2,261 research outputs found
Projection neurons in lamina III of the rat spinal cord are selectively innervated by local dynorphin-containing excitatory neurons
Large projection neurons in lamina III of the rat spinal cord that express the neurokinin 1 receptor are densely innervated by peptidergic primary afferent nociceptors and more sparsely by low-threshold myelinated afferents. However, we know little about their input from other glutamatergic neurons. Here we show that these cells receive numerous contacts from nonprimary boutons that express the vesicular glutamate transporter 2 (VGLUT2), and form asymmetrical synapses on their dendrites and cell bodies. These synapses are significantly smaller than those formed by peptidergic afferents, but provide a substantial proportion of the glutamatergic synapses that the cells receive (over a third of those in laminae I–II and half of those in deeper laminae). Surprisingly, although the dynorphin precursor preprodynorphin (PPD) was only present in 4–7% of VGLUT2 boutons in laminae I–IV, it was found in 58% of the VGLUT2 boutons that contacted these cells. This indicates a highly selective targeting of the lamina III projection cells by glutamatergic neurons that express PPD, and these are likely to correspond to local neurons (interneurons and possibly projection cells). Since many PPD-expressing dorsal horn neurons respond to noxious stimulation, this suggests that the lamina III projection cells receive powerful monosynaptic and polysynaptic nociceptive input. Excitatory interneurons in the dorsal horn have been shown to possess IA currents, which limit their excitability and can underlie a form of activity-dependent intrinsic plasticity. It is therefore likely that polysynaptic inputs to the lamina III projection neurons are recruited during the development of chronic pain states
Incoherent Noise and Quantum Information Processing
Incoherence in the controlled Hamiltonian is an important limitation on the
precision of coherent control in quantum information processing. Incoherence
can typically be modelled as a distribution of unitary processes arising from
slowly varying experimental parameters. We show how it introduces artifacts in
quantum process tomography and we explain how the resulting estimate of the
superoperator may not be completely positive. We then go on to attack the
inverse problem of extracting an effective distribution of unitaries that
characterizes the incoherence via a perturbation theory analysis of the
superoperator eigenvalue spectra.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, replaced with future JCP published versio
Continuous phase transition and negative specific heat in finite nuclei
The liquid-gas phase transition in finite nuclei is studied in a heated
liquid-drop model where the nuclear drop is assumed to be in thermodynamic
equilibrium with its own evaporated nucleonic vapor conserving the total baryon
number and isospin of the system. It is found that in the liquid-vapor
coexistence region the pressure is not a constant on an isotherm indicating
that the transition is continuous. At constant pressure, the caloric curve
shows some anomalies, namely, the systems studied exhibit negative heat
capacity in a small temperature domain. The dependence of this specific feature
on the mass and isospin of the nucleus, Coulomb interaction and the chosen
pressure is studied. The effects of the presence of clusters in the vapor phase
on specific heat have also been explored.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures; Phys. Rev. C (in press
New BPS Solitons in 2+1 Dimensional Noncommutative CP^1 Model
Investigating the solitons in the non-commutative model, we have
found a new set of BPS solitons which does not have counterparts in the
commutative model.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX2e, references added, improvements to discussions,
Version to be published in JHE
Locality, Causality and Noncommutative Geometry
We analyse the causality condition in noncommutative field theory and show
that the nonlocality of noncommutative interaction leads to a modification of
the light cone to the light wedge. This effect is generic for noncommutative
geometry. We also check that the usual form of energy condition is violated and
propose that a new form is needed in noncommutative spacetime. On reduction
from light cone to light wedge, it looks like the noncommutative dimensions are
effectively washed out and suggests a reformulation of noncommutative field
theory in terms of lower dimensional degree of freedom. This reduction of
dimensions due to noncommutative geometry could play a key role in explaining
the holographic property of quantum gravity.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, 4 figure
Clinical and pathologic features of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis with mitochondrial tRNALeu(UUR) gene mutation
Clinical and pathologic features of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis with mitochondrial tRNALeu(UUR) gene mutation.BackgroundSeveral families have been described in which an A to G transition mutation at position 3243 (A3243G) of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is associated with focal and segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). However, the prevalence, clinical features, and pathophysiology of FSGS carrying mtDNA mutations are largely undefined.MethodsAmong 11 biopsy-proven primary FSGS patients of unknown etiology, we examined seven FSGS patients to determine whether any of the clinical and pathological features of FSGS were associated with an A3243G mtDNA mutation. In four subjects in whom the A3243G mtDNA mutation was discovered in blood leukocytes, as well as in urine sediments, we retrospectively reviewed the medical records and re-evaluated the renal biopsy specimen using light and electron microscopy. We further screened the patient's family members for the presence and degree of heteroplasmy for this mtDNA mutation and obtained medical histories that were consistent with mitochondrial cytopathy.ResultsThe four individuals identified with the A3243G mtDNA mutation were female. Proteinuria was diagnosed in these individuals during a routine annual health checkup in their teenage years. None of the patients showed any symptoms related to mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episode, whereas diabetes mellitus in two of the patients and a hearing disturbance in one patient became manifest within a 3- to 13-year follow-up period. Strict maternal transmitted inheritance was confirmed by pedigree studies in all of these patients. Steroid therapy was ineffective in all four patients. In two of these patients, renal function declined slowly to end-stage renal failure. Histologic examination of biopsy specimens revealed that glomeruli were not hypertrophied, while electron microscopic examination identified severely damaged, multinucleated podocytes containing extremely dysmorphic abnormal mitochondria in all patients.ConclusionsFSGS may belong to the spectrum of renal involvement in A3243G mtDNA mutation in humans. Severely injured podocytic changes containing abnormal mitochondria may explain the pathogenesis of FSGS in association with the A3243G mtDNA mutation
Bosonized noncommutative bi-fundamental fermion and S-duality
We perform the path-integral bosonization of the recently proposed
noncommutative massive Thirring model (NCMT) [JHEP0503(2005)037]. This
model presents two types of current-current interaction terms related to the
bi-fundamental representation of the group U(1). Firstly, we address the
bosonization of a bi-fundamental free Dirac fermion defined on a noncommutative
(NC) Euclidean plane \IR_{\theta}^{2}. In this case we show that the fermion
system is dual to two copies of the NC Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten model. Next,
we apply the bosonization prescription to the NCMT model living on
\IR_{\theta}^{2} and show that this model is equivalent to two-copies of the
WZNW model and a two-field potential defined for scalar fields corresponding to
the global symmetry plus additional bosonized terms for the
four fermion interactions. The bosonic sector resembles to the one proposed by
Lechtenfeld et al. [Nucl. Phys. B705(2005)477] as the noncommutative
sine-Gordon for a {\sl pair} of scalar fields. The bosonic and fermionic
couplings are related by a strong-weak duality. We show that the couplings of
the both sectors for some representations satisfy similar relationships up to
relevant re-scalings, thus the NC bi-fundamental couplings are two times the
corresponding ones of the NC fundamental (anti-fundamental) and eight times the
couplings of the ordinary massive Thirring and sine-Gordon models.Comment: 18 pages, LaTex. References added. A general product has been considered in the conclusion section . Version to appear in
JHE
On massive tensor multiplets
Massive tensor multiplets have recently been scrutinized in hep-th/0410051
and hep-th/0410149, as they appear in orientifold compactifications of type IIB
string theory. Here we formulate several dually equivalent models for massive N
= 1, N=2 tensor multiplets in four space-time dimensions. In the N = 2 case, we
employ harmonic and projective superspace techniques.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, no figures; V2: reference adde
Lax pair and Darboux transformation of noncommutative U(N) principal chiral model
We present a noncommutative generalization of Lax formalism of U(N) principal
chiral model in terms of a one-parameter family of flat connections. The Lax
formalism is further used to derive a set of parametric noncommutative
B\"{a}cklund transformation and an infinite set of conserved quantities. From
the Lax pair, we derive a noncommutative version of the Darboux transformation
of the model.Comment: 1+20 page
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