Requirement of endogenous tumor necrosis factor/cachectin for recovery from experimental peritonitis

By intrasplenic immunization we raised a rat mAb (mAb V1q; IgG2a, kappa) with a potent neutralizing activity against natural mouse TNF (1 microgram/ml mAb V1q/100 U/ml TNF). mAb V1q was used to study the role of endogenous TNF in experimental peritonitis induced by sublethal cecal ligation and puncture. mAb V1q persisted for over 5 days in the serum of mice injected with 100 micrograms of the antibody and, therefore, proved useful for in vivo experiments. As little as 20 micrograms mAb V1q/mouse prevented lethal shock of the animals by 400 micrograms LPS/mouse. In sublethal cecal ligation and puncture i.p. injection of mAb V1q directly and up to 8 h after induction of experimental peritonitis lead to death of the animals within 1 to 3 days. The lethal effect of mAb V1q was compensated by injection of recombinant mouse TNF. Similar mAb V1q effects as in immunocompetent mice were shown in severe combined immune deficiency mice deficient of mature functional B and T cells. Taken together, these data suggest that during the early phase of peritonitis endogenous TNF may stimulate nonlymphoid cells such as granulocytes, macrophages, platelets, and fibroblasts to ingest bacteria and to localize inflammation, respectively. These beneficial effects of TNF may determine survival. Thus, our data may have implications for the therapeutic management of a beginning peritonitis

Induction of IL 2 receptor expression and cytotoxicity of thymocytes by stimulation with TCF1

We investigated the role of T cell cytotoxicity inducing factor 1 (TCF1) in the induction of a cytotoxic T cell response. We found that help-deficient thymocyte cultures supplied with saturating amounts of purified IL 2 did not develop CTL in a 5-day culture. The expression of cytotoxicity was dependent on the addition of TCF1 derived from the T cell hybridoma K15. TCF1 also induced proliferation of thymocytes in the presence of IL 2. Only the PNA- thymocyte subpopulation responded to TCF1 with proliferation and cytotoxicity in the presence of IL 2. The monokine IL 1 also induced proliferation in this subpopulation but failed to induce cytotoxicity. IL 1 was further distinguished from TCF1 by inhibition of IL 1-induced but not TCF1-induced proliferation by anti-IL 1 antibodies. In addition, using anti-IL 2 receptor antibodies (AMT 13), we showed that TCF1 in the presence of IL 2 substantially increased IL 2 receptor expression in thymocytes. IL 1 had the same effect on induction of IL 2 receptor expression as TCF1. Because some effects of IL 1 and TCF1 are distinct and some overlap, we discuss whether IL 1 and TCF1 induce different subsets of PNA- thymocytes

Stability of condensate in superconductors

According to the BCS theory the superconducting condensate develops in a single quantum mode and no Cooper pairs out of the condensate are assumed. Here we discuss a mechanism by which the successful mode inhibits condensation in neighboring modes and suppresses a creation of noncondensed Cooper pairs. It is shown that condensed and noncondensed Cooper pairs are separated by an energy gap which is smaller than the superconducting gap but large enough to prevent nucleation in all other modes and to eliminate effects of noncondensed Cooper pairs on properties of superconductors. Our result thus justifies basic assumptions of the BCS theory and confirms that the BCS condensate is stable with respect to two-particle excitations

Children's learning of non-adjacent dependencies using a web-based computer game setting

Infants show impressive speech decoding abilities and detect acoustic regularities that highlight the syntactic relations of a language, often coded via non-adjacent dependencies (NADs, e.g., is singing). It has been claimed that infants learn NADs implicitly and associatively through passive listening and that there is a shift from effortless associative learning to a more controlled learning of NADs after the age of 2 years, potentially driven by the maturation of the prefrontal cortex. To investigate if older children are able to learn NADs, Lammertink et al. (2019) recently developed a word-monitoring serial reaction time (SRT) task and could show that 6–11-year-old children learned the NADs, as their reaction times (RTs) increased then they were presented with violated NADs. In the current study we adapted their experimental paradigm and tested NAD learning in a younger group of 52 children between the age of 4–8 years in a remote, web-based, game-like setting (whack-a-mole). Children were exposed to Italian phrases containing NADs and had to monitor the occurrence of a target syllable, which was the second element of the NAD. After exposure, children did a “Stem Completion” task in which they were presented with the first element of the NAD and had to choose the second element of the NAD to complete the stimuli. Our findings show that, despite large variability in the data, children aged 4–8 years are sensitive to NADs; they show the expected differences in r RTs in the SRT task and could transfer the NAD-rule in the Stem Completion task. We discuss these results with respect to the development of NAD dependency learning in childhood and the practical impact and limitations of collecting these data in a web-based setting

Linguistic and non-linguistic non-adjacent dependency learning in early development

Non-adjacent dependencies (NADs) are important building blocks for language and extracting them from the input is a fundamental part of language acquisition. Prior event-related potential (ERP) studies revealed changes in the neural signature of NAD learning between infancy and adulthood, suggesting a developmental shift in the learning route for NADs. The present study aimed to specify which brain regions are involved in this developmental shift and whether this shift extends to NAD learning in the non-linguistic domain. In two experiments, 2- and 3-year-old German-learning children were familiarized with either Italian sentences or tone sequences containing NADs and subsequently tested with NAD violations, while functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) data were recorded. Results showed increased hemodynamic responses related to the detection of linguistic NAD violations in the left temporal, inferior frontal, and parietal regions in 2-year-old children, but not in 3-year-old children. A different developmental trajectory was found for non-linguistic NADs, where 3-year-old, but not 2-year-old children showed evidence for the detection of non-linguistic NAD violations. These results confirm a developmental shift in the NAD learning route and point to distinct mechanisms underlying NAD learning in the linguistic and the non-linguistic domain

Analyzing the success of T-matrix diagrammatic theories in representing a modified Hubbard model

We present a systematic study of various forms of renormalization that can be applied in the calculation of the self-energy of the Hubbard model within the T-matrix approximation. We compare the exact solutions of the attractive and repulsive Hubbard models, for linear chains of lengths up to eight sites, with all possible taxonomies of the T-matrix approximation. For the attractive Hubbard model, the success of a minimally self-consistent theory found earlier in the atomic limit (Phys. Rev. B 71, 155111 (2005)) is not maintained for finite clusters unless one is in the very strong correlation limit. For the repulsive model, in the weak correlation limit at low electronic densities -- that is, where one would expect a self-consistent T-matrix theory to be adequate -- we find the fully renormalized theory to be most successful. In our studies we employ a modified Hubbard interaction that eliminates all Hartree diagrams, an idea which was proposed earlier (Phys. Rev. B 63, 035104 (2000)).Comment: Includes modified discussion of 1st-order phase transition. Accepted for publication in J. Phys.: Condensed Matte

GNSS-based water vapor estimation and validation during the MOSAiC expedition

Within the transpolar drifting expedition MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate), the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) was used among other techniques to monitor variations in atmospheric water vapor. Based on 15 months of continuously tracked GNSS data including GPS, GLONASS and Galileo, epoch-wise coordinates and hourly zenith total delays (ZTDs) were determined using a kinematic precise point positioning (PPP) approach. The derived ZTD values agree to 1.1 ± 0.2 mm (root mean square (rms) of the differences 10.2 mm) with the numerical weather data of ECMWF's latest reanalysis, ERA5, computed for the derived ship's locations. This level of agreement is also confirmed by comparing the on-board estimates with ZTDs derived for terrestrial GNSS stations in Bremerhaven and Ny-Ålesund and for the radio telescopes observing very long baseline interferometry in Ny-Ålesund. Preliminary estimates of integrated water vapor derived from frequently launched radiosondes are used to assess the GNSS-derived integrated water vapor estimates. The overall difference of 0.08 ± 0.04 kg m−2 (rms of the differences 1.47 kg m−2) demonstrates a good agreement between GNSS and radiosonde data. Finally, the water vapor variations associated with two warm-air intrusion events in April 2020 are assessed