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Transposable Elements, Inflammation, and Neurological Disease.
Transposable Elements (TE) are mobile DNA elements that can replicate and insert themselves into different locations within the host genome. Their propensity to self-propagate has a myriad of consequences and yet their biological significance is not well-understood. Indeed, retrotransposons have evaded evolutionary attempts at repression and may contribute to somatic mosaicism. Retrotransposons are emerging as potent regulatory elements within the human genome. In the diseased state, there is mounting evidence that endogenous retroelements play a role in etiopathogenesis of inflammatory diseases, with a disposition for both autoimmune and neurological disorders. We postulate that active mobile genetic elements contribute more to human disease pathogenesis than previously thought
Diet, Metabolites, and âWestern-Lifestyleâ Inflammatory Diseases
One explanation for the increased incidence of allergies, asthma, and even some autoimmune diseases has been the hygiene hypothesis. However, recent studies also highlight an important role for diet and bacterial metabolites in controlling various immune pathways, including gut and immune homeostasis, regulatory TÂ cell biology, and inflammation. Dietary-related metabolites engage âmetabolite-sensingâ G-protein-coupled receptors, such as GPR43, GPR41, GPR109A, GPR120, and GPR35. These receptors are expressed on immune cells and some gut epithelial cells and generally mediate a direct anti-inflammatory effect. Insufficient intake of âhealthy foodstuffsâ adversely affects the production of bacterial metabolites. These metabolites and those derived directly from food drive beneficial downstream effects on immune pathways. We propose that insufficient exposure to dietary and bacterial metabolites might underlie the development of inflammatory disorders in Western countries. This review highlights what is currently known about diet, metabolites, and their associated immune pathways in relation to the development of inflammatory disease
Polyaniline nanoparticles for sensing applications.
Conducting polymers are being widely employed in the manufacture of nanostructured sensors due to breakthroughs in the development of sophisticated nano-sized forms. One of the most attractive conducting polymers is polyaniline (PANI) due to its interesting electrical, electrochemical and optical properties, such as air stability and simple acid/base doping/dedoping chemistry. However, the fact that aniline is a carcinogenic monomer, its insolubility in common solvents and the acidic conditions required to the most conductive form of PANI are made its commercial application very difficult so far. The synthesis of PANI nanoparticles using dodecylbenzenesulphonic acid (DBSA) as both dopant and surfactant have allowed the use of this polymer in aqueous media, improving its processability. The additional use of ammonium persulphate (APS) as an oxidant together with DBSA during chemical PANI polymerization have led to the creation of a spherical PANI nanoparticle aqueous dispersion. Such dispersion can be deposited onto the electrodes by means of traditional methods, such as drop coating, or using more sophisticated techniques, such as inkjet printing. The application of PANI nanoparticles inkjet printed onto carbon paste screen-printed electrodes for ascorbic acid sensing is shown in the present wor
FIBONACCI SUPERLATTICES OF NARROW-GAP III-V SEMICONDUCTORS
We report theoretical electronic structure of Fibonacci superlattices of
narrow-gap III-V semiconductors. Electron dynamics is accurately described
within the envelope-function approximation in a two-band model.
Quasiperiodicity is introduced by considering two different III-V semiconductor
layers and arranging them according to the Fibonacci series along the growth
direction. The resulting energy spectrum is then found by solving exactly the
corresponding effective-mass (Dirac-like) wave equation using tranfer-matrix
techniques. We find that a self-similar electronic spectrum can be seen in the
band structure. Electronic transport properties of samples are also studied and
related to the degree of spatial localization of electronic envelope-functions
via Landauer resistance and Lyapunov coefficient. As a working example, we
consider type II InAs/GaSb superlattices and discuss in detail our results in
this system.Comment: REVTeX 3.0, 16 pages, 8 figures available upon request. To appear in
Semiconductor Science and Technolog
Microscopic description of anisotropic low-density dipolar Bose gases in two dimensions
A microscopic description of the zero energy two-body ground state and
many-body static properties of anisotropic homogeneous gases of bosonic dipoles
in two dimensions at low densities is presented and discussed. By changing the
polarization angle with respect to the plane, we study the impact of the
anisotropy, present in the dipole--dipole interaction, on the energy per
particle, comparing the results with mean field predictions. We restrict the
analysis to the regime where the interaction is always repulsive, although the
strength of the repulsion depends on the orientation with respect to the
polarization field. We present a series expansion of the solution of the zero
energy two-body problem which allows us to find the scattering length of the
interaction and to build a suitable Jastrow factor that we use as a trial wave
function for both a variational and diffusion Monte Carlo simulation of the
infinite system. We find that the anisotropy has an almost negligible impact on
the ground state properties of the many-body system in the universal regime
where the scattering length governs the physics of the system. We also show
that scaling in the gas parameter persists in the dipolar case up to values
where other isotropic interactions with the same scattering length yield
different predictions.Comment: 9 figures, 1 tabl
Field induced magnetic transition and metastability in Co substituted
A detailed investigation of first order ferrimagnetic (FRI) to
antiferromagnetic (AFM) transition in Co (15%) doped is carried out.
These measurements demonstrate anomalous thermomagnetic irreversibility and
glass-like frozen FRI phase at low temperatures. The irreversibility arising
between the supercooling and superheating spinodals is distinguised in an
ingenious way from the irreversibility arising due to kinetic arrest. Field
annealing measurements shows reentrant FRI-AFM-FRI transition with increasing
temperature. These measurements also show that kinetic arrest band and
supercooling band are anitcorrelated i.e regions which are kinetically arrested
at higher temperature have lower supercooling temperature and vice versa.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure
Oxygen Functional Groups Responsible for the Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Ethylbenzene to Styrene over Activated Carbon Fibres
Hidden dimers and the matrix maps: Fibonacci chains re-visited
The existence of cycles of the matrix maps in Fibonacci class of lattices is
well established. We show that such cycles are intimately connected with the
presence of interesting positional correlations among the constituent `atoms'
in a one dimensional quasiperiodic lattice. We particularly address the
transfer model of the classic golden mean Fibonacci chain where a six cycle of
the full matrix map exists at the centre of the spectrum [Kohmoto et al, Phys.
Rev. B 35, 1020 (1987)], and for which no simple physical picture has so far
been provided, to the best of our knowledge. In addition, we show that our
prescription leads to a determination of other energy values for a mixed model
of the Fibonacci chain, for which the full matrix map may have similar cyclic
behaviour. Apart from the standard transfer-model of a golden mean Fibonacci
chain, we address a variant of it and the silver mean lattice, where the
existence of four cycles of the matrix map is already known to exist. The
underlying positional correlations for all such cases are discussed in details.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to Physical Review
Base de dados geogråficos do "Corredor de Nacala", Moçambique.
The demand for agricultural products has been increasing in all countries in the last decades. Together with the decrease in natural resources and the possible impacts to agriculture caused by climatic changes, this aspect has aroused concerns in terms of the development of new global agricultural frontiers. In this context, some regions in Africa have been drawing attention from the world due to their edaphoclimatic conditions, which are favorable for agricultural development. The vision of a modern and dynamic agriculture must be based on the capacity of applying appropriate knowledge and technologies to the environment, as well as to the countryÂŽs economic and social situation. Such condition demands the installment of an efficient agricultural innovation system composed by a technical and operational structure which is able to support the agricultural industry along all its stages. Thus, this article aims at presenting some contributions to the formatting of a geographic database of natural resources for the Nacala Corridor, Mozambique. Geotechnology instruments were used for planning, generating and maintaining the accomplished database's data and information. This database will subsidize the integrated management of the region's geographic space from spatial information about landscape, soil, climate, land use, and land cover, thus subsidizing the management of the natural resources and of Mozambique's agricultural sustainability as well
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