Jagiellonian University

About: Jagiellonian University is a education organization based out in Krakow, Poland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Catalysis. The organization has 17438 authors who have published 44092 publications receiving 862633 citations. The organization is also known as: Academia Cracoviensis & Akademia Krakowska.

Numerical tests of fast reconnection in weakly stochastic magnetic fields

Abstract: We study the effects of turbulence on magnetic reconnection using three-dimensional direct numerical simulations. This is the first attempt to test a model of fast magnetic reconnection in the presence of weak turbulence proposed by Lazarian & Vishniac. This model predicts that weak turbulence, which is generically present in most astrophysical systems, enhances the rate of reconnection by reducing the transverse scale for reconnection events and by allowing many independent flux reconnection events to occur simultaneously. As a result, the reconnection speed becomes independent of Ohmic resistivity and is determined by the magnetic field wandering induced by turbulence. We test the dependence of the reconnection speed on turbulent power, the energy injection scale, and resistivity. We apply the open and experiment with the outflow boundary conditions in our numerical model and discuss the advantages and drawbacks of various setups. To test our results, we also perform simulations of turbulence with the same outflow boundaries but without a large-scale field reversal, thus without large-scale reconnection. To quantify the reconnection speed we use both an intuitive definition, i.e., the speed of the reconnected flux inflow, and a more sophisticated definition based on a formally derived analytical expression. Our results confirm the predictions of the Lazarian and Vishniac model. In particular, we find that the reconnection speed is proportional to the square root of the injected power, as predicted by the model. The dependence on the injection scale for some of our models is a bit weaker than expected, i.e., l 3/4 inj, compared to the predicted linear dependence on the injection scale, which may require some refinement of the model or may be due to effects such as the finite size of the excitation region, which are not a part of the model. The reconnection speed was found to depend on the expected rate of magnetic field wandering and not on the magnitude of the guide field. In our models, we see no dependence on the guide field when its strength is comparable to the reconnected component. More importantly, while in the absence of turbulence we successfully reproduce the Sweet-Parker scaling of reconnection, in the presence of turbulence we do not observe any dependence on Ohmic resistivity, confirming that the reconnection of the weakly stochastic field is fast. We also do not observe a dependence on anomalous resistivity, which suggests that the presence of anomalous effects, e.g., Hall MHD effects, may be irrelevant for astrophysical systems with weakly stochastic magnetic fields.

Oxygen in Catalysis on Transition Metal Oxides

Abstract: Reactions of catalytic oxidation over oxide catalysts have been extensively studied in recent years following expansion of their applications in petrochemistry as well as their wide theoretical interest. Studies in this field have also contributed greatly to our understanding of the general mechanisms of catalyst action.

The virulence of Streptococcus mutans and the ability to form biofilms.

Abstract: In some diseases, a very important role is played by the ability of bacteria to form multi-dimensional complex structure known as biofilm. The most common disease of the oral cavity, known as dental caries, is a top leader. Streptococcus mutans, one of the many etiological factors of dental caries, is a microorganism which is able to acquire new properties allowing for the expression of pathogenicity determinants determining its virulence in specific environmental conditions. Through the mechanism of adhesion to a solid surface, S. mutans is capable of colonizing the oral cavity and also of forming bacterial biofilm. Additional properties enabling S. mutans to colonize the oral cavity include the ability to survive in an acidic environment and specific interaction with other microorganisms colonizing this ecosystem. This review is an attempt to establish which characteristics associated with biofilm formation—virulence determinants of S. mutans—are responsible for the development of dental caries. In order to extend the knowledge of the nature of Streptococcus infections, an attempt to face the following problems will be made: Biofilm formation as a complex process of protein–bacterium interaction. To what extent do microorganisms of the cariogenic flora exemplified by S. mutans differ in virulence determinants “expression” from microorganisms of physiological flora? How does the environment of the oral cavity and its microorganisms affect the biofilm formation of dominant species? How do selected inhibitors affect the biofilm formation of cariogenic microorganisms?