Time Constants of Cardiac Function and Their Calculations

Left ventricular diastolic time constant, Tau, is the most established index to describe left ventricular diastolic function. However, the lack of a practical method for the measurement of Tau has been an uncomfortable reality which formerly kept all but a few researchers from making use of it. Recently, the non invasive calculation of Tau in an echo lab was accomplished through formulas developed by universal mathematical method. Tau was first suggested by the fact that left ventricular diastole is an active process, and we can therefore predict that there must be some other time constants which can be used to describe other active movement of ventricular muscles during isovolumic period. Similar mathematical manipulation was employed to develop formulas for “the other Tau(s)”. Such Tau(s) represent new sets of indexes useful for the description of cardiac function. They are expected to be the most established indices given the fact Tau is revealing the power of ventricular muscles without interference from either preload or afterload

Delayed crack propagation in barium titanate single crystals in humid air

2007-2008 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Calculation of Left Ventricular Relaxation Time Constant-Tau in Patients With Aortic Regurgitation by Continuous-Wave Doppler

Left ventricular relaxation time constant, Tau, is the best index to evaluate left ventricular diastolic function. The measurement is only available traditionally in catheter lab. In Echo lab, several methods of non-invasive measurement of Tau have been tried since 1992, however almost all the methods are still utilizing the same formula to calculate Tau as in catheter lab, which makes them inconvenient, time-consuming and sometimes not very accurate. A simple method to calculate Tau in patients with mitral regurgitation has been developed just based on Weiss’ formula and simplified Bernoulli’s equation. Similarly, formulas are developed here by pure mathematical derivative to calculate Tau by continuous-wave Doppler in patients with aortic regurgitation

Phosphorus-modified Pt@Cu surfaces for efficient electrocatalysis of hydrogen evolution

Robust and efficient platinum (Pt)-based electrocatalysts are pursued for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, the performance of Pt-based HER electrocatalysts needs to be further improved in alkaline and neutral media due to the extra water dissociation step. Moreover, the fabrication process and long-term stability of current Pt-based HER electrocatalysts are unsatisfactory in mild media. Herein, a one-step facile process was developed to fabricate a phosphorus-modified Pt@Cu (Pt/P@Cu) electrocatalyst to realize the feasibility of high-performance HER in neutral media. The HER performance of Pt/P@Cu is further increased with the successful introduction of phosphorus. P exists as oxides on the Pt/P@Cu surface, which was demonstrated by XPS and Raman. The P doping leads to increased surface active sites, lower charge transfer resistance, and enhanced HER performance in neutral media. Pt/P@Cu presents a low overpotential of 24.3 mV at the current density of −10 mA cm−2, along with an excellent stability reaching −1000 mA cm−2 for 1000 cycles of LSV. The successful P doping on the catalyst surface inspires future study on developing simple surface modifications to increase the electrocatalytic activity to develop advanced electrocatalysts

Calculation of Left Ventricular Relaxation Time Constant-Tau in Humans by Continuous-Wave Doppler

Left ventricular relaxation time constant, Tau, is the best index to evaluate left ventricular diastolic function, but the measurement is only available traditionally in catheter lab. In Echo lab, several methods of non-invasive measurement of Tau have been tried since 1992, however almost all the methods are still utilizing the same formula to calculate Tau as in catheter lab, which makes them inconvenient, time-consuming and sometimes not very accurate. Based on Weiss’ formula and simplified Bernoulli’s equation, a simple method is developed by pure mathematical derivative to calculate Tau by continuous-wave Doppler in patients with mitral regurgitation

A constitutive model for cytoskeletal contractility of smooth muscle cells

The constitutive model presented in this article aims to describe the main bio-chemo-mechanical features involved in the contractile response of smooth muscle cells, in which the biochemical response is modelled by extending the four-state Hai–Murphy model to isotonic contraction of the cells and the mechanical response is mainly modelled based on the phosphorylation-dependent hyperbolic relation between isotonic shortening strain rate and tension. The one-dimensional version of the model is used to simulate shortening-induced deactivation with good agreement with selected experimental measurements. The results suggest that the Hai–Murphy biochemical model neglects the strain rate effect on the kinetics of cross-bridge interactions with actin filaments in the isotonic contractions. The two-dimensional version and three-dimensional versions of the model are developed using the homogenization method under finite strain continuum mechanics framework. The two-dimensional constitutive model is used to simulate swine carotid media strips under electrical field stimulation, experimentally investigated by Singer and Murphy, and contraction of a hollow airway and a hollow arteriole buried in a soft matrix subjected to multiple calcium ion stimulations. It is found that the transverse deformation may have significant influence on the response of the swine carotid medium. In both cases, the orientation of the maximal value of attached myosin is aligned with the orientation of maximum principal stress

Light dark matter and Z′Z' dark force at colliders

Light Dark Matter, $<10$ GeV, with sizable direct detection rate is an interesting and less explored scenario. Collider searches can be very powerful, such as through the channel in which a pair of dark matter particle are produced in association with a jet. It is a generic possibility that the mediator of the interaction between DM and the nucleus will also be accessible at the Tevatron and the LHC. Therefore, collider search of the mediator can provide a more comprehensive probe of the dark matter and its interactions. In this article, to demonstrate the complementarity of these two approaches, we focus on the possibility of the mediator being a new $U(1)'$ gauge boson, which is probably the simplest model which allows a large direct detection cross section for a light dark matter candidate. We combine searches in the monojet+MET channel and dijet resonance search for the mediator. We find that for the mass of $Z'$ between 250 GeV and 4 TeV, resonance searches at the colliders provide stronger constraints on this model than the monojet+MET searches.Comment: 23 pages and 14 figure

The electrocaloric effect around the orthorhombic- tetragonal first-order phase transition in BaTiO₃

2011-2012 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Mycobacterium tuberculosis Rv3586 (DacA) Is a Diadenylate Cyclase That Converts ATP or ADP into c-di-AMP

Cyclic diguanosine monophosphate (c-di-GMP) and cyclic diadenosine monophosphate (c-di-AMP) are recently identified signaling molecules. c-di-GMP has been shown to play important roles in bacterial pathogenesis, whereas information about c-di-AMP remains very limited. Mycobacterium tuberculosis Rv3586 (DacA), which is an ortholog of Bacillus subtilis DisA, is a putative diadenylate cyclase. In this study, we determined the enzymatic activity of DacA in vitro using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), mass spectrometry (MS) and thin layer chromatography (TLC). Our results showed that DacA was mainly a diadenylate cyclase, which resembles DisA. In addition, DacA also exhibited residual ATPase and ADPase in vitro. Among the potential substrates tested, DacA was able to utilize both ATP and ADP, but not AMP, pApA, c-di-AMP or GTP. By using gel filtration and analytical ultracentrifugation, we further demonstrated that DacA existed as an octamer, with the N-terminal domain contributing to tetramerization and the C-terminal domain providing additional dimerization. Both the N-terminal and the C-terminal domains were essential for the DacA's enzymatically active conformation. The diadenylate cyclase activity of DacA was dependent on divalent metal ions such as Mg2+, Mn2+ or Co2+. DacA was more active at a basic pH rather than at an acidic pH. The conserved RHR motif in DacA was essential for interacting with ATP, and mutation of this motif to AAA completely abolished DacA's diadenylate cyclase activity. These results provide the molecular basis for designating DacA as a diadenylate cyclase. Our future studies will explore the biological function of this enzyme in M. tuberculosis

LHC Predictions from a Tevatron Anomaly in the Top Quark Forward-Backward Asymmetry

We examine the implications of the recent CDF measurement of the top-quark forward-backward asymmetry, focusing on a scenario with a new color octet vector boson at 1-3 TeV. We study several models, as well as a general effective field theory, and determine the parameter space which provides the best simultaneous fit to the CDF asymmetry, the Tevatron top pair production cross section, and the exclusion regions from LHC dijet resonance and contact interaction searches. Flavor constraints on these models are more subtle and less severe than the literature indicates. We find a large region of allowed parameter space at high axigluon mass and a smaller region at low mass; we match the latter to an SU(3)xSU(3)/SU(3) coset model with a heavy vector-like fermion. Our scenario produces discoverable effects at the LHC with only 1-2 inverse femtobarns of luminosity at 7-8 TeV. Lastly, we point out that a Tevatron measurement of the b-quark forward-backward asymmetry would be very helpful in characterizing the physics underlying the top-quark asymmetry.Comment: 35 pages, 10 figures, 4 table