2,829 research outputs found
Some Aspects of Multifractal analysis
The aim of this survey is to present some aspects of multifractal analysis
around the recently developed subject of multiple ergodic averages. Related
topics include dimensions of measures, oriented walks, Riesz products etc
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Validating the Persian Intuitive Eating Scale-2 among breast cancer survivors who are overweight/obese
Women with breast cancer are at risk of being overweight/obese which may consequently increase mortality. Intuitive eating is an adaptive eating behavior which might be beneficial for weight outcomes. The present study validated the Persian Intuitive Eating Scale-2 (IES-2) among overweight/obese Iranian females with breast cancer. Women who were overweight/obese with breast cancer (n = 762; mean ± SD age = 55.1 ± 5.7 years) completed the following questionnaires: IES-2, General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE-6), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Short Form-12 (SF-12), Weight Bias Internalization Scale (WBIS), Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2), and Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Rasch analysis were applied to examine the psychometric properties of the IES-2. Associations between IES-2 score and other scale scores were assessed. CFA and Rasch analysis suggested that the Persian IES-2 had robust psychometric properties and all IES-2 items were meaningful in their embedded domains. The four-factor structure of the Persian IES-2 was confirmed. Concurrent validity was supported by the positive correlations between the IES-2 score and scores on the GSE-6, SF-12 mental component, and BAS-2. Negative correlations were found between the IES-2 score and the HADS (anxiety and depression subscales), WBIS, and EAT-26. The present study demonstrated that the Persian IES-2 is a well-designed instrument and is applicable for women who are overweight/obese with breast cancer
Aldehyde dehydrogenase 1a3 defines a subset of failing pancreatic β cells in diabetic mice
Insulin-producing β cells become dedifferentiated during diabetes progression. An impaired ability to select substrates for oxidative phosphorylation, or metabolic inflexibility, initiates progression from β-cell dysfunction to β-cell dedifferentiation. The identification of pathways involved in dedifferentiation may provide clues to its reversal. Here we isolate and functionally characterize failing β cells from various experimental models of diabetes and report a striking enrichment in the expression of aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 isoform A3 (ALDH+) as β cells become dedifferentiated. Flow-sorted ALDH+ islet cells demonstrate impaired glucose-induced insulin secretion, are depleted of Foxo1 and MafA, and include a Neurogenin3-positive subset. RNA sequencing analysis demonstrates that ALDH+ cells are characterized by: (i) impaired oxidative phosphorylation and mitochondrial complex I, IV and V; (ii) activated RICTOR; and (iii) progenitor cell markers. We propose that impaired mitochondrial function marks the progression from metabolic inflexibility to dedifferentiation in the natural history of β-cell failure
Smart biomaterials - regulating cell behavior through signaling molecules
Important advances in the field of tissue engineering are arising from increased interest in novel biomaterial designs with bioactive components that directly influence cell behavior. Following the recent work of Mitchell and co-workers published in BMC Biology, we review how spatial and temporal control of signaling molecules in a matrix material regulates cellular responses for tissue-specific applications
Approaches towards expression profiling the response to treatment
Over the past 8 years there has been a wealth of breast cancer gene expression studies. The majority of these studies have focused upon characterising a tumour at presentation, before treatment, rather than looking at the effects of treatment on the tumour. More recently, a number of groups have moved from predicting prognosis based upon long-term follow-up to alternative approaches of using expression profiling to measure the effect of treatment on breast tumours and potentially predict response to therapy using either post-treatment samples or both pre-treatment and post-treatment samples. Whilst this provides great potential to further our understanding of the mode of action of treatments and to more accurately select which patients will benefit from a particular treatment, serious issues of experimental design must be considered
You turn me cold: evidence for temperature contagion
Introduction
During social interactions, our own physiological responses influence those of others. Synchronization of physiological (and behavioural) responses can facilitate emotional understanding and group coherence through inter-subjectivity. Here we investigate if observing cues indicating a change in another's body temperature results in a corresponding temperature change in the observer.
Methods
Thirty-six healthy participants (age; 22.9±3.1 yrs) each observed, then rated, eight purpose-made videos (3 min duration) that depicted actors with either their right or left hand in visibly warm (warm videos) or cold water (cold videos). Four control videos with the actors' hand in front of the water were also shown. Temperature of participant observers' right and left hands was concurrently measured using a thermistor within a Wheatstone bridge with a theoretical temperature sensitivity of <0.0001°C. Temperature data were analysed in a repeated measures ANOVA (temperature × actor's hand × observer's hand).
Results
Participants rated the videos showing hands immersed in cold water as being significantly cooler than hands immersed in warm water, F(1,34) = 256.67, p0.1). There was however no evidence of left-right mirroring of these temperature effects p>0.1). Sensitivity to temperature contagion was also predicted by inter-individual differences in self-report empathy.
Conclusions
We illustrate physiological contagion of temperature in healthy individuals, suggesting that empathetic understanding for primary low-level physiological challenges (as well as more complex emotions) are grounded in somatic simulation
Transport Spectroscopy of Symmetry-Broken Insulating States in Bilayer Graphene
The flat bands in bilayer graphene(BLG) are sensitive to electric fields
E\bot directed between the layers, and magnify the electron-electron
interaction effects, thus making BLG an attractive platform for new
two-dimensional (2D) electron physics[1-5]. Theories[6-16] have suggested the
possibility of a variety of interesting broken symmetry states, some
characterized by spontaneous mass gaps, when the electron-density is at the
carrier neutrality point (CNP). The theoretically proposed gaps[6,7,10] in
bilayer graphene are analogous[17,18] to the masses generated by broken
symmetries in particle physics and give rise to large momentum-space Berry
curvatures[8,19] accompanied by spontaneous quantum Hall effects[7-9]. Though
recent experiments[20-23] have provided convincing evidence of strong
electronic correlations near the CNP in BLG, the presence of gaps is difficult
to establish because of the lack of direct spectroscopic measurements. Here we
present transport measurements in ultra-clean double-gated BLG, using
source-drain bias as a spectroscopic tool to resolve a gap of ~2 meV at the
CNP. The gap can be closed by an electric field E\bot \sim13 mV/nm but
increases monotonically with a magnetic field B, with an apparent particle-hole
asymmetry above the gap, thus providing the first mapping of the ground states
in BLG.Comment: 4 figure
Primary Retroperitoneal Mucinous Cystadenocarcinoma: A Case Report and Review of the Literature
Primary retroperitoneal mucinous cystadenocarcinoma is a rare tumor. Only about 30 such cases have been reported in the worldwide literature, and a few Korean cases have been reported. The pathogenesis is not clear, and coelomic metaplasia of the retroperitoneal mesothelium has gained wide support. There is no consensus on the appropriate treatment, but surgical exploration is needed for the diagnosis and treatment, and adjuvant chemotherapy may be recommended following complete surgical excision. The long-term prognosis has not been established
Supersymmetry in the shadow of photini
Additional neutral gauge fermions -- "photini" -- arise in string
compactifications as superpartners of U(1) gauge fields. Unlike their vector
counterparts, the photini can acquire weak-scale masses from soft SUSY breaking
and lead to observable signatures at the LHC through mass mixing with the bino.
In this work we investigate the collider consequences of adding photini to the
neutralino sector of the MSSM. Relatively large mixing of one or more photini
with the bino can lead to prompt decays of the lightest ordinary supersymmetric
particle; these extra cascades transfer most of the energy of SUSY decay chains
into Standard Model particles, diminishing the power of missing energy as an
experimental handle for signal discrimination. We demonstrate that the missing
energy in SUSY events with photini is reduced dramatically for supersymmetric
spectra with MSSM neutralinos near the weak scale, and study the effects on
limits set by the leading hadronic SUSY searches at ATLAS and CMS. We find that
in the presence of even one light photino the limits on squark masses from
hadronic searches can be reduced by 400 GeV, with comparable (though more
modest) reduction of gluino mass limits. We also consider potential discovery
channels such as dilepton and multilepton searches, which remain sensitive to
SUSY spectra with photini and can provide an unexpected route to the discovery
of supersymmetry. Although presented in the context of photini, our results
apply in general to theories in which additional light neutral fermions mix
with MSSM gauginos.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, references adde
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