443 research outputs found
Geometry and optics calibration of WFCTA prototype telescopes using star light
The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory project is proposed to study
high energy gamma ray astronomy ( 40 GeV-1 PeV ) and cosmic ray physics ( 20
TeV-1 EeV ). The wide field of view Cherenkov telescope array, as a component
of the LHAASO project, will be used to study energy spectrum and compositions
of cosmic ray by measuring the total Cherenkov light generated by air showers
and shower maximum depth. Two prototype telescopes have been in operation since
2008. The pointing accuracy of each telescope is crucial to the direction
reconstruction of the primary particles. On the other hand the primary energy
reconstruction relies on the shape of the Cherenkov image on the camera and the
unrecorded photons due to the imperfect connections between photomultiplier
tubes. UV bright stars are used as point-like objects to calibrate the pointing
and to study the optical properties of the camera, the spot size and the
fractions of unrecorded photons in the insensitive areas of the camera.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Chinese Physics
VEGF attenuates development from cardiac hypertrophy to heart failure after aortic stenosis through mitochondrial mediated apoptosis and cardiomyocyte proliferation
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Aortic stenosis (AS) affects 3 percent of persons older than 65 years and leads to greater morbidity and mortality than other cardiac valve diseases. Surgery with aortic valve replacement (AVR) for severe symptomatic AS is currently the only treatment option. Unfortunately, in patients with poor ventricular function, the mortality and long-term outcome is unsatisfied, and only a minority of these patients could bear surgery. Our previous studies demonstrated that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protects cardiac function in myocardial infarction model through classic VEGF-PI3k-Akt and unclear mitochondrial anti-apoptosis pathways; promoting cardiomyocyte (CM) proliferation as well. The present study was designed to test whether pre-operative treatment with VEGF improves AS-induced cardiac dysfunction, to be better suitable for AVR, and its potential mechanism.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Adult male mice were subjected to AS or sham operation. Two weeks later, adenoviral VEGF (Ad-VEGF), enhanced green fluorescence protein (Ad-EGFP, as a parallel control) or saline was injected into left ventricle free wall. Two weeks after delivery, all mice were measured by echocardiography and harvested for further detection.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>AS for four weeks caused cardiac hypertrophy and left ventricular dysfunction. VEGF treatment increased capillary density, protected mitochondrial function, reduced CMs apoptosis, promoted CMs proliferation and eventually preserved cardiac function.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings indicate that VEGF could repair AS-induced transition from compensatory cardiac hypertrophy to heart failure.</p
Method for measurement of the density of thin films of small organic molecules
An accurate and sensitive method is reported to measure the thin-film density of vacuum-deposited, small-molecular organic semiconductor materials. A spectrophotometer and surface profiler had been used to determine the mass and thickness of organic thin film, respectively. The calculated density of tris-͑8-hydroxyquinolato͒ aluminum ͑Alq 3 ͒ thin film was 1.31± 0.01 g / cm 3 . Vacuum pressures and thin-film growth rates are found to have less impact on the thin-film density of organic material. However, the thin-film density of organic material strongly depends on its chemical structure and molecular weight. Specifically, the chemical structure determines the density of organic material that affects the molecular volume and intermolecular stacking
Preprocessing and Quality Control Strategies for Illumina DASL Assay-Based Brain Gene Expression Studies with Semi-Degraded Samples
Available statistical preprocessing or quality control analysis tools for gene expression microarray datasets are known to greatly affect downstream data analysis, especially when degraded samples, unique tissue samples, or novel expression assays are used. It is therefore important to assess the validity and impact of the assumptions built in to preprocessing schemes for a dataset. We developed and assessed a data preprocessing strategy for use with the Illumina DASL-based gene expression assay with partially degraded postmortem prefrontal cortex samples. The samples were obtained from individuals with autism as part of an investigation of the pathogenic factors contributing to autism. Using statistical analysis methods and metrics such as those associated with multivariate distance matrix regression and mean inter-array correlation, we developed a DASL-based assay gene expression preprocessing pipeline to accommodate and detect problems with microarray-based gene expression values obtained with degraded brain samples. Key steps in the pipeline included outlier exclusion, data transformation and normalization, and batch effect and covariate corrections. Our goal was to produce a clean dataset for subsequent downstream differential expression analysis. We ultimately settled on available transformation and normalization algorithms in the R/Bioconductor package lumi based on an assessment of their use in various combinations. A log2-transformed, quantile-normalized, and batch and seizure-corrected procedure was likely the most appropriate for our data. We empirically tested different components of our proposed preprocessing strategy and believe that our results suggest that a preprocessing strategy that effectively identifies outliers, normalizes the data, and corrects for batch effects can be applied to all studies, even those pursued with degraded samples
Room temperature magnetic phase transition in an electrically-tuned van der Waals ferromagnet
Finding tunable van der Waals (vdW) ferromagnets that operate at above room
temperature is an important research focus in physics and materials science.
Most vdW magnets are only intrinsically magnetic far below room temperature and
magnetism with square-shaped hysteresis at room-temperature has yet to be
observed. Here, we report magnetism in a quasi-2D magnet Cr1.2Te2 observed at
room temperature (290 K). This magnetism was tuned via a protonic gate with an
electron doping concentration up to 3.8 * 10^21 cm^-3. We observed
non-monotonic evolutions in both coercivity and anomalous Hall resistivity.
Under increased electron doping, the coercivities and anomalous Hall effects
(AHEs) vanished, indicating a doping-induced magnetic phase transition. This
occurred up to room temperature. DFT calculations showed the formation of an
antiferromagnetic (AFM) phase caused by the intercalation of protons which
induced significant electron doping in the Cr1.2Te2. The tunability of the
magnetic properties and phase in room temperature magnetic vdW Cr1.2Te2 is a
significant step towards practical spintronic devices.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure
Pairing symmetry and properties of iron-based high temperature superconductors
Pairing symmetry is important to indentify the pairing mechanism. The
analysis becomes particularly timely and important for the newly discovered
iron-based multi-orbital superconductors. From group theory point of view we
classified all pairing matrices (in the orbital space) that carry irreducible
representations of the system. The quasiparticle gap falls into three
categories: full, nodal and gapless. The nodal-gap states show conventional
Volovik effect even for on-site pairing. The gapless states are odd in orbital
space, have a negative superfluid density and are therefore unstable. In
connection to experiments we proposed possible pairing states and implications
for the pairing mechanism.Comment: 4 pages, 1 table, 2 figures, polished versio
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