30,551 research outputs found

    Computation of the para-pseudoinverse for oversampled filter banks: Forward and backward Greville formulas

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    This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2008 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.Frames and oversampled filter banks have been extensively studied over the past few years due to their increased design freedom and improved error resilience. In frame expansions, the least square signal reconstruction operator is called the dual frame, which can be obtained by choosing the synthesis filter bank as the para-pseudoinverse of the analysis bank. In this paper, we study the computation of the dual frame by exploiting the Greville formula, which was originally derived in 1960 to compute the pseudoinverse of a matrix when a new row is appended. Here, we first develop the backward Greville formula to handle the case of row deletion. Based on the forward Greville formula, we then study the computation of para-pseudoinverse for extended filter banks and Laplacian pyramids. Through the backward Greville formula, we investigate the frame-based error resilient transmission over erasure channels. The necessary and sufficient condition for an oversampled filter bank to be robust to one erasure channel is derived. A postfiltering structure is also presented to implement the para-pseudoinverse when the transform coefficients in one subband are completely lost

    Association between religious service attendance and lower suicide rates among US women

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    IMPORTANCE: Previous studies have linked suicide risk with religious participation, but the majority have used ecologic, cross-sectional, or case-control data. OBJECTIVE: To examine the longitudinal association between religious service at tendance and suicide and the joint associations of suicide with service attendance and religious affiliation. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: We evaluated associations between religious service attendance and suicide from 1996 through June 2010 in a large, long-term prospective cohort, the Nurses' Health Study, in an analysis that included 89 708 women. Religious service attendance was self-reported in 1992 and 1996. Data analysis was conducted from 1996 through 2010. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to examine the association between religious service attendance and suicide, adjusting for demographic covariates, lifestyle factors, medical history, depressive symptoms, and social integration measures. We performed sensitivity analyses to examine the influence of unmeasured confounding. RESULTS: Among 89 708 women aged 30 to 55 years who participated in the Nurses' Health Study, attendance at religious services once per week or more was associated with an approximately 5-fold lower rate of suicide compared with never attending religious services (hazard ratio, 0.16; 95% CI, 0.06-0.46). Service attendance once or more per week vs less frequent attendance was associated with a hazard ratio of 0.05 (95% CI, 0.006-0.48) for Catholics but only 0.34 (95% CI, 0.10-1.10) for Protestants (P = .05 for heterogeneity). Results were robust in sensitivity analysis and to exclusions of persons who were previously depressed or had a history of cancer or cardiovascular disease. There was evidence that social integration, depressive symptoms, and alcohol consumption partially mediated the association among those occasionally attending services, but not for those attending frequently. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In this cohort of US women, frequent religious service attendance was associated with a significantly lower rate of suicide

    Neural crest migration is driven by a few trailblazer cells with a unique molecular signature narrowly confined to the invasive front

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    Neural crest (NC) cell migration is crucial to the formation of peripheral tissues during vertebrate development. However, how NC cells respond to different microenvironments to maintain persistence of direction and cohesion in multicellular streams remains unclear. To address this, we profiled eight subregions of a typical cranial NC cell migratory stream. Hierarchical clustering showed significant differences in the expression profiles of the lead three subregions compared with newly emerged cells. Multiplexed imaging of mRNA expression using fluorescent hybridization chain reaction (HCR) quantitatively confirmed the expression profiles of lead cells. Computational modeling predicted that a small fraction of lead cells that detect directional information is optimal for successful stream migration. Single-cell profiling then revealed a unique molecular signature that is consistent and stable over time in a subset of lead cells within the most advanced portion of the migratory front, which we term trailblazers. Model simulations that forced a lead cell behavior in the trailing subpopulation predicted cell bunching near the migratory domain entrance. Misexpression of the trailblazer molecular signature by perturbation of two upstream transcription factors agreed with the in silico prediction and showed alterations to NC cell migration distance and stream shape. These data are the first to characterize the molecular diversity within an NC cell migratory stream and offer insights into how molecular patterns are transduced into cell behaviors

    Removal of diethyltoluamide, paracetamol, caffeine and triclosan from natural water by photo-Fenton process using powdered zero-valent iron

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    The removal of four pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), namely diethyltoluamide (DEET), paracetamol (PAR), caffeine (CAF) and triclosan (TCS) (at a spiked concentration of 25 μg/L), from natural water using the photo (UVC)-Fenton (powdered zero-valent iron, pZVI) process was investigated. The results show that a molar ratio of H2O2/pZVI of 2.0, pZVI concentration of 22.4 mg/L and pH of 3.0 maximised the removal of the target compounds at 71.1%, 100%, 64.2% and 87.1%, for DEET, PAR, CAF and TCS, respectively, after 30 min in Fenton (pZVI) process. When this process was coupled with UVC radiation, 29.6%, 80.3%, 3.1% and 88.4% of DEET, PAR, CAF and TCS, respectively, were removed within the first minute, and 99.0%, 100%, 99.5% and 100%, respectively, were removed after 30 min. The pseudo first-order kinetic model best fitted the degradation data of DEET, PAR and CAF (1–20 min); and because 80% of TCS and PAR degraded within the first minutes, it is suggested to explore the kinetics during the initial period. Characterisations of pZVI after the photo-Fenton (pZVI) process indicated the corrosion of the surface of iron powder and the presence of iron oxides and iron hydroxides. Lower removals of nitrate (35–50%), phosphate (<35%) and total organic carbon (TOC, <18%) were observed, which may be attributed to the small H2O2/pZVI dosage used. Results of this investigation show that the photo-Fenton (pZVI) process has potential for efficient and cost-effective removal of PPCPs

    Targeting GATA4 for cardiac repair

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    Various strategies have been applied to replace the loss of cardiomyocytes in order to restore reduced cardiac function and prevent the progression of heart disease. Intensive research efforts in the field of cellular reprogramming and cell transplantation may eventually lead to efficient in vivo applications for the treatment of cardiac injuries, representing a novel treatment strategy for regenerative medicine. Modulation of cardiac transcription factor (TF) networks by chemical entities represents another viable option for therapeutic interventions. Comprehensive screening projects have revealed a number of molecular entities acting on molecular pathways highly critical for cellular lineage commitment and differentiation, including compounds targeting Wnt- and transforming growth factor beta (TGF beta)-signaling. Furthermore, previous studies have demonstrated that GATA4 and NKX2-5 are essential TFs in gene regulation of cardiac development and hypertrophy. For example, both of these TFs are required to fully activate mechanical stretch-responsive genes such as atrial natriuretic peptide and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP). We have previously reported that the compound 3i-1000 efficiently inhibited the synergy of the GATA4-NKX2-5 interaction. Cellular effects of 3i-1000 have been further characterized in a number of confirmatory in vitro bioassays, including rat cardiac myocytes and animal models of ischemic injury and angiotensin II-induced pressure overload, suggesting the potential for small molecule-induced cardioprotection.Peer reviewe

    Ageing memory and glassiness of a driven vortex system

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    Many systems in nature, glasses, interfaces and fractures being some examples, cannot equilibrate with their environment, which gives rise to novel and surprising behaviour such as memory effects, ageing and nonlinear dynamics. Unlike their equilibrated counterparts, the dynamics of out-of- equilibrium systems is generally too complex to be captured by simple macroscopic laws. Here we investigate a system that straddles the boundary between glass and crystal: a Bragg glass formed by vortices in a superconductor. We find that the response to an applied force evolves according to a stretched exponential, with the exponent reflecting the deviation from equilibrium. After the force is removed, the system ages with time and its subsequent response time scales linearly with its age (simple ageing), meaning that older systems are slower than younger ones. We show that simple ageing can occur naturally in the presence of sufficient quenched disorder. Moreover, the hierarchical distribution of timescales, arising when chunks of loose vortices cannot move before trapped ones become dislodged, leads to a stretched-exponential response.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

    G protein-coupled receptor 37-like 1 modulates astrocyte glutamate transporters and neuronal NMDA receptors and is neuroprotective in ischemia

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    We show that the G protein-coupled receptor GPR37-like 1 (GPR37L1) is expressed in most astrocytes and some oligodendrocyte precursors in the mouse central nervous system. This contrasts with GPR37, which is mainly in mature oligodendrocytes. Comparison of wild type and Gpr37l1(-/-) mice showed that loss of GPR37L1 did not affect the input resistance or resting potential of astrocytes or neurons in the hippocampus. However, GPR37L1-mediated signalling inhibited astrocyte glutamate transporters and - surprisingly, given its lack of expression in neurons - reduced neuronal NMDA receptor (NMDAR) activity during prolonged activation of the receptors as occurs in ischemia. This effect on NMDAR signalling was not mediated by a change in the release of D-serine or TNF-α, two astrocyte-derived agents known to modulate NMDAR function. After middle cerebral artery occlusion, Gpr37l1 expression was increased around the lesion. Neuronal death was increased by ∼40% in Gpr37l1(-/-) brain compared to wild type in an in vitro model of ischemia. Thus, GPR37L1 protects neurons during ischemia, presumably by modulating extracellular glutamate concentration and NMDAR activation
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