Higher physical fitness levels are associated with less language decline in healthy ageing

Healthy ageing is associated with decline in cognitive abilities such as language. Aerobic fitness has been shown to ameliorate decline in some cognitive domains, but the potential benefits for language have not been examined. In a cross-sectional sample, we investigated the relationship between aerobic fitness and tip-of-the-tongue states. These are among the most frequent cognitive failures in healthy older adults and occur when a speaker knows a word but is unable to produce it. We found that healthy older adults indeed experience more tip-of-the-tongue states than young adults. Importantly, higher aerobic fitness levels decrease the probability of experiencing tip-of-the-tongue states in healthy older adults. Fitness-related differences in word finding abilities are observed over and above effects of age. This is the first demonstration of a link between aerobic fitness and language functioning in healthy older adults

Soundness of Unravelings for Conditional Term Rewriting Systems via Ultra-Properties Related to Linearity

Unravelings are transformations from a conditional term rewriting system (CTRS, for short) over an original signature into an unconditional term rewriting systems (TRS, for short) over an extended signature. They are not sound w.r.t. reduction for every CTRS, while they are complete w.r.t. reduction. Here, soundness w.r.t. reduction means that every reduction sequence of the corresponding unraveled TRS, of which the initial and end terms are over the original signature, can be simulated by the reduction of the original CTRS. In this paper, we show that an optimized variant of Ohlebusch's unraveling for a deterministic CTRS is sound w.r.t. reduction if the corresponding unraveled TRS is left-linear or both right-linear and non-erasing. We also show that soundness of the variant implies that of Ohlebusch's unraveling. Finally, we show that soundness of Ohlebusch's unraveling is the weakest in soundness of the other unravelings and a transformation, proposed by Serbanuta and Rosu, for (normal) deterministic CTRSs, i.e., soundness of them respectively implies that of Ohlebusch's unraveling.Comment: 49 pages, 1 table, publication in Special Issue: Selected papers of the "22nd International Conference on Rewriting Techniques and Applications (RTA'11)

Latent protein trees

Unbiased, label-free proteomics is becoming a powerful technique for measuring protein expression in almost any biological sample. The output of these measurements after preprocessing is a collection of features and their associated intensities for each sample. Subsets of features within the data are from the same peptide, subsets of peptides are from the same protein, and subsets of proteins are in the same biological pathways, therefore, there is the potential for very complex and informative correlational structure inherent in these data. Recent attempts to utilize this data often focus on the identification of single features that are associated with a particular phenotype that is relevant to the experiment. However, to date, there have been no published approaches that directly model what we know to be multiple different levels of correlation structure. Here we present a hierarchical Bayesian model which is specifically designed to model such correlation structure in unbiased, label-free proteomics. This model utilizes partial identification information from peptide sequencing and database lookup as well as the observed correlation in the data to appropriately compress features into latent proteins and to estimate their correlation structure. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the model using artificial/benchmark data and in the context of a series of proteomics measurements of blood plasma from a collection of volunteers who were infected with two different strains of viral influenza.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-AOAS639 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

A Submillimeter HCN Laser in IRC+10216

We report the detection of a strong submillimeter wavelength HCN laser line at a frequency near 805 GHz toward the carbon star IRC+10216. This line, the J=9-8 rotational transition within the (04(0)0) vibrationally excited state, is one of a series of HCN laser lines that were first detected in the laboratory in the early days of laser spectroscopy. Since its lower energy level is 4200 K above the ground state, the laser emission must arise from the inner part of IRC+10216's circumstellar envelope. To better characterize this environment, we observed other, thermally emitting, vibrationally excited HCN lines and find that they, like the laser line, arise in a region of temperature approximately 1000 K that is located within the dust formation radius; this conclusion is supported by the linewidth of the laser. The (04(0)0), J=9-8 laser might be chemically pumped and may be the only known laser (or maser) that is excited both in the laboratory and in space by a similar mechanism.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Endothelial Progenitors Exist within the Kidney and Lung Mesenchyme

The renal endothelium has been debated as arising from resident hemangioblast precursors that transdifferentiate from the nephrogenic mesenchyme (vasculogenesis) and/or from invading vessels (angiogenesis). While the Foxd1-positive renal cortical stroma has been shown to differentiate into cells that support the vasculature in the kidney (including vascular smooth muscle and pericytes) it has not been considered as a source of endothelial cell progenitors. In addition, it is unclear if Foxd1-positive mesenchymal cells in other organs such as the lung have the potential to form endothelium. This study examines the potential for Foxd1-positive cells of the kidney and lung to give rise to endothelial progenitors. We utilized immunofluorescence (IF) and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) to co-label Foxd1-expressing cells (including permanently lineage-tagged cells) with endothelial markers in embryonic and postnatal mice. We also cultured FACsorted Foxd1-positive cells, performed in vitro endothelial cell tubulogenesis assays and examined for endocytosis of acetylated low-density lipoprotein (Ac-LDL), a functional assay for endothelial cells. Immunofluorescence and FACS revealed that a subset of Foxd1-positive cells from kidney and lung co-expressed endothelial cell markers throughout embryogenesis. In vitro, cultured embryonic Foxd1-positive cells were able to differentiate into tubular networks that expressed endothelial cell markers and were able to endocytose Ac-LDL. IF and FACS in both the kidney and lung revealed that lineage-tagged Foxd1-positive cells gave rise to a significant portion of the endothelium in postnatal mice. In the kidney, the stromal-derived cells gave rise to a portion of the peritubular capillary endothelium, but not of the glomerular or large vessel endothelium. These findings reveal the heterogeneity of endothelial cell lineages; moreover, Foxd1-positive mesenchymal cells of the developing kidney and lung are a source of endothelial progenitors that are likely critical to patterning the vasculature. © 2013 Sims-Lucas et al

Absence of long-range chemical ordering in equimolar FeCoCrNi

Equimolar FeCoCrNi alloys have been the topic of recent research as "high-entropy alloys," where the name is derived from the high configurational entropy of mixing for a random solid solution. Despite their name, no systematic study of ordering in this alloy system has been performed to date. Here, we present results from anomalous x-ray scattering and neutron scattering on quenched and annealed samples. An alloy of FeNi_3 was prepared in the same manner to act as a control. Evidence of long-range chemical ordering is clearly observed in the annealed FeNi_3 sample from both experimental techniques. The FeCoCrNi sample given the same heat treatment lacks long-range chemical order

Accretion and photodesorption of CO ice as a function of the incident angle of deposition

Non-thermal desorption of inter- and circum-stellar ice mantles on dust grains, in particular ultraviolet photon-induced desorption, has gained importance in recent years. These processes may account for the observed gas phase abundances of molecules like CO toward cold interstellar clouds. Ice mantle growth results from gas molecules impinging on the dust from all directions and incidence angles. Nevertheless, the effect of the incident angle for deposition on ice photo-desorption rate has not been studied. This work explores the impact on the accretion and photodesorption rates of the incidence angle of CO gas molecules with the cold surface during deposition of a CO ice layer. Infrared spectroscopy monitored CO ice upon deposition at different angles, ultraviolet-irradiation, and subsequent warm-up. Vacuum-ultraviolet spectroscopy and a Ni-mesh measured the emission of the ultraviolet lamp. Molecules ejected from the ice to the gas during irradiation or warm-up were characterized by a quadrupole mass spectrometer. The photodesorption rate of CO ice deposited at 11 K and different incident angles was rather stable between 0 and 45$^{\circ}$. A maximum in the CO photodesorption rate appeared around 70$^{\circ}$-incidence deposition angle. The same deposition angle leads to the maximum surface area of water ice. Although this study of the surface area could not be performed for CO ice, the similar angle dependence in the photodesorption and the ice surface area suggests that they are closely related. Further evidence for a dependence of CO ice morphology on deposition angle is provided by thermal desorption of CO ice experiments

Cosmology on a Three-Brane

In this paper a general solution is found for a five dimensional orbifold spacetime that induces a $k=0$ cosmology on a three-brane. Expressions for the energy density and pressure on the brane in terms of the brane metric are derived. Given a metric on the brane it is possible to find five dimensional spacetimes that contain the brane. This calculation is carried out for an inflationary universe and for a metric that corresponds to a radiation dominated universe in standard cosmology. It is also shown that any $k=0$ cosmology can be embedded in a flat five dimensional orbifold spacetime and the equation of the three-brane surface is derived. For an inflationary universe it is shown that the surface is the usual hyperboloid representation of de Sitter space, although it is embedded in an orbifold spacetime.Comment: 11 pages, LaTex. New solutions with a cosmological constant have been adde

Models for logics and conditional constraints in automated proofs of termination

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13770-4_3Reasoning about termination of declarative programs, which are described by means of a computational logic, requires the definition of appropriate abstractions as semantic models of the logic, and also handling the conditional constraints which are often obtained. The formal treatment of such constraints in automated proofs, often using numeric interpretations and (arithmetic) constraint solving can greatly benefit from appropriate techniques to deal with the conditional (in)equations at stake. Existing results from linear algebra or real algebraic geometry are useful to deal with them but have received only scant attention to date. We investigate the definition and use of numeric models for logics and the resolution of linear and algebraic conditional constraints as unifying techniques for proving termination of declarative programs.Developed during a sabbatical year at UIUC. Supported by projects NSF CNS13-19109, MINECO TIN2010-21062-C02-02 and TIN2013-45732-C4-1-P, and GV BEST/2014/026 and PROMETEO/2011/052.Lucas Alba, S.; Meseguer, J. (2014). Models for logics and conditional constraints in automated proofs of termination. En Artificial Intelligence and Symbolic Computation. Springer Verlag (Germany). 9-20. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13770-4_3S920Alarcón, B., Gutiérrez, R., Lucas, S., Navarro-Marset, R.: Proving Termination Properties with mu-term. In: Johnson, M., Pavlovic, D. (eds.) AMAST 2010. LNCS, vol. 6486, pp. 201–208. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)Alarcón, B., Lucas, S., Navarro-Marset, R.: Using Matrix Interpretations over the Reals in Proofs of Termination. In: Proc. of PROLE 2009, pp. 255–264 (2009)Clavel, M., Durán, F., Eker, S., Lincoln, P., Martí-Oliet, N., Meseguer, J., Talcott, C. (eds.): All About Maude - A High-Performance Logical Framework. LNCS, vol. 4350. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)Contejean, E., Marché, C., Tomás, A.-P., Urbain, X.: Mechanically proving termination using polynomial interpretations. J. of Aut. Reas. 34(4), 325–363 (2006)Endrullis, J., Waldmann, J., Zantema, H.: Matrix Interpretations for Proving Termination of Term Rewriting. J. of Aut. Reas. 40(2-3), 195–220 (2008)Fuhs, C., Giesl, J., Middeldorp, A., Schneider-Kamp, P., Thiemann, R., Zankl, H.: Maximal Termination. In: Voronkov, A. (ed.) RTA 2008. LNCS, vol. 5117, pp. 110–125. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)Futatsugi, K., Diaconescu, R.: CafeOBJ Report. AMAST Series. World Scientific (1998)Hudak, P., Peyton-Jones, S.J., Wadler, P.: Report on the Functional Programming Language Haskell: a non–strict, purely functional language. Sigplan Notices 27(5), 1–164 (1992)Lucas, S.: Context-sensitive computations in functional and functional logic programs. Journal of Functional and Logic Programming 1998(1), 1–61 (1998)Lucas, S.: Polynomials over the reals in proofs of termination: from theory to practice. RAIRO Theoretical Informatics and Applications 39(3), 547–586 (2005)Lucas, S., Marché, C., Meseguer, J.: Operational termination of conditional term rewriting systems. Information Processing Letters 95, 446–453 (2005)Lucas, S., Meseguer, J.: Proving Operational Termination of Declarative Programs in General Logics. In: Proc. of PPDP 2014, pp. 111–122. ACM Digital Library (2014)Lucas, S., Meseguer, J.: 2D Dependency Pairs for Proving Operational Termination of CTRSs. In: Proc. of WRLA 2014. LNCS, vol. 8663 (to appear, 2014)Lucas, S., Meseguer, J., Gutiérrez, R.: Extending the 2D DP Framework for CTRSs. In: Selected papers of LOPSTR 2014. LNCS (to appear, 2015)Meseguer, J.: General Logics. In: Ebbinghaus, H.-D., et al. (eds.) Logic Colloquium 1987, pp. 275–329. North-Holland (1989)Nguyen, M.T., de Schreye, D., Giesl, J., Schneider-Kamp, P.: Polytool: Polynomial interpretations as a basis for termination of logic programs. Theory and Practice of Logic Programming 11(1), 33–63 (2011)Ohlebusch, E.: Advanced Topics in Term Rewriting. Springer (April 2002)Prestel, A., Delzell, C.N.: Positive Polynomials. In: From Hilbert’s 17th Problem to Real Algebra. Springer, Berlin (2001)Podelski, A., Rybalchenko, A.: A Complete Method for the Synthesis of Linear Ranking Functions. In: Steffen, B., Levi, G. (eds.) VMCAI 2004. LNCS, vol. 2937, pp. 239–251. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)Schrijver, A.: Theory of linear and integer programming. John Wiley & Sons (1986)Zantema, H.: Termination of Context-Sensitive Rewriting. In: Comon, H. (ed.) RTA 1997. LNCS, vol. 1232, pp. 172–186. Springer, Heidelberg (1997

Deficiency in clonogenic endometrial mesenchymal stem cells in obese women with reproductive failure – a pilot study

The mechanisms of obesity associated reproductive complications remain poorly understood. Endometrial mesenchymal stem-cells are critical for cyclic renewal and uterine function. Recently, W5C5+ cells, with high clonogenicity, capable of producing endometrial stroma in vivo, have been described. We sought to investigate the abundance and cloning efficiency of W5C5+ and W5C5− endometrial cells in relation to Body Mass Index, age and reproductive outcome. Design W5C5+ and W5C5− cells were purified from mid-luteal endometrial biopsies (n = 54) by magnetic bead separation and subjected to in vitro colony-forming assays. Results First trimester pregnancy losses were significantly higher in obese subjects (n = 12) compared to overweight (n = 20) and subjects with normal Body Mass Index (n = 22) (P0.05). Conclusions Our observations suggest that the regenerative capacity and plasticity of the endometrium of obese women is suboptimal, which in turn may account for the increased risk of reproductive complications associated with obesity