685 research outputs found
Sulfotransferase-mediated chlorination of 1-hydroxymethylpyrene to a mutagen capable of penetrating indicator cells.
Methylated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are common in the human environment. Many of them are stronger carcinogens than their purely aromatic congeners. They may be metabolized to benzylic alcohols. We report here on biochemical and toxicological characteristics of 1-hydroxymethylpyrene (HMP), a typical representative of this class of compounds. Rat liver cytosol, fortified with 3'-phosphoadenosine-5'-phosphosulfate, converted HMP into its sulfate ester (HMPS), HMPS bound covalently to isolated DNA. In physiological buffer at 37 degrees C, HMPS had a half-life of 2 min, the major decomposition product being HMP. Thus, cyclic activation is possible. When Cl- anions were present at physiological concentrations, an additional reaction product of HMPS, 1-chloromethylpyrene (ClMP), could be identified on the basis of its chromatographic properties and its mass spectrum, using the authentic standard for comparison. ClMP was shorter-lived in buffer than HMPS. ClMP reacted with DNA, the adduct pattern in the 32P-postlabeling analysis being similar, or identical, to that of HMPS. ClMP proved to be a very potent mutagen in Salmonella typhimurium, whereas HMPS, and HMP in the presence of a sulfate-conjugating system, showed strong mutagenicity only when Cl- or Br- ions were present in the exposure buffer. It is concluded that HMPS is capable of reacting with DNA, but is hampered in its distribution by membrane barriers.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS
Global Existence and Regularity for the 3D Stochastic Primitive Equations of the Ocean and Atmosphere with Multiplicative White Noise
The Primitive Equations are a basic model in the study of large scale Oceanic
and Atmospheric dynamics. These systems form the analytical core of the most
advanced General Circulation Models. For this reason and due to their
challenging nonlinear and anisotropic structure the Primitive Equations have
recently received considerable attention from the mathematical community.
In view of the complex multi-scale nature of the earth's climate system, many
uncertainties appear that should be accounted for in the basic dynamical models
of atmospheric and oceanic processes. In the climate community stochastic
methods have come into extensive use in this connection. For this reason there
has appeared a need to further develop the foundations of nonlinear stochastic
partial differential equations in connection with the Primitive Equations and
more generally.
In this work we study a stochastic version of the Primitive Equations. We
establish the global existence of strong, pathwise solutions for these
equations in dimension 3 for the case of a nonlinear multiplicative noise. The
proof makes use of anisotropic estimates, estimates on the
pressure and stopping time arguments.Comment: To appear in Nonlinearit
On the surprising effectiveness of a simple matrix exponential derivative approximation, with application to global SARS-CoV-2
The continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) is the mathematical workhorse of
evolutionary biology. Learning CTMC model parameters using modern,
gradient-based methods requires the derivative of the matrix exponential
evaluated at the CTMC's infinitesimal generator (rate) matrix. Motivated by the
derivative's extreme computational complexity as a function of state space
cardinality, recent work demonstrates the surprising effectiveness of a naive,
first-order approximation for a host of problems in computational biology. In
response to this empirical success, we obtain rigorous deterministic and
probabilistic bounds for the error accrued by the naive approximation and
establish a "blessing of dimensionality" result that is universal for a large
class of rate matrices with random entries. Finally, we apply the first-order
approximation within surrogate-trajectory Hamiltonian Monte Carlo for the
analysis of the early spread of SARS-CoV-2 across 44 geographic regions that
comprise a state space of unprecedented dimensionality for unstructured
(flexible) CTMC models within evolutionary biology
STEP: the VST survey of the SMC and the Magellanic Bridge - I : Overview and first results
STEP (the SMC in Time: Evolution of a Prototype interacting late-type dwarf galaxy) is a Guaranteed Time Observation survey being performed at the VST (the ESO VLT Survey Telescope). STEP will image an area of 74 sq. deg. covering the main body of the Small Magellanic Cloud (32 sq. deg.), the Bridge that connects it to the Large Magellanic Cloud (30 sq. deg.) and a small part of the Magellanic Stream (2 sq. deg.). Our g, r, i, Hα photometry is able to resolve individual stars down to magnitudes well below the main-sequence turn-off of the oldest populations. In this first paper, we describe the observing strategy, the photometric techniques and the upcoming data products of the survey. We also present preliminary results for the first two fields for which data acquisition is completed, including some detailed analysis of the two stellar clusters IC 1624 and NGC 419.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio
BS196: an old star cluster far from the SMC main body
We present B and V photometry of the outlying SMC star cluster BS196 with the
4.1-m SOAR telescope. The photometry is deep (to V~25) showing ~3 mag below the
cluster turnoff point (TO) at Mv=2.5 (1.03 Msun). The cluster is located at the
SMC distance. The CMD and isochrone fittings provide a cluster age of 5.0+-0.5
Gyr, indicating that this is one of the 12 oldest clusters so far detected in
the SMC. The estimated metallicity is [Fe/H]=-1.68+-0.10. The structural
analysis gives by means of King profile fittings a core radius Rc=8.7+-1.1
arcsec (2.66+-0.14 pc) and a tidal radius Rt=69.4+-1.7 arcsec (21.2+-1.2 pc).
BS196 is rather loose with a concentration parameter c=0.90. With
Mv=-1.89+-0.39, BS196 belongs to the class of intrinsically fainter SMC
clusters, as compared to the well-known populous ones, which starts to be
explored.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures; accepted by MNRA
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