1,309 research outputs found
Effect of short chain fatty acids on the expression of free fatty acid receptor 2 (Ffar2), Ffar3 and early-stage adipogenesis
Adipose tissue has a major influence on insulin sensitivity. Stimulation of free fatty acid receptor 2 (FFAR2) has been proposed to influence adipocyte differentiation. We hypothesised that exposing preadipocytes to short chain fatty acids would induce earlier expression of nuclear receptors that co-ordinate adipogenesis, triglyceride accumulation and leptin secretion. 3T3-L1 preadipocytes were differentiated in the presence of 1âÎŒM acetate, 0.1â10âÎŒM propionate or vehicle control. In experiment 1, expression of Ffar2 and nuclear receptor mRNA was measured by quantitative PCR over 48âh following onset of differentiation. In experiment 2, extracellular leptin concentration and intracellular triglyceride content were measured at days 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 following the onset of differentiation. Control cells exhibited similar temporal dynamics of gene expression, triglyceride accumulation and leptin secretion as reported previously. We were unable to detect expression of Ffar3 mRNA at any stage of differentiation. Consistent with a lack of Ffar2 expression in the first 24âh of differentiation, acetate and propionate had no significant effect on nuclear receptor expression. Furthermore, acetate or propionate treatment did not alter leptin concentration or triglyceride content. In conclusion, we observed no significant effect of propionate or acetate on adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 cells using validated quantitative techniques
The interplay of intrinsic and extrinsic bounded noises in genetic networks
After being considered as a nuisance to be filtered out, it became recently
clear that biochemical noise plays a complex role, often fully functional, for
a genetic network. The influence of intrinsic and extrinsic noises on genetic
networks has intensively been investigated in last ten years, though
contributions on the co-presence of both are sparse. Extrinsic noise is usually
modeled as an unbounded white or colored gaussian stochastic process, even
though realistic stochastic perturbations are clearly bounded. In this paper we
consider Gillespie-like stochastic models of nonlinear networks, i.e. the
intrinsic noise, where the model jump rates are affected by colored bounded
extrinsic noises synthesized by a suitable biochemical state-dependent Langevin
system. These systems are described by a master equation, and a simulation
algorithm to analyze them is derived. This new modeling paradigm should enlarge
the class of systems amenable at modeling.
We investigated the influence of both amplitude and autocorrelation time of a
extrinsic Sine-Wiener noise on: the Michaelis-Menten approximation of
noisy enzymatic reactions, which we show to be applicable also in co-presence
of both intrinsic and extrinsic noise, a model of enzymatic futile cycle
and a genetic toggle switch. In and we show that the
presence of a bounded extrinsic noise induces qualitative modifications in the
probability densities of the involved chemicals, where new modes emerge, thus
suggesting the possibile functional role of bounded noises
Nonlinear Hydrodynamics from Flow of Retarded Green's Function
We study the radial flow of retarded Green's function of energy-momentum
tensor and -current of dual gauge theory in presence of generic higher
derivative terms in bulk Lagrangian. These are first order non-linear Riccati
equations. We solve these flow equations analytically and obtain second order
transport coefficients of boundary plasma. This way of computing transport
coefficients has an advantage over usual Kubo approach. The non-linear equation
turns out to be a linear first order equation when we study the Green's
function perturbatively in momentum. We consider several examples including
term and generic four derivative terms in bulk. We also study the flow
equations for -charged black holes and obtain exact expressions for second
order transport coefficients for dual plasma in presence of arbitrary chemical
potentials. Finally we obtain higher derivative corrections to second order
transport coefficients of boundary theory dual to five dimensional gauge
supergravity.Comment: Version 2, reference added, typos correcte
Carbon storage and DNA absorption in allophanic soils and paleosols
Andisols and andic paleosols dominated by the nanocrystalline mineral allophane sequester large amounts of carbon (C), attributable mainly to its chemical bonding with charged hydroxyl groups on the surface of allophane together with its physical protection in nanopores within and between allophane nanoaggregates. C near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectra for a New Zealand Andisol (Tirau series) showed that the organic matter (OM) mainly comprises quinonic, aromatic, aliphatic, and carboxylic C. In different buried horizons from several other Andisols, C contents varied but the C species were similar, attributable to pedogenic processes operating during developmental upbuilding, downward leaching, or both. The presence of OM in natural allophanic soils weakened the adsorption of DNA on clay; an adsorption isotherm experiment involving humic acid (HA) showed that HA-free synthetic allophane adsorbed seven times more DNA than HA-rich synthetic allophane. Phosphorus X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectra for salmonsperm DNA and DNA-clay complexes indicated that DNA was bound to the allophane clay through the phosphate group, but it is not clear if DNA was chemically bound to the surface of the allophane or to OM, or both. We plan more experiments to investigate interactions among DNA, allophane (natural and synthetic), and OM. Because DNA shows a high affinity to allophane, we are studying the potential to reconstruct late Quaternary palaeoenvironments by attempting to extract and characterise ancient DNA from allophanic paleosol
Universal thermal and electrical conductivity from holography
It is known from earlier work of Iqbal, Liu (arXiv:0809.3808) that the
boundary transport coefficients such as electrical conductivity (at vanishing
chemical potential), shear viscosity etc. at low frequency and finite
temperature can be expressed in terms of geometrical quantities evaluated at
the horizon. In the case of electrical conductivity, at zero chemical potential
gauge field fluctuation and metric fluctuation decouples, resulting in a
trivial flow from horizon to boundary. In the presence of chemical potential,
the story becomes complicated due to the fact that gauge field and metric
fluctuation can no longer be decoupled. This results in a nontrivial flow from
horizon to boundary. Though horizon conductivity can be expressed in terms of
geometrical quantities evaluated at the horizon, there exist no such neat
result for electrical conductivity at the boundary. In this paper we propose an
expression for boundary conductivity expressed in terms of geometrical
quantities evaluated at the horizon and thermodynamical quantities. We also
consider the theory at finite cutoff outside the horizon (arXiv:1006.1902) and
give an expression for cutoff dependent electrical conductivity, which
interpolates smoothly between horizon conductivity and boundary conductivity .
Using the results about the electrical conductivity we gain much insight into
the universality of thermal conductivity to viscosity ratio proposed in
arXiv:0912.2719.Comment: An appendix added discussing relation between boundary conductivity
and universal conductivity of stretched horizon, version to be published in
JHE
Hydrodynamics from charged black branes
We extend the recent work on fluid-gravity correspondence to charged
black-branes by determining the metric duals to arbitrary charged fluid
configuration up to second order in the boundary derivative expansion. We also
derive the energy-momentum tensor and the charge current for these
configurations up to second order in the boundary derivative expansion. We find
a new term in the charge current when there is a bulk Chern-Simons interaction
thus resolving an earlier discrepancy between thermodynamics of charged
rotating black holes and boundary hydrodynamics. We have also confirmed that
all our expressions are covariant under boundary Weyl-transformations as
expected.Comment: 0+ 31 Pages; v2: 0+33 pages, typos corrected and new sections (in
appendix) added; v3:published versio
Analytic Lifshitz black holes in higher dimensions
We generalize the four-dimensional R^2-corrected z=3/2 Lifshitz black hole to
a two-parameter family of black hole solutions for any dynamical exponent z and
for any dimension D. For a particular relation between the parameters, we find
the first example of an extremal Lifshitz black hole. An asymptotically
Lifshitz black hole with a logarithmic decay is also exhibited for a specific
critical exponent depending on the dimension. We extend this analysis to the
more general quadratic curvature corrections for which we present three new
families of higher-dimensional D>=5 analytic Lifshitz black holes for generic
z. One of these higher-dimensional families contains as critical limits the z=3
three-dimensional Lifshitz black hole and a new z=6 four-dimensional black
hole. The variety of analytic solutions presented here encourages to explore
these gravity models within the context of non-relativistic holographic
correspondence.Comment: 14 page
Finite-size and correlation-induced effects in Mean-field Dynamics
The brain's activity is characterized by the interaction of a very large
number of neurons that are strongly affected by noise. However, signals often
arise at macroscopic scales integrating the effect of many neurons into a
reliable pattern of activity. In order to study such large neuronal assemblies,
one is often led to derive mean-field limits summarizing the effect of the
interaction of a large number of neurons into an effective signal. Classical
mean-field approaches consider the evolution of a deterministic variable, the
mean activity, thus neglecting the stochastic nature of neural behavior. In
this article, we build upon two recent approaches that include correlations and
higher order moments in mean-field equations, and study how these stochastic
effects influence the solutions of the mean-field equations, both in the limit
of an infinite number of neurons and for large yet finite networks. We
introduce a new model, the infinite model, which arises from both equations by
a rescaling of the variables and, which is invertible for finite-size networks,
and hence, provides equivalent equations to those previously derived models.
The study of this model allows us to understand qualitative behavior of such
large-scale networks. We show that, though the solutions of the deterministic
mean-field equation constitute uncorrelated solutions of the new mean-field
equations, the stability properties of limit cycles are modified by the
presence of correlations, and additional non-trivial behaviors including
periodic orbits appear when there were none in the mean field. The origin of
all these behaviors is then explored in finite-size networks where interesting
mesoscopic scale effects appear. This study leads us to show that the
infinite-size system appears as a singular limit of the network equations, and
for any finite network, the system will differ from the infinite system
On Charged Lifshitz Black Holes
We obtain exact solutions of charged asymptotically Lifshitz black holes in
arbitrary (d+2) dimensions, generalizing the four dimensional solution
investigated in 0908.2611[hep-th]. We find that both the conventional
Hamiltonian approach and the recently proposed method for defining mass in
non-relativistic backgrounds do not work for this specific example. Thus the
mass of the black hole can only be determined by the first law of
thermodynamics. We also obtain perturbative solutions in five-dimensional
Gauss-Bonnet gravity. The ratio of shear viscosity over entropy density and the
DC conductivity are calculated in the presence of Gauss-Bonnet corrections.Comment: 24 pages, no figures, to appear in JHE
Holographic GB gravity in arbitrary dimensions
We study the properties of the holographic CFT dual to Gauss-Bonnet gravity
in general dimensions. We establish the AdS/CFT dictionary and in
particular relate the couplings of the gravitational theory to the universal
couplings arising in correlators of the stress tensor of the dual CFT. This
allows us to examine constraints on the gravitational couplings by demanding
consistency of the CFT. In particular, one can demand positive energy fluxes in
scattering processes or the causal propagation of fluctuations. We also examine
the holographic hydrodynamics, commenting on the shear viscosity as well as the
relaxation time. The latter allows us to consider causality constraints arising
from the second-order truncated theory of hydrodynamics.Comment: 48 pages, 9 figures. v2: New discussion on free fields in subsection
3.3 and new appendix B on conformal tensor fields. Added comments on the
relation between the central charge appearing in the two-point function and
the "central charge" characterizing the entropy density in the discussion.
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