A novel method for the injection and manipulation of magnetic charge states in nanostructures

Realising the promise of next-generation magnetic nanotechnologies is contingent on the development of novel methods for controlling magnetic states at the nanoscale. There is currently demand for simple and flexible techniques to access exotic magnetisation states without convoluted fabrication and application processes. 360 degree domain walls (metastable twists in magnetisation separating two domains with parallel magnetisation) are one such state, which is currently of great interest in data storage and magnonics. Here, we demonstrate a straightforward and powerful process whereby a moving magnetic charge, provided experimentally by a magnetic force microscope tip, can write and manipulate magnetic charge states in ferromagnetic nanowires. The method is applicable to a wide range of nanowire architectures with considerable benefits over existing techniques. We confirm the method's efficacy via the injection and spatial manipulation of 360 degree domain walls in Py and Co nanowires. Experimental results are supported by micromagnetic simulations of the tip-nanowire interaction.Comment: in Scientific Reports (2016

Center on Disability Studies eNewsletter, September 2022

Welcome to the September 2022 issue of the CDS eNewsletter. Special highlights in this issue include: Featured Artist Lynnell Mateaki RDS Seeks Manuscript Review Board Members Exhibitor Release #PacRim2023 Introducing Deaf in Government Partnership #PacRim2023 Call for Presentation Proposals #PacRim2023 Legislative Forum Dates | Hawaiʻi DD Council Hawaiʻi's Path to Employment First Seminar Recording Now Available 2022-2023 CDS Community Advisory Council Introduction Website Launch Project Hoʻokuʻi V: Kūlia i ka Nuʻu Fall Announcements with Project Hōkūlani eNewsletterSpecial eNewsletter highlights include: Featured Artist Lynnell Mateaki; RDS Seeks Disability Studies Call for Reviewers; Pac Rim Exhibitor Invitation; Pac Rim Call for Proposals; Hawaiʻi State Council on Developmental Disabilities Legislative Forums; Presentation Hawaiʻi's Path to Employment First with Patrick Gartside available; Introducing 2022-2023 Community Advisory Council; Project Hoʻokuʻi V: Kūlia i ka Nuʻu Website Launch; and Project Hōkūlani 2022 Summer eNewsletter Release, Hōkūlani Insider

Center on Disability Studies eNewsletter, June 2023

Welcome to our summer newsletter. In this issue we highlight many events and happenings sponsored by CDS during June and July that you don’t want to miss out on. Disability Pride Month is also celebrated each year in July. Disability Pride initially started as a day of celebration in 1990, the year that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law. It is also an opportunity to raise awareness about improving access and inclusion. The first official Disability Pride celebration occurred in 2015 to commemorate the ADA’s 25th anniversary and the Disability Pride Flag was originally designed in 2019 by Ann Magill, who with feedback within the disabled community, refined its visual elements in 2021 to be more accessible. You can read more about how the disability pride flag helps increase the community’s visibility at https://go.hawaii.edu/qEX

POT1 mutations predispose to familial melanoma

Deleterious germline variants in CDKN2A account for around 40% of familial melanoma cases, and rare variants in CDK4, BRCA2, BAP1 and the promoter of TERT have also been linked to the disease. Here we set out to identify new high-penetrance susceptibility genes by sequencing 184 melanoma cases from 105 pedigrees recruited in the UK, The Netherlands and Australia that were negative for variants in known predisposition genes. We identified families where melanoma cosegregates with loss-of-function variants in the protection of telomeres 1 gene (POT1), with a proportion of family members presenting with an early age of onset and multiple primary tumors. We show that these variants either affect POT1 mRNA splicing or alter key residues in the highly conserved oligonucleotide/oligosaccharide-binding (OB) domains of POT1, disrupting protein-telomere binding and leading to increased telomere length. These findings suggest that POT1 variants predispose to melanoma formation via a direct effect on telomeres.D.J.A., C.D.R.-E., Z.D., J.Z.L., J.C.T., M.P. and T.M.K. were supported by Cancer Research UK and the Wellcome Trust (WT098051). C.D.R.-E. was also supported by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología of Mexico. K.A.P. and A.M.D. were supported by Cancer Research UK (grants C1287/A9540 and C8197/A10123) and by the Isaac Newton Trust. N.K.H. was supported by a fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC). L.G.A. was supported by an Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited Trustees PhD scholarship. A.L.P. is supported by Cure Cancer Australia. The work was funded in part by the NHMRC and Cancer Council Queensland. The work of N.A.G. was in part supported by the Dutch Cancer Society (UL 2012-5489). M.H., J.A.N.-B. and D.T.B. were supported by Cancer Research UK (programme awards C588/A4994 and C588/A10589 and the Genomics Initiative). C.L.-O., A.J.R. and V.Q. are funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), the Red Temática de Investigación del Cáncer (RTICC) del ISCIII and the Consolider-Ingenio RNAREG Consortium. C.L.-O. is an investigator with the Botín Foundation.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from NPG via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng.294

Il sito web dell'Osservatorio Vesuviano

L'Osservatorio Vesuviano ha di recente realizzato una radicale ristrutturazione del proprio sito Web, attivo dalla seconda metà del 1997, al fine di adeguarlo alla sua nuova configurazione giuridica. Infatti, dal 10 gennaio 2001 è entrato a far parte dell'Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), un ente nazionale di nuova formazione in cui sono confluiti i maggiori enti ed istituzioni di ricerca operanti nel campo della geofisica e della vulcanologia in Italia. Con la nascita dell'INGV si è posta un'esigenza di coordinamento tra i siti web di dette istituzioni, che si configurano attualmente come sezioni del nuovo ente nazionale. Inoltre, è sorta la necessità di creare delle pagine comuni, relative all'ente nella sua totalità, che introducessero i visitatori alle pagine delle singole sezioni ed eventualmente a specifici tematismi riguardanti le attività dell'ente. A tal fine, è stato istituito un gruppo di Coordinamento Nazionale per il Web che comprende personale afferente alle diverse sezioni. Parallelamente sono stati istituiti gruppi di lavoro locali per la ristrutturazione dei siti delle sezioni. Nell'ambito di questa riorganizzazione, presso l'Osservatorio Vesuviano, con Decreto Direttoriale N. 6, del 30 gennaio 2002, è stato istituito un gruppo di lavoro con il compito di curare la progettazione e lo sviluppo del nuovo sito web della sezione. Nello svolgimento di questa attività il gruppo di lavoro si è posto come obbiettivi prioritari l'usabilità e l'accessibilità del sito, in ottemperanza alle indicazioni espresse dalla più recente normativa apparsa in materia. Per perseguire a pieno questi obbiettivi e garantire la massima fruibilità delle informazioni è stata prevista, fin dalla fase progettuale, la realizzazione del sito anche in versione inglese, che attualmente è in allestimento. Il nuovo sito web dell'Osservatorio Vesuviano è stato messo in linea il 22 maggio 2002 ed è visitabile all'indirizzo http://www.ov.ingv.it. Nel seguito del presente rapporto sono introdotte sinteticamente le finalità istituzionali e le principali attività dell'Osservatorio Vesuviano e sono descritte le fasi di progettazione e sviluppo del sito, con particolare dettaglio sulla strutturazione dei contenuti, definita nell'ambito delle linee dettate dal decreto di istituzione del gruppo di lavoro, e sulle scelte tecnologiche adottate

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) neurotoxicity in rats: a reappraisal of past and present findings

RATIONALE: 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is a widely abused illicit drug. In animals, high-dose administration of MDMA produces deficits in serotonin (5-HT) neurons (e.g., depletion of forebrain 5-HT) that have been interpreted as neurotoxicity. Whether such 5-HT deficits reflect neuronal damage is a matter of ongoing debate. OBJECTIVE: The present paper reviews four specific issues related to the hypothesis of MDMA neurotoxicity in rats: (1) the effects of MDMA on monoamine neurons, (2) the use of “interspecies scaling” to adjust MDMA doses across species, (3) the effects of MDMA on established markers of neuronal damage, and (4) functional impairments associated with MDMA-induced 5-HT depletions. RESULTS: MDMA is a substrate for monoamine transporters, and stimulated release of 5-HT, NE, and DA mediates effects of the drug. MDMA produces neurochemical, endocrine, and behavioral actions in rats and humans at equivalent doses (e.g., 1–2 mg/kg), suggesting that there is no reason to adjust doses between these species. Typical doses of MDMA causing long-term 5-HT depletions in rats (e.g., 10–20 mg/kg) do not reliably increase markers of neurotoxic damage such as cell death, silver staining, or reactive gliosis. MDMA-induced 5-HT depletions are accompanied by a number of functional consequences including reductions in evoked 5-HT release and changes in hormone secretion. Perhaps more importantly, administration of MDMA to rats induces persistent anxiety-like behaviors in the absence of measurable 5-HT deficits. CONCLUSIONS: MDMA-induced 5-HT depletions are not necessarily synonymous with neurotoxic damage. However, doses of MDMA which do not cause long-term 5-HT depletions can have protracted effects on behavior, suggesting even moderate doses of the drug may pose risks

Effect of Citalopram on Emotion Processing in Humans:A Combined 5-HT [C]CUMI-101 PET and Functional MRI Study

A subset of patients started on a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) initially experience increased anxiety, which can lead to early discontinuation before therapeutic effects are manifest. The neural basis of this early SSRI effect is not known. Presynaptic dorsal raphe neuron (DRN) 5-HT1A receptors are known to play a critical role in affect processing. Thus we investigated the effect of acute citalopram on emotional processing and the relationship between DRN 5-HT1A receptor availability and amygdala reactivity. Thirteen (mean age 48±9 years) healthy male subjects received either a saline or citalopram infusion intravenously (10 mg over 30 min) on separate occasions in a single-blind, random order, cross-over design. On each occasion, participants underwent a block design face-emotion processing task during fMRI known to activate the amygdala. Ten subjects also completed a positron emission tomography (PET) scan to quantify DRN 5-HT1A availability using [(11)C]CUMI-101.Citalopram infusion when compared to saline resulted in a significantly increased bilateral amygdala responses to fearful vs. neutral faces (Left p=0.025; Right p=0.038 FWE-corrected). DRN [(11)C]CUMI-101availability significantly positively correlated with the effect of citalopram on the left amygdala response to fearful faces (Z=2.51, p=0.027) and right amygdala response to happy faces (Z=2.33, p=0.032). Our findings indicate that the initial effect of SSRI treatment is to alter processing of aversive stimuli, and that this is linked to DRN 5-HT1A receptors in line with evidence that 5-HT1A receptors have a role in mediating emotional processing

A reappraisal of the impact of dairy foods and milk fat on cardiovascular disease risk

Background This review provides a reappraisal of the potential effects of dairy foods, including dairy fats, on cardiovascular disease (CVD)/coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. Commodities and foods containing saturated fats are of particular focus as current public dietary recommendations are directed toward reducing the intake of saturated fats as a means to improve the overall health of the population. A conference of scientists from different perspectives of dietary fat and health was convened in order to consider the scientific basis for these recommendations. Aims This review and summary of the conference focus on four key areas related to the biology of dairy foods and fats and their potential impact on human health: (a) the effect of dairy foods on CVD in prospective cohort studies; (b) the impact of dairy fat on plasma lipid risk factors for CVD; (c) the effects of dairy fat on non-lipid risk factors for CVD; and (d) the role of dairy products as essential contributors of micronutrients in reference food patterns for the elderly. Conclusions Despite the contribution of dairy products to the saturated fatty acid composition of the diet, and given the diversity of dairy foods of widely differing composition, there is no clear evidence that dairy food consumption is consistently associated with a higher risk of CVD. Thus, recommendations to reduce dairy food consumption irrespective of the nature of the dairy product should be made with cautionJ. Bruce German, Robert A. Gibson, Ronald M. Krauss, Paul Nestel, Benoît Lamarche, Wija A. van Staveren, Jan M. Steijns, Lisette C. P. G. M. de Groot, Adam L. Lock and Frédéric Destaillat