocol that allows isolation of nascent transcripts with a copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) also known as a click chemistry reaction.

Dental caries disparities in early childhood: A study of kindergarten children in British Columbia.

The objective of this paper was to describe results of a public health-administered, provincial dental survey of children aged 4-6 years old in British Columbia, and assess the changes in rates of dental caries geographically and by neighbourhood socio-economic status between baseline (2006/07) and follow-up data collection (2009/10). The study design involved two retrospective cohorts of kindergarten children who received a public health-administered dental assessment in the years 2006/07 and 2009/10. Neighbourhood socio-economic status was measured by an index created from Canadian Census and Tax Filer data sets. The dental outcomes included previous decay experience, untreated visible decay, and urgent treatment needs. The analysis comprised dental outcomes for 35,602 kindergarten children in 2006/07 and 35,215 children in 2009/10. There was a modest decrease in dental decay rates between surveys, with rates of decay experience - previous and untreated - of 38.9% and 36.7% respectively. However, there were disparities, with almost 50% of children with dental decay in the most socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods, and approximately 30% with dental decay in the least disadvantaged areas. The kindergarten dental survey had extensive coverage, was at the population level, and enabled analysis of change in early childhood dental decay rates over time and by geography. Although overall rates improved, dental health inequalities persisted in both survey years at both regional and neighbourhood levels.

Detection of bifurcations in noisy coupled systems from multiple time series.

We generalize a method of detecting an approaching bifurcation in a time series of a noisy system from the special case of one dynamical variable to multiple dynamical variables. For a system described by a stochastic differential equation consisting of an autonomous deterministic part with one dynamical variable and an additive white noise term, small perturbations away from the system's fixed point will decay slower the closer the system is to a bifurcation. This phenomenon is known as critical slowing down and all such systems exhibit this decay-type behaviour. However, when the deterministic part has multiple coupled dynamical variables, the possible dynamics can be much richer, exhibiting oscillatory and chaotic behaviour. In our generalization to the multi-variable case, we find additional indicators to decay rate, such as frequency of oscillation. In the case of approaching a homoclinic bifurcation, there is no change in decay rate but there is a decrease in frequency of oscillations. The expanded method therefore adds extra tools to help detect and classify approaching bifurcations given multiple time series, where the underlying dynamics are not fully known. Our generalisation also allows bifurcation detection to be applied spatially if one treats each spatial location as a new dynamical variable. One may then determine the unstable spatial mode(s). This is also something that has not been possible with the single variable method. The method is applicable to any set of time series regardless of its origin, but may be particularly useful when anticipating abrupt changes in the multi-dimensional climate system.

Carrier decay and luminescence characteristics in hadron irradiated MOCVD GaN

Crystalline GaN is a promising material for producing of the radiation hard particle detectors of different types capable to operate in harsh areas of particle accelerators. Moreover, GaN crystals show rather efficient luminescence properties in several spectral bands under excitation by high energy radiation. Thereby, GaN material can be employed for fabrication of a combined device which is able to operate both as scintillating and charge collecting detector. However, the efficiency of such detectors and their functionality has insufficiently been investigated. This work is addressed to study the evolution of the efficiency of photon and hadron induced luminescence. To evaluate the density of excess carriers induced by the high energy protons, a correlation between the microwave probed photoconductivity transients and the proton induced luminescence intensity has been examined using 1.6 MeV protons to produce a nearly homogeneous and rather strong excitation in 2.6 μm thick MOCVD grown GaN epi-layers. To estimate the radiation hardness of such material, the evolution of the photoconductivity transients and of the proton induced photoluminescence characteristics has been studied by in situ measurements of the changes of luminescence intensity and photoconductivity decay rate during the exposure to a proton beam reaching fluences up to 1015 cm-2. The production rate of radiation defects, determined from in situ and post-irradiation examination of the changes of radiative and non-radiative recombination have been examined by combining penetrative hadron (nuclear reactor neutrons and 24 GeV/c protons) irradiations with those of the 1.6 MeV protons. The parameters of the efficiency κP of carrier pair generation by asingle proton of κP = nP/NP ≅ 1.3 × 107 cm-3 per proton and κPApr = 40 carrier pairs per a micrometer of layer depth per proton have been estimated. The production rate of radiation defects is estimated to be KP ≅ 0.6 cm-1 for both penetrative neutrons and for 24 GeV/c protons. The hadronirradiation determines both the creation of the specific radiation defects with rate of KP ≅ 0.6 cm-1 and the modification of the material structure by increasing its disorder. Increase of disorder has been deduced from the observed decrease of value of the stretched-exponent index.

Global analysis of posttranscriptional gene expression in response to sodium arsenite.

Background:Inorganic arsenic species are potent environmental toxins and causes of numerous health problems. Most studies have assumed that arsenic-induced changes in mRNA levels result from effects on gene transcription.Objectives:We evaluated the prevalence of changes in mRNA stability in response to sodium arsenite in human fibroblasts.Methods:We used microarray analyses to determine changes in steady-state mRNA levels and mRNA decay rates following 24-hr exposure to noncytotoxic concentrations of sodium arsenite, and we confirmed some of these changes using real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).Results:In arsenite-exposed cells, 186 probe set–identified transcripts were significantly increased and 167 were significantly decreased. When decay rates were analyzed after actinomycin D treatment, only 4,992 (9.1%) of probe set–identified transcripts decayed by > 25% after 4 hr. Of these, 70 were among the 353 whose steady-state levels were altered by arsenite, and of these, only 4 exhibited significantly different decay rates between arsenite and control treatment. Real-time RT-PCR confirmed a major, significant arsenite-induced stabilization of the mRNA encoding δ aminolevulinate synthase 1 (ALAS1), the rate-limiting enzyme in heme biosynthesis. This change presumably accounted for at least part of the 2.7-fold increase in steady-state ALAS1 mRNA levels seen after arsenite treatment. This could reflect decreases in cellular heme caused by the massive induction by arsenite of heme oxygenase mRNA (HMOX1; 68-fold increase), the rate-limiting enzyme in heme catabolism.Conclusions:We conclude that arsenite modification of mRNA stability is relatively uncommon, but in some instances can result in significant changes in gene expression.Citation:Qiu LQ, Abey S, Harris S, Shah R, Gerrish KE, Blackshear PJ. 2015. Global analysis of posttranscriptional gene expression in response to sodium arsenite. Environ Health Perspect 123:324–330; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1408626

Resistance to Botrytis cinerea and Quality Characteristics during Storage of Raspberry Genotypes

Raspberries are a delicate, high-value crop with an extremely short shelf life exacerbated by postharvest decay caused by Botrytis cinerea Pers. European red raspberry (Rubus idaeus L.) is the most widely grown variety. Yellow (R. idaeus L.), black (R. occidentalis L.), and purple raspberries (R. ×neglectus Peck. or R. occidentalis ×idaeus hybrids) are available mainly at local markets and U-pick farms. To compare the postharvest quality of the raspberry color groups, pesticide-free fruit from cultivars and breeding selections of red, yellow, purple, and black raspberries were examined for oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), phenolics, anthocyanins, soluble solids, titratable acids, pH, color, firmness, decay and juice leakage rates, ethylene evolution, and respiration. There were significant correlations between decay rate and physiochemical properties. Both decay and leakage rates were correlated with weather conditions before harvest, but each color group responded differently to different weather factors. There were no correlations among changes in color, firmness, decay, or juice leakage rates. All the other color groups were less acidic than the familiar red raspberry. Yellow raspberries had the worst decay rates but the best leakage rates. Black and purple raspberries, with the highest phenolics and anthocyanins and the lowest ethylene evolution rates, resisted decay the longest but bled soonest.

Ultrafast modification of the spontaneous decay rate by plasmonic nanostructures: a step toward manipulation of a single atom

A controllable method for modifying spontaneous emission of an electric dipole located in close proximity to a plasmonic nanostructure is proposed. The nanostructure constructed of two triangular nanowires, in the form of a dimer, on a substrate in which the gallium film on the micrometer scale is the main layer. The results illustrate that phase transition of the gallium film from the α-crystalline to liquid phase leads to variation of the spectrum of radiative and nonradiative decay rates of the dipole where such a transition depends on parameters of the dipole, e.g. position, orientation and emission wavelength as well as on the nanostructure, e.g. shape and size of the dimer and also properties of the substrate. On the other hand, it is found that during phase transition modification of nanostructure resonances is negligible while the radiative decay rate changes.

Direct measurement of transcription rates reveals multiple mechanisms for configuration of the Arabidopsisambient temperature response

BackgroundSensing and responding to ambient temperature is important for controlling growth and development of many organisms, in part by regulating mRNA levels. mRNA abundance can change with temperature, but it is unclear whether this results from changes in transcription or decay rates, and whether passive or active temperature regulation is involved.ResultsUsing a base analog labelling method, we directly measured the temperature coefficient, Q10, of mRNA synthesis and degradation rates of the Arabidopsis transcriptome. We show that for most genes, transcript levels are buffered against passive increases in transcription rates by balancing passive increases in the rate of decay. Strikingly, for temperature-responsive transcripts, increasing temperature raises transcript abundance primarily by promoting faster transcription relative to decay and not vice versa, suggesting a global transcriptional process exists that controls mRNA abundance by temperature. This is partly accounted for by gene body H2A.Z which is associated with low transcription rate Q10, but is also influenced by other marks and transcription factor activities.ConclusionsOur data show that less frequent chromatin states can produce temperature responses simply by virtue of their rarity and the difference between their thermal properties and those of the most common states, and underline the advantages of directly measuring transcription rate changes in dynamic systems, rather than inferring rates from changes in mRNA abundance.

A novel pulse-chase SILAC strategy measures changes in protein decay and synthesis rates induced by perturbation of proteostasis with an Hsp90 inhibitor.

Standard proteomics methods allow the relative quantitation of levels of thousands of proteins in two or more samples. While such methods are invaluable for defining the variations in protein concentrations which follow the perturbation of a biological system, they do not offer information on the mechanisms underlying such changes. Expanding on previous work [1], we developed a pulse-chase (pc) variant of SILAC (stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture). pcSILAC can quantitate in one experiment and for two conditions the relative levels of proteins newly synthesized in a given time as well as the relative levels of remaining preexisting proteins. We validated the method studying the drug-mediated inhibition of the Hsp90 molecular chaperone, which is known to lead to increased synthesis of stress response proteins as well as the increased decay of Hsp90 “clients”. We showed that pcSILAC can give information on changes in global cellular proteostasis induced by treatment with the inhibitor, which are normally not captured by standard relative quantitation techniques. Furthermore, we have developed a mathematical model and computational framework that uses pcSILAC data to determine degradation constants kd and synthesis rates Vs for proteins in both control and drug-treated cells. The results show that Hsp90 inhibition induced a generalized slowdown of protein synthesis and an increase in protein decay. Treatment with the inhibitor also resulted in widespread protein-specific changes in relative synthesis rates, together with variations in protein decay rates. The latter were more restricted to individual proteins or protein families than the variations in synthesis. Our results establish pcSILAC as a viable workflow for the mechanistic dissection of changes in the proteome which follow perturbations. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD000538.

Non-Markovianity during the quantum Zeno effect

We examine the Zeno and anti-Zeno effects in the context of non-Markovian dynamics in entangled spin-boson systems in contact with noninteracting reservoirs. We identify enhanced non-Markovian signatures in specific two-qubit partitions of a Bell-like initial state, with results showing that the intra-qubit Zeno effect or anti-Zeno effect occurs in conjunction with inter-qubit non-Markovian dynamics for a range of system parameters. The time domain of effective Zeno or anti-Zeno dynamics is about the same order of magnitude as the non-Markovian time scale of the reservoir correlation dynamics, and changes in decay rate due to the Zeno mechanism appears coordinated with information flow between specific two-qubit partitions. We extend our analysis to examine the Zeno mechanism-non-Markovianity link using the tripartite states arising from a donor-acceptor-sink model of photosynthetic biosystems.

Suitability of nanodiamond nitrogen–vacancy centers for spontaneous emission control experiments

Nitrogen–vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are generally recognized as highly promising as indefinitely stable highly efficient single-photon sources. We report an experimental quantification of the brightness, radiative decay rate, nonradiative decay rate and quantum efficiency of single NV centers in diamond nanocrystals. Our experiments show that the commonly observed large spread in fluorescence decay rates of NV centers in nanodiamond is inconsistent with the common explanation of large nanophotonic mode-density variations in the ultra-small high-index crystals at near-unity quantum efficiency. We report that NV centers in 25 nm nanocrystals are essentially insensitive to local density of optical states (LDOS) variations that we induce at a dielectric interface by using liquids to vary the refractive index, and propose that quantum efficiencies in such nanocrystals are widely distributed between 0 and 20%. For single NV centers in larger 100 nm nanocrystals, we show that decay rate changes can be reversibly induced by nanomechanically approaching a mirror to change the LDOS. Using this scanning mirror method, for the first time we report calibrated quantum efficiencies of NV centers, and show that different but nominally identical nanocrystals have widely distributed quantum efficiencies between 10 and 90%. Our measurements imply that nanocrystals that are to be assembled into hybrid photonic structures for cavity QED should first be individually screened to assess fluorescence properties in detail.