2,333 research outputs found
Lower cerebrospinal fluid/plasma fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) ratios and placental FGF21 production in gestational diabetes
Objectives: Circulating Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 (FGF21) levels are increased in insulin resistant states such as obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). In addition, GDM is associated with serious maternal and fetal complications. We sought to study human cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and corresponding circulating FGF21 levels in women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and in age and BMI matched control subjects. We also assessed FGF21 secretion from GDM and control human placental explants.
Design: CSF and corresponding plasma FGF21 levels of 24 women were measured by ELISA [12 GDM (age: 26–47 years, BMI: 24.3–36.3 kg/m2) and 12 controls (age: 22–40 years, BMI: 30.1–37.0 kg/m2)]. FGF21 levels in conditioned media were secretion from GDM and control human placental explants were also measured by ELISA.
Results: Glucose, HOMA-IR and circulating NEFA levels were significantly higher in women with GDM compared to control subjects. Plasma FGF21 levels were significantly higher in women with GDM compared to control subjects [234.3 (150.2–352.7) vs. 115.5 (60.5–188.7) pg/ml; P<0.05]. However, there was no significant difference in CSF FGF21 levels in women with GDM compared to control subjects. Interestingly, CSF/Plasma FGF21 ratio was significantly lower in women with GDM compared to control subjects [0.4 (0.3–0.6) vs. 0.8 (0.5–1.6); P<0.05]. FGF21 secretion into conditioned media was significantly lower in human placental explants from women with GDM compared to control subjects (P<0.05).
Conclusions: The central actions of FGF21 in GDM subjects maybe pivotal in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance in GDM subjects. The significance of FGF21 produced by the placenta remains uncharted and maybe crucial in our understanding of the patho-physiology of GDM and its associated maternal and fetal complications. Future research should seek to elucidate these points
Effective Finite Temperature Partition Function for Fields on Non-Commutative Flat Manifolds
The first quantum correction to the finite temperature partition function for
a self-interacting massless scalar field on a dimensional flat manifold
with non-commutative extra dimensions is evaluated by means of dimensional
regularization, suplemented with zeta-function techniques. It is found that the
zeta function associated with the effective one-loop operator may be nonregular
at the origin. The important issue of the determination of the regularized
vacuum energy, namely the first quantum correction to the energy in such case
is discussed.Comment: amslatex, 14 pages, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Phenomenology of Particle Production and Propagation in String-Motivated Canonical Noncommutative Spacetime
We outline a phenomenological programme for the search of effects induced by
(string-motivated) canonical noncommutative spacetime. The tests we propose are
based, in analogy with a corresponding programme developed over the last few
years for the study of Lie-algebra noncommutative spacetimes, on the role of
the noncommutativity parameters in the dispersion relation. We focus on
the role of deformed dispersion relations in particle-production collision
processes, where the noncommutativity parameters would affect the threshold
equation, and in the dispersion of gamma rays observed from distant
astrophysical sources. We emphasize that the studies here proposed have the
advantage of involving particles of relatively high energies, and may therefore
be less sensitive to "contamination" (through IR/UV mixing) from the UV sector
of the theory. We also explore the possibility that the relevant deformation of
the dispersion relations could be responsible for the experimentally-observed
violations of the GZK cutoff for cosmic rays and could have a role in the
observation of hard photons from distant astrophysical sources.Comment: With respect to the experimental information available at the time of
writing version 1 of this manuscript (hep-th/0109191v1) the situation has
evolved significantly. Our remarks on the benefits of high-energy
observations found additional encouragement from the results reported in
hep-th/020925
New insight into the effect of fluorine doping and oxygen vacancies on electrochemical performance of Co2MnO4 for flexible quasi-solid-state asymmetric supercapacitors
Anion doping and oxygen-defect creation have been extensively employed to modify the electronic properties and increase concentration of electrochemically active sites of electrode materials for electrical energy storage technologies; however, comprehensive study of the roles of anion doping and oxygen vacancy on the enhancement of electrochemical performance is not clear. Herein, we provide new insight into the effect of fluorine dopant and oxygen vacancy on electrochemical performance of fluorine-doped oxygen-deficient Co2MnO4 (F-Co2MnO4-x) nanowires grown on carbon fiber (CF) as advanced electrode materials for supercapacitor. An experimental and theoretical study reveals that the structural and electronic properties in F-Co2MnO4-x is effectively tuned by introducing F dopants and oxygen vacancies, synergistically increasing electrical conductivity and providing rich Faradaic redox chemistry. The resultant F-Co2MnO4-x achieves a high specific capacity of 269 mA h g−1 at 1 A g−1, and superior cyclic stability with 93.2% capacity retention after 5000 cycles at 15 A g−1. A flexible quasi-solid-state asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC) is constructed with F-Co2MnO4-x/CF as the positive electrode and Fe2O3/CF as the negative electrode. The ASC device exhibits a high energy density of 64.4 W h kg−1 at a power density of 800 W kg−1. Significantly, the device yields 89.9% capacitance retention after 2000 bending tests at a bending angle ranging from 0 to 30°, demonstrating the high integration of excellent mechanical flexibility and cycling stability
Open Strings in Exactly Solvable Model of Curved Spacetime and PP-Wave Limit
In this paper we study the superstring version of the exactly solvable string
model constructed by Russo and Tseytlin. This model represents superstring
theory in a curved spacetime and can be seen as a generalization of the Melvin
background. We investigate D-branes in this model as probes of the background
geometry by constructing the boundary states. We find that spacetime
singularities in the model become smooth at high energy from the viewpoint of
open string. We show that there always exist bulk (movable) D-branes by the
effect of electric flux. The model also includes Nappi-Witten model as the
Penrose limit and supersymmetry is enhanced in the limit. We examine this
phenomenon in the open string spectrum. We also find the similar enhancement of
supersymmetry can be occurred in several coset models.Comment: Latex, 32 pages, typos corrected, references added, to appear in
JHEP, eq.(2.22) correcte
Errors in CGAP xProfiler and cDNA DGED: the importance of library parsing and gene selection algorithms
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Cancer Genome Anatomy Project (CGAP) xProfiler and cDNA Digital Gene Expression Displayer (DGED) have been made available to the scientific community over a decade ago and since then were used widely to find genes which are differentially expressed between cancer and normal tissues. The tissue types are usually chosen according to the ontology hierarchy developed by NCBI. The xProfiler uses an internally available flat file database to determine the presence or absence of genes in the chosen libraries, while cDNA DGED uses the publicly available UniGene Expression and Gene relational databases to count the sequences found for each gene in the presented libraries.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We discovered that the CGAP approach often includes libraries from dependent or irrelevant tissues (one third of libraries were incorrect on average, with some tissue searches no correct libraries being selected at all). We also discovered that the CGAP approach reported genes from outside the selected libraries and may omit genes found within the libraries. Other errors include the incorrect estimation of the significance values and inaccurate settings for the library size cut-off values. We advocated a revised approach to finding libraries associated with tissues. In doing so, libraries from dependent or irrelevant tissues do not get included in the final library pool. We also revised the method for determining the presence or absence of a gene by searching the UniGene relational database, revised calculation of statistical significance and sorted the library cut-off filter.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results justify re-evaluation of all previously reported results where NCBI CGAP expression data and tools were used.</p
Constraints on the χ_(c1) versus χ_(c2) polarizations in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV
The polarizations of promptly produced χ_(c1) and χ_(c2) mesons are studied using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, in proton-proton collisions at √s=8 TeV. The χ_c states are reconstructed via their radiative decays χ_c → J/ψγ, with the photons being measured through conversions to e⁺e⁻, which allows the two states to be well resolved. The polarizations are measured in the helicity frame, through the analysis of the χ_(c2) to χ_(c1) yield ratio as a function of the polar or azimuthal angle of the positive muon emitted in the J/ψ → μ⁺μ⁻ decay, in three bins of J/ψ transverse momentum. While no differences are seen between the two states in terms of azimuthal decay angle distributions, they are observed to have significantly different polar anisotropies. The measurement favors a scenario where at least one of the two states is strongly polarized along the helicity quantization axis, in agreement with nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics predictions. This is the first measurement of significantly polarized quarkonia produced at high transverse momentum
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