1,493 research outputs found
The Cgl1281-encoding putative transporter of the cation diffusion facilitator family is responsible for alkali-tolerance in Corynebacterium glutamicum
The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com.ArticleARCHIVES OF MICROBIOLOGY. 190(5): 531-538 (2008)journal articl
Phase Transitions of an Oscillator Neural Network with a Standard Hebb Learning Rule
Studies have been made on the phase transition phenomena of an oscillator
network model based on a standard Hebb learning rule like the Hopfield model.
The relative phase informations---the in-phase and anti-phase, can be embedded
in the network. By self-consistent signal-to-noise analysis (SCSNA), it was
found that the storage capacity is given by , which is better
than that of Cook's model. However, the retrieval quality is worse. In
addition, an investigation was made into an acceleration effect caused by
asymmetry of the phase dynamics. Finally, it was numerically shown that the
storage capacity can be improved by modifying the shape of the coupling
function.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
Unsupervised Detection of Cell-Assembly Sequences by Similarity-Based Clustering
Neurons which fire in a fixed temporal pattern (i.e., "cell assemblies") are hypothesized to be a fundamental unit of neural information processing. Several methods are available for the detection of cell assemblies without a time structure. However, the systematic detection of cell assemblies with time structure has been challenging, especially in large datasets, due to the lack of efficient methods for handling the time structure. Here, we show a method to detect a variety of cell-assembly activity patterns, recurring in noisy neural population activities at multiple timescales. The key innovation is the use of a computer science method to comparing strings ("edit similarity"), to group spikes into assemblies. We validated the method using artificial data and experimental data, which were previously recorded from the hippocampus of male Long-Evans rats and the prefrontal cortex of male Brown Norway/Fisher hybrid rats. From the hippocampus, we could simultaneously extract place-cell sequences occurring on different timescales during navigation and awake replay. From the prefrontal cortex, we could discover multiple spike sequences of neurons encoding different segments of a goal-directed task. Unlike conventional event-driven statistical approaches, our method detects cell assemblies without creating event-locked averages. Thus, the method offers a novel analytical tool for deciphering the neural code during arbitrary behavioral and mental processes
Seven-hour multiunit recordings from rats reveal very long-term correlation in the cortical activity
Thermodynamics of impurity-enhanced vacancy formation in metals
Hydrogen induced vacancy formation in metals and metal alloys has been of great interest during the past couple of decades. The main reason for this phenomenon, often referred to as the superabundant vacancy formation, is the lowering of vacancy formation energy due to the trapping of hydrogen. By means of thermodynamics, we study the equilibrium vacancy formation in fcc metals (Pd, Ni, Co, and Fe) in correlation with the H amounts. The results of this study are compared and found to be in good agreement with experiments. For the accurate description of the total energy of the metal-hydrogen system, we take into account the binding energies of each trapped impurity, the vibrational entropy of defects, and the thermodynamics of divacancy formation. We demonstrate the effect of vacancy formation energy, the hydrogen binding, and the divacancy binding energy on the total equilibrium vacancy concentration. We show that the divacancy fraction gives the major contribution to the total vacancy fraction at high H fractions and cannot be neglected when studying superabundant vacancies. Our results lead to a novel conclusion that at high hydrogen fractions, superabundant vacancy formation takes place regardless of the binding energy between vacancies and hydrogen. We also propose the reason of superabundant vacancy formation mainly in the fcc phase. The equations obtained within this work can be used for any metal-impurity system, if the impurity occupies an interstitial site in the lattice. Published by AIP Publishing.Peer reviewe
Robustness of the noise-induced phase synchronization in a general class of limit cycle oscillators
We show that a wide class of uncoupled limit cycle oscillators can be
in-phase synchronized by common weak additive noise. An expression of the
Lyapunov exponent is analytically derived to study the stability of the
noise-driven synchronizing state. The result shows that such a synchronization
can be achieved in a broad class of oscillators with little constraint on their
intrinsic property. On the other hand, the leaky integrate-and-fire neuron
oscillators do not belong to this class, generating intermittent phase slips
according to a power low distribution of their intervals.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
Oscillator neural network model with distributed native frequencies
We study associative memory of an oscillator neural network with distributed
native frequencies. The model is based on the use of the Hebb learning rule
with random patterns (), and the distribution function of
native frequencies is assumed to be symmetric with respect to its average.
Although the system with an extensive number of stored patterns is not allowed
to get entirely synchronized, long time behaviors of the macroscopic order
parameters describing partial synchronization phenomena can be obtained by
discarding the contribution from the desynchronized part of the system. The
oscillator network is shown to work as associative memory accompanied by
synchronized oscillations. A phase diagram representing properties of memory
retrieval is presented in terms of the parameters characterizing the native
frequency distribution. Our analytical calculations based on the
self-consistent signal-to-noise analysis are shown to be in excellent agreement
with numerical simulations, confirming the validity of our theoretical
treatment.Comment: 9 pages, revtex, 6 postscript figures, to be published in J. Phys.
Thermodynamics of hydrogen vacancies in MgH2 from first-principles calculations and grand-canonical statistical mechanics
Ab initio calculations and statistical mechanics are combined to elucidate
the thermodynamics of H vacancies in MgH2. A general method based on a
grand-canonical ensemble of defect configurations is introduced to model the
exchange of hydrogen between crystalline MgH2 and gas-phase H2. We find that,
at temperatures and hydrogen partial pressures of practical interest, MgH2 is
capable of accommodating only very small concentrations of hydrogen vacancies,
which consist mainly of isolated defects rather than vacancy clusters, contrary
to what is expected from a simple energetic analysis.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures. Paper accepted in Physical Review
Direct Sensing of Endothelial Oxidants by Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor-2 and c-Src
BACKGROUND: ADPH oxidase-derived reactive oxygen species (ROS) play important roles in redox homeostasis and signal transduction in endothelial cells (ECs). We previously demonstrated that c-Src plays a key role in VEGF-induced, ROS-dependent selective activation of PI3K-Akt but not PLCÎł-1-ERK1/2 signaling pathways. The aim of the present study was to understand how VEGFR-2-c-Src signaling axis 'senses' NADPH oxidase-derived ROS levels and couples VEGF activation of c-Src to the redox state of ECs. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using biotinylated probe that detects oxidation of cysteine thiol (cys-OH) in intracellular proteins, we demonstrate that VEGF induced oxidative modification in c-Src and VEGFR-2, and that reduction in ROS levels using siRNA against p47(phox) subunit of Rac1-dependent NADPH oxidase inhibited this phenomenon. Co-immunoprecipitation studies using human coronary artery ECs (HCAEC) showed that VEGF-induced ROS-dependent interaction between VEGFR-2 and c-Src correlated with their thiol oxidation status. Immunofluorescence studies using antibodies against internalized VEGFR-2 and c-Src demonstrated that VEGF-induced subcellular co-localization of these tyrosine kinases were also dependent on NADPH oxidsase-derived ROS. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: These results demonstrate that VEGF induces cysteine oxidation in VEGFR-2 and c-Src in an NADPH oxidase-derived ROS-dependent manner, suggesting that VEGFR-2 and c-Src can 'sense' redox levels in ECs. The data also suggest that thiol oxidation status of VEGFR-2 and c-Src correlates with their ability to physically interact with each other and c-Src activation. Taken together, these findings suggest that prior to activating downstream c-Src-PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, VEGFR-2-c-Src axis requires an NADPH oxidase-derived ROS threshold in ECs
New insight into BRST anomalies in superstring theory
Based on the extended BRST formalism of Batalin, Fradkin and Vilkovisky, we
perform a general algebraic analysis of the BRST anomalies in superstring
theory of Neveu-Schwarz-Ramond. Consistency conditions on the BRST anomalies
are completely solved. The genuine super-Virasoro anomaly is identified with
the essentially unique solution to the consistency condition without any
reference to a particular gauge for the 2D supergravity fields. In a
configuration space where metric and gravitino fields are properly constructed,
general form of the super-Weyl anomaly is obtained from the super-Virasoro
anomaly as its descendant.
We give a novel local action of super-Liouville type, which plays a role of
Wess-Zumino-Witten term shifting the super-Virasoro anomaly into the super-Weyl
anomaly. These results reveal a hierarchial relationship in the BRST anoamlies.Comment: 29 pages, PHYZZ
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