7,988 research outputs found
The 2D/3D dynamics of wall-bounded low-Rm magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence
No full textWith this experimental study, we give evidence that the dynamics of low-Rm MHD turbulence depends on the diffusion length l_z, which corresponds to the distance over which the Lorentz force is able to diffuse momentum before it is balanced by inertia
Searching for the truth about schizophrenia requires the application of similarly high standards of proof to biological and social risk factors
No full textDo child abuse and maltreatment increase risk of schizophrenia?
No full textIntroduction: Although childhood abuse is a recognised risk factor for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance misuse, its role in the aetiology of psychotic disorder remained controversial. This is in part because the putative effect of childhood trauma on psychosis has been mostly evaluated by small, cross sectional, uncontrolled studies that raised methodological issues. Methods: Papers concerning the association between childhood trauma and psychotic disorders (to November, 2011) were identified using a comprehensive search of PubMed, Psychinfo, and Scopus and analysing reference list of relevant papers. A narrative synthesis was used to summarise results. Results: An association between childhood abuse and psychotic symptoms was consistently reported by large cross sectional surveys with an effect ranging from 1.7 to 15. However, we cannot conclude that the relationship is causal as lack of longitudinal studies prevent us from fully excluding alternative explanations such as reverse causality. Gender, cannabis use, and depressive and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms appear to moderate the effect of childhood trauma on psychotic disorders. However, specificity of childhood abuse in psychotic disorders and, particularly, in schizophrenia has not been demonstrated. Conclusion: Although the association between childhood abuse and psychosis has been replicated, the etiological role of such early adversity has yet to be fully clarified. So far none of the studies reported support the hypothesis that childhood abuse is either sufficient or necessary to develop a psychotic disorder. It seems likely that any effect of childhood abuse on schizophrenia needs to be understood in terms of genetic susceptibility and interaction with other environmental risk factors
Influence of hosts on the ecology of arboviral transmission: Potential mechanisms influencing dengue, Murray Valley encephalitis, and Ross River virus in Australia
No full textEcological interactions are fundamental to the transmission of infectious disease. Arboviruses are particularly elegant examples, where rich arrays of mechanisms influence transmission between vectors and hosts. Research on host contributions to the ecology of arboviral diseases has been undertaken within multiple subdisciplines, but significant gaps in knowledge remain and multidisciplinary approaches are needed. Through our multidisciplinary review of the literature we have identified five broad areas where hosts may influence the ecology of arboviral transmission: host immunity; cross-protective immunity and antibody-dependent enhancement; host abundance; host diversity; and pathogen spillover and dispersal. Herein we discuss the known and theoretical roles of hosts within these topics and then apply this knowledge to three epidemiologically important mosquito-borne arboviruses that occur in Australia: dengue virus (DENV), Murray Valley encephalitis virus (MVEV), and Ross River virus (RRV). We argue that the underlying mechanisms by which hosts influence arboviral activity are numerous and attempts to delineate these mechanisms further are needed. Investigations that focus on hosts of vector-borne diseases are likely to be rewarding, particularly where the ecology of vectors is relatively well understood. From an applied perspective, enhanced knowledge of host influences upon vector-borne disease transmission is likely to enable better management of disease burden. Finally, we suggest a framework that may be useful to identify and determine host contributions to the ecology of arboviruses
Structural and mutagenic analysis of the RM controller protein C.Esp1396I
No full textBacterial restriction-modification (RM) systems are comprised of two complementary enzymatic activities that prevent the establishment of foreign DNA in a bacterial cell: DNA methylation and DNA restriction. These two activities are tightly regulated to prevent over-methylation or auto-restriction. Many Type II RM systems employ a controller (C) protein as a transcriptional regulator for the endonuclease gene (and in some cases, the methyltransferase gene also). All high-resolution structures of C-protein/DNA-protein complexes solved to date relate to C.Esp1396I, from which the interactions of specific amino acid residues with DNA bases and/or the phosphate backbone could be observed. Here we present both structural and DNA binding data for a series of mutations to the key DNA binding residues of C.Esp1396I. Our results indicate that mutations to the backbone binding residues (Y37, S52) had a lesser affect on DNA binding affinity than mutations to those residues that bind directly to the bases (T36, R46), and the contributions of each side chain to the binding energies are compared. High-resolution X-ray crystal structures of the mutant and native proteins showed that the fold of the proteins was unaffected by the mutations, but also revealed variation in the flexible loop conformations associated with DNA sequence recognition. Since the tyrosine residue Y37 contributes to DNA bending in the native complex, we have solved the structure of the Y37F mutant protein/DNA complex by X-ray crystallography to allow us to directly compare the structure of the DNA in the mutant and native complexes
Triangular Constellations in Flows
No full textParticles advected on the surface of a fluid can exhibit fractal clustering. The local structure of a fractal set is described by its dimension , which is the exponent of a power-law relating the mass in a ball to its radius : . It is desirable to characterise the {\em shapes} of constellations of points sampling a fractal measure, as well as their masses. The simplest example is the distribution of shapes of triangles formed by triplets of points, which we investigate for fractals generated by chaotic dynamical systems. The most significant parameter describing the triangle shape is the ratio of its area to the radius of gyration squared. We show that the probability density of has a phase transition: is independent of and approximately uniform below a critical flow compressibility , which we estimate. For the distribution appears to be described by two power laws: when , and when
Herpes simplex encephalitis as a complication of adjuvant chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer
No full text158 emission as an indicator of galaxy star formation rate
No full textObservations of local star-forming galaxies (SFGs) show a tight correlation
between their singly ionized carbon line luminosity () and
star formation rate (SFR), suggesting that may be a useful
SFR tracer for galaxies. Some other galaxy populations, however, are found to
have lower than the local SFGs, including the
infrared-luminous, starburst galaxies at low and high redshifts, as well as
some moderately star-forming galaxies at the epoch of re-ionization (EoR). The
origin of this ` deficit' is unclear. In this work, we study the
-SFR relation of galaxies using a sample of galaxies
with extracted from cosmological
volume and zoom-in simulations from the Feedback in Realistic Environments
(FIRE) project. We find a simple analytic expression for /SFR
of galaxies in terms of the following parameters: mass fraction of -emitting gas (), gas metallicity (),
gas density () and gas depletion time (). We find two distinct physical regimes, where
() is the main driver of the deficit in -rich (-poor) galaxies. The observed deficit of
IR-luminous galaxies and early EoR galaxies, corresponding to the two different
regimes, is due to short gas depletion time and low gas metallicity,
respectively. Our result indicates that deficit is a common
phenomenon of galaxies, and caution needs to be taken when applying a constant
-to-SFR conversion factor derived from local SFGs to estimate
cosmic SFR density at high redshifts and interpret data from upcoming line intensity mapping experiments.Comment: 44 page, 24 figures, 8 tables and 8 appendices, accepted for
publication in MNRAS. Key figures: fig. 16 & 17. Comments are welcom
Derivations of Murray-von Neumann Algebras
No full textA Murray-von Neumann algebra is the algebra of operators affiliated with a finite von Neumann algebra. In this article, we study derivations of Murray-von Neumann algebras and their properties. We show that the "extended derivations" of a Murray-von Neumann algebra, those that map the associated finite von Neumann algebra into itself, are inner. In particular, we prove that the only derivation that maps a Murray-von Neumann algebra associated with a von Neumann algebra of type into that von Neumann algebra is 0. This result is an extension, in two ways, of Singer's seminal result answering a question of Kaplansky, as applied to von Neumann algebras: the algebra may be non-commutative and contain unbounded elements. In another sense, as we indicate in the introduction, all the derivation results including ours extend what Singer's result says, that the derivation is the 0-mapping, numerically in our main theorem and cohomologically in our theorem on extended derivations. The cohomology in this case is the Hochschild cohomology for associative algebras
Exact two-dimensionalization of low-magnetic-Reynolds-number flows subject to a strong magnetic field
No full textWe investigate the behavior of flows, including turbulent flows, driven by a horizontal body-force and subject to a vertical magnetic field, with the following question in mind: for very strong applied magnetic field, is the flow mostly two-dimensional, with remaining weak three-dimensional fluctuations, or does it become exactly 2D, with no dependence along the vertical? We restrict attention to low-magnetic-Reynolds number (Rm) flow. Because liquid metals have low magnetic Prandtl number, such low- flows can have a kinetic Reynolds number as large as one million and therefore be strongly turbulent. We first focus on the quasi-static approximation, i.e. the asymptotic limit of vanishing magnetic Reynolds number Rm << 1: we prove that the flow becomes exactly 2D asymptotically in time, regardless of the initial condition and provided the interaction parameter N is larger than a threshold value. We call this property absolute two-dimensionalization: the attractor of the system is necessarily a (possibly turbulent) 2D flow. We then consider the full-magnetohydrodynamic equations and we prove that, for low enough Rm and large enough N, the flow becomes exactly two-dimensional in the long-time limit provided the initial vertically-dependent perturbations are infinitesimal. We call this phenomenon linear two-dimensionalization: the (possibly turbulent) 2D flow is an attractor of the dynamics, but it is not necessarily the only attractor of the system. Some 3D attractors may also exist and be attained for strong enough initial 3D perturbations. These results shed some light on the existence of a dissipative anomaly for magnetohydrodynamic flows subject to a strong external magnetic field
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