422 research outputs found
Opting out of work: what's behind the decline in labor force participation?
Labor market ; Labor supply
Wnt signaling: The Naked truth?
Frizzled receptors can activate two alternative signal transduction pathways: the canonical Wnt pathway or the planar cell polarity pathway. Recent studies of the Naked cuticle protein suggest a mechanism for the inactivation of the canonical pathway and concomitant activation of the planar cell polarity pathway
Wnt signaling: Moving in a new direction
Evidence supporting the postulated role of a Wnt ligand in the establishment of planar cell polarity has been elusive, but recent studies show that the movement of epithelial cells during vertebrate gastrulation or Drosophila dorsal closure depends on both a Wnt ligand and the planar cell polarity pathway
Wnt signaling: Moving in a new direction
Evidence supporting the postulated role of a Wnt ligand in the establishment of planar cell polarity has been elusive, but recent studies show that the movement of epithelial cells during vertebrate gastrulation or Drosophila dorsal closure depends on both a Wnt ligand and the planar cell polarity pathway
Noninvasive detection of bilirubin using pulsatile absorption.
Bilirubin, the yellow substance usually responsible for neonatal jaundice, is currently monitored invasively or by observing/measuring skin colour. This paper investigates the feasibility of monitoring serum bilirubin concentration using light absorbance in a similar fashion to pulse oximetry. The light absorbance of bilirubin is shown to be sufficiently different to haemoglobin to in theory allow direct noninvasive serum bilirubin monitoring using light absorbance around 480nm
Vessel calibre and haemoglobin effects on pulse oximetry
Despite its success as a clinical monitoring tool, pulse oximetry may be improved with
respect to the need for empirical calibration and the reports of biases in readings associated
with peripheral vasoconstriction and haemoglobin concentration. To effect this
improvement, this work aims to improve the understanding of the photoplethysmography
signal - as used by pulse oximeters, and investigates the effect of vessel calibre and
haemoglobin concentration on pulse oximetry.
The digital temperature and the transmission of a wide spectrum of light through the fingers
of 57 people with known haemoglobin concentrations were measured, and simulations of the
transmission of that spectrum of light through finger models were performed.
Ratios of pulsatile attenuations of light as used in pulse oximetry were dependent upon
peripheral temperature and on blood haemoglobin concentration. In addition, both the
simulation and in vivo results showed that the pulsatile attenuation of light through fingers
was approximately proportional to the absorption coefficients of blood, only when the
absorption coefficients were small. These findings were explained in terms of discrete blood
vessels acting as barriers to light transmission through tissue.
Due to the influence of discrete blood vessels on light transmission, pulse oximeter outputs
tend to be dependent upon haemoglobin concentration and on the calibre of pulsing blood
vessels - which are affected by vasoconstriction/vasodilation. The effects of discrete blood
vessels may account for part of the difference between the Beer–Lambert pulse oximetry
model and empirical calibration
Puckered, a Drosophila MAPK phosphatase, ensures cell viability by antagonizing JNK-induced apoptosis
MAPK phosphatases (MKPs) are important negative regulators of MAPKs in vivo, but ascertaining the role of specific MKPs is hindered by functional redundancy in vertebrates. Thus, we characterized MKP function by examining the function of Puckered (Puc), the sol
The Photon Underproduction Crisis
We examine the statistics of the low-redshift Lyman-alpha forest from
smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulations in light of recent improvements in
the estimated evolution of the cosmic ultraviolet background (UVB) and recent
observations from the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS). We find that the value
of the metagalactic photoionization rate required by our simulations to match
the observed properties of the low-redshift Lyman-alpha forest is a factor of 5
larger than the value predicted by state-of-the art models for the evolution of
this quantity. This mismatch results in the mean flux decrement of the
Lyman-alpha forest being underpredicted by at least a factor of 2 (a 10-sigma
discrepancy with observations) and a column density distribution of Lyman-alpha
forest absorbers systematically and significantly elevated compared to
observations over nearly two decades in column density. We examine potential
resolutions to this mismatch and find that either conventional sources of
ionizing photons (galaxies and quasars) must be significantly elevated relative
to current observational estimates or our theoretical understanding of the
low-redshift universe is in need of substantial revision.Comment: Submitted to ApJ Letters; 6 pages including 3 figure
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