851 research outputs found
Blocking Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Signaling in HTR-8/SVneo First Trimester Trophoblast Cells Results in Dephosphorylation of PKBα/AKT and Induces Apoptosis
We identified a major peptide signaling target of EGF/EGFR pathway and explored the consequences of blocking or activating this pathway in the first trimester extravillous trophoblast cells, HTR-8/SVneo. A global analysis of protein phosphorylation was undertaken using novel technology (Kinexus Kinetworks) that utilizes SDS-polyacrylamide minigel electrophoresis and multi-lane immunoblotting to permit specific and semiquantitative detection of multiple phosphoproteins. Forty-seven protein phosphorylation sites were queried, and the results reported based on relative phosphorylation at each site. EGF- and Iressa-(gefitinib, ZD1839, an inhibitor of EGFR) treated HTR-8/SVneo cells were subjected to immunoblotting and flow cytometry to confirm the phosphoprotein screen and to assess the effects of EGF versus Iressa on cell cycle and apoptosis. EGFR mediates the phosphorylation of important signaling proteins, including PKBα/AKT. This pathway is likely to be central to EGFR-mediated trophoblast survival. Furthermore, EGF treatment induces proliferation and inhibits apoptosis, while Iressa induces apoptosis
Nonequilibrium orientational patterns in two-component Langmuir monolayers
A model of a phase-separating two-component Langmuir monolayer in the
presence of a photo-induced reaction interconvering two components is
formulated. An interplay between phase separation, orientational ordering and
treaction is found to lead to a variety of nonequilibrium self-organized
patterns, both stationary and traveling. Examples of the patterns, observed in
numerical simulations, include flowing droplets, traveling stripes, wave
sources and vortex defects.Comment: Submitted to the Physical Review
First-principles kinetic Monte Carlo simulations for heterogeneous catalysis, applied to the CO oxidation at RuO2(110)
We describe a first-principles statistical mechanics approach enabling us to
simulate the steady-state situation of heterogeneous catalysis. In a first step
density-functional theory together with transition-state theory is employed to
obtain the energetics of all relevant elementary processes. Subsequently the
statistical mechanics problem is solved by the kinetic Monte Carlo method,
which fully accounts for the correlations, fluctuations, and spatial
distributions of the chemicals at the surface of the catalyst under
steady-state conditions. Applying this approach to the catalytic oxidation of
CO at RuO2(110), we determine the surface atomic structure and composition in
reactive environments ranging from ultra-high vacuum (UHV) to technologically
relevant conditions, i.e. up to pressures of several atmospheres and elevated
temperatures. We also compute the CO2 formation rates (turnover frequencies).
The results are in quantitative agreement with all existing experimental data.
We find that the high catalytic activity of this system is intimately connected
with a disordered, dynamic surface ``phase'' with significant compositional
fluctuations. In this active state the catalytic function results from a
self-regulating interplay of several elementary processes.Comment: 18 pages including 9 figures; related publications can be found at
http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/th.htm
An archival case study : revisiting the life and political economy of Lauchlin Currie
This paper forms part of a wider project to show the significance of archival material on distinguished economists, in this case Lauchlin Currie (1902-93), who studied and taught at Harvard before entering government service at the US Treasury and Federal Reserve Board as the intellectual leader of Roosevelt's New Deal, 1934-39, as FDR's White House economic adviser in peace and war, 1939-45, and as a post-war development economist. It discusses the uses made of the written and oral material available when the author was writing his intellectual biography of Currie (Duke University Press 1990) while Currie was still alive, and the significance of the material that has come to light after Currie's death
Molecular formations in ultracold mixtures of interacting and noninteracting atomic gases
Atom-molecule equilibrium for molecular formation processes is discussed for
boson-fermion, fermion-fermion, and boson-boson mixtures of ultracold atomic
gases in the framework of quasichemical equilibrium theory. After presentation
of the general formulation, zero-temperature phase diagrams of the
atom-molecule equilibrium states are calculated analytically; molecular, mixed,
and dissociated phases are shown to appear for the change of the binding energy
of the molecules. The temperature dependences of the atom or molecule densities
are calculated numerically, and finite-temperature phase structures are
obtained of the atom-molecule equilibrium in the mixtures. The transition
temperatures of the atom or molecule Bose-Einstein condensations are also
evaluated from these results. Quantum-statistical deviations of the law of mass
action in atom-molecule equilibrium, which should be satisfied in mixtures of
classical Maxwell-Boltzmann gases, are calculated, and the difference in the
different types of quantum-statistical effects is clarified. Mean-field
calculations with interparticle interactions (atom-atom, atom-molecule, and
molecule-molecule) are formulated, where interaction effects are found to give
the linear density-dependent term in the effective molecular binding energies.
This method is applied to calculations of zero-temperature phase diagrams,
where new phases with coexisting local-equilibrium states are shown to appear
in the case of strongly repulsive interactions.Comment: 35 pages, 14 figure
What’s Sex (Composition) Got to Do with It? The Importance of Sex Composition of Gangs for Female and Male Members’ Offending and Victimization
Sex composition of groups has been theorized in organizational sociology and found in prior work to structure female and male members’ behaviors and experiences. Peer group and gang literature similarly finds that the sex gap in offending varies across groups of differing sex ratios. Drawing on this and other research linking gang membership, offending, and victimization, we examine whether sex composition of gangs is linked to sex differences in offending in this sample, further assess whether sex composition similarly structures females’ and males’ victimization experiences, and if so, why. Self-report data from gang members in a multi-site, longitudinal study of 3,820 youths are employed. Results support previous findings about variations in member delinquency by both sex and sex composition of the gang and also indicate parallel variations in members’ victimization. These results are further considered within the context of facilitating effects such as gender dynamics, gang characteristics, and normative orientation
The Second-Generation Guide Star Catalog: Description and Properties
The GSC-II is an all-sky database of objects derived from the uncompressed
DSS that the STScI has created from the Palomar and UK Schmidt survey plates
and made available to the community. Like its predecessor (GSC-I), the GSC-II
was primarily created to provide guide star information and observation
planning support for HST. This version, however, is already employed at some of
the ground-based new-technology telescopes such as GEMINI, VLT, and TNG, and
will also be used to provide support for the JWST and Gaia space missions as
well as LAMOST, one of the major ongoing scientific projects in China. Two
catalogs have already been extracted from the GSC-II database and released to
the astronomical community. A magnitude-limited (R=18.0) version, GSC2.2, was
distributed soon after its production in 2001, while the GSC2.3 release has
been available for general access since 2007.
The GSC2.3 catalog described in this paper contains astrometry, photometry,
and classification for 945,592,683 objects down to the magnitude limit of the
plates. Positions are tied to the ICRS; for stellar sources, the all-sky
average absolute error per coordinate ranges from 0.2" to 0.28" depending on
magnitude. When dealing with extended objects, astrometric errors are 20% worse
in the case of galaxies and approximately a factor of 2 worse for blended
images. Stellar photometry is determined to 0.13-0.22 mag as a function of
magnitude and photographic passbands (B,R,I). Outside of the galactic plane,
stellar classification is reliable to at least 90% confidence for magnitudes
brighter than R=19.5, and the catalog is complete to R=20.Comment: 52 pages, 33 figures, to be published in AJ August 200
A robust sample of galaxies at redshifts 6.0<z<8.7: stellar populations, star-formation rates and stellar masses
We present the results of a photometric redshift analysis designed to
identify z>6 galaxies from the near-IR HST imaging in three deep fields (HUDF,
HUDF09-2 & ERS). By adopting a rigorous set of criteria for rejecting low-z
interlopers, and by employing a deconfusion technique to allow the available
IRAC imaging to be included in the candidate selection process, we have derived
a robust sample of 70 Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) spanning the redshift range
6.0<z<8.7. Based on our final sample we investigate the distribution of UV
spectral slopes (beta), finding a variance-weighted mean value of =-2.05
+/- 0.09 which, contrary to some previous results, is not significantly bluer
than displayed by lower-redshift starburst galaxies. We confirm the correlation
between UV luminosity and stellar mass reported elsewhere, but based on fitting
galaxy templates featuring a range of star-formation histories, metallicities
and reddening we find that, at z>=6, the range in mass-to-light ratio (M*/L_UV)
at a given UV luminosity could span a factor of ~50. Focusing on a sub-sample
of twenty-one candidates with IRAC detections at 3.6-microns we find that L*
LBGs at z~6.5 have a median stellar mass of M* = (2.1 +/- 1.1) x 10^9 Msun and
a median specific star-formation rate of 1.9 +/- 0.8 Gyr^-1. Using the same
sub-sample we have investigated the influence of nebular continuum and line
emission, finding that for the majority of candidates (16 out of 21) the
best-fitting stellar-mass estimates are reduced by less than a factor of 2.5.
Finally, a detailed comparison of our final sample with the results of previous
studies suggests that, at faint magnitudes, several high-redshift galaxy
samples in the literature are significantly contaminated by low-redshift
interlopers (abridged).Comment: 35 pages, 22 figures, replaced to match version accepted by MNRAS,
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