322 research outputs found
The uncharacteristic occurrence of the June 2013 biomass-burning haze event in Southeast Asia: effects of the Madden-Julian oscillation and tropical cyclone activity.
One of the worst haze events to ever hit Peninsular Malaysia occurred in June 2013 due to smoke from Riau, Central Sumatra. While biomass-burning in the region is common, the early occurrence of a haze episode of this magnitude was uncharacteristic of the seasonality of extreme fire events, which usually occur between August and October in the Maritime Continent (MC). This study aims to investigate the phenomenology of the June 2013 haze event and its underlying meteorological forcing agents. The aerosol and meteorological environment during the event is examined using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) active fire hotspot detections and aerosol optical thickness retrievals, satellite-based precipitation retrievals, and meteorological indices. These datasets are then supported by a WRF-Chem simulation to provide a comprehensive picture of the event's meteorology and aerosol transport phenomenology. While extreme fire events are more characteristic of El Nino years, the MODIS fire count over the MC in June for the years 2001–2015 was highest in 2013 when neutral El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions prevailed. Although, the mean daily precipitation for June 2013 was below average for June 2003–2015. An early active tropical cyclone (TC) season occurred in 2013, and results show that the combined induced subsidence and flow enhancement due to TC Bebinca and the dry phases of a strong Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO) event contributed to the event intensification. Results also show that Bebinca induced a decrease in surface relative humidity of at least 10% over Riau, where fire hotspots were concentrated
Rampant Centrosome Amplification Underlies more Aggressive Disease Course of Triple Negative Breast Cancers
Centrosome amplification (CA), a cell-biological trait, characterizes pre-neoplastic and pre-invasive lesions and is associated with tumor aggressiveness. Recent studies suggest that CA leads to malignant transformation and promotes invasion in mammary epithelial cells. Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), a histologically-aggressive subtype shows high recurrence, metastases, and mortality rates. Since TNBC and non- TNBC follow variable kinetics of metastatic progression, they constitute a novel test bed to explore if severity and nature of CA can distinguish them apart. We quantitatively assessed structural and numerical centrosomal aberrations for each patient sample in a large-cohort of grade-matched TNBC (n = 30) and non-TNBC (n = 98) cases employing multi-color confocal imaging. Our data establish differences in incidence and severity of CA between TNBC and non-TNBC cell lines and clinical specimens. We found strong correlation between CA and aggressiveness markers associated with metastasis in 20 pairs of grade-matched TNBC and non-TNBC specimens (p \u3c 0.02). Time-lapse imaging of MDA-MB-231 cells harboring amplified centrosomes demonstrated enhanced migratory ability. Our study bridges a vital knowledge gap by pinpointing that CA underlies breast cancer aggressiveness. This previously unrecognized organellar inequality at the centrosome level may allow early-risk prediction and explain higher tumor aggressiveness and mortality rates in TNBC patients
HSET Overexpression Fuels Tumor Progression via Centrosome Clustering-Independent Mechanisms in Breast Cancer Patients
Human breast tumors harbor supernumerary centrosomes in almost 80% of tumor cells. Although amplified centrosomes compromise cell viability via multipolar spindles resulting in death-inducing aneuploidy, cancer cells tend to cluster extra centrosomes during mitosis. As a result cancer cells display bipolar spindle phenotypes to maintain a tolerable level of aneuploidy, an edge to their survival. HSET/KifC1, a kinesin-like minus-end directed microtubule motor has recently found fame as a crucial centrosome clustering molecule. Here we show that HSET promotes tumor progression via mechanisms independent of centrosome clustering. We found that HSET is overexpressed in breast carcinomas wherein nuclear HSET accumulation correlated with histological grade and predicted poor progression-free and overall survival. In addition, deregulated HSET protein expression was associated with gene amplification and/or translocation. Our data provide compelling evidence that HSET overexpression is pro-proliferative, promotes clonogenic-survival and enhances cellcycle kinetics through G2 and M-phases. Importantly, HSET co-immunoprecipitates with survivin, and its overexpression protects survivin from proteasome-mediated degradation, resulting in its increased steady-state levels. We provide the first evidence of centrosome clustering-independent activities of HSET that fuel tumor progression and firmly establish that HSET can serve both as a potential prognostic biomarker and as a valuable cancer-selective therapeutic target
Complete characterization of weak, ultrashort near-UV pulses by spectral interferometry
We present a method for a complete characterization of a femtosecond
ultraviolet pulse when a fundamental near-infrared beam is also available. Our
approach relies on generation of second harmonic from the pre-characterized
fundamental, which serves as a reference against which an unknown pulse is
measured using spectral interference (SI). The characterization apparatus is a
modified second harmonic frequency resolved optical gating setup which
additionally allows for taking SI spectrum. The presented method is linear in
the unknown field, simple and sensitive. We checked its accuracy using test
pulses generated in a thick nonlinear crystal, demonstrating the ability to
measure the phase in a broad spectral range, down to 0.1% peak spectral
intensity as well as retrieving pi leaps in the spectral phase
Running coupling: Does the coupling between dark energy and dark matter change sign during the cosmological evolution?
In this paper we put forward a running coupling scenario for describing the
interaction between dark energy and dark matter. The dark sector interaction in
our scenario is free of the assumption that the interaction term is
proportional to the Hubble expansion rate and the energy densities of dark
sectors. We only use a time-variable coupling (with the scale factor
of the universe) to characterize the interaction . We propose a
parametrization form for the running coupling in which the
early-time coupling is given by a constant , while today the coupling is
given by another constant, . For investigating the feature of the running
coupling, we employ three dark energy models, namely, the cosmological constant
model (), the constant model (), and the time-dependent
model (). We constrain the models with the current
observational data, including the type Ia supernova, the baryon acoustic
oscillation, the cosmic microwave background, the Hubble expansion rate, and
the X-ray gas mass fraction data. The fitting results indicate that a
time-varying vacuum scenario is favored, in which the coupling crosses
the noninteracting line () during the cosmological evolution and the sign
changes from negative to positive. The crossing of the noninteracting line
happens at around , and the crossing behavior is favored at about
1 confidence level. Our work implies that we should pay more attention
to the time-varying vacuum model and seriously consider the phenomenological
construction of a sign-changeable or oscillatory interaction between dark
sectors.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures; refs added; to appear in EPJ
The Spin-Dependent Structure Functions of Nuclei in the Meson-Nucleon Theory
A theoretical approach to the investigation of spin-dependent structure
functions in deep inelastic scattering of polarized leptons off polarized
nuclei, based on the effective meson-nucleon theory and operator product
expansion method, is proposed and applied to deuteron and . The explicit
forms of the moments of the deuteron and spin-dependent structure
functions are found and numerical estimates of the influence of nuclear
structure effects are presented.Comment: 42 pages revtex, 7 postscript figures available from above e-mail
upon request. Perugia preprint DFUPG 92/9
Biomedical and therapeutic applications of biosurfactants
During the last years, several applications of biosurfactants with medical purposes have been reported. Biosurfactants are considered relevant molecules for applications in combating many diseases and as therapeutic agents due to their antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral activities. Furthermore, their role as anti-adhesive agents against several pathogens illustrate their utility as suitable anti-adhesive coating agents for medical insertional materials leading to a reduction of a large number of hospital infections without the use of synthetic drugs and chemicals. Biomedical and therapeutic perspectives of biosurfactants applications are presented and discussed in this chapter
Cosmic acceleration and phantom crossing in -gravity
In this paper, we propose two new models in gravity to realize
universe acceleration and phantom crossing due to dark torsion in the
formalism. The model parameters are constrained and the observational test are
discussed. The best fit results favors an accelerating universe with possible
phantom crossing in the near past or future followed respectively by matter and
radiation dominated era.Comment: 20 pages, 18 figures, Will appear in Astrophys Space Sc
TERT promoter mutations are highly recurrent in SHH subgroup medulloblastoma
Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter mutations were recently shown to drive telomerase activity in various cancer types, including medulloblastoma. However, the clinical and biological implications of TERT mutations in medulloblastoma have not been described. Hence, we sought to describe these mutations and their impact in a subgroup-specific manner. We analyzed the TERT promoter by direct sequencing and genotyping in 466 medulloblastomas. The mutational distributions were determined according to subgroup affiliation, demographics, and clinical, prognostic, and molecular features. Integrated genomics approaches were used to identify specific somatic copy number alterations in TERT promoter-mutated and wild-type tumors. Overall, TERT promoter mutations were identified in 21 % of medulloblastomas. Strikingly, the highest frequencies of TERT mutations were observed in SHH (83 %; 55/66) and WNT (31 %; 4/13) medulloblastomas derived from adult patients. Group 3 and Group 4 harbored this alteration in <5 % of cases and showed no association wit
The Theory of Brown Dwarfs and Extrasolar Giant Planets
Straddling the traditional realms of the planets and the stars, objects below
the edge of the main sequence have such unique properties, and are being
discovered in such quantities, that one can rightly claim that a new field at
the interface of planetary science and and astronomy is being born. In this
review, we explore the essential elements of the theory of brown dwarfs and
giant planets, as well as of the new spectroscopic classes L and T. To this
end, we describe their evolution, spectra, atmospheric compositions, chemistry,
physics, and nuclear phases and explain the basic systematics of
substellar-mass objects across three orders of magnitude in both mass and age
and a factor of 30 in effective temperature. Moreover, we discuss the
distinctive features of those extrasolar giant planets that are irradiated by a
central primary, in particular their reflection spectra, albedos, and transits.
Aspects of the latest theory of Jupiter and Saturn are also presented.
Throughout, we highlight the effects of condensates, clouds, molecular
abundances, and molecular/atomic opacities in brown dwarf and giant planet
atmospheres and summarize the resulting spectral diagnostics. Where possible,
the theory is put in its current observational context.Comment: 67 pages (including 36 figures), RMP RevTeX LaTeX, accepted for
publication in the Reviews of Modern Physics. 30 figures are color. Most of
the figures are in GIF format to reduce the overall size. The full version
with figures can also be found at:
http://jupiter.as.arizona.edu/~burrows/papers/rm
- …