1,766 research outputs found

    Gestational hypothyroxinemia affects its offspring with a reduced suppressive capacity impairing the outcome of the experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis

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    Indexación: Scopus.Hypothyroxinemia (Hpx) is a thyroid hormone deficiency (THD) condition highly frequent during pregnancy, which although asymptomatic for the mother, it can impair the cognitive function of the offspring. Previous studies have shown that maternal hypothyroidism increases the severity of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an autoimmune disease model for multiple sclerosis (MS). Here, we analyzed the immune response after EAE induction in the adult offspring gestated in Hpx. Mice gestated in Hpx showed an early appearance of EAE symptoms and the increase of all parameters of the disease such as: the pathological score, spinal cord demyelination, and immune cell infiltration in comparison to the adult offspring gestated in euthyroidism. Isolated CD4+CD25+ T cells from spleen of the offspring gestated in Hpx that suffer EAE showed reduced capacity to suppress proliferation of effector T cells (TEff) after being stimulated with anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 antibodies. Moreover, adoptive transfer experiments of CD4+CD25+ T cells from the offspring gestated in Hpx suffering EAE to mice that were induced with EAE showed that the receptor mice suffer more intense EAE pathological score. Even though, no significant differences were detected in the frequency of Treg cells and IL-10 content in the blood, spleen, and brain between mice gestated in Hpx or euthyroidism, T cells CD4+CD25+ from spleen have reduced capacity to differentiate in vitro to Treg and to produce IL-10. Thus, our data support the notion that maternal Hpx can imprint the immune response of the offspring suffering EAE probably due to a reduced capacity to trigger suppression. Such "imprints" on the immune system could contribute to explaining as to why adult offspring gestated in Hpx suffer earlier and more intense EAE. © 2018 Haensgen, Albornoz, Opazo, Bugueño, Jara Fernández, Binzberger, Rivero-Castillo, Venegas Salas, Simon, Cabello-Verrugio, Elorza, Kalergis, Bueno and Riedel.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2018.01257/ful

    Action-gradient-minimizing pseudo-orbits and almost-invariant tori

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    Transport in near-integrable, but partially chaotic, 11/21 1/2 degree-of-freedom Hamiltonian systems is blocked by invariant tori and is reduced at \emph{almost}-invariant tori, both associated with the invariant tori of a neighboring integrable system. "Almost invariant" tori with rational rotation number can be defined using continuous families of periodic \emph{pseudo-orbits} to foliate the surfaces, while irrational-rotation-number tori can be defined by nesting with sequences of such rational tori. Three definitions of "pseudo-orbit," \emph{action-gradient--minimizing} (AGMin), \emph{quadratic-flux-minimizing} (QFMin) and \emph{ghost} orbits, based on variants of Hamilton's Principle, use different strategies to extremize the action as closely as possible. Equivalent Lagrangian (configuration-space action) and Hamiltonian (phase-space action) formulations, and a new approach to visualizing action-minimizing and minimax orbits based on AGMin pseudo-orbits, are presented.Comment: Accepted for publication in a special issue of Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation (CNSNS) entitled "The mathematical structure of fluids and plasmas : a volume dedicated to the 60th birthday of Phil Morrison

    Predetermined ferromagnetic coupling via strict control of M−O−M angles

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    An imidazolidine-phenolate ligand HL yields quadruple bridged ferromagnetic nickel and cobalt dinuclear complexes. The ferromagnetism of these samples is mainly ascribed to the double µ-Ophenolate bridges, on the basis of DFT calculations. These studies demonstrate that the short M-O-M angles of the M2O2 are the optimal ones for maximizing the ferromagnetic contribution in these complexes. And these acute angles, close to 90º, are predetermined by the geometrical constrictions imposed by the ligand itself. Thus, HL is an odd polydentate donor that induces ferromagnetism per se in its metal complexes by strict control of geometric parameters

    Disordered Dirac Fermions: Multifractality Termination and Logarithmic Conformal Field Theories

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    We reexamine in detail the problem of fermions interacting with a non-Abelian random vector potential. Without resorting to the replica or supersymmetry approaches, we show that in the limit of infinite disorder strength the theory possesses an exact solution which takes the form of a logarithmic conformal field theory. We show that the proper treatment of the locality conditions in the SU(2) theory leads to the termination of the multifractal spectrum, or in other words to the termination of the infinite hierarchies of negative-dimensional operators that were thought to occur. Based on arguments of logarithmic degeneracies, we conjecture that such a termination mechanism should be present for general SU(N). Moreover, our results lead to the conclusion that the previous replica solution of this problem yields incorrect results.Comment: Revised version, to appear in Nucl. Phys.

    Fractional reaction-diffusion equations

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    In a series of papers, Saxena, Mathai, and Haubold (2002, 2004a, 2004b) derived solutions of a number of fractional kinetic equations in terms of generalized Mittag-Leffler functions which provide the extension of the work of Haubold and Mathai (1995, 2000). The subject of the present paper is to investigate the solution of a fractional reaction-diffusion equation. The results derived are of general nature and include the results reported earlier by many authors, notably by Jespersen, Metzler, and Fogedby (1999) for anomalous diffusion and del-Castillo-Negrete, Carreras, and Lynch (2003) for reaction-diffusion systems with L\'evy flights. The solution has been developed in terms of the H-function in a compact form with the help of Laplace and Fourier transforms. Most of the results obtained are in a form suitable for numerical computation.Comment: LaTeX, 17 pages, corrected typo

    Posterior Consistency via Precision Operators for Bayesian Nonparametric Drift Estimation in SDEs

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    We study a Bayesian approach to nonparametric estimation of the periodic drift function of a one-dimensional diffusion from continuous-time data. Rewriting the likelihood in terms of local time of the process, and specifying a Gaussian prior with precision operator of differential form, we show that the posterior is also Gaussian with precision operator also of differential form. The resulting expressions are explicit and lead to algorithms which are readily implementable. Using new functional limit theorems for the local time of diffusions on the circle, we bound the rate at which the posterior contracts around the true drift function

    Eukaryotic plankton communities across reef environments in Bocas del Toro Archipelago, Panamá

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    Variation in light and temperature can influence the genetic diversity and structure of marine plankton communities. While open-ocean plankton communities receive much scientific attention, little is known about how environmental variation affects plankton communities on tropical coral reefs. Here, we characterize eukaryotic plankton communities on coral reefs across the Bocas del Toro Archipelago, Panamá. Temperature loggers were deployed, and midday light levels were measured to quantify environmental differences across reefs at four inshore and four offshore sites (Inshore = Punta Donato, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) Point, Cristobal, Punta Laurel and Offshore = Drago Mar, Bastimentos North, Bastimentos South, and Cayo de Agua). Triplicate vertical plankton tows were collected midday, and high-throughput 18S ribosomal DNA metabarcoding was leveraged to investigate the relationship between eukaryotic plankton community structure and inshore/offshore reef environments. Plankton communities from STRI Point were additionally characterized in the morning (~ 08:00), midday (~ 12:00), and late-day (~ 16:00) to quantify temporal variation within a single site. We found that inshore reefs experienced higher average seawater temperatures, while offshore sites offered higher light levels, presumably associated with reduced water turbidity on reefs further from shore. These significant environmental differences between inshore and offshore reefs corresponded with overall plankton community differences. We also found that temporal variation played a structuring role within these plankton communities, and conclude that time of community sampling is an important consideration for future studies. Follow-up studies focusing on more intensive sampling efforts across space and time, coupled with techniques that can detect more subtle genetic differences between and within communities will more fully capture plankton dynamics in this region and beyond

    Suppose you had blocks within a notebook

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    Computational notebooks have been gaining prominence as a development environment suitable for non-experienced developers. However, it requires proficiency in writing syntactically and semantically correct code. In this article, we propose integrating a block-based approach into computational notebooks to prevent syntactical errors and ease the non-expert developers’ adoption. Furthermore, we rely on two tools previously implemented (Bacatá and Kogi) to (i) create a computational notebook for Domain-Specific Languages and (ii) generate a block-based representation upon the language definition. Consequently, our approach does not exclusively focus on integrating a block-based environment into computational notebooks but on enabling the creation and integration of domain-specific block-based environments into notebooks. Future work concerns the evaluation of our proposal through a user study
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