Ventral Premotor-Motor Cortex Interactions in the Macaque Monkey during Grasp: Response of Single Neurons to Intracortical Microstimulation

Recent stimulation studies in monkeys and humans have shown strong interactions between ventral premotor cortex (area F5) and the hand area of primary motor cortex (M1). These short-latency interactions usually involve facilitation from F5 of M1 outputs to hand muscles, although suppression has also been reported. This study, performed in three awake macaque monkeys, sought evidence that these interactions could be mediated by short-latency excitatory and inhibitory responses of single M1 neurons active during grasping tasks. We recorded responses of these M1 neurons to single low-threshold (<= 40 mu A) intracortical microstimuli delivered to F5 sites at which grasp-related neurons were recorded. In 29 sessions, we tested 232 M1 neurons with stimuli delivered to between one and four sites in F5. Of the 415 responses recorded, 142 (34%) showed significant effects. The most common type of response was pure excitation (53% of responses), with short latency (1.8-3.0 ms) and brief duration (similar to 1 ms); purely inhibitory responses had slightly longer latencies (2-5 ms) and were of small amplitude and longer duration (5-7 ms). They accounted for 13% of responses, whereas mixed excitation then inhibition was seen in 34%. Remarkably, a rather similar set of findings applied to 280 responses of 138 F5 neurons to M1 stimulation; 109 (34%) responses showed significant effects. Thus, with low-intensity stimuli, the dominant interaction between these two cortical areas is one of short-latency, brief excitation, most likely mediated by reciprocal F5-M1 connections. Some neurons were tested with stimuli at both 20 and 40 mu A; inhibition tended to dominate at the higher intensity

Some Remarks on the Question of Charge Densities in Stationary-Current-Carrying Conductors

Recently, some discussions arose as to the definition of charge and the value of the density of charge in stationary-current-carrying conductors. We stress that the problem of charge definition comes from a misunderstanding of the usual definition. We provide some theoretical elements which suggest that positive and negative charge densities are equal in the frame of the positive ions.Comment: 14 pages, TeX, macro newsym.tex include

A gravitationally lensed quasar discovered in OGLE

Indexación: Scopus; Web of Science.We report the discovery of a new gravitationally lensed quasar (double) from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) identified inside the ~670deg2 area encompassing the Magellanic Clouds. The source was selected as one of ~60 'red W1-W2' mid-infrared objects from WISE and having a significant amount of variability in OGLE for both two (or more) nearby sources. This is the first detection of a gravitational lens, where the discovery is made 'the other way around', meaning we first measured the time delay between the two lensed quasar images of -132 < tAB < -76 d (90 per cent CL), with the median tAB ~-102 d (in the observer frame), and where the fainter image B lags image A. The system consists of the two quasar images separated by 1.5 arcsec on the sky, with I ~20.0mag and I ~19.6mag, respectively, and a lensing galaxy that becomes detectable as I ~21.5 mag source, 1.0 arcsec from image A, after subtracting the two lensed images. Both quasar images show clear AGN broad emission lines at z=2.16 in the New Technology Telescope spectra. The spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting with the fixed source redshift provided the estimate of the lensing galaxy redshift of z ~0.9 ± 0.2 (90 per cent CL), while its type is more likely to be elliptical (the SED-inferred and lens-model stellar mass is more likely present in ellipticals) than spiral (preferred redshift by the lens model). © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/476/1/663/483368

hnRNP L and NF90 Interact with Hepatitis C Virus 5'-Terminal Untranslated RNA and Promote Efficient Replication

The 5′-terminal sequence of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) positive-strand RNA genome is essential for viral replication. Critical host factors, including a miR-122/Ago2 complex and poly(rC)-binding protein 2 (PCBP2), associate with this RNA segment. We used a biotinylated RNA pulldown approach to isolate host factors binding to the HCV 5′ terminal 47 nucleotides and, in addition to Ago2 and PCBP2, identified several novel proteins, including IGF2BP1, hnRNP L, DHX9, ADAR1, and NF90 (ILF3). PCBP2, IGF2BP1, and hnRNP L bound single-stranded RNA, while DHX9, ADAR1, and NF90 bound a cognate double-stranded RNA bait. PCBP2, IGF2BP1, and hnRNP L binding were blocked by preannealing the single-stranded RNA bait with miR-122, indicating that they bind the RNA in competition with miR-122. However, IGF2BP1 binding was also inhibited by high concentrations of heparin, suggesting that it bound the bait nonspecifically. Among these proteins, small interfering RNA-mediated depletion of hnRNP L and NF90 significantly impaired viral replication and reduced infectious virus yields without substantially affecting HCV internal ribosome entry site-mediated translation. hnRNP L and NF90 were found to associate with HCV RNA in infected cells and to coimmunoprecipitate with NS5A in an RNA-dependent manner. Both also associate with detergent-resistant membranes where viral replication complexes reside. We conclude that hnRNP and NF90 are important host factors for HCV replication, at least in cultured cells, and may be present in the replication complex

The Effect of Faster Engine Response on the Lateral Directional Control of a Damaged Aircraft

The integration of flight control and propulsion control has been a much discussed topic, especially for emergencies where the engines may be able to help stabilize and safely land a damaged aircraft. Previous research has shown that for the engines to be effective as flight control actuators, the response time to throttle commands must be improved. Other work has developed control modes that accept a higher risk of engine failure in exchange for improved engine response during an emergency. In this effort, a nonlinear engine model (the Commercial Modular Aero-Propulsion System Simulation 40k) has been integrated with a nonlinear airframe model (the Generic Transport Model) in order to evaluate the use of enhanced-response engines as alternative yaw rate control effectors. Tests of disturbance rejection and command tracking were used to determine the impact of the engines on the aircraft's dynamical behavior. Three engine control enhancements that improve the response time of the engine were implemented and tested in the integrated simulation. The enhancements were shown to increase the engine s effectiveness as a yaw rate control effector when used in an automatic feedback loop. The improvement is highly dependent upon flight condition; the airframe behavior is markedly improved at low altitude, low speed conditions, and relatively unchanged at high altitude, high speed

Gravitationally lensed quasars in Gaia -- IV. 150 new lenses, quasar pairs, and projected quasars

We report the spectroscopic follow-up of 175 lensed quasar candidates selected using Gaia Data Release 2 observations following Lemon et al. 2019. Systems include 86 confirmed lensed quasars and a further 17 likely lensed quasars based on imaging and/or similar spectra. We also confirm 11 projected quasar pairs and 11 physical quasar pairs, while 25 systems are left as unclassified quasar pairs -- pairs of quasars at the same redshift, which could be either distinct quasars or potential lensed quasars. Especially interesting objects include 8 quadruply imaged quasars of which two have BAL sources, an apparent triple, and a doubly lensed LoBaL quasar. The source redshifts and image separations of these new lenses range between 0.65 - 3.59 and 0.78 - 6.23 arcseconds respectively. We compare the known population of lensed quasars to an updated mock catalogue at image separations between 1 and 4 arcseconds, showing a very good match at z1.5, only 47% of the predicted number are known, with 56% of these missing lenses at image separations below 1.5 arcseconds. The missing higher-redshift, small-separation systems will have fainter lensing galaxies, and are partially explained by the unclassified quasar pairs and likely lenses presented in this work, which require deeper imaging. Of the 11 new reported projected quasar pairs, 5 have impact parameters below 10 kpc, almost tripling the number of such systems, which can probe the innermost regions of quasar host galaxies through absorption studies. We also report four new lensed galaxies discovered through our searches, with source redshifts ranging from 0.62 to 2.79.Comment: 30 pages, 19 figures, submitted to MNRA