944 research outputs found
Regulators of Rho GTPases in neuronal development
The formation and elaboration of axonal and dendritic morphologies are fundamental aspects of neuronal polarization critical for information processing. In general, developing CNS neurons elaborate one axon and multiple dendrites in response to intracellular and extracellular cues, so as to transmit and receive information, respectively. The molecular mechanisms underlying axon-dendrite polarity are complex and involve the integration of numerous signaling pathways that impinge on the cytoskeleton. One group of proteins, the Rho GTPases, has emerged as key integrators of environmental cues to regulate the underlying axonal and dendritic cytoskeletons. Here, we discuss the role of regulators of the Rac1 GTPase in axon development and highlight the importance of both actin and microtubule remodeling in this process
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Galanin neurons in the medial preoptic area govern parental behavior
Mice display robust, stereotyped behaviors toward pups: virgin males typically attack pups, while virgin females and sexually experienced males and females display parental care. We show here that virgin males genetically impaired in vomeronasal sensing do not attack pups and are parental. Further, we uncover a subset of galanin-expressing neurons in the medial preoptic area (MPOA) that are specifically activated during male and female parenting, and a different subpopulation activated during mating. Genetic ablation of MPOA galanin neurons results in dramatic impairment of parental responses in males and females and affects male mating. Optogenetic activation of these neurons in virgin males suppresses inter-male and pup-directed aggression and induces pup grooming. Thus, MPOA galanin neurons emerge as an essential regulatory node of male and female parenting behavior and other social responses. These results provide an entry point to a circuit-level dissection of parental behavior and its modulation by social experience
Reflection and Refraction of Bose-condensate Excitations
We investigate the transmission and reflection of Bose-condensate excitations
in the low energy limit across a potential barrier separating two condensates
with different densities. The Bogoliubov excitation in the low energy limit has
the incident angle where the perfect transmission occurs. This condition
corresponds to the Brewster's law for the electromagnetic wave. The total
internal reflection of the Bogoliubov excitation is found to occur at a large
incident angle in the low energy limit. The anomalous tunneling named by Kagan
et al. [Yu. Kagan et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 90, 130402 (2003)] can be
understood in terms of the impedance matching. In the case of the normal
incidence, comparison with the results in Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids is made.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figure
A Search for Near-Infrared Emission From the Halo of NGC 5907 at Radii of 10 kpc to 30 kpc
We present a search for near-infrared (3.5-5 micron) emission from baryonic
dark matter in the form of low-mass stars and/or brown dwarfs in the halo of
the nearby edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 5907. The observations were made using a
256 by 256 InSb array with a pixel scale of 17" at the focus of a
liquid-helium-cooled telescope carried above the Earth's atmosphere by a
sounding rocket. In contrast to previous experiments which have detected a halo
around NGC 5907 in the V, R, I, J and K bands at galactic radii 6kpc < r <
10kpc, our search finds no evidence for emission from a halo at 10kpc < r <
30kpc. Assuming a halo mass density scaling as r^(-2), which is consistent with
the flat rotation curves that are observed out to radii of 32kpc, the lower
limit of the mass-to-light ratio at 3.5-5 microns for the halo of NGC 5907 is
250 (2 sigma) in solar units. This is comparable to the lower limit we have
found previously for NGC 4565 (Uemizu et al. 1998). Based on recent models, our
non-detection implies that hydrogen- burning stars contribute < 15% of the mass
of the dark halo of NGC 5907. Our results are consistent with the previous
detection of extended emission at r < 10kpc if the latter is caused by a
stellar population that has been ejected from the disk because of tidal
interactions. We conclude that the dark halo of NGC 5907, which is evident from
rotation curves that extend far beyond 10kpc, is not comprised of hydrogen
burning stars.Comment: 12 pages, LateX, plus 6 ps figures. Accepted by ApJ. minor changes,
added references, corrected typo
ELISA: a cryocooled 10 GHz oscillator with 10-15 frequency stability
This article reports the design, the breadboarding and the validation of an
ultra-stable Cryogenic Sapphire Oscillator operated in an autonomous
cryocooler. The objective of this project was to demonstrate the feasibility of
a frequency stability of 3x10-15 between 1 s and 1,000 s for the European Space
Agency deep space stations. This represents the lowest fractional frequency
instability ever achieved with cryocoolers. The preliminary results presented
in this paper validate the design we adopted for the sapphire resonator, the
cold source and the oscillator loop.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure
Epidemiological study of E. coli O157:H7 isolated in Northern Ireland using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE)
In Northern Ireland over the last 7 years, there is a mean of 41.9 laboratory reports per annum of human gastrointestinal infection (range 19-54) caused by Escherichia coli O157:H7. In the preceding years 1992-1996, reports were 5.4 per annum, whereas in 1997-2000, reports increased from 30 to 54 per annum. This high level has continued on an annual basis to date. The aim of this study was therefore to retrospectively examine this period of exponential increase in reports to help ascertain the genetic relatedness of strains employing pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), as no data on the molecular epidemiology of E. coli O157:H7 in Northern Ireland has yet been published. Clinical isolates (n=84) were PFGE typed employing Xba I digestion and resulting band profiles demonstrated the presence of 13, 9 and 16 clonal types, for 1997, 1998 and 1999, respectively. In 1998, five clonal types remained from 1997 with the introduction of 4 new clonal types, whereas in 1999, 10 new clonal types were observed, accounting for over half (58%) of the E. coli O157 isolates for that year. These data suggest that, unlike gastrointestinal infections due to thermophilic campylobacters, there was considerable genetic evolution of PFGE clonal types of E. coli O157, through the displacement and emergence of genotypes. Further studies are now required to find the environmental reservoirs of these common clonal types of clinical E. coli O157:H7 in Northern Ireland to help define sources and routes of transmission of this infection locally
Do we expect light flavor sea-quark asymmetry also for the spin-dependent distribution functions of the nucleon?
After taking account of the scale dependence by means of the standard DGLAP
evolution equation, the theoretical predictions of the chiral quark soliton
model for the unpolarized and longitudinally polarized structure functions of
the nucleon are compared with the recent high energy data. The theory is shown
to explain all the qualitative features of the experiments, including the NMC
data for , , the Hermes and NuSea
data for , the EMC and SMC data for ,
and . Among others, flavor asymmetry of the longitudinally
polarized sea-quark distributions is a remarkable prediction of this model,
i.e., it predicts that with a sizable negative coefficient
(and ) in qualitative consistency with the recent
semi-phenomenological analysis by Morii and Yamanishi.Comment: 14pages, including 5 eps_figures with epsbox.sty, late
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