27,950 research outputs found
The Diagnosis of Primary Hypothroidism: A Critical Evaluation of the Clinical Features and Laboratory Aids to Diagnosis
Abstract Not Provided
Protein components of a cytochrome P-450 linalool 8-methyl hydroxylase
The cytochrome P-450 heme-thiolate monooxygenases that hydroxylate monoterpene hydrocarbon groups are effective models for the cytochrome P-450 family. We have purified and characterized the three proteins from a P-450-dependent linalool 8-methyl hydroxylase in Pseudomonas putida (incognita) strain PpG777. The proteins resemble the camphor 5-exohydroxylase components in chemical and physical properties; however, they show neither immunological cross-reactivity nor catalytic activity in heterogenous recombination. These two systems provide an excellent model to probe more deeply the heme-thiolate reaction center, molecular domains of substrate specificity, redox-pair interactions, and the regulation of the reaction cycle
Making an effort to feel positive: insecure attachment in infancy predicts the neural underpinnings of emotion regulation in adulthood
Background:
Animal research indicates that the neural substrates of emotion regulation may be persistently altered by early environmental exposures. If similar processes operate in human development then this is significant, as the capacity to regulate emotional states is fundamental to human adaptation.
Methods:
We utilised a 22-year longitudinal study to examine the influence of early infant attachment to the mother, a key marker of early experience, on neural regulation of emotional states in young adults. Infant attachment status was measured via objective assessment at 18-months, and the neural underpinnings of the active regulation of affect were studied using fMRI at age 22 years.
Results:
Infant attachment status at 18-months predicted neural responding during the regulation of positive affect 20-years later. Specifically, while attempting to up-regulate positive emotions, adults who had been insecurely versus securely attached as infants showed greater activation in prefrontal regions involved in cognitive control and reduced co-activation of nucleus accumbens with prefrontal cortex, consistent with relative inefficiency in the neural regulation of positive affect.
Conclusions:
Disturbances in the mother–infant relationship may persistently alter the neural circuitry of emotion regulation, with potential implications for adjustment in adulthood
Angiogenesis is associated with vascular endothelial growth factor expression in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia.
Squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix (SCC) is preceded by a premalignant condition known as cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). The majority of cases of CIN regress spontaneously; however, methods are needed to identify those lesions likely to progress. Increased blood vessel density, signifying angiogenesis, is an independent prognostic indicator in a number of cancers, although little is known about its significance in premalignant lesions. The aim of the present study was to determine the relationship between vessel density, expression of the potent angiogenic factor vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and CIN grade. Using immunohistochemistry, mean vessel density (MVD) and VEGF expression were assessed in samples from 54 patients who had undergone cone biopsy for CIN or hysterectomy for SCC and from 16 patients with no cervical pathology. There were significant increases in MVD and VEGF expression from normal cervix through CIN I to CIN III to invasive SCC, but no difference in mean vessel diameter between groups. There was a strong correlation between mean vessel density and VEGF expression, and both were associated with histological grade of CIN. The original MVDs for a small group of patients later presenting with recurrent disease were found to be equal to or greater than the mean for their histological grade. We conclude that the onset of angiogenesis is an early event in premalignant changes of the cervix due, in part, to enhanced expression of VEGF by the abnormal epithelium
Bayesian Parameter Estimation for Latent Markov Random Fields and Social Networks
Undirected graphical models are widely used in statistics, physics and
machine vision. However Bayesian parameter estimation for undirected models is
extremely challenging, since evaluation of the posterior typically involves the
calculation of an intractable normalising constant. This problem has received
much attention, but very little of this has focussed on the important practical
case where the data consists of noisy or incomplete observations of the
underlying hidden structure. This paper specifically addresses this problem,
comparing two alternative methodologies. In the first of these approaches
particle Markov chain Monte Carlo (Andrieu et al., 2010) is used to efficiently
explore the parameter space, combined with the exchange algorithm (Murray et
al., 2006) for avoiding the calculation of the intractable normalising constant
(a proof showing that this combination targets the correct distribution in
found in a supplementary appendix online). This approach is compared with
approximate Bayesian computation (Pritchard et al., 1999). Applications to
estimating the parameters of Ising models and exponential random graphs from
noisy data are presented. Each algorithm used in the paper targets an
approximation to the true posterior due to the use of MCMC to simulate from the
latent graphical model, in lieu of being able to do this exactly in general.
The supplementary appendix also describes the nature of the resulting
approximation.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figures, accepted in Journal of Computational and
Graphical Statistics (http://www.amstat.org/publications/jcgs.cfm
A minimal model for chaotic shear banding in shear-thickening fluids
We present a minimal model for spatiotemporal oscillation and rheochaos in
shear-thickening complex fluids at zero Reynolds number. In the model, a
tendency towards inhomogeneous flows in the form of shear bands combines with a
slow structural dynamics, modelled by delayed stress relaxation. Using
Fourier-space numerics, we study the nonequilibrium `phase diagram' of the
fluid as a function of a steady mean (spatially averaged) stress, and of the
relaxation time for structural relaxation. We find several distinct regions of
periodic behavior (oscillating bands, travelling bands, and more complex
oscillations) and also regions of spatiotemporal rheochaos. A low-dimensional
truncation of the model retains the important physical features of the full
model (including rheochaos) despite the suppression of sharply defined
interfaces between shear bands. Our model maps onto the FitzHugh-Nagumo model
for neural network dynamics, with an unusual form of long-range coupling.Comment: Revised version (in particular, new section III.E. and Appendix A
A note on monopole moduli spaces
We discuss the structure of the framed moduli space of Bogomolny monopoles
for arbitrary symmetry breaking and extend the definition of its stratification
to the case of arbitrary compact Lie groups. We show that each stratum is a
union of submanifolds for which we conjecture that the natural metric is
hyperKahler. The dimensions of the strata and of these submanifolds are
calculated, and it is found that for the latter, the dimension is always a
multiple of four.Comment: 17 pages, LaTe
Real-time crowd control of existing interfaces
Crowdsourcing has been shown to be an effective approach for solving difficult problems, but current crowdsourcing systems suffer two main limitations: (i) tasks must be repackaged for proper display to crowd workers, which generally requires substantial one-off programming effort and support infrastructure, and (ii) crowd workers generally lack a tight feedback loop with their task. In this paper, we introduce Legion, a system that allows end users to easily capture existing GUIs and outsource them for collaborative, real-time control by the crowd. We present mediation strategies for integrating the input of multiple crowd workers in real-time, evaluate these mediation strategies across several applications, and further validate Legion by exploring the space of novel applications that it enables
WZW orientifolds and finite group cohomology
The simplest orientifolds of the WZW models are obtained by gauging a Z_2
symmetry group generated by a combined involution of the target Lie group G and
of the worldsheet. The action of the involution on the target is by a twisted
inversion g \mapsto (\zeta g)^{-1}, where \zeta is an element of the center of
G. It reverses the sign of the Kalb-Ramond torsion field H given by a
bi-invariant closed 3-form on G. The action on the worldsheet reverses its
orientation. An unambiguous definition of Feynman amplitudes of the orientifold
theory requires a choice of a gerbe with curvature H on the target group G,
together with a so-called Jandl structure introduced in hep-th/0512283. More
generally, one may gauge orientifold symmetry groups \Gamma = Z_2 \ltimes Z
that combine the Z_2-action described above with the target symmetry induced by
a subgroup Z of the center of G. To define the orientifold theory in such a
situation, one needs a gerbe on G with a Z-equivariant Jandl structure. We
reduce the study of the existence of such structures and of their inequivalent
choices to a problem in group-\Gamma cohomology that we solve for all simple
simply-connected compact Lie groups G and all orientifold groups \Gamma = Z_2
\ltimes Z.Comment: 48+1 pages, 11 figure
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