6,583 research outputs found
ESTIMATING POTENTIAL GAINS TO COOPERATION FOR LIMITED WATER RESOURCES ALONG THE RIO GRANDE
We examine the potential gains from cooperation in the withdrawal of water from the Hueco Bolson aquifer that provides a substantial portion of municipal water supplies in El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The aquifer lies beneath the international border, and both cities operate independently regarding pumping rates and annual withdrawals. The natural the rate of recharge has been less than the sum of annual withdrawals since the early 1900s, and the resource likely will be depleted if current pumping rates are maintained. Optimal pumping rates and depths are described using a model that maximizes the sum of net benefits obtained from municipal water supplies in both cities. Those results are compared with pumping rates and depths obtained using a dynamic game-theory model of strategic behavior involving the two cities.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,
Why one-size-fits-all vaso-modulatory interventions fail to control glioma invasion: in silico insights
There is an ongoing debate on the therapeutic potential of vaso-modulatory
interventions against glioma invasion. Prominent vasculature-targeting
therapies involve functional tumour-associated blood vessel deterioration and
normalisation. The former aims at tumour infarction and nutrient deprivation
medi- ated by vascular targeting agents that induce occlusion/collapse of
tumour blood vessels. In contrast, the therapeutic intention of normalising the
abnormal structure and function of tumour vascular net- works, e.g. via
alleviating stress-induced vaso-occlusion, is to improve chemo-, immuno- and
radiation therapy efficacy. Although both strategies have shown therapeutic
potential, it remains unclear why they often fail to control glioma invasion
into the surrounding healthy brain tissue. To shed light on this issue, we
propose a mathematical model of glioma invasion focusing on the interplay
between the mi- gration/proliferation dichotomy (Go-or-Grow) of glioma cells
and modulations of the functional tumour vasculature. Vaso-modulatory
interventions are modelled by varying the degree of vaso-occlusion. We
discovered the existence of a critical cell proliferation/diffusion ratio that
separates glioma invasion re- sponses to vaso-modulatory interventions into two
distinct regimes. While for tumours, belonging to one regime, vascular
modulations reduce the tumour front speed and increase the infiltration width,
for those in the other regime the invasion speed increases and infiltration
width decreases. We show how these in silico findings can be used to guide
individualised approaches of vaso-modulatory treatment strategies and thereby
improve success rates
Water vapor emission from IRC+10216 and other carbon-rich stars: model predictions and prospects for multitransition observations
We have modeled the emission of H2O rotational lines from the extreme C-rich
star IRC+10216. Our treatment of the excitation of H2O emissions takes into
account the excitation of H2O both through collisions, and through the pumping
of the nu2 and nu3 vibrational states by dust emission and subsequent decay to
the ground state. Regardless of the spatial distribution of the water
molecules, the H2O 1_{10}-1_{01} line at 557 GHz observed by the Submillimeter
Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) is found to be pumped primarily through the
absorption of dust-emitted photons at 6 m in the nu2 band. As noted by
previous authors, the inclusion of radiative pumping lowers the ortho-H2O
abundance required to account for the 557 GHz emission, which is found to be
(0.5-1)x10^{-7} if the presence of H2O is a consequence of vaporization of
orbiting comets or Fischer-Tropsch catalysis. Predictions for other
submillimeter H2O lines that can be observed by the Herschel Space Observatory
(HSO) are reported. Multitransition HSO observations promise to reveal the
spatial distribution of the circumstellar water vapor, discriminating among the
several hypotheses that have been proposed for the origin of the H2O vapor in
the envelope of IRC+10216. We also show that, for observations with HSO, the
H2O 1_{10}-1_{01} 557 GHz line affords the greatest sensitivity in searching
for H2O in other C-rich AGB stars.Comment: 35 pages, 12 figures, to be published in The Astrophysical Journa
The Excitation of NH in Interstellar Molecular Clouds. I - Models
We present LVG and non-local radiative transfer calculations involving the
rotational and hyperfine structure of the spectrum of NH with
collisional rate coefficients recently derived by us. The goal of this study is
to check the validity of the assumptions made to treat the hyperfine structure
and to study the physical mechanisms leading to the observed hyperfine
anomalies.
We find that the usual hypothesis of identical excitation temperatures for
all hyperfine components of the =1-0 transition is not correct within the
range of densities existing in cold dense cores, i.e., a few 10 \textless
n(H) \textless a few 10 cm. This is due to different radiative
trapping effects in the hyperfine components. Moreover, within this range of
densities and considering the typical abundance of NH, the total
opacity of rotational lines has to be derived taking into account the hyperfine
structure. The error made when only considering the rotational energy structure
can be as large as 100%. Using non-local models we find that, due to
saturation, hyperfine anomalies appear as soon as the total opacity of the
=1-0 transition becomes larger than 20. Radiative scattering in
less dense regions enhance these anomalies, and particularly, induce a
differential increase of the excitation temperatures of the hyperfine
components. This process is more effective for the transitions with the highest
opacities for which emerging intensities are also reduced by self-absorption
effects. These effects are not as critical as in HCO or HCN, but should be
taken into account when interpreting the spatial extent of the NH
emission in dark clouds.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figure
Non-symmetric liquid crystal dimer containing a carbohydrate-based moiety
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The structural and functional determinants of the Axin and Dishevelled DIX domains.
BACKGROUND: The dishevelled and axin genes encode multi-domain proteins that play key roles in WNT signalling. Dishevelled prevents beta-catenin degradation by interfering with the interaction of beta-catenin with the degradation-mediating Axin-APC-GSK3beta complex. This interference leads to an accumulation of cytoplasmic beta-catenin, which enters the nucleus and interacts with transcription factors that induce expression of Wnt-target genes. Axin, as a component of the degradation-mediating complex, is a potent negative regulator of Wnt signalling, whereas Dishevelled is a potent activator. Both Dishevelled and Axin possess a DIX (Dishevelled/Axin) domain, which mediates protein-protein interactions, specifically homodimerization. RESULTS: An evolutionary trace analysis of DIX domains identified conserved residues which, when mapped onto the crystal structure of the Axin DIX domain and a comparative model of the Dishevelled DIX domain, allow their categorization as residues of either structural or functional importance. We identify residues that are structural and functional determinants of the DIX domain fold, as well as those that are specific to homodimerization of Axin and Dishevelled. CONCLUSION: This report provides the first explanation of the mutant phenotypes caused by non-synonymous substitutions in the Dishevelled and Axin DIX domain by correlating their presumed functional significance with molecular structure.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are
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