387 research outputs found
Melatonin Therapy Prevents Programmed Hypertension and Nitric Oxide Deficiency in Offspring Exposed to Maternal Caloric Restriction
Nitric oxide (NO) deficiency is involved in the development of hypertension, a condition that can originate early in life. We examined whether NO deficiency contributed to programmed hypertension in offspring from mothers with calorie-restricted diets and whether melatonin therapy prevented this process. We examined 3-month-old male rat offspring from four maternal groups: untreated controls, 50% calorie-restricted (CR) rats, controls treated with melatonin (0.01% in drinking water), and CR rats treated with melatonin (CR + M). The effect of melatonin on nephrogenesis was analyzed using next-generation sequencing. The CR group developed hypertension associated with elevated plasma asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA, a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor), decreased L-arginine, decreased L-arginine-to-ADMA ratio (AAR), and decreased renal NO production. Maternal melatonin treatment prevented these effects. Melatonin prevented CR-induced renin and prorenin receptor expression. Renal angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 protein levels in the M and CR + M groups were also significantly increased by melatonin therapy. Maternal melatonin therapy had long-term epigenetic effects on global gene expression in the kidneys of offspring. Conclusively, we attributed these protective effects of melatonin on CR-induced programmed hypertension to the reduction of plasma ADMA, restoration of plasma AAR, increase of renal NO level, alteration of renin-angiotensin system, and epigenetic changes in numerous genes
Analysis of Agreement on Traditional Chinese Medical Diagnostics for Many Practitioners
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) diagnostics, it is an important issue to study the degree of agreement among several distinct practitioners. In order to study the reliability of TCM diagnostics, we have to design an experiment to simultaneously deal with both of the cases when the data is ordinal and when there are many TCM practitioners. In this study, we consider a reliability measure called “Krippendorff's alpha” to investigate the agreement of tongue diagnostics in TCM. Besides, since it is not easy to obtain a large data set with patients rated simultaneously by many TCM practitioners, we use the renowned “bootstrapping” to obtain a 95% confidence interval for the Krippendorff's alpha. The estimated Krippendorff's alpha for the agreement among ten physicians that discerned fifteen randomly chosen patients is 0.7343, and the 95% bootstrapping confidence interval for the true alpha coefficient is [0.6570, 0.7349]. The data was collected and analyzed at the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Changhua Christian Hospital (CCH) in Taiwan
Observational connection of non-thermal X-ray emission from pulsars with their timing properties and thermal emission
The origin and radiation mechanisms of high energy emissions from pulsars
have remained mysterious since their discovery. Here we report, based on a
sample of 68 pulsars, observational connection of non-thermal X-ray emissions
from pulsars with their timing properties and thermal emissions, which may
provide some constraints on theoretical modeling. Besides strong correlations
with the spin-down power and the magnetic field strength at the light
cylinder , the non-thermal X-ray luminosity in 0.5 - 8 keV, , represented by the power-law component in the spectral model, is found to
be strongly correlated with the highest possible electric field strength in the
polar gap, , of the pulsar. The spectral power index of that power-law component is also found, for the first time in the
literature, to strongly correlate with , and , thanks to the large sample. In addition, we found that can be
well described by , where
and are the surface temperature and the emitting-region radius of the
surface thermal emission, represented by the black-body component in the
spectral model. , on the other hand, can be well described only
when timing variables are included, and the relation is
plus a constant. These relations strongly suggest the existence of connections
between surface thermal emission and electron-positron pair production in
pulsar magnetospheres.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, accepted by MNRA
Computing Optical Properties of Ultra-thin Crystals
An overview is given of recent advances in experimental and theoretical
understanding of optical properties of ultra-thin crystal structures (graphene,
phosphorene, silicene, MoS2, MoSe2 , WS2 , WSe2 , h-AlN, h-BN, fluorographene,
graphane). Ultra-thin crystals are atomically-thick layered crystals that have
unique properties which differ from their 3D counterpart. Because of the
difficulties in the synthesis of few-atom-thick crystal structures, which are
thought to be the main building blocks of future nanotechnology, reliable
theoretical predictions of their electronic, vibrational and optical properties
are of great importance. Recent studies revealed the reliable predictive power
of existing theoretical approaches based on density functional theory (DFT)
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Band-1 Receiver
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array(ALMA) Band 1 receiver covers
the 35-50 GHz frequency band. Development of prototype receivers, including the
key components and subsystems has been completed and two sets of prototype
receivers were fully tested. We will provide an overview of the ALMA Band 1
science goals, and its requirements and design for use on the ALMA. The
receiver development status will also be discussed and the infrastructure,
integration, evaluation of fully-assembled band 1 receiver system will be
covered. Finally, a discussion of the technical and management challenges
encountered will be presented
Demographic and Clinical Characteristics of Patients with Severe Asthma in the Asian Pacific Region : data from the International Severe Asthma Registry (ISAR)
Peer reviewe
Organic Photovoltaic Cells: From Performance Improvement to Manufacturing Processes
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111806/1/smll201402883.pd
Carbon-Nanotube-Embedded Hydrogel Sheets for Engineering Cardiac Constructs and Bioactuators
We engineered functional cardiac patches by seeding neonatal rat cardiomyocytes onto carbon nanotube (CNT)-incorporated photo-cross-linkable gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) hydrogels. The resulting cardiac constructs showed excellent mechanical integrity and advanced electrophysiological functions. Specifically, myocardial tissues cultured on 50 μm thick CNT-GelMA showed 3 times higher spontaneous synchronous beating rates and 85% lower excitation threshold, compared to those cultured on pristine GelMA hydrogels. Our results indicate that the electrically conductive and nanofibrous networks formed by CNTs within a porous gelatin framework are the key characteristics of CNT-GelMA leading to improved cardiac cell adhesion, organization, and cell–cell coupling. Centimeter-scale patches were released from glass substrates to form 3D biohybrid actuators, which showed controllable linear cyclic contraction/extension, pumping, and swimming actuations. In addition, we demonstrate for the first time that cardiac tissues cultured on CNT-GelMA resist damage by a model cardiac inhibitor as well as a cytotoxic compound. Therefore, incorporation of CNTs into gelatin, and potentially other biomaterials, could be useful in creating multifunctional cardiac scaffolds for both therapeutic purposes and in vitro studies. These hybrid materials could also be used for neuron and other muscle cells to create tissue constructs with improved organization, electroactivity, and mechanical integrity.United States. Army Research Office. Institute for Soldier NanotechnologiesNational Institutes of Health (U.S.) (HL092836)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (EB02597)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (AR057837)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (HL099073)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (DMR0847287)United States. Office of Naval Research (ONR PECASE Award)United States. Office of Naval Research (Young Investigator award)National Research Foundation of Korea (grant (NRF-2010-220-D00014)
The Compton Spectrometer and Imager
The Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) is a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX)
satellite mission in development with a planned launch in 2027. COSI is a
wide-field gamma-ray telescope designed to survey the entire sky at 0.2-5 MeV.
It provides imaging, spectroscopy, and polarimetry of astrophysical sources,
and its germanium detectors provide excellent energy resolution for emission
line measurements. Science goals for COSI include studies of 0.511 MeV emission
from antimatter annihilation in the Galaxy, mapping radioactive elements from
nucleosynthesis, determining emission mechanisms and source geometries with
polarization measurements, and detecting and localizing multimessenger sources.
The instantaneous field of view for the germanium detectors is >25% of the sky,
and they are surrounded on the sides and bottom by active shields, providing
background rejection as well as allowing for detection of gamma-ray bursts and
other gamma-ray flares over most of the sky. In the following, we provide an
overview of the COSI mission, including the science, the technical design, and
the project status.Comment: 8 page
The cosipy library: COSI's high-level analysis software
The Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) is a selected Small Explorer
(SMEX) mission launching in 2027. It consists of a large field-of-view Compton
telescope that will probe with increased sensitivity the under-explored MeV
gamma-ray sky (0.2-5 MeV). We will present the current status of cosipy, a
Python library that will perform spectral and polarization fits, image
deconvolution, and all high-level analysis tasks required by COSI's broad
science goals: uncovering the origin of the Galactic positrons, mapping the
sites of Galactic nucleosynthesis, improving our models of the jet and emission
mechanism of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and
detecting and localizing gravitational wave and neutrino sources. The cosipy
library builds on the experience gained during the COSI balloon campaigns and
will bring the analysis of data in the Compton regime to a modern open-source
likelihood-based code, capable of performing coherent joint fits with other
instruments using the Multi-Mission Maximum Likelihood framework (3ML). In this
contribution, we will also discuss our plans to receive feedback from the
community by having yearly software releases accompanied by publicly-available
data challenges
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