A screen for Drosophila synaptic dysfunction mutants identified slug-a-bed (slab). The slab gene encodes ceramidase, a central enzyme in sphingolipid metabolism and regulation. Sphingolipids are major constituents of lipid rafts, membrane domains with roles in vesicle trafficking, and signaling pathways. Null slab mutants arrest as fully developed embryos with severely reduced movement. The SLA...

Reducing the settlements of soft foundation effectively is a critical problem of high-speed railway construction in China. The new CFG pile-slab structure composite foundation is a ground treatment technique which is applied on CFG pile foundation and pile-slab structure composite foundation. Based on the experience of constructing Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in China, the settlement-co...

Experimental demonstrations of two edge-pumped zigzag slab lasers are presented. The Nd:YAG slab laser generated 127 W of multimode output power with 300W of pump power. Preliminary results with a Yb:YAG slab produced 46 W of output power with 315W of pump power. The edge-pumped slab design permits symmetric conduction cooling and efficient pump absorption and accepts large-numerical-aperture p...

This paper introduces the concept of Integrated Structures and Materials Design (ISMD). ISMD combines materials engineering and structural engineering for the purpose of more effectively achieving targeted structural performance, by adopting material composite properties as the shared link. An application example, design of a bridge deck link-slab, is used to illustrate the essential elements o...

Methods of preparing test specimens in laboratories are particularly important. It also holds true in terms of compaction procedure in predicting pavement performance. The currently available laboratory compactor cannot adequately replicate field compaction conditions, especially the Stone Mastic Asphalt (SMA) mixture. The essential element of SMA mixture comprises of stones that are placed nex...

S U M M A R Y Rapid changes in slab geometry are typically associated with fragmentation of the subducted plate; however, continuous curvature of the slab is also possible. The transition from flat to normal subduction in southern Peru is one such geometrical change. The morphology of the subducted Nazca Plate along this transition is explored using intraslab earthquakes recorded by temporary r...

In this paper, we investigate theoretically the waves propagation in a lossless double-negative grounded slab (DNG). This study is performed by the Transverse Resonance Method (TRM). The proper or improper nature of real and complex modes is observed. They are highly dependent on metamaterial parameters, i.e. ɛrnegative, μr-negative, or both. Numerical results provided that only the proper comp...

[1] Shear-wave splitting observations from many subduction zones show complex patterns of seismic anisotropy that commonly have trench-parallel fast directions. Three-dimensional flow may give rise to trench-parallel stretching and provide an explanation for these patterns of seismic anisotropy. Along-strike variations in slab geometry produce trench-parallel pressure gradients and are therefor...

[1] Sandpile avalanches were used first to illustrate the concept of self-organized criticality (SOC). Snow avalanches consist of two types: (1) loose snow avalanches which release in cohesionless material at the top of the snowpack and (2) slab avalanches which release by propagation of shear fractures originating in a thin weak layer at depth in the snowpack. Loose snow avalanches are analogo...

Using complex plane analysis we show that left-handed slab may support either leaky slab waves, which are backward because of negative refraction, or leaky surface waves, which are backward or forward depending on the propagation direction of the surface wave itself. Moreover, there is a general connection between the reflection coefficient of the left-handed slab and the one of the correspondi...