1,446 research outputs found
Expression of the legume symbiotic lectin genes psl and gs52 promotes rhizobial colonization of roots in rice
Transgenic rice (Oryza sativa L. cv. Murasaki) carrying genes encoding pea (Pisum sativum) lectin (PSL) or wild-soybean (Glycine soja) lectin-nucleotide phosphohydrolase (GS52) were inoculated with Rhizobium leguminosarum bv. viciae or Bradyrhizobium japonicum USDA110, respectively, as well as with Rhizobium sp. NGR234, and root colonization was assessed in comparison to comparably inoculated control plants. The data showed that expression of PSL and GS52 significantly promoted rhizobial colonization of root epidermal cells including root hairs in rice. In addition, in the case of R. leguminosarum bv. viciae and B. japonicum USDA110 colonization of the psl and gs52 transgenic rice plants, respectively, the bacterial cells were found to preferentially home towards and aggregate maximally at the root hair tip regions rather than on the root hair "stalks". The above data suggest that the lectins PSL and GS52, which participate in rhizobial recognition by root epidermal cells in pea and soybean, respectively, are also able to facilitate rhizobial attachment and colonization of the epidermal cells in rice roots. Moreover, aggregation of R. leguminosarum bv. viciae and B. japonicum USDA110 cells preferentially at root hair tip regions suggest that similar to legumes, the PSL and GS52 lectins are targeted to the root hair tips in transgenic rice, enabling higher bacterial attachment/colonization at the tip region. Rhizobial colonization at root hair tips in the psl and gs52 rice plants frequently led to the localized dissolution of the cell wall creating perforations at the tip region. It is likely that the presence of lectins, such as PSL and GS52 leads to structural modifications in cell wall organization of the root hair/epidermal cells, making them prone to localized dissolution by the hydrolytic activity of compatible rhizobia to permit invasion of the root cells. © 2005 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved
Derivation and validation of a multivariate model to predict mortality from pulmonary embolism with cancer: The POMPE-C tool
BackgroundClinical guidelines recommend risk stratification of patients with acute pulmonary embolism (PE). Active cancer increases risk of PE and worsens prognosis, but also causes incidental PE that may be discovered during cancer staging. No quantitative decision instrument has been derived specifically for patients with active cancer and PE. Methods Classification and regression technique was used to reduce 25 variables prospectively collected from 408 patients with AC and PE. Selected variables were transformed into a logistic regression model, termed POMPE-C, and compared with the pulmonary embolism severity index (PESI) score to predict the outcome variable of death within 30 days. Validation was performed in an independent sample of 182 patients with active cancer and PE. Results POMPE-C included eight predictors: body mass, heart rate > 100, respiratory rate, SaO2%, respiratory distress, altered mental status, do not resuscitate status, and unilateral limb swelling. In the derivation set, the area under the ROC curve for POMPE-C was 0.84 (95% CI: 0.82-0.87), significantly greater than PESI (0.68, 0.60-0.76). In the validation sample, POMPE-C had an AUC of 0.86 (0.78-0.93). No patient with POMPE-C estimate ≤ 5% died within 30 days (0/50, 0-7%), whereas 10/13 (77%, 46-95%) with POMPE-C estimate > 50% died within 30 days. Conclusion In patients with active cancer and PE, POMPE-C demonstrated good prognostic accuracy for 30 day mortality and better performance than PESI. If validated in a large sample, POMPE-C may provide a quantitative basis to decide treatment options for PE discovered during cancer staging and with advanced cancer
Principios básicos de resonancia magnética cardiovascular (RMC): secuencias, planos de adquisición y protocolo de estudio
ABSTRACT
Evaluation of the cardiovascular system with
magnetic resonance (CMR) has become one of the most
relevant and up-to-the-minute clinical applications of
this diagnostic technique, as CMR makes possible an
exact and reproducible study of the anatomy and
function of the heart and great vessels. The complexity
of this technique is mainly due to the anatomical
location and orientation of the cardiovascular
structures, the specific CMR sequences that have to be
used and a lack of familiarity amongst radiologists
regarding cardiovascular pathology. In this report the
most basic principles of CMR are described. The clinical
usefulness of anatomical, functional, and flow
quantification sequences are discussed, conventional
CMR acquisition planes are described, and an easy CMR
study protocol is proposed
Domain Walls of D=8 Gauged Supergravities and their D=11 Origin
Performing a Scherk-Schwarz dimensional reduction of D=11 supergravity on a
three-dimensional group manifold we construct five D=8 gauged maximal
supergravities whose gauge groups are the three-dimensional (non-)compact
subgroups of SL(3,R). These cases include the Salam-Sezgin SO(3) gauged
supergravity. We construct the most general half-supersymmetric domain wall
solutions to these five gauged supergravities. The generic form is a triple
domain wall solution whose truncations lead to double and single domain wall
solutions. We find that one of the single domain wall solutions has zero
potential but nonzero superpotential.
Upon uplifting to 11 dimensions each domain wall becomes a purely
gravitational 1/2 BPS solution. The corresponding metric has a 7+4 split with a
Minkowski 7-metric and a 4-metric that corresponds to a gravitational
instanton. These instantons generalize the SO(3) metric of Belinsky, Gibbons,
Page and Pope (which includes the Eguchi-Hanson metric) to the other Bianchi
types of class A.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure, minor changes, references adde
Giant Magnons under NS-NS and Melvin Fields
The giant magnon is a rotating spiky string configuration which has the same
dispersion relation between the energy and angular momentum as that of a spin
magnon. In this paper we investigate the effects of the NS-NS and Melvin fields
on the giant magnon. We first analyze the energy and angular momenta of the
two-spin spiky D-string moving on the with the NS-NS field.
Due to the infinite boundary of the AdS spacetime the D-string solution will
extend to infinity and it appears the divergences. After adding the counter
terms we obtain the dispersion relation of the corresponding giant magnon. The
result shows that there will appear a prefactor before the angular momentum, in
addition to some corrections in the sine function. We also see that the spiky
profile of a rotating D-string plays an important role in mapping it to a spin
magnon. We next investigate the energy and angular momentum of the one-spin
spiky fundamental string moving on the with the electric or
magnetic Melvin field. The dispersion relation of the corresponding deformed
giant magnon is also obtained. We discuss some properties of the correction
terms and their relations to the spin chain with deformations.Comment: Latex 20 pages, mention D-string and add reference
Effective Lagrangian for strongly coupled domain wall fermions
We derive the effective Lagrangian for mesons in lattice gauge theory with
domain-wall fermions in the strong-coupling and large-N_c limits. We use the
formalism of supergroups to deal with the Pauli-Villars fields, needed to
regulate the contributions of the heavy fermions. We calculate the spectrum of
pseudo-Goldstone bosons and show that domain wall fermions are doubled and
massive in this regime. Since we take the extent and lattice spacing of the
fifth dimension to infinity and zero respectively, our conclusions apply also
to overlap fermions.Comment: 26 pp. RevTeX and 3 figures; corrected error in symmetry breaking
scheme and added comments to discussio
Alterations to nuclear architecture and genome behavior in senescent cells.
The organization of the genome within interphase nuclei, and how it interacts with nuclear structures is important for the regulation of nuclear functions. Many of the studies researching the importance of genome organization and nuclear structure are performed in young, proliferating, and often transformed cells. These studies do not reveal anything about the nucleus or genome in nonproliferating cells, which may be relevant for the regulation of both proliferation and replicative senescence. Here, we provide an overview of what is known about the genome and nuclear structure in senescent cells. We review the evidence that nuclear structures, such as the nuclear lamina, nucleoli, the nuclear matrix, nuclear bodies (such as promyelocytic leukemia bodies), and nuclear morphology all become altered within growth-arrested or senescent cells. Specific alterations to the genome in senescent cells, as compared to young proliferating cells, are described, including aneuploidy, chromatin modifications, chromosome positioning, relocation of heterochromatin, and changes to telomeres
Distributed flow optimization and cascading effects in weighted complex networks
We investigate the effect of a specific edge weighting scheme on distributed flow efficiency and robustness to cascading
failures in scale-free networks. In particular, we analyze a simple, yet
fundamental distributed flow model: current flow in random resistor networks.
By the tuning of control parameter and by considering two general cases
of relative node processing capabilities as well as the effect of bandwidth, we
show the dependence of transport efficiency upon the correlations between the
topology and weights. By studying the severity of cascades for different
control parameter , we find that network resilience to cascading
overloads and network throughput is optimal for the same value of over
the range of node capacities and available bandwidth
Study of the D^0 \to pi^-pi^+pi^-pi^+ decay
Using data from the FOCUS (E831) experiment at Fermilab, we present new
measurements for the Cabibbo-suppressed decay mode . We measure the branching ratio .
An amplitude analysis has been performed, a first for this channel, in order to
determine the resonant substructure of this decay mode. The dominant component
is the decay , accounting for 60% of the decay rate.
The second most dominant contribution comes from the decay , with a fraction of 25%. We also study the
line shape and resonant substructure. Using the helicity formalism for the
angular distribution of the decay , we measure
a longitudinal polarization of %.Comment: 38 pages, 8 figures. accepted for publication in Physical Review
Search for and Using Genetic Programming Event Selection
We apply a genetic programming technique to search for the double Cabibbo
suppressed decays and .
We normalize these decays to their Cabibbo favored partners and find
\Lambda_c^+ \to p K^+ \pi^-\Lambda_c^+ \to p K^-
\pi^+ and D_s^+ \to K^+ K^+
\pi^-D_s^+ \to K^+ K^- \pi^+ where
the first errors are statistical and the second are systematic. Expressed as
90% confidence levels (CL), we find and respectively.
This is the first successful use of genetic programming in a high energy
physics data analysis.Comment: 10 page
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