345 research outputs found
Structure and function of natural sulphide-oxidizing microbial mats under dynamic input of light and chemical energy
We studied the interaction between phototrophic and chemolithoautotrophic sulphide-oxidizing microorganisms in natural microbial mats forming in sulphidic streams. The structure of these mats varied between two end-members: one characterized by a layer dominated by large sulphur-oxidizing bacteria (SOB; mostly Beggiatoa-like) on top of a cyanobacterial layer (B/C mats) and the other with an inverted structure (C/B mats). C/B mats formed where the availability of oxygen from the water column was limited (<5 mu M). Aerobic chemolithotrophic activity of the SOB depended entirely on oxygen produced locally by cyanobacteria during high light conditions. In contrast, B/C mats formed at locations where oxygen in the water column was comparatively abundant (445 mu M) and continuously present. Here SOB were independent of the photosynthetic activity of cyanobacteria and outcompeted the cyanobacteria in the uppermost layer of the mat where energy sources for both functional groups were concentrated. Outcompetition of photosynthetic microbes in the presence of light was facilitated by the decoupling of aerobic chemolithotrophy and oxygenic phototrophy. Remarkably, the B/C mats conserved much less energy than the C/B mats, although similar amounts of light and chemical energy were available. Thus ecosystems do not necessarily develop towards optimal energy usage. Our data suggest that, when two independent sources of energy are available, the structure and activity of microbial communities is primarily determined by the continuous rather than the intermittent energy source, even if the time-integrated energy flux of the intermittent energy source is greater
Система электропривода задвижки паропровода
INTRODUCTION: Encephalitis is a rare complication of primary varicella-zoster virus (VZV) infection in immunocompetent children. METHODS: The clinical and laboratory findings of two girls with VZV-related encephalitis are reported. RESULTS: Both children presented with focal epileptic seizures, corresponding to cortical/subcortical as well as white matter lesions. The first showed a typical vesicular skin rash. She was easily diagnosed and made a rapid recovery during acyclovir and steroid treatment. In the second girl, a preceding measles-mumps-rubella virus vaccination and the absence of skin vesicles were misleading with respect to the diagnosis, which was finally proven by IgG seroconversion and intrathecal synthesis of IgG antibodies to VZV. She developed left parieto-occipital tissue necrosis and recovered only transiently during initial acyclovir/steroid treatment. Eight weeks after onset, progressive white matter demyelination and the occurrence of erythema nodosum in the lower limbs necessitated a second 4-month course of oral steroids. The VZV PCR from cerebrospinal fluid was negative in both children. CONCLUSIONS: Primary VZV infection may cause severe encephalitis that may occur without skin vesicles and lead to a chronic course with systemic vasculitis. The coincidence of vaccination and neurologic diseases offers no proof per se of a causal relationship
Review of water supply-demand options for South East Queensland
This independent review aims to assess the Queensland Government's proposed strategy for meeting the long-term water supply-demand balance for South East Queensland, of which the Traveston Crossing scheme is a major and controversial component. The review, conducted by a team from the ISF at the UTS and Cardno, concludes that a diverse portfolio of options can ensure supply security for South East Queensland (SEQ) well into the future, certainly to 2050. Such options include: increasing water supply availability (supply-side options); decreasing the demand for water (demand-side options); and meeting water supply needs during deep droughts (drought response options). A number of the elements of such a portfolio are already being implemented as part of the current Queensland Government strategy. With the extension and addition of low unit cost demand-side options and supply-side drought response readiness options, a clear conclusion of this study is that the proposed dam at Traveston Crossing on the Mary River is neither necessary nor desirable as a part of the portfolio for ensuring supply security to 2050. The increase in supply from this proposed dam will not assist in the short-term during the current severe drought in which water (from savings and supply) is needed over the next two to three years. Planned completion of the Traveston Crossing Dam Stage 1 is in 2012. Additional time will be needed for the dam to fill, which could take an additional two years, resulting in the yield from this source only potentially being available in 2014. Neither is the Traveston Crossing scheme needed for supply-demand balance in the longer term with the suite of other more appropriate drought response measures being implemented by the Queensland Government and strategy being proposed as part of this study. The proposed dam at Traveston Crossing on the Mary River represents a high total cost, high unit cost, high risk and high environmental and social impact option
A Mass Bound for Spherically Symmetric Black Hole Spacetimes
Requiring that the matter fields are subject to the dominant energy
condition, we establish the lower bound for the
total mass of a static, spherically symmetric black hole spacetime. ( and denote the area and the surface gravity of the horizon,
respectively.) Together with the fact that the Komar integral provides a simple
relation between and the strong energy condition,
this enables us to prove that the Schwarzschild metric represents the only
static, spherically symmetric black hole solution of a selfgravitating matter
model satisfying the dominant, but violating the strong energy condition for
the timelike Killing field at every point, that is, .
Applying this result to scalar fields, we recover the fact that the only black
hole configuration of the spherically symmetric Einstein-Higgs model with
arbitrary non-negative potential is the Schwarzschild spacetime with constant
Higgs field. In the presence of electromagnetic fields, we also derive a
stronger bound for the total mass, involving the electromagnetic potentials and
charges. Again, this estimate provides a simple tool to prove a ``no-hair''
theorem for matter fields violating the strong energy condition.Comment: 16 pages, LATEX, no figure
An Explanation for the Observed Weak Size Evolution of Disk Galaxies
Surveys of distant galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope and from the
ground have shown that there is only mild evolution in the relationship between
radial size and stellar mass for galactic disks from z~1 to the present day.
Using a sample of nearby disk-dominated galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey (SDSS), and high redshift data from the GEMS (Galaxy Evolution from
Morphology and SEDs) survey, we investigate whether this result is consistent
with theoretical expectations within the hierarchical paradigm of structure
formation. The relationship between virial radius and mass for dark matter
halos in the LCDM model evolves by about a factor of two over this interval.
However, N-body simulations have shown that halos of a given mass have less
centrally concentrated mass profiles at high redshift. When we compute the
expected disk size-stellar mass distribution, accounting for this evolution in
the internal structure of dark matter halos and the adiabatic contraction of
the dark matter by the self-gravity of the collapsing baryons, we find that the
predicted evolution in the mean size at fixed stellar mass since z~1 is about
15-20 percent, in good agreement with the observational constraints from GEMS.
At redshift z~2, the model predicts that disks at fixed stellar mass were on
average only 60% as large as they are today. Similarly, we predict that the
rotation velocity at a given stellar mass (essentially the zero-point of the
Tully-Fisher relation) is only about 10 percent larger at z~1 (20 percent at
z~2) than at the present day.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ. Revised in
response to referee's comments to improve clariry. Results are unchange
GEMS: The Size Evolution of Disk Galaxies
We combine HST imaging from the GEMS survey with photometric redshifts from
COMBO-17 to explore the evolution of disk-dominated galaxies since z<1.1. The
sample is comprised of all GEMS galaxies with Sersic indices n<2.5, derived
from fits to the galaxy images. We account fully for selection effects through
careful analysis of image simulations; we are limited by the depth of the
redshift and HST data to the study of galaxies with absolute magnitudes
M(V)10. We find strong evolution in
the magnitude-size scaling relation for galaxies with M(V)<-20, corresponding
to a brightening of 1 mag per sqarcsec in rest-frame V-band by z=1. Yet, disks
at a given absolute magnitude are bluer and have lower stellar mass-to-light
ratios at z=1 than at the present day. As a result, our findings indicate weak
or no evolution in the relation between stellar mass and effective disk size
for galaxies with log(M)>10 over the same time interval. This is strongly
inconsistent with the most naive theoretical expectation, in which disk size
scales in proportion to the halo virial radius, which would predict that disks
are a factor of two denser at fixed mass at z=1. The lack of evolution in the
stellar mass-size relation is consistent with an ``inside-out'' growth of
galaxy disks on average (galaxies increasing in size as they grow more
massive), although we cannot rule out more complex evolutionary scenarios.Comment: 22 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Ap
Co-ordination between Rashba spin-orbital interaction and space charge effect and enhanced spin injection into semiconductors
We consider the effect of the Rashba spin-orbital interaction and space
charge in a ferromagnet-insulator/semiconductor/insulator-ferromagnet junction
where the spin current is severely affected by the doping, band structure and
charge screening in the semiconductor. In diffusion region, if the the
resistance of the tunneling barriers is comparable to the semiconductor
resistance, the magnetoresistance of this junction can be greatly enhanced
under appropriate doping by the co-ordination between the Rashba effect and
screened Coulomb interaction in the nonequilibrium transport processes within
Hartree approximation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
A Study of the 't Hooft Model with the Overlap Dirac Operator
We present the results of an exploratory numerical study of two dimensional
QCD with overlap fermions. We have performed extensive simulations for U(N_c)
and SU(N_c) color groups with N_c=2, 3, 4 and coupling constants chosen to
satisfy the 't Hooft condition g^2 N_c =const=4/3. We have computed the meson
spectrum and decay constants, the topological susceptibility and the chiral
condensate. For U(N_c) gauge groups, our results indicate that the
Witten-Veneziano relation is satisfied within our statistical errors and that
the chiral condensate for N_f=1 is compatible with a non-zero value. Our
results exhibit universality in N_c and confirm once more the excellent chiral
properties of the overlap-Dirac operator.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure
Identification and validation of oncologic miRNA biomarkers for Luminal A-like breast cancer
Introduction: Breast cancer is a common disease with distinct tumor subtypes phenotypically characterized by ER and HER2/neu receptor status. MiRNAs play regulatory roles in tumor initiation and progression, and altered miRNA expression has been demonstrated in a variety of cancer states presenting the potential for exploitation as cancer biomarkers. Blood provides an excellent medium for biomarker discovery. This study investigated systemic miRNAs differentially expressed in Luminal A-like (ER+PR+HER2/neu-) breast cancer and their effectiveness as oncologic biomarkers in the clinical setting. Methods: Blood samples were prospectively collected from patients with Luminal A-like breast cancer (n=54) and controls (n=56). RNA was extracted, reverse transcribed and subjected to microarray analysis (n=10 Luminal A-like; n=10 Control). Differentially expressed miRNAs were identified by artificial neural network (ANN) data-mining algorithms. Expression of specific miRNAs was validated by RQ-PCR (n=44 Luminal A; n=46 Control) and potential relationships between circulating miRNA levels and clinicopathological features of breast cancer were investigated. Results: Microarray analysis identified 76 differentially expressed miRNAs. ANN revealed 10 miRNAs for further analysis ( miR-19b, miR-29a, miR-93, miR-181a, miR-182, miR-223, miR-301a, miR-423-5p, miR-486-5 and miR-652 ). The biomarker potential of 4 miRNAs ( miR-29a, miR-181a , miR-223 and miR-652 ) was confirmed by RQ-PCR, with significantly reduced expression in blood of women with Luminal A-like breast tumors compared to healthy controls (p=0.001, 0.004, 0.009 and 0.004 respectively). Binary logistic regression confirmed that combination of 3 of these miRNAs ( miR-29a, miR-181a and miR-652 ) could reliably differentiate between cancers and controls with an AUC of 0.80. Conclusion: This study provides insight into the underlying molecular portrait of Luminal A-like breast cancer subtype. From an initial 76 miRNAs, 4 were validated with altered expression in the blood of women with Luminal A-like breast cancer. The expression profiles of these 3 miRNAs, in combination with mammography, has potential to facilitate accurate subtype- specific breast tumor detection
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