10,812 research outputs found
Synovial fibroblasts: key players in rheumatoid arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune-disease of unknown origin that primarily affects the joints and ultimately leads to their destruction. The involvement of immune cells is a general hallmark of autoimmune-related disorders. In this regard, macrophages, T cells and their respective cytokines play a pivotal role in RA. However, the notion that RA is a primarily T-cell-dependent disease has been strongly challenged during recent years. Rather, it has been understood that resident, fibroblast-like cells contribute significantly to the perpetuation of disease, and that they may even play a role in its initiation. These rheumatoid arthritis synovial fibroblasts (RASFs) constitute a quite unique cell type that distinguishes RA from other inflammatory conditions of the joints. A number of studies have demonstrated that RASFs show alterations in morphology and behaviour, including molecular changes in signalling cascades, apoptosis responses and in the expression of adhesion molecules as well as matrix-degrading enzymes. These changes appear to reflect a stable activation of RASFs, which occurs independently of continuous exogenous stimulation. As a consequence, RASFs are no longer considered passive bystanders but active players in the complex intercellular network of R
Internal relaxation time in immersed particulate materials
We study the dynamics of the solid to liquid transition for a model material
made of elastic particles immersed in a viscous fluid. The interaction between
particle surfaces includes their viscous lubrication, a sharp repulsion when
they get closer than a tuned steric length and their elastic deflection induced
by those two forces. We use Soft Dynamics to simulate the dynamics of this
material when it experiences a step increase in the shear stress and a constant
normal stress. We observe a long creep phase before a substantial flow
eventually establishes. We find that the typical creep time relies on an
internal relaxation process, namely the separation of two particles driven by
the applied stress and resisted by the viscous friction. This mechanism should
be relevant for granular pastes, living cells, emulsions and wet foams
Selective decay by Casimir dissipation in fluids
The problem of parameterizing the interactions of larger scales and smaller
scales in fluid flows is addressed by considering a property of two-dimensional
incompressible turbulence. The property we consider is selective decay, in
which a Casimir of the ideal formulation (enstrophy in 2D flows, helicity in 3D
flows) decays in time, while the energy stays essentially constant. This paper
introduces a mechanism that produces selective decay by enforcing Casimir
dissipation in fluid dynamics. This mechanism turns out to be related in
certain cases to the numerical method of anticipated vorticity discussed in
\cite{SaBa1981,SaBa1985}. Several examples are given and a general theory of
selective decay is developed that uses the Lie-Poisson structure of the ideal
theory. A scale-selection operator allows the resulting modifications of the
fluid motion equations to be interpreted in several examples as parameterizing
the nonlinear, dynamical interactions between disparate scales. The type of
modified fluid equation systems derived here may be useful in modelling
turbulent geophysical flows where it is computationally prohibitive to rely on
the slower, indirect effects of a realistic viscosity, such as in large-scale,
coherent, oceanic flows interacting with much smaller eddies
cross section from the dipole model in momentum space
We reproduce the DIS measurements of the proton structure function at high
energy from the dipole model in momentum space. To model the dipole-proton
forward scattering amplitude, we use the knowledge of asymptotic solutions of
the Balitsky-Kovchegov equation, describing high-energy QCD in the presence of
saturation effects. We compare our results with the previous analysis in
coordinate space and discuss possible extensions of our approach.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
Physiological and biochemical basis for stay-green trait in sorghum
Drought is a major cause of sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] yield losses in rain-fed agriculture, especially in the semi-arid and arid agro-ecological zones of Africa and Asia. Stay-green sorghum genotypes are able to maintain grain filling under drought conditions. The trait has been employed in the selection and breeding for post-flowering drought resistance, even though the genes regulating the trait are still being identified. The objective of this study was to assess how leaf area and chlorophyll are maintained in various sources of stay-green; and to determine whether the integrity of the photosynthetic apparatus and enzymes involved in the maintenance of photosynthesis during post-flowering drought stress are regulated differently. A glasshouse experiment was conducted using three stay-green sorghum lines (B35, KS19 and E36-1) and a senescent control, R16, under well-watered (WW) and water-limited (WL) conditions. The size of the canopy at anthesis varied significantly between genotypes, and this profoundly impacted leaf senescence patterns. For example, green leaf area (GLA) at anthesis was highly correlated with the decline in GLA during the first 21 days of grain filling, under both WW (r = 0.92) and WL (r = 0.86) conditions. These differences in senescence patterns were further exacerbated by the small pot size in this study (10 L). E36-1 is normally designated as a stay-green genotype, but the growth of this ‘high leaf area’, genotype in a small pot resulted in a senescent phenotype. Green leaf area retention was higher in B35 and KS19, and the loss of GLA started 14 days earlier in the WL E36-1 and R16 plants, compared to B35, with little change in KS19. Chlorophyll levels were higher in B35 and KS19 compared with R16 and E36-1 under WL conditions. FPSII, CO2 assimilation rate, leaf conductance, transpiration rate and leaf water use efficiency were higher in the stay-green genotypes under WL conditions compared to R16. Enzymes involved in leaf nitrogen metabolism and chlorophyll biosynthesis, and photosynthesis were retained at higher levels in the stay-green lines than in R16. Therefore, the stay-green mechanism resulted in reduced destruction of the photosynthetic apparatus, better nitrogen metabolism and chlorophyll turnover, and maintenance of active enzymes involved in photosynthesis
Spin- and angle-resolved photoemission studies of the electronic structure of Si(110)"16x2" surfaces
The electronic structure of Si(110)"16 x 2" double-domain, single-domain and
1 x 1 surfaces have been investigated using spin- and angle-resolved
photoemission at sample temperatures of 77 K and 300 K. Angle-resolved
photoemission was conducted using horizontally- and vertically-polarised 60 eV
and 80 eV photons. Band-dispersion maps revealed four surface states ( to
) which were assigned to silicon dangling bonds on the basis of measured
binding energies and photoemission intensity changes between horizontal and
vertical light polarisations. Three surface states (, and ),
observed in the Si(110)"16 x 2" reconstruction, were assigned to Si adatoms and
Si atoms present at the edges of the corrugated terrace structure. Only one of
the four surface states, , was observed in both the Si(110)"16 x 2" and 1
x 1 band maps and consequently attributed to the pervasive Si zigzag chains
that are components of both the Si(110)"16 x 2" and 1 x 1 surfaces. A state in
the bulk-band region was attributed to an in-plane bond. All data were
consistent with the adatom-buckling model of the Si(110)"16 x 2" surface.
Whilst room temperature measurements of and were statistically
compatible with zero, measurements of the enantiomorphic A-type and
B-type Si(110)"16 x 2" surfaces gave small average polarisations of around
1.5\% that were opposite in sign. Further measurements at 77 K on A-type
Si(110)"16 x 2" surface gave a smaller value of +0.3\%. An upper limit of
may thus be taken for the longitudinal polarisation.Comment: Main paper: 12 pages and 11 figures. Supplemental information: 5
pages and 2 figure
Extreme Sensitivity of the Superconducting State in Thin Films
All non-interacting two-dimensional electronic systems are expected to
exhibit an insulating ground state. This conspicuous absence of the metallic
phase has been challenged only in the case of low-disorder, low density,
semiconducting systems where strong interactions dominate the electronic state.
Unexpectedly, over the last two decades, there have been multiple reports on
the observation of a state with metallic characteristics on a variety of
thin-film superconductors. To date, no theoretical explanation has been able to
fully capture the existence of such a state for the large variety of
superconductors exhibiting it. Here we show that for two very different
thin-film superconductors, amorphous indium-oxide and a single-crystal of
2H-NbSe2, this metallic state can be eliminated by filtering external
radiation. Our results show that these superconducting films are extremely
sensitive to external perturbations leading to the suppression of
superconductivity and the appearance of temperature independent, metallic like,
transport at low temperatures. We relate the extreme sensitivity to the
theoretical observation that, in two-dimensions, superconductivity is only
marginally stable.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
The Sudden Death of the Nearest Quasar
Galaxy formation is significantly modulated by energy output from
supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies which grow in highly
efficient luminous quasar phases. The timescale on which black holes transition
into and out of such phases is, however, unknown. We present the first
measurement of the shutdown timescale for an individual quasar using X-ray
observations of the nearby galaxy IC 2497, which hosted a luminous quasar no
more than 70,000 years ago that is still seen as a light echo in `Hanny's
Voorwerp', but whose present-day radiative output is lower by at least 2 and
more likely by over 4 orders of magnitude. This extremely rapid shutdown
provides new insights into the physics of accretion in supermassive black
holes, and may signal a transition of the accretion disk to a radiatively
inefficient state.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Astrophysical Journal Letters, in pres
Coherent states for the hydrogen atom
We construct wave packets for the hydrogen atom labelled by the classical
action-angle variables with the following properties. i) The time evolution is
exactly given by classical evolution of the angle variables. (The angle
variable corresponding to the position on the orbit is now non-compact and we
do not get exactly the same state after one period. However the gross features
do not change. In particular the wave packet remains peaked around the labels.)
ii) Resolution of identity using this overcomplete set involves exactly the
classical phase space measure. iii) Semi-classical limit is related to
Bohr-Sommerfield quantization. iv) They are almost minimum uncertainty wave
packets in position and momentum.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, minor change in language and journal reference
adde
MicroRNAs as new player in rheumatoid arthritis
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNA molecules that negatively regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. Currently, there are 939 mature human miRNA sequences listed in the Sanger updated miRNA registry. There are approximately 1500 predicted miRNAs in the human genome that may regulate the expression of one third of our genes. By controlling the accumulation of the target protein(s) in cells, these regulatory RNA molecules participate in key functions in many physiological networks and their deregulation has been implicated in the pathogenesis of serious human disorders, such as cancer and infection. The implication of miRNAs in immune-mediated disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has recently emerged suggesting that miRNA-based therapeutic approaches may have a promising potential in these diseases. Here, we provide an overview of the state-of-the-art on miRNAs in RA, focusing on both systemic and local features of the pathology
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