International School for Advanced Studies

About: International School for Advanced Studies is a education organization based out in Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Galaxy & Dark matter. The organization has 3751 authors who have published 13433 publications receiving 588454 citations. The organization is also known as: SISSA & Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati.

Localization of Rhythmogenic Networks Responsible for Spontaneous Bursts Induced by Strychnine and Bicuculline in the Rat Isolated Spinal Cord

Abstract: Spontaneous rhythmic bursting induced by coapplication of strychnine (1 microM) and bicuculline (20 microM) was observed with electrophysiological recording from pairs of lumbar ventral roots (usually L5) in an isolated preparation of the neonatal rat spinal cord. Bursting was insensitive to exogenously applied GABA or glycine, confirming that it was attributable to block of glycine and GABAA receptor-mediated inhibition. NMDA accelerated bursting in a dose-dependent manner. Complete coronal spinal transection at L3 or L6 level did not block bursting recorded from L5 or L2 roots, respectively. Gradual cutting of the cord along the midline through a sagittal plane preserved bursting activity in both disconnected sides but led to loss of synchronicity. Once the spinal cord was fully separated into left and right halves, regular bursting persisted on each side with no phase-coupling between the two preparations. Section along a frontal plane to remove dorsal horns and much of the central canal area did not affect burst frequency or left-to-right synchronicity, whereas it reduced burst duration. A quadrant preparation containing mainly a single ventral horn displayed enhanced burst frequency while bursts became very short events. Bath application of 5-hydroxytryptamine (30 microM) or NMDA (5 microM) increased burst frequency and decreased burst duration in all types of preparation except the isolated quadrants, in which brief bursts were accelerated but not shortened by these chemical agents. These results suggest that bursting induced by strychnine and bicuculline apparently relied on distinct mechanisms for burst triggering and intraburst structure. The first required a relatively smaller neuronal network that was confined to a ventral quadrant. Intraburst structure was dependent on a larger circuitry comprising either both ventral horns or one side of the spinal cord including more than two segments.

Resonating Valence Bond Wave Functions for Strongly Frustrated Spin Systems

Abstract: The resonating-valence-bond (RVB) theory for two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets is shown to be the correct paradigm for large enough ``quantum frustration.'' This scenario, proposed a long time ago but never confirmed by microscopic calculations, is strongly supported by a new type of variational wave function, which is extremely close to the exact ground state of the ${J}_{1}{\ensuremath{-}J}_{2}$ Heisenberg model for $0.4\ensuremath{\lesssim}{J}_{2}{/J}_{1}\ensuremath{\lesssim}0.5$. This wave function is proposed to represent the generic spin-half RVB ground state in spin liquids.

Hamiltonian replica-exchange in GROMACS: a flexible implementation

Abstract: A simple and general implementation of Hamiltonian replica exchange for the popular molecular-dynamics software GROMACS is presented. In this implementation, arbitrarily different Hamiltonians can be used for the different replicas without incurring in any significant performance penalty. The implementation was validated on a simple toy model - alanine dipeptide in water - and applied to study the rearrangement of an RNA tetraloop, where it was used to compare recently proposed force-field corrections.

Minimal surfaces in pseudohermitian geometry

Abstract: We consider surfaces immersed in three-dimensional pseudohermitian manifolds. We define the notion of (p-)mean curvature and of the associated (p-)minimal surfaces, extending some concepts previously given for the (flat) Heisenberg group. We interpret the p-mean curvature not only as the tangential sublaplacian of a defining function, but also as the curvature of a characteristic curve, and as a quantity in terms of calibration geometry. As a differential equation, the p-minimal surface equation is degenerate (hyperbolic and elliptic). To analyze the singular set (i.e., the set where the (p-)area integrand vanishes), we formulate some extension theorems, which describe how the characteristic curves meet the singular set. This allows us to classify the entire solutions to this equation and to solve a Bernstein-type problem (for graphs over the xy-plane) in the Heisenberg group H1. In H1, identified with the Euclidean space R3, the p-minimal surfaces are classical ruled surfaces with the rulings generated by Legendrian lines. We also prove a uniqueness theorem for the Dirichlet problem under a condition on the size of the singular set in two dimensions, and generalize to higher dimensions without any size control condition. We also show that there are no closed, connected, C2 smoothly immersed constant p-mean curvature or p-minimal surfaces of genus greater than one in the standard S3. This fact continues to hold when S3 is replaced by a general pseudohermitian 3-manifold. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 35L80 (primary); 35J70, 32V20, 53A10, 49Q10 (secondary).