Expression of anion exchanger 2 in human gastric cancer

Anion exchanger 2 (AE2), which mediates exchange of Cl-/HCO3- across the plasma membrane, is widely expressed in body tissues. It is most abundantly expressed in stomach and is responsible for the uptake of Cl- ions that are destined to become HCl molecules. Aim: To determine whether AE2 expression was altered in gastric tumors. Methods: We have studied AE2 expression in normal human gastric tissues (n =16) and in gastric tumors (n = 33) using immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescent labeling. Results: In normal gastric tissue positive staining was observed in gastric fundus gland, suggesting parietal cell-related expression of AE2, and AE2 expression was localized in the nuclear membrane and even in cell nuclei. For assay of cancerous gastric tissues, specimens of human gastric cancer arising from the region of the fundus (2 cases), the body (14 cases) and the antrum (17 cases) were randomly selected. Immunohistochemical staining has showed that AE2 was down-regulated in all 14 cancerous gastric body specimens, whereas staining for AE2 in cancerous antrum was less intense and had a diffuse profile. Conclusions: The data suggest that AE2 might be associated with gastric carcinogenesis and the achlorhydria experienced by gastric cancer patients.Анионный обменник 2 (АЕ2), который опосредует перенос Cl- /HCO3 - через плазматическую мембрану, экспрессируется клетками разных тканей. Самый высокий уровень экспрессии АЕ2 в желудке, поскольку этот белок отвечает за поглощение ионов Cl- , которые впоследствии используются для секреции HCl. Цель: Изучить изменения в экспрессии АЕ2 при раке желудка. Методы: исследована экспрессия АЕ2 в нормальных тканях (n = 16) и опухолях желудка (n = 33) с применением методов иммуногистохимии и иммунофлуоресценции. Результаты: в нетрансформированной ткани желудка в фундальной железе выявляли сильную положительную реакцию, что свидетельствует об экспрессии АЕ2 париетальными клетками, причем экспрессия АЕ2 была локализирована в ядерной мембране и в ядре. В опухолях желудка (фундального отдела (n = 2), тела (n = 14) и антрального отдела (n = 17)), отобранных случайным образом, был проведен анализ экспрессии АЕ2. Иммуногистохимическое исследование показало снижение экспрессии АЕ2 во всех 14 случаях рака тела желудка. Окрашивание АЕ2 в образцах рака антрального отдела желудка было менее интенсивным и диффузным. Выводы: полученные данные позволяют предположить наличие связи между экспрессией АЕ2 и развитием рака желудка, а также ахлоргидрией, отмечаемой у больных раком желудка

Nucleon-nucleon momentum correlation function for light nuclei

Nucleon-nucleon momentum correlation function have been presented for nuclear reactions with neutron-rich or proton-rich projectiles using a nuclear transport theory, namely Isospin-Dependent Quantum Molecular Dynamics model. The relationship between the binding energy of projectiles and the strength of proton-neutron correlation function at small relative momentum has been explored, while proton-proton correlation function shows its sensitivity to the proton density distribution. Those results show that nucleon-nucleon correlation function is useful to reflect some features of the neutron- or proton-halo nuclei and therefore provide a potential tool for the studies of radioactive beam physics.Comment: Talk given at the 18th International IUPAP Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics (FB18), Santos, Brasil, August 21-26, 2006. To appear in Nucl. Phys.

Scaling of anisotropy flows in intermediate energy heavy ion collisions

Anisotropic flows ($v_1$, $v_2$ and $v_4$) of light nuclear clusters are studied by a nucleonic transport model in intermediate energy heavy ion collisions. The number-of-nucleon scalings of the directed flow ($v_1$) and elliptic flow ($v_2$) are demonstrated for light nuclear clusters. Moreover, the ratios of $v_4/v_2^2$ of nuclear clusters show a constant value of 1/2 regardless of the transverse momentum. The above phenomena can be understood by the coalescence mechanism in nucleonic level and are worthy to be explored in experiments.Comment: Invited talk at "IX International Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions", Rio de Janeiro, Aug 28- Sept 1, 2006; to appear on the proceeding issue in Nuclear Physics

Aerosol particles at a high-altitude site on the Southeast Tibetan Plateau, China: Implications for pollution transport from South Asia

      Bulk aerosol samples were collected from 16 July 2008 to 26 July 2009 at Lulang, a high-altitude (>3300m above sea level) site on the southeast Tibetan Plateau (TP); objectives were to determine chemical characteristics of the aerosol and identify its major sources. We report aerosol (total suspended particulate, TSP) mass levels and the concentrations of selected elements, carbonaceous species, and water-soluble inorganic ions. Significant buildup of aerosol mass and chemical species (organic carbon, element carbon, nitrate, and sulfate) occurred during the premonsoon, while lower concentrations were observed during the monsoon. Seasonal variations in aerosol and chemical species were driven by precipitation scavenging and atmospheric circulation. Two kinds of high-aerosol episodes were observed: one was enriched with dust indicators (Fe and Ca2+), and the other was enhanced with organic and elemental carbon (OC and EC), SO42−, NO3−, and Fe. The TSP loadings during the latter were 3 to 6 times those on normal days. The greatest aerosol optical depths (National Centers for Environmental Protection/National Center for Atmospheric Research reanalysis) occurred upwind, in eastern India and Bangladesh, and trajectory analysis indicates that air pollutants were transported from the southwest. Northwesterly winds brought high levels of natural emissions (Fe, Ca2+) and low levels of pollutants (SO42−, NO3−, K+, and EC); this was consistent with high aerosol optical depths over the western deserts and Gobi. Our work provides evidence that both geological and pollution aerosols from surrounding regions impact the aerosol population of the TP

On the temperature dependence of the symmetry energy

We perform large-scale shell model Monte Carlo (SMMC) calculations for many nuclei in the mass range A=56-65 in the complete pfg_{9/2}d_{5/2} model space using an effective quadrupole-quadrupole+pairing residual interaction. Our calculations are performed at finite temperatures between T=0.33-2 MeV. Our main focus is the temperature dependence of the symmetry energy which we determine from the energy differences between various isobaric pairs with the same pairing structure and at different temperatures. Our SMMC studies are consistent with an increase of the symmetry energy with temperature. We also investigate possible consequences for core-collapse supernovae events

Azimuthal asymmetry of direct photons in intermediate energy heavy-ion collisions

Hard photon emitted from energetic heavy ion collisions is of very interesting since it does not experience the late-stage nuclear interaction, therefore it is useful to explore the early-stage information of matter phase. In this work, we have presented a first calculation of azimuthal asymmetry, characterized by directed transverse flow parameter $F$ and elliptic asymmetry coefficient $v_2$, for proton-neutron bremsstrahlung hard photons in intermediate energy heavy-ion collisions. The positive $F$ and negative $v_2$ of direct photons are illustrated and they seem to be anti-correlated to the corresponding free proton's flow.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; accepted by Physics Letters

Low Complexity Regularization of Linear Inverse Problems

Inverse problems and regularization theory is a central theme in contemporary signal processing, where the goal is to reconstruct an unknown signal from partial indirect, and possibly noisy, measurements of it. A now standard method for recovering the unknown signal is to solve a convex optimization problem that enforces some prior knowledge about its structure. This has proved efficient in many problems routinely encountered in imaging sciences, statistics and machine learning. This chapter delivers a review of recent advances in the field where the regularization prior promotes solutions conforming to some notion of simplicity/low-complexity. These priors encompass as popular examples sparsity and group sparsity (to capture the compressibility of natural signals and images), total variation and analysis sparsity (to promote piecewise regularity), and low-rank (as natural extension of sparsity to matrix-valued data). Our aim is to provide a unified treatment of all these regularizations under a single umbrella, namely the theory of partial smoothness. This framework is very general and accommodates all low-complexity regularizers just mentioned, as well as many others. Partial smoothness turns out to be the canonical way to encode low-dimensional models that can be linear spaces or more general smooth manifolds. This review is intended to serve as a one stop shop toward the understanding of the theoretical properties of the so-regularized solutions. It covers a large spectrum including: (i) recovery guarantees and stability to noise, both in terms of $\ell^2$-stability and model (manifold) identification; (ii) sensitivity analysis to perturbations of the parameters involved (in particular the observations), with applications to unbiased risk estimation ; (iii) convergence properties of the forward-backward proximal splitting scheme, that is particularly well suited to solve the corresponding large-scale regularized optimization problem

Origins of the Ambient Solar Wind: Implications for Space Weather

The Sun's outer atmosphere is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees, and solar plasma flows out into interplanetary space at supersonic speeds. This paper reviews our current understanding of these interrelated problems: coronal heating and the acceleration of the ambient solar wind. We also discuss where the community stands in its ability to forecast how variations in the solar wind (i.e., fast and slow wind streams) impact the Earth. Although the last few decades have seen significant progress in observations and modeling, we still do not have a complete understanding of the relevant physical processes, nor do we have a quantitatively precise census of which coronal structures contribute to specific types of solar wind. Fast streams are known to be connected to the central regions of large coronal holes. Slow streams, however, appear to come from a wide range of sources, including streamers, pseudostreamers, coronal loops, active regions, and coronal hole boundaries. Complicating our understanding even more is the fact that processes such as turbulence, stream-stream interactions, and Coulomb collisions can make it difficult to unambiguously map a parcel measured at 1 AU back down to its coronal source. We also review recent progress -- in theoretical modeling, observational data analysis, and forecasting techniques that sit at the interface between data and theory -- that gives us hope that the above problems are indeed solvable.Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Special issue connected with a 2016 ISSI workshop on "The Scientific Foundations of Space Weather." 44 pages, 9 figure