148 research outputs found
Structure of the ovaries of the Nimba otter shrew, Micropotamogale lamottei, and the Madagascar hedgehog tenrec, Echinops telfairi
The otter shrews are members of the subfamily Potamogalinae within the family Tenrecidae. No description of the ovaries of any member of this subfamily has been published previously. The lesser hedgehog tenrec, Echinops telfairi, is a member of the subfamily Tenrecinae of the same family and, although its ovaries have not been described, other members of this subfamily have been shown to have ovaries with non-antral follicles. Examination of these two species illustrated that non-antral follicles were characteristic of the ovaries of both species, as was clefting and lobulation of the ovaries. Juvenile otter shrews range from those with only small follicles in the cortex to those with 300- to 400-mu m follicles similar to those seen in non-pregnant and pregnant adults. As in other species, most of the growth of the oocyte occurred when follicles had one to two layers of granulosa cells. When larger follicles became atretic in the Nimba otter shrew, hypertrophy of the theca interna produced nodules of glandular interstitial tissue. In the tenrec, the hypertrophying theca interna cells in most large follicles appeared to undergo degeneration. Both species had some follicular fluid in the intercellular spaces between the more peripheral granulosa cells. It is suggested that this fluid could aid in separation of the cumulus from the remaining granulosa at ovulation. The protruding follicles in lobules and absence of a tunica albuginea might also facilitate ovulation of non-antral follicles. Ovaries with a thin-absent tunica albuginea and follicles with small-absent antra are widespread within both the Eulipotyphla and in the Afrosoricida, suggesting that such features may represent a primitive condition in ovarian development. Lobulated and deeply crypted ovaries are found in both groups but are not as common in the Eulipotyphla making inclusion of this feature as primitive more speculative. Copyright (C) 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel
The Employment of Mothers and the Outcomes of their Pregnancies: An Australian Study
One of the more dramatic structural changes in a number of western industrial societies has involved the increased participation of women in the paid labour force. Little is known about the health consequences of this change. This paper reports the findings of a prospective longitudinal study of 8,556 pregnant women who were interviewed on three occasions; early in their pregnancy, shortly after the birth of the baby and some six months later. Additional data were derived from the medical record of the delivery. The findings suggest that employed women and housewives differ in their health behaviour (e.g. number of missed appointments, attendance at antenatal classes, smoking) and emotional health in pregnancy, but that there are no significant differences between employed women and housewives in their physical health or pregnancy outcomes. Although none of the differences was statistically significant, virtually all of the indices of outcome were slightly more favourable for the housewives than for the employed women
Multigluon tree amplitudes with a pair of massive fermions
We consider the calculation of n-point multigluon tree amplitudes with a pair
of massive fermions in QCD. We give the explicit transformation rules of this
kind of massive fermion-pair amplitudes with respect to different reference
momenta and check the correctness of them by SUSY Ward identities. Using these
rules and onshell BCFW recursion relation, we calculate the analytic results of
several n-point multigluon amplitudes.Comment: 15page
Enhanced insulin receptor, but not PI3K, signalling protects podocytes from ER stress
Abstract Disruption of the insulin-PI3K-Akt signalling pathway in kidney podocytes causes endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, leading to podocyte apoptosis and proteinuria in diabetic nephropathy. We hypothesised that by improving insulin sensitivity we could protect podocytes from ER stress. Here we use established activating transcription factor 6 (ATF6)- and ER stress element (ERSE)-luciferase assays alongside a novel high throughput imaging-based C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP) assay to examine three models of improved insulin sensitivity. We find that by improving insulin sensitivity at the level of the insulin receptor (IR), either by IR over-expression or by knocking down the negative regulator of IR activity, protein tyrosine-phosphatase 1B (PTP1B), podocytes are protected from ER stress caused by fatty acids or diabetic media containing high glucose, high insulin and inflammatory cytokines TNFα and IL-6. However, contrary to this, knockdown of the negative regulator of PI3K-Akt signalling, phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted from chromosome 10 (PTEN), sensitizes podocytes to ER stress and apoptosis, despite increasing Akt phosphorylation. This indicates that protection from ER stress is conferred through not just the PI3K-Akt pathway, and indeed we find that inhibiting the MEK/ERK signalling pathway rescues PTEN knockdown podocytes from ER stress
Twistor Strings with Flavour
We explore the tree-level description of a class of N=2 UV-finite SYM
theories with fundamental flavour within a topological B-model twistor string
framework. In particular, we identify the twistor dual of the Sp(N) gauge
theory with one antisymmetric and four fundamental hypermultiplets, as well as
that of the SU(N) theory with 2N hypermultiplets. This is achieved by suitably
orientifolding/orbifolding the original N=4 setup of Witten and adding a
certain number of new topological 'flavour'-branes at the orientifold/orbifold
fixed planes to provide the fundamental matter. We further comment on the
appearance of these objects in the B-model on CP(3|4). An interesting aspect of
our construction is that, unlike the IIB description of these theories in terms
of D3 and D7-branes, on the twistor side part of the global flavour symmetry is
realised geometrically. We provide evidence for this correspondence by
calculating and matching amplitudes on both sides.Comment: 38+12 pages; uses axodraw.sty. v2: References added, minor
clarification
Liquid crystals and their defects
These lecture notes discuss classical models of liquid crystals, and the
different ways in which defects are described according to the different
models.Comment: CIME lecture course, Cetraro, 201
Impact of dietary incorporation of Spirulina (Arthrospira platensis) and exogenous enzymes on broiler performance, carcass traits and meat quality
This study assessed the effect of Spirulina
(Arthrospira platensis), individually and in combination
with exogenous enzymes, on growth
performance, carcass traits, and meat quality of broiler
chickens. One hundred and twenty Ross 308 male
chickens were allocated into 40 battery brooders, with 3
birds per cage, and fed ad libitum a corn-based diet
during the first 21 D of the trial. The experimental period
lasted from day 21 to 35, during which birds were fed 4
different diets: a corn-soybean basal diet, taken as the
control group, a basal diet containing 15% Spirulina
(MA), a basal diet containing 15% Spirulina plus 0.005%
Rovabio Excel AP (MAR), and a basal diet containing
15% Spirulina plus 0.01% lysozyme (MAL). Body weight
gain (P , 0.001) and feed conversion rate (P , 0.001)
were improved in control chickens, when compared with
those fed with Spirulina. In addition, Spirulina increased
the length of duodenum plus jejunum in relation to the
other treatment (P , 0.01). Chickens on the MAL diet showed a considerable increase in digesta viscosity
(P , 0.05) compared with the control group. Breast and
thigh meats from chickens fed with Spirulina, with or
without the addition of exogenous enzymes, had higher
values of yellowness (b*) (P , 0.001), total carotenoids
(P , 0.001), and saturated fatty acids (P , 0.001),
whereas n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (P , 0.01) and
a-tocopherol (P , 0.001) decreased, when compared
with the control. In conclusion, the incorporation of 15%
Spirulina in broiler diets, individually or combined with
exogenous enzymes, reduced birds’ performance through
a higher digesta viscosity, which is likely associated with
the gelation of microalga indigestible proteins. In addition,
cell wall of Spirulina was successfully broken by the
addition of lysozyme, but not by Rovabio Excel AP.
Therefore, we anticipate that the combination of lysozyme
with an exogenous specific peptidase could improve
the digestibility of proteins from this microalga and
avoid their detrimental gelationinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Phenomenology of the Lense-Thirring effect in the Solar System
Recent years have seen increasing efforts to directly measure some aspects of
the general relativistic gravitomagnetic interaction in several astronomical
scenarios in the solar system. After briefly overviewing the concept of
gravitomagnetism from a theoretical point of view, we review the performed or
proposed attempts to detect the Lense-Thirring effect affecting the orbital
motions of natural and artificial bodies in the gravitational fields of the
Sun, Earth, Mars and Jupiter. In particular, we will focus on the evaluation of
the impact of several sources of systematic uncertainties of dynamical origin
to realistically elucidate the present and future perspectives in directly
measuring such an elusive relativistic effect.Comment: LaTex, 51 pages, 14 figures, 22 tables. Invited review, to appear in
Astrophysics and Space Science (ApSS). Some uncited references in the text
now correctly quoted. One reference added. A footnote adde
The role of fundamental solution in Potential and Regularity Theory for subelliptic PDE
In this survey we consider a general Hormander type operator, represented as a sum of squares of vector fields plus a drift and we outline the central role of the fundamental solution in developing Potential and Regularity Theory for solutions of related PDEs. After recalling the Gaussian behavior at infinity of the kernel, we show some mean value formulas on the level sets of the fundamental solution, which are the starting point to obtain a comprehensive parallel of the classical Potential Theory. Then we show that a precise knowledge of the fundamental solution leads to global regularity results, namely estimates at the boundary or on the whole space. Finally in the problem of regularity of non linear differential equations we need an ad hoc modification of the parametrix method, based on the properties of the fundamental solution of an approximating problem
Apparent digestibility of simplified and semi-simplified diets, with and without addition of enzymes, and nutritional value of fibrous sources for rabbits
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