Computed tomography and magnetic resonance diagnosis of variations in the anatomical location of the major salivary glands in 1680 dogs and 187 cats

During assessment of routine clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the heads of dogs, variations in the location of mandibular and zygomatic salivary glands (SGs) were observed incidentally. The aims of this retrospective study were to describe anatomical variations of the major SGs found on MRI and computed tomography (CT) studies of the head in dogs and cats and to investigate possible clinical relevancy. No anatomical variation of the SGs was seen in cats, but in dogs, although variation of the parotid SG was not identified, that of the mandibular SG was found in 33/1680 animals (2%), either unilaterally (6/33 right-sided, 13/33 left-sided) or bilaterally (14/33). The Border terrier breed (19/33, 58%) was over-represented. Each atypically located mandibular SG was positioned medial to the digastric muscle and rostral to the retropharyngeal lymph node. The sublingual glands were difficult to delineate from the mandibular glands. Anatomical variation of one zygomatic gland (3/4 left-sided) was identified in four small-breed dogs (0.2%). Each atypically located zygomatic gland was tilted at the ventrorostral aspect of the masseter muscle underneath the skin surface. MRI and CT characteristics were not different between typically and atypically located SGs. None of the dogs had clinical signs related with SG disease. It was concluded that, with suspected breed predispositions, incidental unilateral or bilateral anatomical variations of mandibular and zygomatic SGs can be encountered in dogs and an awareness of these possible variations may be important in pre-surgical planning

Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy of DNA Monolayers Modified with Nile Blue

Scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) is used to probe long-range charge transport (CT) through DNA monolayers containing the redox-active Nile Blue (NB) intercalator covalently affixed at a specific location in the DNA film. At substrate potentials negative of the formal potential of covalently attached NB, the electrocatalytic reduction of Fe(CN)63− generated at the SECM tip is observed only when NB is located at the DNA/solution interface; for DNA films containing NB in close proximity to the DNA/electrode interface, the electrocatalytic effect is absent. This behavior is consistent with both rapid DNA-mediated CT between the NB intercalator and the gold electrode as well as a rate-limiting electron transfer between NB and the solution phase Fe(CN)63−. The DNA-mediated nature of the catalytic cycle is confirmed through sequence-specific and localized detection of attomoles of TATA-binding protein, a transcription factor that severely distorts DNA upon binding. Importantly, the strategy outlined here is general and allows for the local investigation of the surface characteristics of DNA monolayers both in the absence and in the presence of DNA binding proteins. These experiments highlight the utility of DNA-modified electrodes as versatile platforms for SECM detection schemes that take advantage of CT mediated by the DNA base pair stack

The maximum density droplet to lower density droplet transition in quantum dots

We show that, Landau level mixing in two-dimensional quantum dot wave functions can be taken into account very effectively by multiplying the exact lowest Landau level wave functions by a Jastrow factor which is optimized by variance minimization. The comparison between exact diagonalization and fixed phase diffusion Monte Carlo results suggests that the phase of the many-body wave functions are not affected much by Landau level mixing. We apply these wave functions to study the transition from the maximum density droplet state (incipient integer quantum Hall state with angular momentum L=N(N-1)/2) to lower density droplet states (L>N(N-1)/2).Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

The generating function for a particular class of characters of SU(n)

We compute the generating function for the characters of the irreducible representations of SU(n) whose associated Young diagrams have only two rows with the same number of boxes. The result is a rational determinantal expression in which both the numerator and the denominator have a simple structure when expressed in terms of Schur polynomials.Comment: 7 pages, no figure

Nutrient uptake by soybeans on two Iowa soils

Although the soybean was introduced into the United States in 1804, it is only recently that its production has increased to the point where as a cash-grain crop it ranks fourth in the United States and second in the Midwest. It is perhaps owing to the relatively new status of the soybean as an important crop that the soil fertility requirements are not as yet well understood. Notwithstanding the fact that soybean yields increase with the fertility level of the soil, experiments in the Midwest have shown in general that soybeans do not give the profitable response to direct application of fertilizer that is obtained with corn. The yield increases produced by direct application of fertilizers are comparatively small and unpredictable. This behavior may result from plant characteristics that have been classified as feeding power or it may result from a lack of knowledge of the plant in relation to its environment so that advantage is not taken of the proper means to bring about a profitable increase in yield from fertilizer application. Regarding\u27 the latter point, Norman (20) has suggested that information on the nutritional needs of the plant during its various stages of growth might be of considerable value in the experimental approach to the soil fertility problems of the soybean. To obtain such information for soybeans grown in the field on two Iowa soils differing widely in fertility level was the primary object of the present investigation

The Phosphate/Amide I ratio is Reduced by in vitro Glycation and may Correlate with Fracture Toughness

poster abstractIntroduction: Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) form when reducing sugars react with proteins. In bone AGEs can form in type I collagen which results in non-enzymatically derived crosslinks. While enzymatic crosslinks play an important role in strengthening the collagen matrix, non-enzymatic crosslinks are believed to reduce toughness. AGEs accumulate in bone over time and play an important role in reducing bone quality particularly in aging and diabetic patients who accumulate AGEs more rapidly due to increases in circulating glucose. Non-enzymatic glycation of bone can be modeled experimentally by soaking samples in a sugar solution which allows decades worth of AGE accumulation to occur in a short time. AGEs are primarily measured using fluorescence measurements or high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Spectroscopic techniques have been developed to determine enzymatic crosslinking maturity by detecting perturbations in collagen structure in the Amide I region and it may be possible to detect similar changes caused by AGEs. We hypothesized that the formation of AGEs in collagen would perturb the Amide I band of Raman spectra causing changes to the mineral to matrix ratio (MMR) which would correlate with AGE-induced mechanical changes in an in vitro ribose soaking experiment. If changes due to non-enzymatic glycation can be detected in the Amide I band, Raman spectroscopic techniques could be developed to assess the presence of AGEs in a non-destructive and widely available manner. Methods: Five femurs were harvested from male hounds from a previous IACUC approved study. From the mid-diaphysis, six beams ~1.4 x 4 x 24 mm were sectioned from each bone. Two beams from each sample were randomly assigned to one of three groups. One of those beams was sanded to 1.4 x 2 x 20 mm for fracture toughness testing while the other was used for Raman spectroscopy and Reference Point Indentation (RPI). All beams were soaked for 14 consecutive days at 37°C in solutions containing 1% Pen-Strep, 1.3mM CaCl2 and either no ribose (Control), 0.2M ribose (Low), or 0.6M ribose (High) in Hank’s Balanced Salt Solution with solutions changed every other day. After soaking, a notch was started in the sanded beam with a diamond wire sectioning saw and then sharpened by hand with a razor using a 1μm diamond suspension. Notched beams were submerged in fluid and loaded in displacement control to 0.03mm, unloaded to 0.015mm, held for 10s, then cycled until failure with a 0.05mm load, a 0.02 unload, and a 10s hold. J-R curves were calculated using ASTM E1820-5a to obtain initiation stress intensity factor (KIc) and maximum stress intensity factor (Kmax). Raman spectra were acquired at five points along the length of the second beam using a LabRAM HR 800 with a 660nm laser focused to a spot size of ~10μm. After baseline correction, OriginPro 8.6 was used to calculate MMR as the area of the PO43- ν1 peak over the area of the Amide I band. Following Raman spectroscopy, co-localized RPI was performed at each Raman location using 10 cycles of a 5N force at 2Hz. One-way ANOVA tested mean differences between samples. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were calculated between MMR and parameters from RPI and fracture toughness. All values are presented as mean ± standard deviation and all statistics were carried out using SAS 9.4. Results: Raman spectroscopy and RPI were not performed on one sample from the Low group. Data were not available for one Control sample and Kmax was excluded for one High sample. Neither KIc nor Kmax were significantly different between groups (Control: 6.59 ± 0.42, 13.55 ± 1.38 MPa√m; Low: 6.19 ± 1.98, 14.80 ± 2.00 MPa√m; High: 6.84 ± 1.18, 15.25 ± 2.35 MPa√m). MMR was significantly different between groups (p=0.039). Tukey HSD post-hoc tests revealed that Control (2.45 ± 0.37) was significantly greater than High (1.85 ± 0.20) while Low was intermediate (2.18 ± 0.37) but not significantly different. No significant differences were observed with RPI. A weak positive correlation was observed between average creep indentation increase (CID) and MMR (R2=0.079, p=0.0185) but no other RPI measurements were correlated with MMR. Two influential points, determined by a Cook’s distance > 4/n, were excluded from the regression KIc to MMR. A mild trend was observed between KIc and MMR but the fit did not reach significance (R2=0.334, p=0.0628). Discussion: Because samples were all from the same 5 animals and randomized into groups, any differences between groups arose from the soaking in solutions of different concentrations of ribose. AGEs were not measured to confirm the expected dose-dependent increase, but noticeable browning occurred in the High group which was less pronounced in the Low group and not present in Control. The soaking protocol and ribose concentrations were chosen based on previous literature showing increases in AGEs. Therefore, we are confident changes noted here are due to the presence of AGEs and the resulting non-enzymatic crosslinks. Because soaking was performed in appropriately buffered solutions, decreased MMR in the High group relative to Control are expected to occur due to glycation of collagen rather than changes in mineral content. We suspect that perturbations in collagen structure due to the presence of non-enzymatic crosslinks are causing the differences in the area of the Amide I band between groups. Given the changes in MMR with glycation, future studies investigating models where AGEs are likely present should be cautious in their interpretation of MMR if it is not supported by other measures of mineralization. The lack of significant differences between groups for RPI and fracture toughness parameters may be due to the small sample size (n=4-5 per group) and biological variations associated with mechanical techniques. However, the sample size was adequate to assess correlations between Raman and RPI due to the co-localized measurements in each sample (n=70). The positive correlation between CID and MMR was expected given AGEs have been shown to reduce creep behavior and since MMR is decreased by AGEs. However, the correlation is weak which is likely due to the overall small non-significant effect in CID compared to its variation. The correlation between MMR and initiation toughness similarly suggests that as AGEs reduce MMR, KIc decreases which is known to occur with glycation. While the correlation did not reach significance (p=0.063), the trend is compelling given the small sample size (n=11) and the use of Raman data from an adjacent beam from the same sample rather than the beam used to measure KIc. In conclusion, MMR changes in response to in vitro glycation and these changes are correlated to CID and possibly to KIc. Deconvolution of the Amide I region into sub-peaks to determine which peak(s) are altered in the presence of AGEs is an important next step to developing a spectroscopic technique that can assess the presence of AGEs and is recommended in future work. Significance: Correlations were performed between Raman spectroscopy, Reference Point Indentation, and fracture toughness measurements to evaluate the ability of perturbations in the Amide I band to explain glycation-induced changes in tissue mechanics. Non-enzymatic glycation is an important determinant of bone quality especially in aging and diabetic patients and understanding the specific roles composition and microscale mechanics play in determining how non-enzymatic glycation affects fracture toughness may lead to new therapeutic targets