Prepronociceptin-expressing neurons in the extended amygdala encode and promote rapid arousal responses to motivationally salient stimuli

Motivational states consist of cognitive, emotional, and physiological components controlled by multiple brain regions. An integral component of this neural circuitry is the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST). Here, we identify that neurons within BNST that express the gene prepronociceptin (Pno

mRNA Expression Levels in Failing Human Hearts Predict Cellular Electrophysiological Remodeling: A Population-Based Simulation Study

Differences in mRNA expression levels have been observed in failing versus non-failing human hearts for several membrane channel proteins and accessory subunits. These differences may play a causal role in electrophysiological changes observed in human heart failure and atrial fibrillation, such as action potential (AP) prolongation, increased AP triangulation, decreased intracellular calcium transient (CaT) magnitude and decreased CaT triangulation. Our goal is to investigate whether the information contained in mRNA measurements can be used to predict cardiac electrophysiological remodeling in heart failure using computational modeling. Using mRNA data recently obtained from failing and non-failing human hearts, we construct failing and non-failing cell populations incorporating natural variability and up/down regulation of channel conductivities. Six biomarkers are calculated for each cell in each population, at cycle lengths between 1500 ms and 300 ms. Regression analysis is performed to determine which ion channels drive biomarker variability in failing versus non-failing cardiomyocytes. Our models suggest that reported mRNA expression changes are consistent with AP prolongation, increased AP triangulation, increased CaT duration, decreased CaT triangulation and amplitude, and increased delay between AP and CaT upstrokes in the failing population. Regression analysis reveals that changes in AP biomarkers are driven primarily by reduction in IKr, and changes in CaT biomarkers are driven predominantly by reduction in ICaL and SERCA. In particular, the role of IICaL is pacing rate dependent. Additionally, alternans developed at fast pacing rates for both failing and non-failing cardiomyocytes, but the underlying mechanisms are different in control and heart failure. © 2013 Walmsley et al

Novel metaheuristic for parameter estimation in nonlinear dynamic biological systems

BACKGROUND: We consider the problem of parameter estimation (model calibration) in nonlinear dynamic models of biological systems. Due to the frequent ill-conditioning and multi-modality of many of these problems, traditional local methods usually fail (unless initialized with very good guesses of the parameter vector). In order to surmount these difficulties, global optimization (GO) methods have been suggested as robust alternatives. Currently, deterministic GO methods can not solve problems of realistic size within this class in reasonable computation times. In contrast, certain types of stochastic GO methods have shown promising results, although the computational cost remains large. Rodriguez-Fernandez and coworkers have presented hybrid stochastic-deterministic GO methods which could reduce computation time by one order of magnitude while guaranteeing robustness. Our goal here was to further reduce the computational effort without loosing robustness. RESULTS: We have developed a new procedure based on the scatter search methodology for nonlinear optimization of dynamic models of arbitrary (or even unknown) structure (i.e. black-box models). In this contribution, we describe and apply this novel metaheuristic, inspired by recent developments in the field of operations research, to a set of complex identification problems and we make a critical comparison with respect to the previous (above mentioned) successful methods. CONCLUSION: Robust and efficient methods for parameter estimation are of key importance in systems biology and related areas. The new metaheuristic presented in this paper aims to ensure the proper solution of these problems by adopting a global optimization approach, while keeping the computational effort under reasonable values. This new metaheuristic was applied to a set of three challenging parameter estimation problems of nonlinear dynamic biological systems, outperforming very significantly all the methods previously used for these benchmark problems

Concentration Effects and Ion Properties Controlling the Fractionation of Halides during Aerosol Formation

During the aerosolization process at the sea surface, halides are incorporated into aerosol droplets, where they may play an important role in tropospheric ozone chemistry. Although this process may significantly contribute to the formation of reactive gas phase molecular halogens, little is known about the environmental factors that control how halides selectively accumulate at the air-water interface. In this study, the production of sea spray aerosol is simulated using electrospray ionization (ESI) of 100 nM equimolar solutions of NaCl, NaBr, NaI, NaNO(2), NaNO(3), NaClO(4), and NaIO(4). The microdroplets generated are analyzed by mass spectrometry to study the comparative enrichment of anions (f(X(-))) and their correlation with ion properties. Although no correlation exists between f(X(-)) and the limiting equivalent ionic conductivity, the correlation coefficient of the linear fit with the size of the anions R(X(-)), dehydration free-energy ΔG(dehyd), and polarizability α, follows the order: R(X(-))(-2) \u3e R(X(-))(-1) \u3e R(X(-)) \u3e ΔG(dehyd) \u3e α. The same pure physical process is observed in H(2)O and D(2)O. The factor f(X(-)) does not change with pH (6.8-8.6), counterion (Li(+), Na(+), K(+), and Cs(+)) substitution effects, or solvent polarity changes in methanol- and ethanol-water mixtures (0 ≤ x(H(2)O) ≤ 1). Sodium polysorbate 20 surfactant is used to modify the structure of the interface. Despite the observed enrichment of I(-) on the air-water interface of equimolar solutions, our results of seawater mimic samples agree with a model in which the interfacial composition is increasingly enriched in I(-) \u3c Br(-) \u3c Cl(-) over the oceanic boundary layer due to concentration effects in sea spray aerosol formation

Satisfaction: a measure of environmental quality

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1979 R83Master of Architectur

Sideload vanes for fluid pump

A fluid pump assembly includes a rotatable component that can be rotated about an axis and a static vane assembly located adjacent to the rotatable component. The static vane assembly includes a circumferential surface axially spaced from the rotatable component, and one or more vanes extending from the circumferential surface toward the rotatable component. The one or more vanes are configured to produce a radial load on the rotatable component when the rotatable component is rotating about the axis and a fluid is present between the static vane assembly and the rotatable component