The Interaction of Anti-DNA Antibodies with DNA: Evidence for Unconventional Binding Mechanisms

Antibodies to DNA (anti-DNA) are the serological hallmark of systemic lupus erythematosus, a prototypic autoimmune disease. These antibodies bind to conserved sites on single-stranded and double-stranded DNA and display variable region somatic mutations consistent with antigen selection. Nevertheless, the interaction of anti-DNA with DNA has unconventional features. Anti-DNA antibodies bind by a mechanism called monogamous bivalency, in which stable interaction requires contact of both Fab sites with determinants on the same extended DNA molecule; the size of this DNA can be hundreds to thousands of bases, especially in solid phase assays. This binding also requires the presence of the Fc portion of IgG, a binding mechanism known as Fc-dependent monogamous bivalency. As shown by the effects of ionic strength in association and dissociation assays, anti-DNA binding is primarily electrostatic. Like anti-DNA autoantibodies, anti-DNA antibodies that bind specifically to non-conserved sites on bacterial DNA, a type of anti-DNA found in otherwise healthy individuals, also interact by monogamous bivalency. The unconventional features of anti-DNA antibodies may reflect the highly charged and polymeric nature of DNA and the need for molecular rearrangements to facilitate monogamous bivalency; the Fc portion contributes to binding in an as yet unknown way.     

Reversible Disorder in a Room Temperature Ferromagnet

Random magnetic fields, varying from site to site in a magnetic material, are a form of disorder that can determine the local architecture and stability of the magnetic state. In a ferromagnet, the application of an external magnetic field can amplify the effects of the internal random fields and, in principle, harden a magnetic domain, without changing temperature and only for as long as the external field is present. Here, the rare‐earth compound Nd₂Fe₁₄B, formed with a granular morphology of random‐packed, elongated grains, is an experimental realization of the Random Field Ising Model in a room temperature ferromagnet. The application of magnetic fields transverse to the easy axis tunes the coupling between the structural disorder and the magnetic pinning properties. This material both illuminates the intricacies of tunable disorder and serves as a guidepost along the way to developing increased‐density magnetic storage media.     

Detection-estimation of more uncorrelated Gaussian sources than sensors in nonuniform linear antenna arrays - part III: detection-estimation nonidentifiability

For pt.II see ibid., vol.51, no.6, p.1492-507 (2003). We investigate nonidentifiability conditions for the detection-estimation problem with multiple uncorrelated plane waves incident upon a nonuniform (sparse) linear antenna array. Specifically, we define conditions under which a given Hermitian covariance matrix has a nonunique (multiple) decomposition into an admissible number of dyads weighted by the source powers and a white-noise identity matrix. Our method is based on the Proukakis-Manikas technique of generating ambiguity generator sets (AGSs) and allows ambiguous sets of sources associated with a given sparse antenna geometry to be determined.     

Influence of Si<Subscript>3</Subscript>N<Subscript>4</Subscript> passivation on surface trapping in SiC metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors

The SiC metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFETs) have been reported to have current instability and strong dispersion caused by trapping phenomena at the surface and in the substrate, which degrade direct-current (DC) and radio-frequency (RF) performance. This paper illustrates the change in electrical characteristics of SiC MESFETs after Si₃N₄ passivation. Because of a reduction of surface trapping effects, Si₃N₄ passivation can diminish current collapse under pulsed DC conditions, increasing the RF power performance. The reduction of surface trapping effects is verified by the change in the ratio of the drain current to the gate current under pinch-off conditions.     

Low resistivity as-deposited ohmic contacts to 3C-SiC

The contact resistivities of Al and Ti ohmic contacts to n-type 3C-SiC were measured using the circular TLM method. The surface doping concentration under the contact was increased by ion-implantation of nitrogen into SiC. The contact resistivity was observed to decrease with increasing surface doping concentration for both Al and Ti contacts. The minimum value for the contact resistivities for Aland Ti contacts was 1.4x 10^-5and 1.5 x 10^-5 ω cm², respectively, at the surface doping concentration of 3 x 10²⁰ cm^-3 without any annealing of the contacts. These values are an order of magnitude lower than previously reported minimum values for as-deposited ohmic contacts on n-type 3C-SiC.     

Effect of strong optical feedback on vertical-cavitysurface-emitting lasers

An analysis is performed of the effects of strong optical feedback on the characteristics of single-transverse mode VCSEL's. Consideration is given to the cases of short (1.5 cm) and long (15 cm) external cavities. When the laser is operated well above threshold in a short external cavity with high reflectivity, a strong dependence on the accumulated external cavity phase is observed. Stable operation is found for an optimum phase while for other values of the phase, chaotic dynamics is observed. Such behavior is not seen near threshold where the laser output is stable for any accumulated phase. For the longer external cavity the influence of the phase term is found to be insignificant: chaotic behavior is seen in the output over a wide range of operating currents     

Spatial resolution and processing tradeoffs for HYDROS: application of reconstruction and resolution enhancement techniques

Recent developments in reconstruction and resolution enhancement for microwave instruments suggest a possible tradeoff between computation, resolution, and downlink data rate based on postcollection reconstruction/resolution enhancement processing. The Hydrospheric State (HYDROS) mission is designed to measure global soil moisture and freeze/thaw state in support of weather and climate prediction, water, energy, and carbon cycle studies, and natural hazards monitoring. It will use an active and passive L-band microwave system that optimizes measurement accuracy, spatial resolution, and coverage. The active channels use synthetic aperture radar-type processing to achieve fine spatial resolution, requiring a relatively high downlink data rate and ground processor complexity. To support real-time applications and processing, an optional postcollection reconstruction and resolution enhancement method is investigated. With this option, much lower rate real-aperture radar data are used along with ground-based postprocessing algorithms to enhance the resolution of the observations to achieve the desired 10-km resolution. Several approaches are investigated in this paper. It is determined that a reconstruction/resolution enhancement technique combining both forward- and aft-looking measurements enables estimation of 10-km resolution or better backscatter values at acceptable accuracy. Key tradeoffs to achieve this goal are considered.     

Polarization-preserved and polarization-rotated synchronization of chaotic vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

The synchronization process in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) based master-slave configuration, where the master laser has been destabilised by optical feedback from an external mirror, has been investigated. The dynamics of both VCSEL polarization modes have been modeled and used to study the chaos synchronization mechanism in both polarization preserved, and polarization rotated unidirectionally coupled master and slave configurations. Two types of synchronization have been identified in the polarization rotated case, one of which may afford an opportunity to effect multiplexed message encoding using orthogonal laser modes.     

Power and frequency dependence of hysteresis in optically bistableinjection locked VCSELs

Optical bistability in an injection-locked vertical cavity surface emitting semiconductor laser subject to parallel optical injection has been observed. It is shown that the width of the bistability loop may be enhanced by increasing the injection power and the frequency detuning     

An introduction to the multi-user MIMO downlink

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication techniques have been an important area of focus for next-generation wireless systems because of their potential for high capacity, increased diversity, and interference suppression. For applications such as wireless LANs and cellular telephony, MIMO systems will likely be deployed in environments where a single base must communicate with many users simultaneously. As a result, the study of multi-user MIMO systems has emerged recently as an important research topic. Such systems have the potential to combine the high capacity achievable with MIMO processing with the benefits of space-division multiple access. In this article we review several algorithms that have been proposed with this goal in mind. We describe two classes of solutions. The first uses a signal processing approach with various types of transmitter beamforming. The second uses "dirty paper" coding to overcome the interference a user sees from signals intended for other users. We conclude by describing future areas of research in multi-user MIMO communications.