2,309 research outputs found
Membrane Type 1 Matrix Metalloproteinase Regulates Monocyte Migration and Collagen Destruction in Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) remains a global pandemic and drug resistance is rising. Multicellular granuloma formation is the pathological hallmark of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. The membrane type 1 matrix metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP or MMP-14) is a collagenase that is key in leukocyte migration and collagen destruction. In patients with TB, induced sputum MT1-MMP mRNA levels were increased 5.1-fold compared with matched controls and correlated positively with extent of lung infiltration on chest radiographs (r = 0.483; p < 0.05). M. tuberculosis infection of primary human monocytes increased MT1-MMP surface expression 31.7-fold and gene expression 24.5-fold. M. tuberculosis-infected monocytes degraded collagen matrix in an MT1-MMP-dependent manner, and MT1-MMP neutralization decreased collagen degradation by 73%. In human TB granulomas, MT1-MMP immunoreactivity was observed in macrophages throughout the granuloma. Monocyte-monocyte networks caused a 17.5-fold increase in MT1-MMP surface expression dependent on p38 MAPK and G protein-coupled receptor-dependent signaling. Monocytes migrating toward agarose beads impregnated with conditioned media from M. tuberculosis-infected monocytes expressed MT1-MMP. Neutralization of MT1-MMP activity decreased this M. tuberculosis network-dependent monocyte migration by 44%. Taken together, we demonstrate that MT1-MMP is central to two key elements of TB pathogenesis, causing collagen degradation and regulating monocyte migration
Nambu-Hamiltonian flows associated with discrete maps
For a differentiable map that has
an inverse, we show that there exists a Nambu-Hamiltonian flow in which one of
the initial value, say , of the map plays the role of time variable while
the others remain fixed. We present various examples which exhibit the map-flow
correspondence.Comment: 19 page
Do many-particle neutrino interactions cause a novel coherent effect?
We investigate whether coherent flavor conversion of neutrinos in a neutrino
background is substantially modified by many-body effects, with respect to the
conventional one-particle effective description. We study the evolution of a
system of interacting neutrino plane waves in a box. Using its equivalence to a
system of spins, we determine the character of its behavior completely
analytically. We find that, if the neutrinos are initially in flavor
eigenstates, no coherent flavor conversion is realized, in agreement with the
effective one-particle description. This result does not depend on the size of
the neutrino wavepackets and therefore has a general character. The validity of
the several important applications of the one-particle formalism is thus
confirmed.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figur
Spatial and vertical distribution of mercury in upland forest soils across the northeastern United States
Assessing current Hg pools in forest soils of the northeastern U.S. is important for monitoring changes in Hg cycling. The forest floor, upper and lower mineral horizons were sampled at 17 long-term upland forest sites across the northeastern U.S. in 2011. Forest floor Hg concentration was similar across the study region (274 +/- 13 mu g kg(-1)) while Hg amount at northern sites (39 +/- g ha(-1)) was significantly greater than at western sites (11 +/- 4 g ha(-1)). Forest floor Hg was correlated with soil organic matter, soil pH, latitude and mean annual precipitation and these variables explained approximately 70% of the variability when multiple regressed. Mercury concentration and amount in the lower mineral soil was correlated with Fe, soil organic matter and latitude, corresponding with Bs horizons of Spodosols (Podzols). Our analysis shows the importance of regional and soil properties on Hg accumulation in forest soils. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
The influence of collective neutrino oscillations on a supernova r-process
Recently, it has been demonstrated that neutrinos in a supernova oscillate
collectively. This process occurs much deeper than the conventional
matter-induced MSW effect and hence may have an impact on nucleosynthesis. In
this paper we explore the effects of collective neutrino oscillations on the
r-process, using representative late-time neutrino spectra and outflow models.
We find that accurate modeling of the collective oscillations is essential for
this analysis. As an illustration, the often-used "single-angle" approximation
makes grossly inaccurate predictions for the yields in our setup. With the
proper multiangle treatment, the effect of the oscillations is found to be less
dramatic, but still significant. Since the oscillation patterns are sensitive
to the details of the emitted fluxes and the sign of the neutrino mass
hierarchy, so are the r-process yields. The magnitude of the effect also
depends sensitively on the astrophysical conditions - in particular on the
interplay between the time when nuclei begin to exist in significant numbers
and the time when the collective oscillation begins. A more definitive
understanding of the astrophysical conditions, and accurate modeling of the
collective oscillations for those conditions, is necessary.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figure
Invariant varieties of periodic points for some higher dimensional integrable maps
By studying various rational integrable maps on with
invariants, we show that periodic points form an invariant variety of dimension
for each period, in contrast to the case of nonintegrable maps in which
they are isolated. We prove the theorem: {\it `If there is an invariant variety
of periodic points of some period, there is no set of isolated periodic points
of other period in the map.'}Comment: 24 page
Testing matter effects in propagation of atmospheric and long-baseline neutrinos
We quantify our current knowledge of the size and flavor structure of the
matter effects in the evolution of atmospheric and long-baseline neutrinos
based solely on the analysis of the corresponding neutrino data. To this aim we
generalize the matter potential of the Standard Model by rescaling its
strength, rotating it away from the e-e sector, and rephasing it with respect
to the vacuum term. This phenomenological parametrization can be easily
translated in terms of non-standard neutrino interactions in matter. We show
that in the most general case, the strength of the potential cannot be
determined solely by atmospheric and long-baseline data. However its flavor
composition is very much constrained and the present determination of the
neutrino masses and mixing is robust under its presence. We also present an
update of the constraints arising from this analysis in the particular case in
which no potential is present in the e-mu and e-tau sectors. Finally we
quantify to what degree in this scenario it is possible to alleviate the
tension between the oscillation results for neutrinos and antineutrinos in the
MINOS experiment and show the relevance of the high energy part of the spectrum
measured at MINOS.Comment: PDFLaTeX file using JHEP3 class, 25 pages, 7 figures included.
Accepted for publication in JHE
Lower Bounds for Heights in Relative Galois Extensions
The goal of this paper is to obtain lower bounds on the height of an
algebraic number in a relative setting, extending previous work of Amoroso and
Masser. Specifically, in our first theorem we obtain an effective bound for the
height of an algebraic number when the base field is a
number field and is Galois. Our second result
establishes an explicit height bound for any non-zero element which is
not a root of unity in a Galois extension , depending on
the degree of and the number of conjugates of
which are multiplicatively independent over . As a consequence, we
obtain a height bound for such that is independent of the
multiplicative independence condition
Magneto infra-red absorption in high electronic density GaAs quantum wells
Magneto infra-red absorption measurements have been performed in a highly
doped GaAs quantum well which has been lifted off and bonded to a silicon
substrate, in order to study the resonant polaron interaction. It is found that
the pinning of the cyclotron energy occurs at an energy close to that of the
transverse optical phonon of GaAs. This unexpected result is explained by a
model taking into account the full dielectric constant of the quantum well.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let
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