576 research outputs found
A Quantum Degenerate Mixture of Rb and Cs
No full textThis thesis reports the formation of a dual-species Bose-Einstein condensate of Rb and Cs in the same trapping potential. Quantum degenerate mixtures exhibit rich physics inaccessible to single species experiments and provide an ideal starting point for the creation of ultracold dipolar molecules. These molecules offer a wealth of new research avenues including precision metrology, quantum simulation and computation.
The experimental method exploits the efficient sympathetic cooling of Cs via elastic collisions with Rb, initially in a magnetic quadrupole trap and subsequently in a levitated optical trap. Evaporative cooling in the dipole trap must compete against a high interspecies three-body inelastic collision rate \mbox{~cms}. The two condensates each contain up to \mbox{} atoms and exhibit a striking phase separation, revealing the mixture to be immiscible due to strong repulsive interspecies interactions. Sacrificing all the Rb during the cooling leads to the creation of single-species Cs condensates of up to \mbox{} atoms. In addition this thesis reports the observation of an interspecies Feshbach resonance at 181.7(5)~G and the creation of a pure sample of Cs molecules via magneto-association on the 4(g)4 resonance at 19.8~G. These results represent important steps towards the creation of ultracold polar RbCs molecules
Correction: Genome-wide association studies of asthma in population-based cohorts confirm known and suggested loci and identify an additional association near HLA (PLoS ONE)
No full textAmyloid and tau in the brain in sporadic Alzheimer’s disease: defining the chicken and the egg
No full textIn the October 2013 issue of Acta Neuropathologica there were three very interesting articles on: Amyloid or tau: the chicken or the egg? In the first article, David Mann and John Hardy argued that the deposition of aggregated amyloid β (Aβ) protein in the brain is a primary driving force behind the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease with tau pathology following as a consequential or at least a secondary event. In the communication that followed, Braak and Del Tredici presented the contrary argument with accumulation of tau protein as the primary event in sporadic Alzheimer’s disease. Attems and Jellinger questioned the concept of a chicken and egg and suggested that the majority of cases of age-associated dementia are not caused by one single primary pathological mechanism
Neuropathological substrates of psychiatric symptoms in prospectively studied patients with autopsy-confirmed dementia with Lewy bodies
No full textOBJECTIVE:
This investigation was undertaken to clarify the neuropathological substrates of key psychiatric symptoms in dementia with Lewy bodies. METHOD:
The authors studied 112 autopsy-confirmed cases of dementia with Lewy bodies in patients who had had annual standardized clinical evaluations until their death. The relationships of persistent psychiatric symptoms (visual hallucinations, delusions, depression) to plaques (Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease protocol), tangles (Braak staging), and Lewy bodies (consensus Lewy body staging) were evaluated. In addition, symptom frequency and persistent symptoms were compared in the patients with Lewy body dementia and 90 patients with autopsy-confirmed Alzheimer’s disease studied prospectively during life. RESULTS:
The main neuropathological correlate of persistent visual hallucinations was the presence of less severe tangle pathology, but there was no significant association between tangle pathology and persistent delusions. Lewy body staging was associated with the presence of persistent visual hallucinations and persistent delusions. All baseline psychiatric features were significantly more frequent in dementia with Lewy bodies than in Alzheimer’s disease, as were persistent visual hallucinations, but patients who had dementia with Lewy bodies and severe tangle pathology had a clinical symptom profile more similar to that of Alzheimer’s disease patients and were less likely to have neocortical Lewy bodies. CONCLUSIONS:
The modest proportion of patients with Lewy body dementia and more severe tangle pathology resembled Alzheimer’s disease patients clinically. Unlike Alzheimer’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies showed a significant inverse association between tangle burden and psychosis
Molecular basis of gene-environment interactions in the pathogenesis of asthma and COPD
No full textThe origins of respiratory disease, such as asthma in childhood and COPD in later life are unclear. Maternal smoking during pregnancy and low birth weight is associated with increased risk of asthma, poor lung function in adults and COPD in old age. Exposure to oxidative stress and poor nutrition in utero is thought to cause damage to the lung and alter the normal course of lung development.Glutathione S-transferases (GST) are potent antioxidants. In this work, genetic polymorphisms that alter GST enzyme activity were genotyped in a family-based childhood asthma cohort (341 families, n = 1508) and analysed to investigate whether they alter the risk of developing asthma when individuals are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke. Real-time PCR based copy number variation methodology was developed to genotype the common gene deletion polymorphism of GSTT1 and GSTM1 genes, for other GST genes (GSTP1 and GSTO2) SNP haplotypes were constructed. A rare GSTO2 haplotype was negatively associated with asthma susceptibility, atopy severity, and FEV1 values. Asthmatic children with a GSTT1 gene deletion, or a common GSTP1 haplotype, developed more severe asthma compared to individuals with a GSTT1 gene or non-carriers of the GSTP1 haplotype. Total IgE levels were increased in GSTT1*0 individuals when exposed to tobacco smoke in early life, suggesting a gene-environment interaction. GSTO2 may be a shared susceptibility locus for asthma in childhood and COPD in later life.Animal models of maternal protein-restriction during pregnancy can induce hypertension, diabetes and endothelial dysfunction in offspring and in some of these models alterations to lung gene expression and lung architecture have been reported. This work established that a rat model of maternal dietary protein-restriction during pregnancy known to induce hypertension in the offspring, results in persistent alterations to the expression of genes in the lungs of adult offspring (120 days), including genes involved in glucocorticoid action (Hsd11b2), growth (Igf1 & 2 and Pcdh1) and alveolar development (Tp53). Lung microRNA expression profiles were also altered in response to exposure to protein restriction in utero. These findings suggest a role for nutritional programming in respiratory disease susceptibility in later life and a role for microRNAs in the study of the developmental origins of health and disease in general. Further work will include the investigation of epigenetic mechanisms that control nutritional programming in lungs of animals exposed to protein-restriction in utero.This work has demonstrated that GST polymorphism is a risk factor for childhood asthma and certain genotypes can offer some protection against the development of severe asthma. There was little evidence to suggest that GST polymorphism modulates the effects of smoke exposure in early life. In addition, we have demonstrated that maternal diets that are poor in nutrition could predispose her offspring to respiratory disease in later life by altering the course of normal lung development in early life or response to environmental stimuli in later life
The use of Moses traditions in the Gospel of John: a contribution to John's use of the Old Testament
No full textThis thesis investigates the ways in which Moses traditions are used in the Gospel of
John. The term "Moses traditions" is meant to refer to the stories connected with the
person of Moses in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Later developments
of these traditions are taken into account, if they are relevant to John's use of Moses
traditions.
The study addresses three areas of concern: First, the literary context and narrative
significance of each instance of a use of a Moses tradition in John's Gospel is
investigated. Secondly, the probability of the suggested links to the Old Testament
Vorlagen is assessed. It is argued that in many cases the identification of a suggested
link cannot be strictly separated from the interpretation of the link. Thirdly, the
theological significance of each suggested link is presented. It is argued that the most
significant theological inference from the use of Moses traditions in John is the
sociological function of the christological use of Moses traditions. Although Moses
traditions are used to illuminate the person of Jesus, the function of that use is time and
again to define the identity of Christian believers in relation to mainstream Judaism.
The introductory chapter presents a short survey of scholarly work on John's use of
the OT. It also tackles the details involved in detecting and interpreting OT allusions in
a NT text. Finally, it discusses the explicit use of the name "Moses" in John's Gospel
and establishes the thesis of the sociological function of the use of Moses traditions.
Chapter Two discusses the use of Sinai traditions in John 1 and 2. It is argued that
Ex 33-34 provides the crucial OT background to Jn 1: 14-18, and that Ex 19-24
illuminates several details of John 1: 19-2: 11.
Chapter Three follows the use of Passover traditions throughout the whole Gospel.
It is argued that Passover traditions serve mainly to illuminate aspects of Jesus' death.
Chapter Four presents the use of wilderness traditions in John 3 and 6-8. A
multifaceted picture emerges that includes a variety of ways in which wilderness
traditions are evoked. Also, an excursus is added that discusses the question of how
John's use of the OT affects the theological value of the OT revelation.
Chapter Five tackles several instances in which the prophet like Moses is evoked or
in which Moses and Jesus are compared as persons. Chapter Six summarizes the main
results of the study
Age-associated decline in high-affinity nicotine binding in human brain frontal-cortex does not correlate with the changes in choline-acetyltransferase activity
No full text[H-3]nicotine binding and choline acetyltransferase activity were measured in human frontal cortex, Brodman area 9, from brains obtained at autopsy from 47 cases aged between 24 weeks gestation to 100 years. The pattern of change of [H-3]nicotine binding during development and aging was not reflected in the changes of CHAT activity. [H-3]nicotine binding was reduced with age from birth to 100 years and this was not due to a change in affinity of the receptor for nicotine. CHAT activity initially rose from the perinatal period to a peak in the first decade and was then stable throughout the remaining years of life
Role of microRNA-23b in flow-regulation of Rb phosphorylation and endothelial cell growth
No full textMicroRNAs (miRs) can regulate many cellular functions, but their roles in regulating responses of vascular endothelial cells (ECs) to mechanical stimuli remain unexplored. We hypothesize that the physiological responses of ECs are regulated by not only mRNA and protein signaling networks, but also expression of the corresponding miRs. EC growth arrest induced by pulsatile shear (PS) flow is an important feature for flow regulation of ECs. miR profiling showed that 21 miRs are differentially expressed (8 up- and 13 downregulated) in response to 24-h PS as compared to static condition (ST). The mRNA expression profile indicates EC growth arrest under 24-h PS. Analysis of differentially expressed miRs yielded 68 predicted mRNA targets that overlapped with results of microarray mRNA profiling. Functional analysis of miR profile indicates that the cell cycle network is highly regulated. The upregulation of miR-23b and miR-27b was found to correlate with the PS-induced EC growth arrest. Inhibition of miR-23b using antagomir-23b oligonucleotide (AM23b) reversed the PS-induced E2F1 reduction and retinoblastoma (Rb) hypophosphorylation and attenuated the PS-induced G1/G0 arrest. Antagomir AM27b regulated E2F1 expression, but did not affect Rb and growth arrest. Our findings indicate that PS suppresses EC proliferation through the regulation of miR-23b and provide insights into the role of miRs in mechanotransduction.http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000274599500094&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=8e1609b174ce4e31116a60747a720701Multidisciplinary SciencesSCI(E)97ARTICLE73234-323910
THE HYPERFINE INTERACTIONS IN RbF, RbCl, RbOH, AND KBr
No full textAuthor Institution: Physics Department, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN 55057Molecular beam investigations of several heavier alkali halide and hydroxide molecules are underway, providing new, and much more precise, values for all the hyperfine interactions. Looking at the different rubidium molecules makes it possible to check for systematic trends. The ratios of the nuclear electric quadrupole moments of the two Rb isotopes are found to be consistent, provided that an allowance is made for a small isotopomer shift as noted recently for LiI }, with a value Rb)/Rb) = 0.4838301 0.0000020
Lacan and the Benedictines
No full textIn this paper the author considers, by a careful reading of the Regula Benedicti (RB) and its sources, the claim by Michel de Certeau that some of Lacan’s ideas are based on Benedictine monasticism. As well as the four concepts that de Certeau identifies (analyst as monk; master; school; and work-as-speech) the author also considers whether four additional notions (desire; the uniqueness of the subject; nothingness; and empty speech)—the latter two of which may have been mediated to Lacan by Heidegger—which come from the Regula Benedicti
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