461 research outputs found
Cholinergic modulation of response properties and orientation tuning of neurons in primary visual cortex of anaesthetized Marmoset monkeys
Cortical processing is strongly influenced by the actions of neuromodulators such as acetylcholine (ACh). Early studies in anaesthetized cats argued that acetylcholine can cause a sharpening of orientation tuning functions and an improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of neuronal responses in primary visual cortex (V1). Recent in vitro studies have demonstrated that acetylcholine reduces the efficacy of feedback and intracortical connections via the activation of muscarinic receptors, and increases the efficacy of feed-forward connections via the activation of nicotinic receptors. If orientation tuning is mediated or
enhanced by intracortical connections, high levels of acetylcholine should diminish orientation tuning. Here we investigate the effects of acetylcholine on orientation tuning and neuronal responsiveness in anaesthetized marmoset monkeys. We found that acetylcholine caused a broadening of the orientation tuning in the majority of cells, while tuning functions became sharper in only
a minority of cells. Moreover, acetylcholine generally facilitated neuronal responses, but neither improved signal-to-noise ratio, nor reduced trial-to-trial firing rate variance systematically. Acetylcholine did however, reduce variability of spike occurrences within spike trains. We discuss these findings in the context of dynamic control of feed-forward and lateral ⁄ feedback connectivity
by acetylcholine
Tropical sea surface temperatures for the past four centuries reconstructed from coral archives
Most annually resolved climate reconstructions of the Common Era are based on terrestrial data, making it a challenge to independently assess how recent climate changes have affected the oceans. Here as part of the Past Global Changes Ocean2K project, we present four regionally calibrated and validated reconstructions of sea surface temperatures in the tropics, based on 57 published and publicly archived marine paleoclimate data sets derived exclusively from tropical coral archives. Validation exercises suggest that our reconstructions are interpretable for much of the past 400 years, depending on the availability of paleoclimate data within, and the reconstruction validation statistics for, each target region. Analysis of the trends in the data suggests that the Indian, western Pacific, and western Atlantic Ocean regions were cooling until modern warming began around the 1830s. The early 1800s were an exceptionally cool period in the Indo-Pacific region, likely due to multiple large tropical volcanic eruptions occurring in the early nineteenth century. Decadal-scale variability is a quasi-persistent feature of all basins. Twentieth century warming associated with greenhouse gas emissions is apparent in the Indian, West Pacific, and western Atlantic Oceans, but we find no evidence that either natural or anthropogenic forcings have altered El Ni ˜no–Southern Oscillation-related variance in tropical sea surface temperatures. Our marine-based regional paleoclimate reconstructions serve as benchmarks against which terrestrial reconstructions as well as climate model simulations can be compared and as a basis for studying the processes by which the tropical oceans mediate climate variability and change
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Secondary Natural Gas Recovery: Reservoir Heterogeneity and Potential for Reserve Growth through Infield Drilling: An Example from McAllen Ranch Field, Hidalgo County, Texas
Integrated engineering, geological, geophysical, and petrophysical analyses of McAllen Ranch field have delineated several controls on secondary recovery of natural gas. Barriers to the flow of natural gas within laterally continuous lower Vicksburg sandstone reservoirs can be demonstrated through finite-element modeling. These barriers are probably diagenetic in origin. In the B area of McAllen Ranch field, faults are unlikely to be the primary barriers to gas flow because faults were not inferred from analysis of high-quality three-dimensional seismic images between the key wells used in this study (Hill and others, 1991). Barriers result in incremental reserve additions when some reservoir domains contain no well completions. Areas containing potential incremental gas resources, identified through this analysis, were confirmed by subsequent recompletions in 1991. Three recompletions proposed by this project have proved successful. Our analysis of public domain production data indicates that new infield wells in the Vicksburg S reservoir have increased reserves 69 percent above an estimate made from analysis of 1980 public domain data. Additionally, more than 100 barrels per day of reserves has been added through new wells drilled between 1988 and 1991. Most of the McAllen Ranch Vicksburg S reserve increases are due to a geological reinterpretation that has stimulated infield step-out development of the Vicksburg S reservoir. Distributary-channel-fill sandstones are the most likely candidates to contain incremental reserves because they are laterally discontinuous and are predominant in areas where numerous reservoir sandstones are stacked.Bureau of Economic Geolog
Heparanase is a prognostic indicator for postoperative survival in pancreatic carcinoma
British Journal of Cancer (2002) 87, 689–689. doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6600504 www.bjcancer.co
Western Indian Ocean marine and terrestrial records of climate variability: a review and new concepts on land-ocean interactions since AD 1660
We examine the relationship between three tropical and two subtropical western Indian Ocean coral oxygen isotope time series to surface air temperatures (SAT) and rainfall over India, tropical East Africa and southeast Africa. We review established relationships, provide new concepts with regard to distinct rainfall seasons, and mean annual temperatures. Tropical corals are coherent with SAT over western India and East Africa at interannual and multidecadal periodicities. The subtropical corals correlate with Southeast African SAT at periodicities of 16–30 years. The relationship between the coral records and land rainfall is more complex. Running correlations suggest varying strength of interannual teleconnections between the tropical coral oxygen isotope records and rainfall over equatorial East Africa. The relationship with rainfall over India changed in the 1970s. The subtropical oxygen isotope records are coherent with South African rainfall at interdecadal periodicities. Paleoclimatological reconstructions of land rainfall and SAT reveal that the inferred relationships generally hold during the last 350 years. Thus, the Indian Ocean corals prove invaluable for investigating land–ocean interactions during past centuries
Decay of isolated surface features driven by the Gibbs-Thomson effect in analytic model and simulation
A theory based on the thermodynamic Gibbs-Thomson relation is presented which
provides the framework for understanding the time evolution of isolated
nanoscale features (i.e., islands and pits) on surfaces. Two limiting cases are
predicted, in which either diffusion or interface transfer is the limiting
process. These cases correspond to similar regimes considered in previous works
addressing the Ostwald ripening of ensembles of features. A third possible
limiting case is noted for the special geometry of "stacked" islands. In these
limiting cases, isolated features are predicted to decay in size with a power
law scaling in time: A is proportional to (t0-t)^n, where A is the area of the
feature, t0 is the time at which the feature disappears, and n=2/3 or 1. The
constant of proportionality is related to parameters describing both the
kinetic and equilibrium properties of the surface. A continuous time Monte
Carlo simulation is used to test the application of this theory to generic
surfaces with atomic scale features. A new method is described to obtain
macroscopic kinetic parameters describing interfaces in such simulations.
Simulation and analytic theory are compared directly, using measurements of the
simulation to determine the constants of the analytic theory. Agreement between
the two is very good over a range of surface parameters, suggesting that the
analytic theory properly captures the necessary physics. It is anticipated that
the simulation will be useful in modeling complex surface geometries often seen
in experiments on physical surfaces, for which application of the analytic
model is not straightforward.Comment: RevTeX (with .bbl file), 25 pages, 7 figures from 9 Postscript files
embedded using epsf. Submitted to Phys. Rev. B A few minor changes made on
9/24/9
Breakdown of Scale Invariance in the Phase Ordering of Fractal Clusters
Our numerical simulations with the Cahn-Hilliard equation show that
coarsening of fractal clusters (FCs) is not a scale-invariant process. On the
other hand, a typical coarsening length scale and interfacial area of the FC
exhibit power laws in time, while the mass fractal dimension remains invariant.
The initial value of the lower cutoff is a relevant length scale. A
sharp-interface model is formulated that can follow the whole dynamics of a
diffusion controlled growth, coarsening, fragmentation and approach to
equilibrium in a system with conserved order parameter.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, RevTex, submitted to PR
Weak selection and stability of localized distributions in Ostwald ripening
We support and generalize a weak selection rule predicted recently for the
self-similar asymptotics of the distribution function (DF) in the
zero-volume-fraction limit of Ostwald ripening (OR). An asymptotic perturbation
theory is developed that, when combined with an exact invariance property of
the system, yields the selection rule, predicts a power-law convergence towards
the selected self-similar DF and agrees well with our numerical simulations for
the interface- and diffusion-controlled OR.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PR
High-Order Coupled Cluster Method (CCM) Calculations for Quantum Magnets with Valence-Bond Ground States
In this article, we prove that exact representations of dimer and plaquette
valence-bond ket ground states for quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnets may be
formed via the usual coupled cluster method (CCM) from independent-spin product
(e.g. N\'eel) model states. We show that we are able to provide good results
for both the ground-state energy and the sublattice magnetization for dimer and
plaquette valence-bond phases within the CCM. As a first example, we
investigate the spin-half -- model for the linear chain, and we show
that we are able to reproduce exactly the dimerized ground (ket) state at
. The dimerized phase is stable over a range of values for
around 0.5. We present evidence of symmetry breaking by considering
the ket- and bra-state correlation coefficients as a function of . We
then consider the Shastry-Sutherland model and demonstrate that the CCM can
span the correct ground states in both the N\'eel and the dimerized phases.
Finally, we consider a spin-half system with nearest-neighbor bonds for an
underlying lattice corresponding to the magnetic material CaVO (CAVO).
We show that we are able to provide excellent results for the ground-state
energy in each of the plaquette-ordered, N\'eel-ordered, and dimerized regimes
of this model. The exact plaquette and dimer ground states are reproduced by
the CCM ket state in their relevant limits.Comment: 34 pages, 13 figures, 2 table
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