655 research outputs found
Epsilon Haemoglobin Specific Antibodies with Applications in Noninvasive Prenatal Diagnosis
Invasive procedures for prenatal diagnosis are associated with increased risk of abortion; thus, development of noninvasive procedures would be beneficial. Based on the observation that embryonic nucleated red blood cell (NRBC) crosses the placenta and enters the circulation of pregnant women, the ability to identify such cell would allow development of such procedures. Identification of NRBCs in blood samples would be possible provided that specific antibodies are available. Here we have isolated recombinant antibodies using phage display. From the panel of antibody fragments specifically recognising ε-Hb, one was chosen for further characterization, DAb1. DAb1 binds to ε-Hb both in Western blots and immunocytochemistry. Several ε-Hb positive cells were detected in a blood sample taken as postchorionic villus sampling (CVS). To evaluate the sensitivity of the method, K562 cells (which express ε-Hb) were spiked in a blood sample followed by staining in solution and FACS analysis
Self-similar correlation function in brain resting-state fMRI
Adaptive behavior, cognition and emotion are the result of a bewildering
variety of brain spatiotemporal activity patterns. An important problem in
neuroscience is to understand the mechanism by which the human brain's 100
billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses manage to produce this large
repertoire of cortical configurations in a flexible manner. In addition, it is
recognized that temporal correlations across such configurations cannot be
arbitrary, but they need to meet two conflicting demands: while diverse
cortical areas should remain functionally segregated from each other, they must
still perform as a collective, i.e., they are functionally integrated. Here, we
investigate these large-scale dynamical properties by inspecting the character
of the spatiotemporal correlations of brain resting-state activity. In physical
systems, these correlations in space and time are captured by measuring the
correlation coefficient between a signal recorded at two different points in
space at two different times. We show that this two-point correlation function
extracted from resting-state fMRI data exhibits self-similarity in space and
time. In space, self-similarity is revealed by considering three successive
spatial coarse-graining steps while in time it is revealed by the 1/f frequency
behavior of the power spectrum. The uncovered dynamical self-similarity implies
that the brain is spontaneously at a continuously changing (in space and time)
intermediate state between two extremes, one of excessive cortical integration
and the other of complete segregation. This dynamical property may be seen as
an important marker of brain well-being both in health and disease.Comment: 14 pages 13 figures; published online before print September 2
A Complexity View of Rainfall
We show that rain events are analogous to a variety of nonequilibrium
relaxation processes in Nature such as earthquakes and avalanches. Analysis of
high-resolution rain data reveals that power laws describe the number of rain
events versus size and number of droughts versus duration. In addition, the
accumulated water column displays scale-less fluctuations. These statistical
properties are the fingerprints of a self-organized critical process and may
serve as a benchmark for models of precipitation and atmospheric processes.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Simultaneous Multi-Vessel Subacute Stent Thromboses in Zotarolimus-Eluting Stents
Despite its low incidence, stent thrombosis (ST) is one of the most dreaded complications of percutaneous coronary intervention. Endeavor (Medtronics Europe SA) is a new zotarolimus-eluting stent (ZES) with a favorable safety profile that was reported in early and ongoing trials. However, few lethal stent thromboses related to this new drug eluting stent (DES) have been reported. We experienced a case of simultaneous subacute ZES thromboses, 6 days after stent implantations in the proximal left anterior descending artery and the proximal right coronary artery (RCA)
First passage time statistics of Brownian motion with purely time dependent drift and diffusion
Systems where resource availability approaches a critical threshold are
common to many engineering and scientific applications and often necessitate
the estimation of first passage time statistics of a Brownian motion (Bm)
driven by time-dependent drift and diffusion coefficients. Modeling such
systems requires solving the associated Fokker-Planck equation subject to an
absorbing barrier. Transitional probabilities are derived via the method of
images, whose applicability to time dependent problems is shown to be limited
to state-independent drift and diffusion coefficients that only depend on time
and are proportional to each other. First passage time statistics, such as the
survival probabilities and first passage time densities are obtained
analytically. The analysis includes the study of different functional forms of
the time dependent drift and diffusion, including power-law time dependence and
different periodic drivers. As a case study of these theoretical results, a
stochastic model for water availability from surface runoff in snowmelt
dominated regions is presented, where both temperature effects and
snow-precipitation input are incorporated
Sandpiles on multiplex networks
We introduce the sandpile model on multiplex networks with more than one type
of edge and investigate its scaling and dynamical behaviors. We find that the
introduction of multiplexity does not alter the scaling behavior of avalanche
dynamics; the system is critical with an asymptotic power-law avalanche size
distribution with an exponent on duplex random networks. The
detailed cascade dynamics, however, is affected by the multiplex coupling. For
example, higher-degree nodes such as hubs in scale-free networks fail more
often in the multiplex dynamics than in the simplex network counterpart in
which different types of edges are simply aggregated. Our results suggest that
multiplex modeling would be necessary in order to gain a better understanding
of cascading failure phenomena of real-world multiplex complex systems, such as
the global economic crisis.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure
The Baryonic Phase in Holographic Descriptions of the QCD Phase Diagram
We study holographic models of the QCD temperature-chemical potential phase
diagram based on the D3/D7 system with chiral symmetry breaking. The baryonic
phase may be included through linked D5-D7 systems. In a previous analysis of a
model with a running gauge coupling a baryonic phase was shown to exist to
arbitrarily large chemical potential. Here we explore this phase in a more
generic phenomenological setting with a step function dilaton profile. The
change in dilaton generates a linear confining potential and opposes
the screening effect of temperature. We show that the persistence of the
baryonic phase depends on the step size and that QCD-like phase diagrams can be
described. The baryonic phase's existence is qualitatively linked to the
existence of confinement in Wilson loop computations in the background.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure
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