7,929 research outputs found
Effect of alendronate on post-traumatic osteoarthritis induced by anterior cruciate ligament rupture in mice.
IntroductionPrevious studies in animal models of osteoarthritis suggest that alendronate (ALN) has antiresorptive and chondroprotective effects, and can reduce osteophyte formation. However, these studies used non-physiologic injury methods, and did not investigate early time points during which bone is rapidly remodeled prior to cartilage degeneration. The current study utilized a non-invasive model of knee injury in mice to investigate the effect of ALN treatment on subchondral bone changes, articular cartilage degeneration, and osteophyte formation following injury.MethodsNon-invasive knee injury via tibial compression overload or sham injury was performed on a total of 90 mice. Mice were treated with twice weekly subcutaneous injections of low-dose ALN (40 μg/kg/dose), high-dose ALN (1,000 μg/kg/dose), or vehicle, starting immediately after injury until sacrifice at 7, 14 or 56 days. Trabecular bone of the femoral epiphysis, subchondral cortical bone, and osteophyte volume were quantified using micro-computed tomography (μCT). Whole-joint histology was performed at all time points to analyze articular cartilage and joint degeneration. Blood was collected at sacrifice, and serum was analyzed for biomarkers of bone formation and resorption.ResultsμCT analysis revealed significant loss of trabecular bone from the femoral epiphysis 7 and 14 days post-injury, which was effectively prevented by high-dose ALN treatment. High-dose ALN treatment was also able to reduce subchondral bone thickening 56 days post-injury, and was able to partially preserve articular cartilage 14 days post-injury. However, ALN treatment was not able to reduce osteophyte formation at 56 days post-injury, nor was it able to prevent articular cartilage and joint degeneration at this time point. Analysis of serum biomarkers revealed an increase in bone resorption at 7 and 14 days post-injury, with no change in bone formation at any time points.ConclusionsHigh-dose ALN treatment was able to prevent early trabecular bone loss and cartilage degeneration following non-invasive knee injury, but was not able to mitigate long-term joint degeneration. These data contribute to understanding the effect of bisphosphonates on the development of osteoarthritis, and may support the use of anti-resorptive drugs to prevent joint degeneration following injury, although further investigation is warranted
Occupational balance: What tips the scales for new students?
The open question, ‘What prevents you from reaching occupational balance?’,
was posed within a questionnaire aimed at exploring the meanings of
occupation, health and wellbeing with a cohort of first-year occupational
therapy students during their initial few weeks at university. Their written
responses to the question about occupational balance were analysed and are
discussed in this paper. Not surprisingly, occupational balance appeared to be
achieved by only a few and more by chance than design.
People, time and money factors were identified as the main impediments
to achieving occupational balance, with psychological and emotional pressures
being at the forefront. Interestingly, despite these barriers, the overall
educational benefit of considering the occupational balance question in this
way raised the students’ awareness of its relationship to health and wellbeing.
This increased awareness might have longer-term health benefits, both
personally and professionally, which would be worthy of further research
The first high-amplitude delta Scuti star in an eclipsing binary system
We report the discovery of the first high-amplitude delta Scuti star in an
eclipsing binary, which we have designated UNSW-V-500. The system is an
Algol-type semi-detached eclipsing binary of maximum brightness V = 12.52 mag.
A best-fitting solution to the binary light curve and two radial velocity
curves is derived using the Wilson-Devinney code. We identify a late A spectral
type primary component of mass 1.49+/-0.02 M_sun and a late K spectral type
secondary of mass 0.33+/-0.02 M_sun, with an inclination of 86.5+/-1.0 degrees,
and a period of 5.3504751+/-0.0000006 d. A Fourier analysis of the residuals
from this solution is performed using PERIOD04 to investigate the delta Scuti
pulsations. We detect a single pulsation frequency of f_1 = 13.621+/-0.015 c/d,
and it appears this is the first overtone radial mode frequency. This system
provides the first opportunity to measure the dynamical mass for a star of this
variable type; previously, masses have been derived from stellar evolution and
pulsation models.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, for submission to MNRAS, v2: paper size
change, small typographical changes to abstrac
The ensemble of random Markov matrices
The ensemble of random Markov matrices is introduced as a set of Markov or
stochastic matrices with the maximal Shannon entropy. The statistical
properties of the stationary distribution pi, the average entropy growth rate
and the second largest eigenvalue nu across the ensemble are studied. It is
shown and heuristically proven that the entropy growth-rate and second largest
eigenvalue of Markov matrices scale in average with dimension of matrices d as
h ~ log(O(d)) and nu ~ d^(-1/2), respectively, yielding the asymptotic relation
h tau_c ~ 1/2 between entropy h and correlation decay time tau_c = -1/log|nu| .
Additionally, the correlation between h and and tau_c is analysed and is
decreasing with increasing dimension d.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figur
A Mosaic of TESS Images Acquired Near The South Ecliptic Pole
The primary goal of the two-year Transiting Exoplanet Sky Survey (TESS) mission is to discover new, nearby exoplanet systems (Ricker et al. 2015). The mission acquires images every 30 minutes, through a single broadband filter and with four cameras. It offers a unique opportunity to study the diffuse universe. Holwerda (2018) showed it can in principle allow studies of topics such as the derivation of the halo mass profiles of nearby galaxies (essentially those in the NGC and UGC catalogs); tests of Lambda-CDM galaxy formation scenarios; derivation of stellar halo fractions for galaxies of different masses and morphologies; identification of local stellar streams that cross over multiple TESS observing sectors and other galaxy cannibalism leftovers; detection of ultra-diffuse galaxies as companions to bigger galaxies; and searches for supernovae remnants and planetary nebulae.
With such science goals in mind, we have constructed a first-look, science-ready mosaic of a subset of the images released by TESS, to inform the processing and storage requirements of a mosaic of the southern sky, planned for Fall 2019. The mosaic covers the continuous viewing zone near the south ecliptic pole. In response to community requests, the mosaic is freely available at https://doi.org/10.26134/ExoFOP4 along with tools for downloading the data. This paper describes the creation of the mosaic and its characteristics
The combination of histone deacetylase inhibitors with immune-stimulating antibodies has potent anti-cancer effects
The use of immunotherapy to treat cancer is rapidly gaining momentum. Using pre-clinical mouse models, we have recently demonstrated potent and long lasting tumor regression can be elicited by immune-stimulating monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) when combined with histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) and believe this therapy will have broad application in humans
Nonlinearity-induced conformational instability and dynamics of biopolymers
We propose a simple phenomenological model for describing the conformational
dynamics of biopolymers via the nonlinearity-induced buckling and collapse
(i.e. coiling up) instabilities. Taking into account the coupling between the
internal and mechanical degrees of freedom of a semiflexible biopolymer chain,
we show that self-trapped internal excitations (such as amide-I vibrations in
proteins, base-pair vibrations in DNA, or polarons in proteins) may produce the
buckling and collapse instabilities of an initially straight chain. These
instabilities remain latent in a straight infinitely long chain, because the
bending of such a chain would require an infinite energy. However, they
manifest themselves as soon as we consider more realistic cases and take into
account a finite length of the chain. In this case the nonlinear localized
modes may act as drivers giving impetus to the conformational dynamics of
biopolymers. The buckling instability is responsible, in particular, for the
large-amplitude localized bending waves which accompany the nonlinear modes
propagating along the chain. In the case of the collapse instability, the chain
folds into a compact three-dimensional coil. The viscous damping of the aqueous
environment only slows down the folding of the chain, but does not stop it even
for a large damping. We find that these effects are only weakly affected by the
peculiarities of the interaction potentials, and thus they should be generic
for different models of semiflexible chains carrying nonlinear localized
excitations.Comment: 4 pages (RevTeX) with 5 figures (EPS
Bubble generation in a twisted and bent DNA-like model
The DNA molecule is modeled by a parabola embedded chain with long-range
interactions between twisted base pair dipoles. A mechanism for bubble
generation is presented and investigated in two different configurations. Using
random normally distributed initial conditions to simulate thermal
fluctuations, a relationship between bubble generation, twist and curvature is
established. An analytical approach supports the numerical results.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for Phys. Rev. E (in press
Parametrically Excited Surface Waves: Two-Frequency Forcing, Normal Form Symmetries, and Pattern Selection
Motivated by experimental observations of exotic standing wave patterns in
the two-frequency Faraday experiment, we investigate the role of normal form
symmetries in the pattern selection problem. With forcing frequency components
in ratio m/n, where m and n are co-prime integers, there is the possibility
that both harmonic and subharmonic waves may lose stability simultaneously,
each with a different wavenumber. We focus on this situation and compare the
case where the harmonic waves have a longer wavelength than the subharmonic
waves with the case where the harmonic waves have a shorter wavelength. We show
that in the former case a normal form transformation can be used to remove all
quadratic terms from the amplitude equations governing the relevant resonant
triad interactions. Thus the role of resonant triads in the pattern selection
problem is greatly diminished in this situation. We verify our general results
within the example of one-dimensional surface wave solutions of the
Zhang-Vinals model of the two-frequency Faraday problem. In one-dimension, a
1:2 spatial resonance takes the place of a resonant triad in our investigation.
We find that when the bifurcating modes are in this spatial resonance, it
dramatically effects the bifurcation to subharmonic waves in the case of
forcing frequencies are in ratio 1/2; this is consistent with the results of
Zhang and Vinals. In sharp contrast, we find that when the forcing frequencies
are in ratio 2/3, the bifurcation to (sub)harmonic waves is insensitive to the
presence of another spatially-resonant bifurcating mode.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, late
Professional Reading
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