578 research outputs found
In vitro evidence for senescent multinucleated melanocytes as a source for tumor-initiating cells
Oncogenic signaling in melanocytes results in oncogene-induced senescence (OIS), a stable cell-cycle arrest frequently characterized by a bi- or multinuclear phenotype that is considered as a barrier to cancer progression. However, the long-sustained conviction that senescence is a truly irreversible process has recently been challenged. Still, it is not known whether cells driven into OIS can progress to cancer and thereby pose a potential threat. Here, we show that prolonged expression of the melanoma oncogene N-RAS61K in pigment cells overcomes OIS by triggering the emergence of tumor-initiating mononucleated stem-like cells from senescent cells. This progeny is dedifferentiated, highly proliferative, anoikis-resistant and induces fast growing, metastatic tumors. Our data describe that differentiated cells, which are driven into senescence by an oncogene, use this senescence state as trigger for tumor transformation, giving rise to highly aggressive tumor-initiating cells. These observations provide the first experimental in vitro evidence for the evasion of OIS on the cellular level and ensuing transformation
A high resolution imaging detector for TeV gamma-ray astronomy
Details are presented of an atmospheric Cherenkov telescope for use in very high energy gamma-ray astronomy which consists of a cluster of 109 close-packed photomultiplier tubes at the focus of a 10 meter optical reflector. The images of the Cherenkov flashes generated both by gamma-ray and charged cosmic-ray events are digitized and recorded. Subsequent off-line analysis of the images improves the significance of the signal to noise ratio by a factor of 10 compared with non-imaging techniques
Persistent Currents in 1D Disordered Rings of Interacting Electrons
We calculate the persistent current of 1D rings of spinless fermions with
short-range interactions on a lattice with up to 20 sites, and in the presence
of disorder, for various band fillings. We find that {\it both} disorder and
interactions always decrease the persistent current by localizing the
electrons. Away from half-filling, the interaction has a much stronger
influence in the presence of disorder than in the pure case.Comment: Latex file, 11 pages, 5 figures available on request, Report
LPQTH-93/1
Comparing feature matching for object categorization in video surveillance
In this paper we consider an object categorization system using local HMAX features. Two feature matching techniques are compared: the MAX technique, originally proposed in the HMAX framework, and the histogram technique originating from Bag-of-Words literature. We have found that each of these techniques have their own field of operation. The histogram technique clearly outperforms the MAX technique with 5-15% for small dictionaries up to 500-1,000 features, favoring this technique for embedded (surveillance) applications. Additionally, we have evaluated the influence of interest point operators in the system. A first experiment analyzes the effect of dictionary creation and has showed that random dictionaries outperform dictionaries created from Hessian-Laplace points. Secondly, the effect of operators in the dictionary matching stage has been evaluated. Processing all image points outperforms the point selection from the Hessian-Laplace operator
An Experimentally Realizable Weiss Model for Disorder-Free Glassiness
We summarize recent work on a frustrated periodic long-range Josephson array
in a parameter regime where its dynamical behavior is identical to that of the
disordered spherical model. We also discuss the physical requirements
imposed by the theory on the experimental realization of this superconducting
network.Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX, 2 Postscript figure
The splicing landscape is globally reprogrammed during male meiosis
Meiosis requires conserved transcriptional changes, but it is not known whether there is a corresponding set of RNA splicing switches. Here, we used RNAseq of mouse testis to identify changes associated with the progression from mitotic spermatogonia to meiotic spermatocytes. We identified ∼150 splicing switches, most of which affect conserved protein-coding exons. The expression of many key splicing regulators changed in the course of meiosis, including downregulation of polypyrimidine tract binding protein (PTBP1) and heterogeneous nuclear RNP A1, and upregulation of nPTB, Tra2β, muscleblind, CELF proteins, Sam68 and T-STAR. The sequences near the regulated exons were significantly enriched in target sites for PTB, Tra2β and STAR proteins. Reporter minigene experiments investigating representative exons in transfected cells showed that PTB binding sites were critical for splicing of a cassette exon in the Ralgps2 mRNA and a shift in alternative 5′ splice site usage in the Bptf mRNA. We speculate that nPTB might functionally replace PTBP1 during meiosis for some target exons, with changes in the expression of other splicing factors helping to establish meiotic splicing patterns. Our data suggest that there are substantial changes in the determinants and patterns of alternative splicing in the mitotic-to-meiotic transition of the germ cell cycle
Projection and ground state correlations made simple
We develop and test efficient approximations to estimate ground state
correlations associated with low- and zero-energy modes. The scheme is an
extension of the generator-coordinate-method (GCM) within Gaussian overlap
approximation (GOA). We show that GOA fails in non-Cartesian topologies and
present a topologically correct generalization of GOA (topGOA). An RPA-like
correction is derived as the small amplitude limit of topGOA, called topRPA.
Using exactly solvable models, the topGOA and topRPA schemes are compared with
conventional approaches (GCM-GOA, RPA, Lipkin-Nogami projection) for
rotational-vibrational motion and for particle number projection. The results
shows that the new schemes perform very well in all regimes of coupling.Comment: RevTex, 12 pages, 7 eps figure
Local Anomalies, Local Equivariant Cohomology and the Variational Bicomplex
The locality conditions for the vanishing of local anomalies in field theory
are shown to admit a geometrical interpretation in terms of local equivariant
cohomology, thus providing a method to deal with the problem of locality in the
geometrical approaches to the study of local anomalies based on the
Atiyah-Singer index theorem. The local cohomology is shown to be related to the
cohomology of jet bundles by means of the variational bicomplex theory. Using
these results and the techniques for the computation of the cohomology of
invariant variational bicomplexes in terms of relative Gel'fand-Fuks cohomology
introduced in [6], we obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the
cancellation of local gravitational and mixed anomalies.Comment: 36 pages. The paper is divided in two part
Phase-Locking of Vortex Lattices Interacting with Periodic Pinning
We examine Shapiro steps for vortex lattices interacting with periodic
pinning arrays driven by AC and DC currents. The vortex flow occurs by the
motion of the interstitial vortices through the periodic potential generated by
the vortices that remain pinned at the pinning sites. Shapiro steps are
observed for fields B_{\phi} < B < 2.25B_{\phi} with the most pronouced steps
occuring for fields where the interstitial vortex lattice has a high degree of
symmetry. The widths of the phase-locked current steps as a function of the
magnitude of the AC driving are found to follow a Bessel function in agreement
with theory.Comment: 5 pages 5 postscript figure
Translationally invariant calculations of form factors, nucleon densities and momentum distributions for finite nuclei with short-range correlations included
Relying upon our previous treatment of the density matrices for nuclei (in
general, nonrelativistic self-bound finite systems) we are studying a combined
effect of center-of-mass motion and short-range nucleon-nucleon correlations on
the nucleon density and momentum distributions in light nuclei ( and
). Their intrinsic ground-state wave functions are constructed in the
so-called fixed center-of-mass approximation, starting with mean-field Slater
determinants modified by some correlator (e.g., after Jastrow or Villars). We
develop the formalism based upon the Cartesian or boson representation, in
which the coordinate and momentum operators are linear combinations of the
creation and annihilation operators for oscillatory quanta in the three
different space directions, and get the own "Tassie-Barker" factors for each
distribution and point out other model-independent results. After this
separation of the center-of-mass motion effects we propose additional analytic
means in order to simplify the subsequent calculations (e.g., within the
Jastrow approach or the unitary correlation operator method). The charge form
factors, densities and momentum distributions of and
evaluated by using the well known cluster expansions are compared with data,
our exact (numerical) results and microscopic calculations.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure
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