Renal disease in nail-patella syndrome: Clinical and morphologic studies

Renal disease in nail-patella syndrome: Clinical and morphological studies. Clinical and morphological features of seven patients with the nail-patella syndrome are described. Progression to renal failure after a prolonged period of asymptomatic proteinuria is reported. Kidney tissue from these seven patients studied by light, immunofluorescent and electron microscopy demonstrated abnormalities characteristic of this disease. Focal glomerular basement membrane thickening was observed by light microscopy. Immunofluorescent microscopy showed focal glomerular basement membrane and arteriolar staining with serum proteins, predominantly IgM and β1C. Electron microscopy revealed markedly abnormal glomerular basement membranes containing bundles of cross-striated fibrils. These fibrils were more readily demonstrated in phosphotungstic acid-stained sections. The data presented suggest that the inborn error of connective tissue metabolism of the nail-patella syndrome is associated with renal disease as the result of deposition of collagen moieties in glomerular basement membranes with subsequent alterations of glomerular structure and function

On Forward J/\psi Production at Fermilab Tevatron

The D0 Collaboration has recently reported the measurement of J/\psi production at low angle. We show here that the inclusion of color octet contributions in any framework is able to reproduce this data.Comment: 1 page, Revtex, uses epsfig.sty, 2 postscript figure

Gravel pits support waterbird diversity in an urban landscape

We assessed the benefit of 11 gravel pits for the settlement of waterbird communities in an urbanized area lacking natural wetlands. Gravel pits captured 57% of the regional species pool of aquatic birds. We identified 39 species, among which five were regionally rare. We used the Self Organizing Map algorithm to calculate the probabilities of presence of species, and to bring out habitat conditions that predict assemblage patterns. The age of the pits did not correlate with assemblage composition and species richness. There was a positive influence of macrophyte cover on waterbird species richness. Larger pits did not support more species, but species richness increased with connectivity. As alternative wetland habitats, gravel pits are attractive to waterbirds, when they act as stepping stones that ensure connectivity between larger natural and/or artificial wetlands separated in space

Testing the dynamics of high energy scattering using vector meson production

I review work on diffractive vector meson production in photon-proton collisions at high energy and large momentum transfer, accompanied by proton dissociation and a large rapidity gap. This process provides a test of the high energy scattering dynamics, but is also sensitive to the details of the treatment of the vector meson vertex. The emphasis is on the description of the process by a solution of the non-forward BFKL equation, i.e. the equation describing the evolution of scattering amplitudes in the high-energy limit of QCD. The formation of the vector meson and the non-perturbative modeling needed is also briefly discussed.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures. Brief review to appear in Mod. Phys. Lett.

AdS/QCD and Light Front Holography: A New Approximation to QCD

The combination of Anti-de Sitter space (AdS) methods with light-front holography leads to a semi-classical first approximation to the spectrum and wavefunctions of meson and baryon light-quark bound states. Starting from the bound-state Hamiltonian equation of motion in QCD, we derive relativistic light-front wave equations in terms of an invariant impact variable zeta which measures the separation of the quark and gluonic constituents within the hadron at equal light-front time. These equations of motion in physical space-time are equivalent to the equations of motion which describe the propagation of spin-J modes in anti--de Sitter (AdS) space. Its eigenvalues give the hadronic spectrum, and its eigenmodes represent the probability distributions of the hadronic constituents at a given scale. Applications to the light meson and baryon spectra are presented. The predicted meson spectrum has a string-theory Regge form ${\cal M}^2 = 4 \kappa^2(n+L+S/2)$; i.e., the square of the eigenmass is linear in both L and n, where n counts the number of nodes of the wavefunction in the radial variable zeta. The space-like pion and nucleon form factors are also well reproduced. One thus obtains a remarkable connection between the description of hadronic modes in AdS space and the Hamiltonian formulation of QCD in physical space-time quantized on the light-front at fixed light-front time. The model can be systematically improved by using its complete orthonormal solutions to diagonalize the full QCD light-front Hamiltonian or by applying the Lippmann-Schwinger method in order to systematically include the QCD interaction terms.Comment: Invited talk, presented by SJB at the Fifth International Conference On Quarks and Nuclear Physics (QNP09), 21-26 Sep 2009, Beijing, China. Figure update

Immunologic aspects of the nephrotic syndrome

The nephrotic syndrome is a clinical entity characterized by proteinuria, hypoalbuminemia, edema and hyperlipidemia. All the features of this syndrome are ultimately related to increased permeability of the glomerular capillary to protein. A specific disease entity in its mildest form may result in mild proteinuria insufficient to cause hypoalbuminemia and the other physiological manifestations of the nephrotic syndrome; the same disease in another patient or at another time in the same patient may cause marked proteinuria and the nephrotic state. The principal difference between proteinuria alone and that associated with the nephrotic syndrome in any specific disease would therefore appear to be quantitative, although it is likely that other factors play a role

Efficient energy transfer in light-harvesting systems, I: optimal temperature, reorganization energy, and spatial-temporal correlations

Understanding the mechanisms of efficient and robust energy transfer in light-harvesting systems provides new insights for the optimal design of artificial systems. In this paper, we use the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) protein complex and phycocyanin 645 (PC 645) to explore the general dependence on physical parameters that help maximize the efficiency and maintain its stability. With the Haken-Strobl model, the maximal energy transfer efficiency (ETE) is achieved under an intermediate optimal value of dephasing rate. To avoid the infinite temperature assumption in the Haken-Strobl model and the failure of the Redfield equation in predicting the Forster rate behavior, we use the generalized Bloch-Redfield (GBR) equation approach to correctly describe dissipative exciton dynamics and find that maximal ETE can be achieved under various physical conditions, including temperature, reorganization energy, and spatial-temporal correlations in noise. We also identify regimes of reorganization energy where the ETE changes monotonically with temperature or spatial correlation and therefore cannot be optimized with respect to these two variables