4,147 research outputs found
Charles F. Scott
Professor Charles F. Scott, recipient of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison medal
Fusarium mycotoxin-contaminated wheat containing deoxynivalenol alters the gene expression in the liver and the jejunum of broilers
The effects of mycotoxins in the production of animal feed were investigated using broiler chickens. For the feeding trial, naturally Fusarium mycotoxin-contaminated wheat was used, which mainly contained deoxynivalenol (DON). The main effects of DON are reduction of the feed intake and reduced weight gain of broilers. At the molecular level, DON binds to the 60 S ribosomal subunit and subsequently inhibits protein synthesis at the translational level. However, little is known about other effects of DON, for example, at the transcriptional level. Therefore, a microarray analysis was performed, which allows the investigation of thousands of transcripts in one experiment. In the experiment, 20 broilers were separated into four groups of five broilers each at day 1 after hatching. The diets consisted of a control diet and three diets with calculated, moderate concentrations of 1.0, 2.5 and 5.0 mg DON/kg feed, which was attained by exchanging uncontaminated wheat with naturally mycotoxin-contaminated wheat up to the intended DON concentration. The broilers were held at standard conditions for 23 days. Three microarrays were used per group to determine the significant alterations of the gene expression in the liver (P < 0.05), and qPCR was performed on the liver and the jejunum to verify the results. No significant difference in BW, feed intake or feed conversion rate was observed. The nutrient uptake into the hepatic and jejunal cells seemed to be influenced by genes: SLC2A5 (fc: −1.54, DON2.5), which facilitates glucose and fructose transport and SLC7A10 (fc: +1.49, DON5), a transporter of d-serine and other neutral amino acids. In the jejunum, the palmitate transport might be altered by SLC27A4 (fc: −1.87, DON5) and monocarboxylates uptake by SLC16A1 (fc: −1.47, DON5). The alterations of the SLC gene expression may explain the reduced weight gain of broilers chronically exposed to DON-contaminated wheat. The decreased expressions of EIF2AK3 (fc: −1.29, DON2.5/5) and DNAJC3 (fc: −1.44, DON2.5) seem to be related to the translation inhibition. The binding of DON to the 60 S ribosomal subunit and the subsequent translation inhibition might be counterbalanced by the downregulation of EIF2AK3 and DNAJC3. The genes PARP1, MPG, EME1, XPAC, RIF1 and CHAF1B are mainly related to single-strand DNA modifications and showed an increased expression in the group with 5 mg DON/kg feed. The results indicate that significantly altered gene expression was already occurring at 2.5 mg DON/kg fee
Bubble fluctuations in inflation
In the context of the open inflationary universe, we calculate the amplitude
of quantum fluctuations which deform the bubble shape. These give rise to
scalar field fluctuations in the open Friedman-Robertson-Walker universe which
is contained inside the bubble. One can transform to a new gauge in which
matter looks perfectly smooth, and then the perturbations behave as tensor
modes (gravitational waves of very long wavelength). For , where
is the density parameter, the microwave temperature anisotropies
produced by these modes are of order . Here, is the expansion rate during inflation, is
the intrinsic radius of the bubble at the time of nucleation, is the
bubble wall tension and labels the different multipoles (). The
gravitational backreaction of the bubble has been ignored. In this
approximation, , and the new effect can be much larger than the
one due to ordinary gravitational waves generated during inflation (unless, of
course, gets too close to one, in which case the new effect
disappears).Comment: 17 pages, 3 figs, LaTeX, epsfig.sty, available at
ftp://ftp.ifae.es/preprint/ft/uabft387.p
Poly-essential and general Hyperelastic World (brane) models
This article provides a unified treatment of an extensive category of
non-linear classical field models whereby the universe is represented (perhaps
as a brane in a higher dimensional background) in terms of a structure of a
mathematically convenient type describable as hyperelastic, for which a
complete set of equations of motion is provided just by the energy-momentum
conservation law. Particular cases include those of a perfect fluid in
quintessential backgrounds of various kinds, as well as models of the elastic
solid kind that has been proposed to account for cosmic acceleration. It is
shown how an appropriately generalised Hadamard operator can be used to
construct a symplectic structure that controles the evolution of small
perturbations, and that provides a characteristic equation governing the
propagation of weak discontinuities of diverse (extrinsic and extrinsic) kinds.
The special case of a poly-essential model - the k-essential analogue of an
ordinary polytropic fluid - is examined and shown to be well behaved (like the
fluid) only if the pressure to density ratio is positive.Comment: 16 pages Latex, Contrib. to 10th Peyresq Pysics Meeting, June 2005:
Micro and Macro Structures of Spacetim
Low temperature specific heat of the heavy fermion superconductor PrOsSb
We report the magnetic field dependence of the low temperature specific heat
of single crystals of the first Pr-based heavy fermion superconductor
PrOsSb. The low temperature specific heat and the magnetic phase
diagram inferred from specific heat, resistivity and magnetisation provide
compelling evidence of a doublet ground state and hence superconductivity
mediated by quadrupolar fluctuations. This establishes PrOsSb as a
very strong contender of superconductive pairing that is neither
electron-phonon nor magnetically mediated.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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