2,696 research outputs found
Expression of aldehyde dehydrogenase family 1, member A3 in glycogen trophoblast cells of the murine placenta
Introduction: Retinoic acid (RA) signaling is a well known regulator of trophoblast differentiation and placental development, and maternal decidual cells are recognized as the source of much of this RA. We explored possible trophoblast-derived sources of RA by examining the expression of RA synthesis enzymes in the developing mouse placenta, as well as addressed potential sites of RA action by examining the ontogeny of gene expression for other RA metabolizing and receptor genes. Furthermore, we investigated the effects of endogenous RA production on trophoblast differentiation
Automatic Synchronization of Multi-User Photo Galleries
In this paper we address the issue of photo galleries synchronization, where
pictures related to the same event are collected by different users. Existing
solutions to address the problem are usually based on unrealistic assumptions,
like time consistency across photo galleries, and often heavily rely on
heuristics, limiting therefore the applicability to real-world scenarios. We
propose a solution that achieves better generalization performance for the
synchronization task compared to the available literature. The method is
characterized by three stages: at first, deep convolutional neural network
features are used to assess the visual similarity among the photos; then, pairs
of similar photos are detected across different galleries and used to construct
a graph; eventually, a probabilistic graphical model is used to estimate the
temporal offset of each pair of galleries, by traversing the minimum spanning
tree extracted from this graph. The experimental evaluation is conducted on
four publicly available datasets covering different types of events,
demonstrating the strength of our proposed method. A thorough discussion of the
obtained results is provided for a critical assessment of the quality in
synchronization.Comment: ACCEPTED to IEEE Transactions on Multimedi
Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol exposure during rat pregnancy leads to symmetrical fetal growth restriction and labyrinth-specific vascular defects in the placenta.
1 in 5 women report cannabis use during pregnancy, with nausea cited as their primary motivation. Studies show that (-)-△9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC), the major psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, causes fetal growth restriction, though the mechanisms are not well understood. Given the critical role of the placenta to transfer oxygen and nutrients from mother, to the fetus, any compromise in the development of fetal-placental circulation significantly affects maternal-fetal exchange and thereby, fetal growth. The goal of this study was to examine, in rats, the impact of maternal Δ9-THC exposure on fetal development, neonatal outcomes, and placental development. Dams received a daily intraperitoneal injection (i.p.) of vehicle control or Δ9-THC (3 mg/kg) from embryonic (E)6.5 through 22. Dams were allowed to deliver normally to measure pregnancy and neonatal outcomes, with a subset sacrificed at E19.5 for placenta assessment via immunohistochemistry and qPCR. Gestational Δ9-THC exposure resulted in pups born with symmetrical fetal growth restriction, with catch up growth by post-natal day (PND)21. During pregnancy there were no changes to maternal food intake, maternal weight gain, litter size, or gestational length. E19.5 placentas from Δ9-THC-exposed pregnancies exhibited a phenotype characterized by increased labyrinth area, reduced Epcam expression (marker of labyrinth trophoblast progenitors), altered maternal blood space, decreased fetal capillary area and an increased recruitment of pericytes with greater collagen deposition, when compared to vehicle controls. Further, at E19.5 labyrinth trophoblast had reduced glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1) and glucocorticoid receptor (GR) expression in response to Δ9-THC exposure. In conclusion, maternal exposure to Δ9-THC effectively compromised fetal growth, which may be a result of the adversely affected labyrinth zone development. These findings implicate GLUT1 as a Δ9-THC target and provide a potential mechanism for the fetal growth restriction observed in women who use cannabis during pregnancy
Relating the Quark and Gluon Condensates Through the QCD Vacuum Energy
Using the Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis effective potential for composite
operators we compute the QCD vacuum energy as a function of the dynamical quark
and gluon propagators, which are related to their respective condensates as
predicted by the operator product expansion. The identification of this result
to the vacuum energy obtained from the trace of the energy-momentum tensor
allow us to study the gluon self-energy, verifying that it is fairly
represented in the ultraviolet by the asymptotic behavior predicted by the
operator product expansion, and in the infrared it is frozen at its asymptotic
value at one scale of the order of the dynamical gluon mass. We also discuss
the implications of this identity for heavy and light quarks. For heavy quarks
we recover, through the vacuum energy calculation, the relation m_{f}
\sim - {1/12} \gc obtained many years ago with QCD sum
rules.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, final version to appear in Physical Review
Influence of a dynamical gluon mass in the and forward scattering
We compute the tree level cross section for gluon-gluon elastic scattering
taking into account a dynamical gluon mass, and show that this mass scale is a
natural regulator for this subprocess cross section. Using an eikonal approach
in order to examine the relationship between this gluon-gluon scattering and
the elastic and channels, we found that the dynamical gluon
mass is of the same order of magnitude as the {\it ad hoc} infrared mass scale
underlying eikonalized QCD-inspired models. We argue that this
correspondence is not an accidental result, and that this dynamical scale
indeed represents the onset of non-perturbative contributions to the elastic
hadron-hadron scattering. We apply the eikonal model with a dynamical infrared
mass scale to obtain predictions for ,
, slope , and differential elastic
scattering cross section at Tevatron and CERN-LHC
energies.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures; misprints corrected and comments added. To
appear in Phys. Rev.
Two-photon final states in peripheral heavy ion collisions
We discuss processes leading to two photon final states in peripheral heavy
ion collisions at RHIC. Due to the large photon luminosity we show that the
continuum subprocess can be observed with a
large number of events. We study this reaction when it is intermediated by a
resonance made of quarks or gluons and discuss its interplay with the continuum
process, verifying that in several cases the resonant process ovewhelms the
continuum one. It is also investigated the possibility of observing a scalar
resonance (the meson) in this process. Assuming for the the
mass and total decay width values recently reported by the E791 Collaboration
we show that RHIC may detect this particle in its two photon decay mode if its
partial photonic decay width is of the order of the ones discussed in the
literature.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure
6-Phenyl-5a,6,6a,7,12,13a-hexahydro-5H-benzo[6,7]indolizino[3,2-a]pyrrolizine
In the title compound, C23H22N2, the central pyrrolidine ring adopts an envelope conformation. The benzene ring of the hexahydropyrroloisoquinoline ring system makes dihedral angles of 83.43 (6) and 61.99 (10)°, respectively, with the phenyl and pyrrole rings. In the crystal structure, weak C—H⋯π interactions are observed
Photon-Photon and Pomeron-Pomeron Processes in Peripheral Heavy Ion Collisions
We estimate the cross sections for the production of resonances, pion pairs
and a central cluster of hadrons in peripheral heavy-ion collisions through
two-photon and double-pomeron exchange, at energies that will be available at
RHIC and LHC. The effect of the impact parameter in the diffractive reactions
is introduced, and imposing the condition for realistic peripheral collisions
we verify that in the case of very heavy ions the pomeron-pomeron contribution
is indeed smaller than the electromagnetic one. However, they give a
non-negligible background in the collision of light ions. This diffractive
background will be more important at RHIC than at LHC.Comment: 22 pages, 1 Postscript figures, 4 tables, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Production of eta Mesons in Double Pomeron Exchange
We estimate the production cross sections for and mesons
via pomeron-pomeron fusion in peripheral heavy-ion collisions. Total and
elastic PP cross sections are calculated in an equivalent pomeron
approximation.Comment: 9 pages, 3 Postscript figure
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