Growth of Hg1−xCdxTe single crystals by travelling heater method under accelerated crucible rotation conditions

The accelerated crucible rotation technique (ACRT) has been applied to the THM growth of Hg1−xCdxTe crystals to grow the crystals at a higher rate. These higher growth rates, which should be achieved by extending the regions of conventional stirring towards the interfaces, have been used in an attempt to explain the results in terms of simple constitutional supercooling arguments. Some different ACRT cycles which fulfil simple hydrodynamic and geometric criteria have been studied. The grown crystals were investigated with respect to their metallurgical homogeneity and their structural perfection. These properties have not been degraded by increasing the growth rate from 1.5 to 8.5 mm per day

Functional Characterization of Cytochrome P450 17A1 (CYP17A1) Gene Variants for their Steroidogenic Enzymatic Activities.

Androgen and estrogen synthesis is necessary for human growth and sexual maturation. Hormone-dependent cancers, such as breast and prostate cancer, however, use these sex steroids to drive cellular proliferation. Cytochrome P450 17A1 (CYP17A1), an essential enzyme for sex steroid synthesis, represents a clinically established drug target. Inhibiting CYP17A1 decreases androgen and estrogen biosynthesis and thereby blocks the growth of hormone-dependent cancers. The first part of this dissertation characterizes the previously unreported interaction between the FDA approved CYP17A1 inhibitor, abiraterone, and the estrogen receptor (ER). We show for the first time that abiraterone is a weak ER agonist in preclinical models of ER-positive breast cancer cells. Abiraterone induces cellular growth and expression of the ER response gene, GREB1, by binding to ER, and these effects are inhibited with the ER antagonist fulvestrant (ICI 182,780). To further investigate the impact of CYP17A1 expression in breast cancer, we engineered ER-positive MCF-7 cells to express CYP17A1 (MCF-7/CYP17A1). Progesterone treatment induces cell growth and GREB1 expression in these cells but not in the parental MCF-7 cells, which do not express CYP17A1. Tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis confirmed that following progesterone treatment, MCF-7/CYP17A1 cells synthesize downstream steroid products that require CYP17A1 activity including 17OH-progesterone, androstenedione, and testosterone. Treatment of these cells with either abiraterone or a novel CYP17A1 inhibitor decreases progesterone metabolite-induced GREB1 expression in a dose-dependent manner. In addition to studies of CYP17A1 in breast cancer, we further hypothesized that characterization of CYP17A1 genetic variants may lead to insights on enzyme structure and function. We therefore utilized a HEK-293T cell-based expression system to characterize the enzymatic properties of two CYP17A1 gene variants, D216H (rs200063521) and G162R (rs141821705). Our results show that the D216H variant selectively alters 16OH-progesterone production, while no effect on 17OH-progesterone synthesis was observed. In contrast, the G162R substitution exhibits decreased CYP17A1 protein stability compared to wild-type. Proteasome inhibition with MG132 indicated that this variant is preferentially ubiquitinated and degraded prematurely. Overall, these studies have broadened our understanding of CYP17A1 enzymatic activity in breast cancer, as well as led to new insights into how CYP17A1 structure relates to enzyme function and stability.PhDPharmacologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120831/1/ccapper_1.pd

The composition effect on the thermal and optical properties across CdZnTe crystals

Cd1-xZnxTe mixed crystals investigated in this work were grown from the melt by vertical Bridgman-Stockbarger method in the whole range of composition 0<x<1 that is from one binary crystal (CdTe) to another (ZnTe). The real composition of grown crystals was measured with SEM/EDS method along growth axis. The segregation coefficient of Zn in CdTe matrix has been evaluated as close to unity. The energy gap as a function of the composition was determined from transmission spectroscopy. Thanks to that bowing parameter of this ternary alloy was found to be 0.458. In this work for the first time the systematical study of thermal properties of Cd1-xZnxTe alloys from one binary crystal (CdTe) to another (ZnTe) grown by vertical Bridgman technique were undertaken. The thermal diffusivity and effusivity of investigated crystals were derived from the experimental data and allowed calculating the thermal conductivity. Diagrams of the thermal conductivity versus composition were analyzed applying model for mixed semiconducting crystals given by Sadao Adachi. Thanks to that contribution of the thermal resistivity arising from the lattice disorder to the total resistivity of the crystal has been determined

Gauge Consistent Wilson Renormalization Group II: Non-Abelian Case

We give a wilsonian formulation of non-abelian gauge theories explicitly consistent with axial gauge Ward identitities. The issues of unitarity and dependence on the quantization direction are carefully investigated. A wilsonian computation of the one-loop QCD beta function is performed.Comment: 34 pages, 1 eps figure, latex2e. Minor changes, version to appear in Int. J. Mod. Phy

The Fermion Self-Energy during Inflation

We compute the one loop fermion self-energy for massless Dirac + Einstein in the presence of a locally de Sitter background. We employ dimensional regularization and obtain a fully renormalized result by absorbing all divergences with BPHZ counterterms. An interesting technical aspect of this computation is the need for a noninvariant counterterm owing to the breaking of de Sitter invariance by our gauge condition. Our result can be used in the quantum-corrected Dirac equation to search for inflation-enhanced quantum effects from gravitons, analogous to those which have been found for massless, minimally coupled scalars.Comment: 63 pages, 3 figures (uses axodraw.sty), LaTeX 2epsilon. Revised version (to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravity) corrects some typoes and contains some new reference

Investing in health to improve the sustainability of cattle production in the United Kingdom: a narrative review

Livestock health is a key concern for all food system stakeholders and has considerable impacts upon sustainable food production. Improving productivity means that a set quantity of milk or meat may be produced at a lower economic cost, using fewer resources and with reduced greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe); however, diseases that reduce yield, growth or fertility have the opposite effect. The purpose of this narrative review was to assess the breadth of economic and environmental sustainability information relating to cattle health within the literature and to discuss related knowledge gaps within the literature. The mechanisms by which improved awareness and investment can lead to improved cattle health both on-farm and across the wider cattle industry are also appraised; concluding with the opportunities and challenges still outstanding in improving sustainability through livestock health. The economic and environmental impacts of cattle health have not been sufficiently quantified in the literature to draw valid conclusions regarding the sustainability impact of different diseases. Where available, economic data tended to be dated or extremely variable. Furthermore, environmental analyses did not use consistent methodologies and principally focused on GHGe, with little attention paid to other metrics. Although reducing disease severity or occurrence reduced GHGe, published impacts of disease varied from 1% to 40% with little apparent association between GHGe and industry-wide economic cost. An urgent need therefore exists to standardise methodologies and quantify disease impacts using a common baseline with up-to-date data inputs. Given the threat of antimicrobial resistance, improving cattle health through technology adoption and vaccine use would be expected to have positive impacts on social acceptability, especially if these improvements rendered milk and meat more affordable to the consumer. Therefore, it is important for cattle producers and allied industry to take a proactive approach to improving cattle health and welfare, with particular focus on diseases that have the greatest implications for sustainability

Supersymmetric Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons theory

We prove that three-dimensional N=1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons theory is finite to all loops. This leaves open the possibility that different regularization methods give different finite effective actions. We show that for this model dimensional regularization and regularization by dimensional reduction yield the same effective action.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, latex, espcrc2. Contribution to the Proceedings of the 30th Ahrenshoop Symposium on the Theory of Elementary Particles, edited by D. Lust, H.-J. Otto and G. Weigt, to appear in Nuclear Physics B, Proceedings Supplemen

Alternative splicing: an important mechanism for myometrial gene regulation that can be manipulated to target specific genes associated with preterm labour

Considerable effort has been expended in attempting to distinguish genes that contribute to initiating the onset of term and preterm labour (PTL) from those that change in expression as a consequence of the progression of labour. The ability to define more clearly the genes involved in triggering labour contractions should lead to the development of new effective and safer strategies to prevent preterm birth. There is ample evidence to suggest that specific genes are co-ordinately regulated within the upper and lower regions of the myometrium prior to and during parturition and many of these genes are regulated by alternative pre-mRNA splicing. This mini-review highlights that expression of a range of different splicing factors, with defined roles in pre-mRNA splicing, is both temporally and spatially regulated within the uterine smooth muscle during pregnancy and labour. Moreover, several of these splicing factors play key roles in controlling the differential expression of specific regulatory proteins involved in uterine signalling and uterine quiescence. In addition, antisense morpholino oligonucleotide manipulation of pre-mRNA splicing may have potential in defining and targeting uterine pro-labour genes and thus contribute to the development of new therapeutic approaches to prevent PTL

Decoupling of the ϵ\epsilon-scalar mass in softly broken supersymmetry

It has been shown recently that the introduction of an unphysical $\epsilon$-scalar mass $\tilde{m}$ is necessary for the proper renormalization of softly broken supersymmetric theories by dimensional reduction (\drbar). In these theories, both the two-loop $\beta$-functions of the scalar masses and their one-loop finite corrections depend on $\tilde{m}^2$. We find, however, that the dependence on $\tilde{m}^2$ can be completely removed by slightly modifying the \drbar renormalization scheme. We also show that previous \drbar calculations of one-loop corrections in supersymmetry which ignored the $\tilde{m}^2$ contribution correspond to using this modified scheme.Comment: 7 pages, LTH-336, NUB-3094-94TH, KEK-TH-40

Regularization Dependence of Running Couplings in Softly Broken Supersymmetry

We discuss the dependence of running couplings on the choice of regularization method in a general softly-broken N=1 supersymmetric theory. Regularization by dimensional reduction respects supersymmetry, but standard dimensional regularization does not. We find expressions for the differences between running couplings in the modified minimal subtraction schemes of these two regularization methods, to one loop order. We also find the two-loop renormalization group equations for gaugino masses in both schemes, and discuss the application of these results to the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.Comment: 11 pages. v2: Signs of equations (1.2) and (4.2) are fixe