1,908 research outputs found
TLR4 stimulation by LPS enhances angiogenesis in a co-culture system consisting of primary human osteoblasts and outgrowth endothelial cells
The development of new approaches leading to fast and successful vascularization of tissue-engineered constructs is one of the most intensively studied subjects in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Recently, TLR4 activation and LPS stimulation of endothelial cells have been reported to promote angiogenesis in a variety of settings. In this study, we demonstrate that TLR4 activation by Ultrapure LPS Escherichia coli 0111:B4 (LPS-EB) significantly enhances microvessel formation in a co-culture system consisting of outgrowth endothelial cells (OECs) and primary human osteoblasts (pOBs). The precise modes of TLR4 action on the process of angiogenesis have also been investigated in this study. Using quantitative fluorescence microscopy in monocultures of OECs and pOBs, it was found that TLR4 activation through LPS-EB upregulates the expression level of TLR4/MYD88 and enhances both angiogenesis and osteogenesis. Furthermore, ELISA and qRT-PCR have shown that the level of two adhesion molecules (ICAM-1 and E-selectin), two cytokines (IL-6 and IL-8) and two growth factors (VEGF and PDGF-BB) related to angiogenesis increase significantly after LPS-EB treatment. This increased understanding of the role of TLR4 in angiogenesis could be of value in various settings related to tissue repair and tissue engineering. Moreover, since LPS and TLR4 agonists improve angiogenesis and osteogenesis, TLR4 agonists (endogenous or synthetic) could be used for angiogenesis intervention in vivo and therefore could be tested for their potential clinical applications in promoting angiogenesis in bone tissue engineering
Light Unstable Sterile Neutrino
The three massless active (doublet) neutrinos may mix with two heavy and one
\underline {light} sterile (singlet) neutrinos so that the induced masses and
mixings among the former are able to explain the present data on atmospheric
and solar neutrino oscillations. If the LSND result is also to be explained,
one active neutrino mass eigenstate must mix with the light sterile neutrino. A
specific model is proposed with the spontaneous and soft explicit breaking of a
new global symmetry so that a sterile neutrino will decay into an
active antineutrino and a nearly massless pseudo-Majoron.Comment: Discussion and references adde
Self-consistent description of nuclear compressional modes
Isoscalar monopole and dipole compressional modes are computed for a variety
of closed-shell nuclei in a relativistic random-phase approximation to three
different parametrizations of the Walecka model with scalar self-interactions.
Particular emphasis is placed on the role of self-consistency which by itself,
and with little else, guarantees the decoupling of the spurious
isoscalar-dipole strength from the physical response and the conservation of
the vector current. A powerful new relation is introduced to quantify the
violation of the vector current in terms of various ground-state form-factors.
For the isoscalar-dipole mode two distinct regions are clearly identified: (i)
a high-energy component that is sensitive to the size of the nucleus and scales
with the compressibility of the model and (ii) a low-energy component that is
insensitivity to the nuclear compressibility. A fairly good description of both
compressional modes is obtained by using a ``soft'' parametrization having a
compression modulus of K=224 MeV.Comment: 28 pages and 10 figures; submitted to PR
Levinson's Theorem for Dirac Particles
Levinson's theorem for Dirac particles constraints the sum of the phase
shifts at threshold by the total number of bound states of the Dirac equation.
Recently, a stronger version of Levinson's theorem has been proven in which the
value of the positive- and negative-energy phase shifts are separately
constrained by the number of bound states of an appropriate set of
Schr\"odinger-like equations. In this work we elaborate on these ideas and show
that the stronger form of Levinson's theorem relates the individual phase
shifts directly to the number of bound states of the Dirac equation having an
even or odd number of nodes. We use a mean-field approximation to Walecka's
scalar-vector model to illustrate this stronger form of Levinson's theorem. We
show that the assignment of bound states to a particular phase shift should be
done, not on the basis of the sign of the bound-state energy, but rather, in
terms of the nodal structure (even/odd number of nodes) of the bound state.Comment: Latex with Revtex, 7 postscript figures (available from the author),
SCRI-06109
Relativistic analysis of the 208Pb(e,e'p)207Tl reaction at high momentum
The recent 208Pb(e,e'p)207Tl data from NIKHEF-K at high missing momentum
(p_m>300 MeV/c) are compared to theoretical results obtained with a fully
relativistic formalism previously applied to analyze data on the low missing
momentum (p_m < 300 MeV/c) region. The same relativistic optical potential and
mean field wave functions are used in the two p_m-regions. The spectroscopic
factors of the various shells are extracted from the analysis of the low-p_m
data and then used in the high-p_m region. In contrast to previous analyses
using a nonrelativistic mean field formalism, we do not find a substantial
deviation from the mean field predictions other than that of the spectroscopic
factors, which appear to be consistent with both low- and high-p_m data. We
find that the difference between results of relativistic and nonrelativistic
formalisms is enhanced in the p_m<0 region that will be interesting to explore
experimentally.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX+Revtex, included 3 postscript figures. To appear in
the Physical Review C (Rapid Communications
Collective modes of asymmetric nuclear matter in Quantum HadroDynamics
We discuss a fully relativistic Landau Fermi liquid theory based on the
Quantum Hadro-Dynamics () effective field picture of Nuclear Matter
({\it NM}).
From the linearized kinetic equations we get the dispersion relations of the
propagating collective modes. We focus our attention on the dynamical effects
of the interplay between scalar and vector channel contributions. A beautiful
``mirror'' structure in the form of the dynamical response in the
isoscalar/isovector degree of freedom is revealed, with a complete parallelism
in the role respectively played by the compressibility and the symmetry energy.
All that strongly supports the introduction of an explicit coupling to the
scalar-isovector channel of the nucleon-nucleon interaction. In particular we
study the influence of this coupling (to a -meson-like effective field)
on the collective response of asymmetric nuclear matter (). Interesting
contributions are found on the propagation of isovector-like modes at normal
density and on an expected smooth transition to isoscalar-like oscillations at
high baryon density. Important ``chemical'' effects on the neutron-proton
structure of the mode are shown. For dilute we have the isospin
distillation mechanism of the unstable isoscalar-like oscillations, while at
high baryon density we predict an almost pure neutron wave structure of the
propagating sounds.Comment: 18 pages (LATEX), 8 Postscript figures, uses "epsfig
Spectroscopic Factors in Ca and Pb from : Fully Relativistic Analysis
We present results for spectroscopic factors of the outermost shells in
Ca and Pb, which have been derived from the comparison between
the available quasielastic () data from NIKHEF-K and the corresponding
calculated cross-sections obtained within a fully relativistic formalism. We
include exactly the effect of Coulomb distortion on the electron wave functions
and discuss its role in the extraction of the spectroscopic factors from
experiment. Without any adjustable parameter, we find spectroscopic factors of
about 70\%, consistent with theoretical predictions. We compare our results
with previous relativistic and nonrelativistic analyses of () data. In
addition to Coulomb distortion effects we discuss different choices of the
nucleon current operator and also analyze the effects due to the relativistic
treatment of the outgoing-distorted and bound nucleon wave functions.Comment: 9 pages RevTeX, 5 figures can be obtained from the author
Sensitivity of deexcitation energies of superdeformed secondary minima to the density dependence of symmetry energy with the relativistic mean-field theory
The relationship between deexcitation energies of superdeformed secondary
minima relative to ground states and the density dependence of the symmetry
energy is investigated for heavy nuclei using the relativistic mean field (RMF)
model. It is shown that the deexcitation energies of superdeformed secondary
minima are sensitive to differences in the symmetry energy that are mimicked by
the isoscalar-isovector coupling included in the model. With deliberate
investigations on a few Hg isotopes that have data of deexcitation energies, we
find that the description for the deexcitation energies can be improved due to
the softening of the symmetry energy. Further, we have investigated
deexcitation energies of odd-odd heavy nuclei that are nearly independent of
pairing correlations, and have discussed the possible extraction of the
constraint on the density dependence of the symmetry energy with the
measurement of deexcitation energies of these nuclei.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure
A study of perturbations in linear and circular polarized antennas in close proximity to the human body and a dielectric liquid filled phantom at 1.8 GHz
In the design and synthesis of wearable antennas
isolation distance from the body is a critical parameter.
This paper deals with the comparison of perturbations caused to
the matching of simple linear and circular polarized patch
antennas due to the close proximity of a human torso and
rectangular box phantom filled with muscle simulating liquid at
1.8GHz. The isolated variable is return loss (S11). Results show
that both linear and circularly polarized antennas produce an
optimal return loss closer to the surface of a typical phantom
than the back of a human volunteer
WIMPs search by scintillators: possible strategy for annual modulation search with large-mass highly-radiopure NaI(Tl)
The DAMA experiments are running deep underground in the Gran Sasso National
Laboratory. Several interesting results have been achieved so far. Here a
maximum likelihood method to search for the WIMP annual modulation signature is
discussed and applied to a set of preliminary test data collected with large
mass highly radiopure NaI(Tl) detectors. Various related technical arguments
are briefly addressed.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, LaTex. Contributed paper to TAUP97; to appear in
the Proceeding
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