56 research outputs found
Atherosclerotic carotid plaque composition: a 3T and 7T MRI-histology correlation study
Background and Purpose
Carotid artery atherosclerotic plaque composition may influence plaque stability and risk of
thromboembolic events, and non-invasive plaque imaging may therefore permit risk
stratification for clinical management. Plaque composition was compared using non-invasive
in-vivo (3T) and ex-vivo (7T) MRI and histopathological examination.
Methods
Thirty three endarterectomy cross sections, from 13 patients, were studied. The datasets
consisted of in-vivo 3T MRI, ex-vivo 7T MRI and histopathology. Semi-automated
segmentation methods were used to measure areas of different plaque components. Bland-
Altman plots and mean difference with 95% confidence interval were carried out.
Results
There was general quantitative agreement between areas derived from semi-automated
segmentation of MRI data and histology measurements. The mean differences and 95%
confidence bounds in the relative to total plaque area between 3T versus Histology were:
fibrous tissue 4.99 % (-4.56 to 14.56), lipid-rich/necrotic core (LR/NC) with haemorrhage -
1.81% (-14.11 to 10.48), LR/NC without haemorrhage -2.43% (-13.04 to 8.17), and
calcification -3.18% (-11.55 to 5.18). The mean differences and 95% confidence bounds in
the relative to total plaque area between 7T and histology were: fibrous tissue 3.17 % (-3.17
to 9.52), LR/NC with haemorrhage -0.55% (-9.06 to 7.95), LR/NC without haemorrhage -
12.62% (-19.8 to -5.45), and calcification -2.43% (-9.97 to 4.73).
Conclusions
This study provides evidence that semi-automated segmentation of 3T/7T MRI techniques
can help to determine atherosclerotic plaque composition. In particular, the high resolution of
ex-vivo 7T data was able to highlight greater detail in the atherosclerotic plaque composition.
High field MRI may therefore have advantages for in vivo carotid plaque MR imaging
Inhibition of osteocyte apoptosis prevents the increase in osteocytic receptor activator of nuclear factor κB ligand (RANKL) but does not stop bone resorption or the loss of bone induced by unloading
"This research was originally published in Journal of Biological Chemistry. Lilian I. Plotkin, Arancha R. Gortazar, Hannah M. Davis, Keith W. Condon, Hugo Gabilondo, Marta Maycas, Matthew R. Allen, and Teresita Bellido. Inhibition of Osteocyte Apoptosis Prevents the Increase in Osteocytic Receptor Activator of Nuclear Factor κB Ligand (RANKL) but Does Not Stop Bone Resorption or the Loss of Bone Induced by Unloading*. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 2015; 290:18934-18942. © the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology."Apoptosis of osteocytes and osteoblasts precedes bone resorption and bone loss with reduced mechanical stimulation, and receptor activator of NF-κB ligand (RANKL) expression is increased with unloading in mice. Because osteocytes are major RANKL producers, we hypothesized that apoptotic osteocytes signal to neighboring osteocytes to increase RANKL expression, which, in turn, increases osteoclastogenesis and bone resorption. The traditional bisphosphonate (BP) alendronate (Aln) or IG9402, a BP analog that does not inhibit resorption, prevented the increase in osteocyte apoptosis and osteocytic RANKL expression. The BPs also inhibited osteoblast apoptosis but did not prevent the increase in osteoblastic RANKL. Unloaded mice exhibited high serum levels of the bone resorption marker C-telopeptide fragments of type I collagen (CTX), elevated osteoclastogenesis, and increased osteoclasts in bone. Aln, but not IG9402, prevented all of these effects. In addition, Aln prevented the reduction in spinal and femoral bone mineral density, spinal bone volume/tissue volume, trabecular thickness, mechanical strength, and material strength induced by unloading. Although IG9402 did not prevent the loss of bone mass, it partially prevented the loss of strength, suggesting a contribution of osteocyte viability to strength independent of bone mass. These results demonstrate that osteocyte apoptosis leads to increased osteocytic RANKL. However, blockade of these events is not sufficient to restrain osteoclast formation, inhibit resorption, or stop bone loss induced by skeletal unloadingThis work was supported, in whole or in part, by National Institutes of Health Grants R01DK076007 and ARRA supplement S10-RR023710 (to T. B.) and R01AR053643 (to L. I. P.). This work was also supported by Veterans Affairs Merit Award I01BX002104 (to T. B.) and an IUSM Biomedical Research grant (to L. I. P.) and by scholarships from the Conchita Rábago Foundation (to A. R. G. and M. M.), the European Molecular Biology Organization (to M. M.), and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (to H. G
Multiplet Effects in the Quasiparticle Band Structure of the Anderson Model
In this paper, we examine the mean field electronic structure of the
Anderson lattice model in a slave boson approximation, which should
be useful in understanding the physics of correlated metals with more than one
f electron per site such as uranium-based heavy fermion superconductors. We
find that the multiplet structure of the ion acts to quench the crystal
field splitting in the quasiparticle electronic structure. This is consistent
with experimental observations in such metals as .Comment: 9 pages, revtex, 3 uuencoded postscript figures attached at en
The Complexity of Nash Equilibria in Simple Stochastic Multiplayer Games
We analyse the computational complexity of finding Nash equilibria in simple
stochastic multiplayer games. We show that restricting the search space to
equilibria whose payoffs fall into a certain interval may lead to
undecidability. In particular, we prove that the following problem is
undecidable: Given a game G, does there exist a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium
of G where player 0 wins with probability 1. Moreover, this problem remains
undecidable if it is restricted to strategies with (unbounded) finite memory.
However, if mixed strategies are allowed, decidability remains an open problem.
One way to obtain a provably decidable variant of the problem is restricting
the strategies to be positional or stationary. For the complexity of these two
problems, we obtain a common lower bound of NP and upper bounds of NP and
PSPACE respectively.Comment: 23 pages; revised versio
Franck-Condon Effect in Central Spin System
We study the quantum transitions of a central spin surrounded by a
collective-spin environment. It is found that the influence of the
environmental spins on the absorption spectrum of the central spin can be
explained with the analog of the Franck-Condon (FC) effect in conventional
electron-phonon interaction system. Here, the collective spins of the
environment behave as the vibrational mode, which makes the electron to be
transitioned mainly with the so-called "vertical transitions" in the
conventional FC effect. The "vertical transition" for the central spin in the
spin environment manifests as, the certain collective spin states of the
environment is favored, which corresponds to the minimal change in the average
of the total spin angular momentum.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure
Constraints on cosmic hemispherical power anomalies from quasars
Recent analyses of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps from the WMAP
satellite have uncovered evidence for a hemispherical power anomaly, i.e. a
dipole modulation of the CMB power spectrum at large angular scales with an
amplitude of +/-14 percent. Erickcek et al have put forward an inflationary
model to explain this anomaly. Their scenario is a variation on the curvaton
scenario in which the curvaton possesses a large-scale spatial gradient that
modulates the amplitude of CMB fluctuations. We show that this scenario would
also lead to a spatial gradient in the amplitude of perturbations sigma_8, and
hence to a dipole asymmetry in any highly biased tracer of the underlying
density field. Using the high-redshift quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey, we find an upper limit on such a gradient of |nabla
sigma_8|/sigma_8<0.027/r_{lss} (99% posterior probability), where r_{lss} is
the comoving distance to the last-scattering surface. This rules out the
simplest version of the curvaton spatial gradient scenario.Comment: matches JCAP accepted version (minor revisions
Combined Atomic Force Microscope and Volumetric Light Sheet System for Correlative Force and Fluorescence Mechanobiology Studies
The central goals of mechanobiology are to understand how cells generate force and how they respond to environmental mechanical stimuli. A full picture of these processes requires high-resolution, volumetric imaging with time-correlated force measurements. Here we present an instrument that combines an open-top, single-objective light sheet fluorescence microscope with an atomic force microscope (AFM), providing simultaneous volumetric imaging with high spatiotemporal resolution and high dynamic range force capability (10 pN – 100 nN). With this system we have captured lysosome trafficking, vimentin nuclear caging, and actin dynamics on the order of one second per single-cell volume. To showcase the unique advantages of combining Line Bessel light sheet imaging with AFM, we measured the forces exerted by a macrophage during FcɣR-mediated phagocytosis while performing both sequential two-color, fixed plane and volumetric imaging of F-actin. This unique instrument allows for a myriad of novel studies investigating the coupling of cellular dynamics and mechanical forces
A Statistical Study of Galactic SNRs using the PMN Survey
The Parkes-MIT-NRAO (PMN) radio survey has been used to generate a quasi
all-sky study of Galactic Supernova Remnants (SNRs) at a common frequency of
4.85 GHz. We present flux densities estimated for the sample of 110 Southern
Galactic SNRs (up to Dec = - 65 deg.) observed with the Parkes 64-m radio
telescope and an additional sample of 54 from the Northern PMN (up to Dec = +64
deg.) survey undertaken with the Green Bank 43-m (20 SNRs) and 91-m (34 SNRs)
radio telescopes. Out of this total sample of 164 selected SNRs (representing
71% of the 231 known SNRs in the Green catalogue) we consider 138 to provide
reliable estimates of flux density and surface brightness distribution. This
sub-sample represents those SNRs which fall within carefully chosen selection
criteria which minimises the effects of the known problems in establishing
reliable fluxes from the PMN survey data. Our selection criteria are based on a
judicious restriction of source angular size and telescope beam together with
careful evaluation of fluxes on a case by case basis. This gives confidence in
the newly derived PMN fluxes when the selection criteria are respected. We find
a sharp drop off in the flux densities for Galactic SNRs beyond 4 Jy and then a
fairly flat distribution from 5-9 Jy, a slight decline and a further flat
distribution from 9-20 Jy though the numbers of SNR in each Jy bin are low. We
also re-visit the contentious Sigma-D relation to determine a new power law
index for a sub-sample of shell type SNRs which yields beta= -2.2 +/- 0.6. This
new evaluation of the Sigma-D relation, applied to the restricted sample,
provides new distance estimates and their Galactic scale height distribution.
We find a peak in the SNR distribution between 7-11 kpc with most restricted to
+/- 100 pc Galactic scale height.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publishing in Astrophysics and
Space Scienc
Scions influence apparent transpiration efficiency of Vitis vinifera (cv. Shiraz) rather than rootstocks
Stratigraphic, geochemical and U-Pb zircon constraints from Slieve Gallion, Northern Ireland: a correlation of the Irish Caledonian arcs
Recent Ar–Ar and U–Pb zircon geochronology from across the British and Irish Caledonides has revealed a prolonged period of arc-ophiolite formation (c. 514–464 Ma) and accretion (c. 490–470 Ma) to the Laurentian margin during the Grampian orogeny. The Slieve Gallion Inlier of Northern Ireland, an isolated occurrence of the Tyrone Volcanic Group, records the development of a peri-Laurentian island arc–backarc and its obduction to an outboard microcontinental block. Although a previous biostratigraphic age constraint provides a firm correlation of at least part of the volcanic succession to the Ca1 Stage of the Arenig (c. 475–474 Ma), there is uncertainty on its exact statigraphic position in the Tyrone Volcanic Group. Earliest magmatism is characterized by light rare earth element (LREE) depleted island-arc tholeiite. Overlying deposits are dominated by large ion lithophile and LREE-enriched, hornblende-phyric and feldspathic calc-alkaline basaltic andesites and andesitic tuffs with strongly negative ?Ndt values. Previously published biostratigraphic age constraints, combined with recent U–Pb zircon geochronology and new petrochemical correlations, suggest that the Slieve Gallion Inlier is equivalent to the lower Tyrone Volcanic Group. Temporal and geochemical correlations between the Slieve Gallion Inlier and Charlestown Group of Ireland suggest that they may be part of the same arc system, which was accreted at a late stage (c. 470 Ma) in the Grampian orogeny. A switch from tholeiitic volcanism to calc-alkaline dominated activity within the Lough Nafooey Group of western Ireland occurred prior to c. 490 Ma, some 15–20 Myr earlier than at Tyrone and Charlestown
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