The Role of the Fabrication of Anatase-TiO2 Chain-Networked Photoanodes

A novel, sandwich-layered Ti/TiO2/Ti/fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) architecture is reported. The Ti layers play a critical role in the formation of long pear-necklace chains made of interconnected TiO2 nanoparticles. The chains interpenetrate a network structure on FTO glass substrates under alkaline hydrothermal-processing conditions. A significant enhancement in the photocurrent density of dye-sensitized solar cells employing non-volatile polymer-based electrolytes is obtained

Effects of natural selection and gene conversion on the evolution of human glycophorins coding for MNS blood polymorphisms in malaria-endemic African populations

Malaria has been a very strong selection pressure in recent human evolution, particularly in Africa. Of the one million deaths per year due to malaria, more than 90% are in sub-Saharan Africa, a region with high levels of genetic variation and population substructure. However, there have been few studies of nucleotide variation at genetic loci that are relevant to malaria susceptibility across geographically and genetically diverse ethnic groups in Africa. Invasion of erythrocytes by Plasmodium falciparum parasites is central to the pathology of malaria. Glycophorin A (GYPA) and B (GYPB), which determine MN and Ss blood types, are two major receptors that are expressed on erythrocyte surfaces and interact with parasite ligands. We analyzed nucleotide diversity of the glycophorin gene family in 15 African populations with different levels of malaria exposure. High levels of nucleotide diversity and gene conversion were found at these genes. We observed divergent patterns of genetic variation between these duplicated genes and between different extracellular domains of GYPA. Specifically, we identified fixed adaptive changes at exons 3-4 of GYPA. By contrast, we observed an allele frequency spectrum skewed toward a significant excess of intermediate-frequency alleles at GYPA exon 2 in many populations; the degree of spectrum distortion is correlated with malaria exposure, possibly because of the joint effects of gene conversion and balancing selection. We also identified a haplotype causing three amino acid changes in the extracellular domain of glycophorin B. This haplotype might have evolved adaptively in five populations with high exposure to malaria

Early Increase in Extrasynaptic NMDA Receptor Signaling and Expression Contributes to Phenotype Onset in Huntington's Disease Mice

SummaryN-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) excitotoxicity is implicated in the pathogenesis of Huntington's disease (HD), a late-onset neurodegenerative disorder. However, NMDARs are poor therapeutic targets, due to their essential physiological role. Recent studies demonstrate that synaptic NMDAR transmission drives neuroprotective gene transcription, whereas extrasynaptic NMDAR activation promotes cell death. We report specifically increased extrasynaptic NMDAR expression, current, and associated reductions in nuclear CREB activation in HD mouse striatum. The changes are observed in the absence of dendritic morphological alterations, before and after phenotype onset, correlate with mutation severity, and require caspase-6 cleavage of mutant huntingtin. Moreover, pharmacological block of extrasynaptic NMDARs with memantine reversed signaling and motor learning deficits. Our data demonstrate elevated extrasynaptic NMDAR activity in an animal model of neurodegenerative disease. We provide a candidate mechanism linking several pathways previously implicated in HD pathogenesis and demonstrate successful early therapeutic intervention in mice

Determination of color-octet matrix elements from e^+e- process at low energies

We present an analysis of the preliminary experimental data of direct j/psi production in e^e- process at low energies. We find that the color-octet contributions are crucially important to the cross section at this energy region, and their inclusion produces a good description of the data. By fitting to the data, we extract the individual values of two color-octet matrix elements: \approx 1.1\times 10^{-2} GeV^3, <{\cal O}_8^{\psi}(^3P_0)> m_c^2\approx 7.4\times 10^{-3}GeV^3. We discuss the allowed range of the two matrix elements constrained by the theoretical uncertainties. We find that is poorly determined because it is sensitive to the variation of the choice of m_c, \alpha_s and <{\cal O}_1^{\psi}(^3S_1)>. However m_c^2 is quite stable (about (6-9)\times 10^{-3}GeV^3) when the parameters vary in reasonable ranges. The uncertainties due to large experimental errors are also discussed.Comment: 13 page, RevTex, 2 figures in postscript. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Color-Octet J/ψJ/\psi Production in the Υ\Upsilon Decay

The direct production rate of $\psi$ in the $\Upsilon$ decay is shown to be dominated by the process $\Upsilon \to ggg^*$ followed by $g^* \to \psi$ via the color-octet mechanism proposed recently to explain the anomalous prompt charmonium production at the Tevatron. We show that this plausibly dominant process has a branching ratio compatible with the experimental data. Further experimental study in this channel is important to test the significance of the color-octet component of $c\bar c$ pair inside the $\psi$ system.Comment: 20 pages, Standard LaTeX, 2 figures; a couple of new processes added, but conclusion unchange

Fine-Scale Mapping of the 5q11.2 Breast Cancer Locus Reveals at Least Three Independent Risk Variants Regulating MAP3K1

Peer reviewe

7th Drug hypersensitivity meeting: part two

No abstract availabl

Measurement of prompt D0^{0} and D‾\overline{D}0^{0} meson azimuthal anisotropy and search for strong electric fields in PbPb collisions at root SNN\sqrt{S_{NN}} = 5.02 TeV

The strong Coulomb field created in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is expected to produce a rapiditydependent difference (Av2) in the second Fourier coefficient of the azimuthal distribution (elliptic flow, v2) between D0 (uc) and D0 (uc) mesons. Motivated by the search for evidence of this field, the CMS detector at the LHC is used to perform the first measurement of Av2. The rapidity-averaged value is found to be (Av2) = 0.001 ? 0.001 (stat)? 0.003 (syst) in PbPb collisions at ?sNN = 5.02 TeV. In addition, the influence of the collision geometry is explored by measuring the D0 and D0mesons v2 and triangular flow coefficient (v3) as functions of rapidity, transverse momentum (pT), and event centrality (a measure of the overlap of the two Pb nuclei). A clear centrality dependence of prompt D0 meson v2 values is observed, while the v3 is largely independent of centrality. These trends are consistent with expectations of flow driven by the initial-state geometry. ? 2021 The Author. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY licens

Observation of electroweak production of Wγ with two jets in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV

A first observation is presented for the electroweak production of a W boson, a photon, and two jets in proton-proton collisions. The W boson decays are selected by requiring one identified electron or muon and an imbalance in transverse momentum. The two jets are required to have a high dijet mass and a large separation in pseudorapidity. The measurement is based on data collected with the CMS detector at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{-1}$. The observed (expected) significance for this process is 4.9 (4.6) standard deviations. After combining with previously reported CMS results at 8 TeV, the observed (expected) significance is 5.3 (4.8) standard deviations. The cross section for the electroweak W$_{γjj}$ production in a restricted fiducial region is measured as 20.4 +/- 4.5 fb and the total cross section for W$_{γ}$ production in association with 2 jets in the same fiducial region is 108 +/- 16 fb. All results are in good agreement with recent theoretical predictions. Constraints are placed on anomalous quartic gauge couplings in terms of dimension-8 effective field theory operators