4,126 research outputs found
Participation of Cbfa1 in regulation of chondrocyte maturation
AbstractObjective Cbfa1 is a transcription factor, which is classified into the runt family. The mice lacking this gene display complete loss of bone formation, indicating that Cbfa1 is an essential factor for osteoblast differentiation. The Cbfa1-deficient mice also show an abnormality in cartilage development. Although cartilage anlagens are well formed in these mice, endochondral ossification is blocked, and most of chondrocytes fail to differentiate into their maturation form as characterized by the absence of type X collagen and low levels of alkaline phosphatase activity. It is suggested that Cbfa1 may participate in chondrocyte differentiation. In this study, we have investigated the role of Cbfa1 in chondrocytes during their cytodifferentiation in vitro.Design To investigate the role of Cbfa1 in regulation of chondrocyte differentiation, we over-expressed Cbfa1 or its dominant negative form in cultured chick chondrocytes using a retrovirus (RCAS)system and examined changes in chondrocyte behaviour induced by the introduced genes.Results Mature chondrocytes isolated form the cephalic portion of sterna seemed to express Cbfa1 more prominently than immature chondrocytes isolated from the one-third caudal portion of sterna. Over-expression of Cbfa1 in immature chondrocytes strongly stimulated alkaline phosphatase activity and matrix calcification. In contrast, expression of a dominant negative form of Cbfa1, which lacks the C-terminal PST domain, severely inhibited alkaline phosphatase activity and matrix calcification in mature chondrocytes.Conclusion Taken together with the observation that Cbfa1 transcripts dominantly localized in hypertrophic chondrocytes as well as in osteoblasts, it is suggested that Cbfa1 plays an important role in the progression of chondrocyte maturation
Development of a Large-Area Aerogel Cherenkov Counter Onboard BESS
This paper describes the development of a threshold type aerogel Cherenkov
counter with a large sensitive area of 0.6 m to be carried onboard the BESS
rigidity spectrometer to detect cosmic-ray antiprotons. The design incorporates
a large diffusion box containing 46 finemesh photomultipliers, with special
attention being paid to achieving good performance under a magnetic field and
providing sufficient endurance while minimizing material usage. The refractive
index of the aerogel was chosen to be 1.03. By utilizing the muons and protons
accumulated during the cosmic-ray measurements at sea level, a rejection factor
of 10 was obtained against muons with , while keeping 97%
efficiency for protons below the threshold.Comment: 13 pages, LaTex, 9 eps figures included, submitted to NIM
Study of a Threshold Cherenkov Counter Based on Silica Aerogels with Low Refractive Indices
To identify and in the region of GeV/c, a
threshold Cherenkov counter equipped with silica aerogels has been
investigated. Silica aerogels with a low refractive index of 1.013 have been
successfully produced using a new technique. By making use of these aerogels as
radiators, we have constructed a Cherenkov counter and have checked its
properties in a test beam. The obtained results have demonstrated that our
aerogel was transparent enough to make up for loss of the Cherenkov photon
yield due to a low refractive index. Various configurations for the photon
collection system and some types of photomultipliers, such as the fine-mesh
type, for a read out were also tested. From these studies, our design of a
Cherenkov counter dedicated to separation up to a few GeV/c %in the
momentum range of GeV/c with an efficiency greater than \%
was considered.Comment: 21 pages, latex format (article), figures included, to be published
in Nucl. Instrm. Meth.
Reactor Neutrino Experiments with a Large Liquid Scintillator Detector
We discuss several new ideas for reactor neutrino oscillation experiments
with a Large Liquid Scintillator Detector. We consider two different scenarios
for a measurement of the small mixing angle with a mobile
source: a nuclear-powered ship, such as a submarine or an
icebreaker, and a land-based scenario with a mobile reactor. The former setup
can achieve a sensitivity to at the 90%
confidence level, while the latter performs only slightly better than Double
Chooz. Furthermore, we study the precision that can be achieved for the solar
parameters, and , with a mobile reactor
and with a conventional power station. With the mobile reactor, a precision
slightly better than from current global fit data is possible, while with a
power reactor, the accuracy can be reduced to less than 1%. Such a precision is
crucial for testing theoretical models, e.g. quark-lepton complementarity.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, revised version, to appear in JHEP,
Fig. 1 extended, Formula added, minor changes, results unchange
The monitoring system for the aerogel Cherenkov counter of the BELLE detector
We report on a design and performances of a monitoring system developed for
the aerogel Cherenkov counters (ACC) of the BELLE detector. The system consists
of blue LEDs, a diffuser box, and optical distributors which distribute the LED
light to the ACC modules. The employed LED (NSPB series) has been observed to
have high reliability on the long term stability and the temprature dependence.
The diffuser box is employed to reduce the intrinsic non-uniformity of the LED
light intensity. The overall performances of the present monitoring system on
uniformity and intensity of the light output have been found to satisfy all the
requirements for the monitoring.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX, 13 eps figures, to be published in Nucl. Instrum.
and Meth. A. Postscript file (4.5 MB) is available at
http://www-hep.phys.saga-u.ac.jp/~murakami/paper/xxx_accmon.p
No evidence yet for hadronic TeV gamma-ray emission from SNR RX J1713.7-3946
Recent TeV-scale gamma-ray observations with the CANGAROO II telescope have
led to the claim that the multi-band spectrum of RX J1713.7-3946 cannot be
explained as the composite of a synchrotron and an inverse Compton component
emitted by a population of relativistic electrons. It was argued that the
spectrum of the high-energy emission is a good match to that predicted by pion
decay, thus providing observational evidence that protons are accelerated in
SNR to at least TeV energies. In this Letter we discuss the multi-band spectrum
of RX J1713.7-3946 under the constraint that the GeV-scale emission observed
from the closely associated EGRET source 3EG J1714-3857 is either associated
with the SNR or an upper limit to the gamma-ray emission of the SNR. We find
that the pion-decay model adopted by Enomoto et al. is in conflict with the
existing GeV data. We have examined the possibility of a modified proton
spectrum to explain the data, and find that we cannot do so within any existing
theoretical framework of shock acceleration models.Comment: in press as Letter to Astronomy & Astrophysic
Large- Heavy-Quark Production in Two-Photon Collisions
The next-to-leading-order (NLO) cross section for the production of heavy
quarks at large transverse momenta () in collisions is
calculated with perturbative fragmentation functions (PFF's). This approach
allows for a resummation of terms which
arise in NLO from collinear emission of gluons by heavy quarks at large
or from almost collinear branching of photons or gluons into
heavy-quark pairs. We present single-inclusive distributions in and
rapidity including direct and resolved photons for production of
heavy quarks at colliders and at high-energy colliders.
The results are compared with the fixed-order calculation for finite
including QCD radiative corrections. The two approaches differ in the
definitions and relative contributions of the direct and resolved terms, but
essentially agree in their sum. The resummation of the terms in the PFF approach leads to a softer
distribution and to a reduced sensitivity to the choice of the renormalization
and factorization scales.Comment: 17 pages, Latex, epsf, 7 figures appended as uuencoded file (hardcopy
can be obtained upon request from [email protected]
First-Order Melting and Dynamics of Flux Lines in a Model for YBaCuO
We have studied the statics and dynamics of flux lines in a model for YBCO,
using both Monte Carlo simulations and Langevin dynamics. For a clean system,
both approaches yield the same melting curve, which is found to be weakly first
order with a heat of fusion of about per vortex pancake at a
field of The time averaged magnetic field distribution
experienced by a fixed spin is found to undergo a qualitative change at
freezing, in agreement with NMR and experiments. Melting in the
clean system is accompanied by a proliferation of free disclinations which show
a clear B-dependent 3D-2D crossover from long disclination lines parallel to
the c-axis at low fields, to 2D ``pancake'' disclinations at higher fields.
Strong point pins produce a logarithmical relaxation which results from
slow annealing out of disclinations in disordered samples.Comment: 31 pages, latex, revtex, 12 figures available upon request, No major
changes to the original text, but some errors in the axes scale for Figures 6
and 7 were corrected(new figures available upon request), to be published in
Physical Review B, July 199
Supernova-Remnant Origin of Cosmic Rays?
It is thought that Galactic cosmic ray (CR) nuclei are gradually accelerated
to high energies (up to ~300 TeV/nucleon, where 1TeV=10^12eV) in the expanding
shock-waves connected with the remnants of powerful supernova explosions.
However, this conjecture has eluded direct observational confirmation^1,2 since
it was first proposed in 1953 (ref. 3). Enomoto et al.^4 claim to have finally
found definitive evidence that corroborates this model, proposing that the
very-high-energy, TeV-range, gamma-rays from the supernova remnant (SNR) RX
J1713.7-3946 are due to the interactions of energetic nuclei in this region.
Here we argue that their claim is not supported by the existing multiwavelength
spectrum of this source. The search for the origin(s) of Galactic cosmic ray
nuclei may be closing in on the long-suspected supernova-remnant sources, but
it is not yet over.Comment: 4 pages, 1 Figur
- âŠ