Vulnerability of protoxylem and metaxylem vessels to embolisms and radial refilling in a vascular bundle of maize leaves

Regulation of water flow in an interconnected xylem vessel network enables plants to survive despite challenging environment changes that can cause xylem embolism. In this study, vulnerability to embolisms of xylem vessels and their water-refilling patterns in vascular bundles of maize leaves were experimentally investigated by employing synchrotron X-ray micro-imaging technique. A vascular bundle in maize consisted of a protoxylem vessel with helical thickenings between two metaxylem vessels with single perforation plates and nonuniformly distributed pits. When embolism was artificially induced in excised maize leaves by exposing them to air, protoxylem vessels became less vulnerable to dehydration compared to metaxylem vessels. After supplying water into the embolized vascular bundles, when water-refilling process stopped at the perforation plates in metaxylem vessels, discontinuous radial water influx occurred surprisingly in the adjacent protoxylem vessels. Alternating water refilling pattern in protoxylem and metaxylem vessels exhibited probable correlation between the incidence location and time of water refilling and the structural properties of xylem vessels. These results imply that the maintenance of water transport and modulation of water refilling are affected by hydrodynamic roles of perforation plates and radial connectivity in a xylem vascular bundle network.113Ysciescopu

Nearly Perfect Durable Superhydrophobic Surfaces Fabricated by a Simple One-Step Plasma Treatment

Fabrication of superhydrophobic surfaces is an area of great interest because it can be applicable to various engineering fields. A simple, safe and inexpensive fabrication process is required to fabricate applicable superhydrophobic surfaces. In this study, we developed a facile fabrication method of nearly perfect superhydrophobic surfaces through plasma treatment with argon and oxygen gases. A polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) sheet was selected as a substrate material. We optimized the fabrication parameters to produce superhydrophobic surfaces of superior performance using the Taguchi method. The contact angle of the pristine PTFE surface is approximately 111.0�� �� 2.4��, with a sliding angle of 12.3�� �� 6.4��. After the plasma treatment, nano-sized spherical tips, which looked like crown-structures, were created. This PTFE sheet exhibits the maximum contact angle of 178.9��, with a sliding angle less than 1��. As a result, this superhydrophobic surface requires a small external force to detach water droplets dripped on the surface. The contact angle of the fabricated superhydrophobic surface is almost retained, even after performing an air-aging test for 80 days and a droplet impacting test for 6 h. This fabrication method can provide superb superhydrophobic surface using simple one-step plasma etching. ? 2017 The Author(s).114Ysciescopu

Pion Content of the Nucleon as seen in the NA51 Drell-Yan experiment

In a recent CERN Drell-Yan experiment the NA51 group found a strong asymmetry of $\bar u$ and $\bar d$ densities in the proton at $x\simeq0.18$. We interpret this result as a decisive confirmation of the pion-induced sea in the nucleon.Comment: 10 pages + 3 figures, Preprint KFA-IKP(TH)-1994-14 .tex file. After \enddocument a uu-encodeded Postscript file comprising the figures is appende

Role of Inter-Electron Interaction in the Pseudo-Gap Opening in High T c_c Tunneling Experiments

The analysis of tunneling experiments showing the pseudogap type behavior is carried out based on the idea of the renormalization of density of states due to the inter-electron interaction in the Cooper channel (superconducting fluctuations contribution in tunneling current). It is demonstrated that the observed kink of the zero-bias conductance $G(0,T)$ of $YBaCuO/Pb$ junctions in the vicinity of $T_c$ can be explained in terms of fluctuation theory in a quite wide range of temperature above $T_c$, using the values of microscopic parameters of the $YBaCuO$ electron spectrum taken from independent experiments. The approach proposed also permits to explain qualitatively the shape of the tunneling anomalies in $G(V,T)$ and gives a correct estimate for the pseudogap position and amplitude observed in the experiments on $BiSrCaCuO$ junctions.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Superstrings on NS5 backgrounds, deformed AdS3 and holography

We study a non-standard decoupling limit of the D1/D5-brane system, which interpolates between the near-horizon geometry of the D1/D5 background and the near-horizon limit of the pure D5-brane geometry. The S-dual description of this background is actually an exactly solvable two-dimensional (worldsheet) conformal field theory: {null-deformed SL(2,R)} x SU(2) x T^4 or K3. This model is free of strong-coupling singularities. By a careful treatment of the SL(2,R), based on the better-understood SL(2,R) / U(1) coset, we obtain the full partition function for superstrings on SL(2,R) x SU(2) x K3. This allows us to compute the partition functions for the J^3 and J^2 current-current deformations, as well as the full line of supersymmetric null deformations, which links the SL(2,R) conformal field theory with linear dilaton theory. The holographic interpretation of this setup is a renormalization-group flow between the decoupled NS5-brane world-volume theory in the ultraviolet (Little String Theory), and the low-energy dynamics of super Yang--Mills string-like instantons in six dimensions.Comment: JHEP style, 59 pages, 1 figure; v2: minor changes, to appear in JHE

Blood pressure-lowering effects of nifedipine/candesartan combinations in high-risk individuals: Subgroup analysis of the DISTINCT randomised trial

The DISTINCT study (reDefining Intervention with Studies Testing Innovative Nifedipine GITS - Candesartan Therapy) investigated the efficacy and safety of nifedipine GITS/candesartan cilexetil combinations vs respective monotherapies and placebo in patients with hypertension. This descriptive sub-analysis examined blood pressure (BP)-lowering effects in high-risk participants, including those with renal impairment (estimated glomerular filtration rate<90 ml min-1, n=422), type 2 diabetes mellitus (n=202), hypercholesterolaemia (n=206) and cardiovascular (CV) risk factors (n=971), as well as the impact of gender, age and body mass index (BMI). Participants with grade I/II hypertension were randomised to treatment with nifedipine GITS (N) 20, 30, 60 mg and/or candesartan cilexetil (C) 4, 8, 16, 32 mg or placebo for 8 weeks. Mean systolic BP and diastolic BP reductions after treatment in high-risk participants were greater, overall, with N/C combinations vs respective monotherapies or placebo, with indicators of a dose-response effect. Highest rates of BP control (ESH/ESC 2013 guideline criteria) were also achieved with highest doses of N/C combinations in each high-risk subgroup. The benefits of combination therapy vs monotherapy were additionally observed in patient subgroups categorised by gender, age or BMI. All high-risk participants reported fewer vasodilatory adverse events in the pooled N/C combination therapy than the N monotherapy group. In conclusion, consistent with the DISTINCT main study outcomes, high-risk participants showed greater reductions in BP and higher control rates with N/C combinations compared with respective monotherapies and lesser vasodilatory side-effects compared with N monotherapy

Refined histopathological predictors of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status: A large-scale analysis of breast cancer characteristics from the BCAC, CIMBA, and ENIGMA consortia

Introduction: The distribution of histopathological features of invasive breast tumors in BRCA1 or BRCA2 germline mutation carriers differs from that of individuals with no known mutation. Histopathological features thus have utility for mutation prediction, including statistical modeling to assess pathogenicity of BRCA1 or BRCA2 variants of uncertain clinical significance. We analyzed large pathology datasets accrued by the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2 (CIMBA) and the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) to reassess histopathological predictors of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status, and provide robust likelihood ratio (LR) estimates for statistical modeling. Methods: Selection criteria for study/center inclusion were estrogen receptor (ER) status or grade data available for invasive breast cancer diagnosed younger than 70 years. The dataset included 4,477 BRCA1 mutation carriers, 2,565 BRCA2 mutation carriers, and 47,565 BCAC breast cancer cases. Country-stratified estimates of the

Tides in colliding galaxies

Long tails and streams of stars are the most noticeable upshots of galaxy collisions. Their origin as gravitational, tidal, disturbances has however been recognized only less than fifty years ago and more than ten years after their first observations. This Review describes how the idea of galactic tides emerged, in particular thanks to the advances in numerical simulations, from the first ones that included tens of particles to the most sophisticated ones with tens of millions of them and state-of-the-art hydrodynamical prescriptions. Theoretical aspects pertaining to the formation of tidal tails are then presented. The third part of the review turns to observations and underlines the need for collecting deep multi-wavelength data to tackle the variety of physical processes exhibited by collisional debris. Tidal tails are not just stellar structures, but turn out to contain all the components usually found in galactic disks, in particular atomic / molecular gas and dust. They host star-forming complexes and are able to form star-clusters or even second-generation dwarf galaxies. The final part of the review discusses what tidal tails can tell us (or not) about the structure and content of present-day galaxies, including their dark components, and explains how tidal tails may be used to probe the past evolution of galaxies and their mass assembly history. On-going deep wide-field surveys disclose many new low-surface brightness structures in the nearby Universe, offering great opportunities for attempting galactic archeology with tidal tails.Comment: 46 pages, 13 figures, Review to be published in "Tidal effects in Astronomy and Astrophysics", Lecture Notes in Physics. Comments are most welcom

Fine-mapping of prostate cancer susceptibility loci in a large meta-analysis identifies candidate causal variants

Prostate cancer is a polygenic disease with a large heritable component. A number of common, low-penetrance prostate cancer risk loci have been identified through GWAS. Here we apply the Bayesian multivariate variable selection algorithm JAM to fine-map 84 prostate cancer susceptibility loci, using summary data from a large European ancestry meta-analysis. We observe evidence for multiple independent signals at 12 regions and 99 risk signals overall. Only 15 original GWAS tag SNPs remain among the catalogue of candidate variants identified; the remainder are replaced by more likely candidates. Biological annotation of our credible set of variants indicates significant enrichment within promoter and enhancer elements, and transcription factor-binding sites, including AR, ERG and FOXA1. In 40 regions at least one variant is colocalised with an eQTL in prostate cancer tissue. The refined set of candidate variants substantially increase the proportion of familial relative risk explained by these known susceptibility regions, which highlights the importance of fine-mapping studies and has implications for clinical risk profiling. © 2018 The Author(s).Prostate cancer is a polygenic disease with a large heritable component. A number of common, low-penetrance prostate cancer risk loci have been identified through GWAS. Here we apply the Bayesian multivariate variable selection algorithm JAM to fine-map 84 prostate cancer susceptibility loci, using summary data from a large European ancestry meta-analysis. We observe evidence for multiple independent signals at 12 regions and 99 risk signals overall. Only 15 original GWAS tag SNPs remain among the catalogue of candidate variants identified; the remainder are replaced by more likely candidates. Biological annotation of our credible set of variants indicates significant enrichment within promoter and enhancer elements, and transcription factor-binding sites, including AR, ERG and FOXA1. In 40 regions at least one variant is colocalised with an eQTL in prostate cancer tissue. The refined set of candidate variants substantially increase the proportion of familial relative risk explained by these known susceptibility regions, which highlights the importance of fine-mapping studies and has implications for clinical risk profiling. © 2018 The Author(s).Peer reviewe

Anemia prevalence in women of reproductive age in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2018

Anemia is a globally widespread condition in women and is associated with reduced economic productivity and increased mortality worldwide. Here we map annual 2000–2018 geospatial estimates of anemia prevalence in women of reproductive age (15–49 years) across 82 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), stratify anemia by severity and aggregate results to policy-relevant administrative and national levels. Additionally, we provide subnational disparity analyses to provide a comprehensive overview of anemia prevalence inequalities within these countries and predict progress toward the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target (WHO GNT) to reduce anemia by half by 2030. Our results demonstrate widespread moderate improvements in overall anemia prevalence but identify only three LMICs with a high probability of achieving the WHO GNT by 2030 at a national scale, and no LMIC is expected to achieve the target in all their subnational administrative units. Our maps show where large within-country disparities occur, as well as areas likely to fall short of the WHO GNT, offering precision public health tools so that adequate resource allocation and subsequent interventions can be targeted to the most vulnerable populations.Peer reviewe