Effects of ethanol on membrane lipids III. Quantitative changes in lipid and fatty acid composition of nonpolar and polar lipids of mouse total liver, mitochondria and microsomes following ethanol feeding

The effects of ethanol on the total, nonpolar, and polar lipids of whole liver, mitochondria, and microsomes have been evaluated. Differences in the fatty acid composition of various lipid subclasses have been compared in control and ethanol treated mice. On the whole polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially arachidonic (20∶4) and docosahexaenoic (22∶6), were found to decrease. The significance of an enzymatic mechanism vs. a peroxidative mechanism to explain the results is discussed. Decreases also were observed in the ratios of arachidonate/linoleate following ethanol feeding. These changes are thought to be associated with decreases in the activity of the chain elongation‐desaturation system.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141242/1/lipd0722.pd

Should Tort Damages Be Multiplied?

The notion that damages should be multiplied by the reciprocal of the probability of punishment is one of the basic lessons of the law and economics literature. However, the simple l/p multiplier turns out be inapplicable in the civil damages setting. The multiplier that brings about first-best deterrence must be chosen by striking a balance between the supply of lawsuits and the need to internalize costs. Moreover, given the costs of litigation, a multiplier that minimizes overall social costs (in contrast to achieving first-best deterrence) may need to be set at a level that effectively bars many claims. This article derives optimal damage multipliers for a costly civil litigation system and examines the conflicting implications of deterrence and social cost minimization as objectives in the design of an optimal multiplier. An empirical application suggests that the first-best deterrence multiplier for the tort system is roughly equal to two

Water activated ionic conduction in cross-linked polyelectrolytes

The electrical properties of polyelectrolytes depend on the water concentration of the environment. The behaviour of both conductance and capacitance caused by variations in relative humidity and temperature was investigated by impedance spectroscopy for humidity sensors based on an interpenetrated network of a polymer and a polyelectrolyte. The results were interpreted on the base of the Langmuir and Kelvin equations and two different sensing mechanisms were highlighted for low and high water content

Bayes-optimal inverse halftoning and statistical mechanics of the Q-Ising model

On the basis of statistical mechanics of the Q-Ising model, we formulate the Bayesian inference to the problem of inverse halftoning, which is the inverse process of representing gray-scales in images by means of black and white dots. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate statistical properties of the inverse process, especially, we reveal the condition of the Bayes-optimal solution for which the mean-square error takes its minimum. The numerical result is qualitatively confirmed by analysis of the infinite-range model. As demonstrations of our approach, we apply the method to retrieve a grayscale image, such as standard image `Lenna', from the halftoned version. We find that the Bayes-optimal solution gives a fine restored grayscale image which is very close to the original.Comment: 13pages, 12figures, using elsart.cl

Three-Dimensional Simulations of Mixing Instabilities in Supernova Explosions

We present the first three-dimensional (3D) simulations of the large-scale mixing that takes place in the shock-heated stellar layers ejected in the explosion of a 15.5 solar-mass blue supergiant star. The outgoing supernova shock is followed from its launch by neutrino heating until it breaks out from the stellar surface more than two hours after the core collapse. Violent convective overturn in the post-shock layer causes the explosion to start with significant asphericity, which triggers the growth of Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instabilities at the composition interfaces of the exploding star. Deep inward mixing of hydrogen (H) is found as well as fast-moving, metal-rich clumps penetrating with high velocities far into the H-envelope of the star as observed, e.g., in the case of SN 1987A. Also individual clumps containing a sizeable fraction of the ejected iron-group elements (up to several 0.001 solar masses) are obtained in some models. The metal core of the progenitor is partially turned over with Ni-dominated fingers overtaking oxygen-rich bullets and both Ni and O moving well ahead of the material from the carbon layer. Comparing with corresponding 2D (axially symmetric) calculations, we determine the growth of the RT fingers to be faster, the deceleration of the dense metal-carrying clumps in the He and H layers to be reduced, the asymptotic clump velocities in the H-shell to be higher (up to ~4500 km/s for the considered progenitor and an explosion energy of 10^{51} ergs, instead of <2000 km/s in 2D), and the outward radial mixing of heavy elements and inward mixing of hydrogen to be more efficient in 3D than in 2D. We present a simple argument that explains these results as a consequence of the different action of drag forces on moving objects in the two geometries. (abridged)Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, 30 eps files; significantly extended and more figures added after referee comments; accepted by The Astrophysical Journa

Investigating particle acceleration dynamics in interpenetrating magnetized collisionless super-critical shocks

Colliding collisionless shocks appear in a great variety of astrophysical phenomena and are thought to be possible sources of particle acceleration in the Universe. We have previously investigated particle acceleration induced by single super-critical shocks (whose magnetosonic Mach number is higher than the critical value of 2.7) (Yao et al. 2021, 2022), as well as the collision of two sub-critical shocks (Fazzini et al. 2022). Here, we propose to make measurements of accelerated particles from interpenetrating super-critical shocks to observe the ''phase-locking effect'' (Fazzini et al. 2022) from such an event. This effect is predicted to significantly boost the energy spectrum of the energized ions compared to a single supercritical collisionless shock. We thus anticipate that the results obtained in the proposed experiment could have a significant impact on our understanding of one type of primary source (acceleration of thermal ions as opposed to secondary acceleration mechanisms of already energetic ions) of ion energization of particles in the Universe

Quantitative immuno-mass spectrometry imaging of skeletal muscle dystrophin

Emerging and promising therapeutic interventions for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) are confounded by the challenges of quantifying dystrophin. Current approaches have poor precision, require large amounts of tissue, and are difficult to standardize. This paper presents an immuno-mass spectrometry imaging method using gadolinium (Gd)-labeled anti-dystrophin antibodies and laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry to simultaneously quantify and localize dystrophin in muscle sections. Gd is quantified as a proxy for the relative expression of dystrophin and was validated in murine and human skeletal muscle sections following k-means clustering segmentation, before application to DMD patients with different gene mutations where dystrophin expression was measured up to 100 µg kg−1 Gd. These results demonstrate that immuno-mass spectrometry imaging is a viable approach for pre-clinical to clinical research in DMD. It rapidly quantified relative dystrophin in single tissue sections, efficiently used valuable patient resources, and may provide information on drug efficacy for clinical translation