Blood pressure response to Cold Pressor Test in the children of hypertensives

Two hundred student volunteers of 16-24 yrs were divided into two groups of 100 each, as children of hypertensive and children of normotensive parents. It was observed that there was no difference in resting SBP and DBP in both groups before CPT. After CPT, significant higher values of SBP after immersion, DBP after immersion, difference of SBP and difference of DBP were observed in children of hypertensive parents as compared to children of normotensive parents. This study can be used as a predictor of future development of hypertension for which early preventive measures can be taken to reduce the morbidity and mortality due to hypertensive complications

High bat (Chiroptera) diversity in the Early Eocene of India

The geographic origin of bats is still unknown, and fossils of earliest bats are rare and poorly diversified, with, maybe, the exception of Europe. The earliest bats are recorded from the Early Eocene of North America, Europe, North Africa and Australia where they seem to appear suddenly and simultaneously. Until now, the oldest record in Asia was from the Middle Eocene. In this paper, we report the discovery of the oldest bat fauna of Asia dating from the Early Eocene of the Cambay Formation at Vastan Lignite Mine in Western India. The fossil taxa are described on the basis of well-preserved fragments of dentaries and lower teeth. The fauna is highly diversified and is represented by seven species belonging to seven genera and at least four families. Two genera and five species are new. Three species exhibit very primitive dental characters, whereas four others indicate more advanced states. Unexpectedly, this fauna presents strong affinities with the European faunas from the French Paris Basin and the German Messel locality. This could result from the limited fossil record of bats in Asia, but could also suggest new palaeobiogeographic scenarios involving the relative position of India during the Early Eocene

Seasonal variations of the relationship between some ENSO parameters and Indian rainfall

Canonical correlation analysis is used to examine the seasonal relationship between ENSO and Indian rainfall by analysing their 12 monthly values for an 80-year period. Three ENSO indices are considered. These ENSO indices are the Darwin surface pressure, the sea-surface temperature of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, and rainfall of central equatorial Pacific islands (hereafter denoted as DSP, SST, and RAIN respectively). The ENSO indices are also analysed for relationships between themselves. The analysis reveals that the seasonal variations of these ENSO indices are highly intercoupled with no lag. These indices show the minimum association during April and the maximum after the monsoon season. Further, the seasonal variation of the Indian rainfall is found to be better associated with the seasonal variations of SST as compared with that of DSP or RAIN. This association is at its strongest during the period August-October. An apparent reversal in the relationship between ENSO and Indian rainfall is also observed from summer to winter. The warm ENSO years are associated with weak summer monsoon rainfall and at the same time high winter monsoon rainfall

Phosphate uptake kinetics and its regulation in N2- fixing cyanobacterium Anabaena oryzae Fritsch under salt stress

Phosphorous (P) starved cells of the cyanobacterium Anabaena oryzae showed higher phosphate uptake rates than P-sufficient cells. The P-uptake obeyed saturation kinetics. The Km value for Pdeficientcells was lower (54.34 mM) than P-sufficient cells (82.64 mM) while Vmax was higher in Pdeficient and lower in P-sufficient cells. Salinity (NaCl) stimulated phosphate uptake significantly in thecyanobacterium which is followed by greater amount of P-accumulation in the form of polyphosphate bodies. Inhibition of P-uptake in P-deficient cells was 45% in dark grown compared to light grown cells.P-uptake was inhibited 52 and 85% in culture treated with 3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea (DCMU; 10 mM) and carbonyl cyanide m-chloro phenylhydrazone (CCCP; 100 mM), respectively,suggesting that energy for uptake could be derived from oxidative phosphorylation and photophosphorelation

Mean ergodic multiplication operators on weighted spaces of continuous functions

[EN] Multiplication operators on weighted Banach spaces and locally convex spaces of continuous functions have been thoroughly studied. In this note, we characterize when continuous multiplication operators on a weighted Banach space and on a weighted inductive limit of Banach spaces of continuous functions are power bounded, mean ergodic or uniformly mean ergodic. The behaviour of the operator on weighted inductive limits depends on the properties of the defining sequence of weights and it differs from the Banach space case.The research of Bonet was partially supported by Project Prometeo/2017/102 of the Generalitat Valenciana. The authors authors were also partially supported by MINECO Project MTM2016-76647-P. Rodriguez also thanks the support of the Grant PAID-01-16 of the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia.Bonet Solves, JA.; Jorda Mora, E.; Rodríguez-Arenas, A. (2018). Mean ergodic multiplication operators on weighted spaces of continuous functions. Mediterranean Journal of Mathematics. 15(3):1:108-11:108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00009-018-1150-8S1:10811:108153Bierstedt, K.D.: An introduction to locally convex inductive limits, Functional analysis and its applications (Nice, 1986), 35–133, ICPAM Lecture Notes. World Sci. Publishing, Singapore (1988)Bierstedt, K.D.: A survey of some results and open problems in weighted inductive limits and projective description for spaces of holomorphic functions. Bull. Soc. Roy. Sci. Liège 70(4–6), 167–182 (2001)Bierstedt, K.D., Bonet, J.: Some recent results on VC(X). In: Advances in the theory of Fréchet spaces (Istanbul, 1988), NATO Adv. Sci. Inst. Ser. C Math. Phys. Sci., vol. 287, pp. 181–194. Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht (1989)Bierstedt, K.D., Bonet, J.: Completeness of the (LB)-spaces VC(X). Arch. Math. (Basel) 56(3), 281–285 (1991)Bierstedt, K.D., Bonet, J.: Some aspects of the modern theory of Fréchet spaces. Rev. R. Acad. Cienc. Exactas Fís. Nat. Ser. A Mat 97(2), 159–188 (2003)Bierstedt, K.D., Meise, R., Summers, W.H.: A projective description of weighted inductive limits. Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 272(1), 107–160 (1982)Bierstedt, K.D., Meise, R., Summers, W.H.: Köthe sets and Köthe sequence spaces. In: Functional analysis, holomorphy and approximation theory, Rio de Janeiro, pp. 27–91 (1980)Bonet, J., Ricker, W.J.: Mean ergodicity of multiplication operators in weighted spaces of holomorphic functions. Arch. Math. 92, 428–437 (2009)Klilou, M., Oubbi, L.: Multiplication operators on generalized weighted spaces of continuous functions. Mediterr. J. Math. 13(5), 3265–3280 (2016)Krengel, U.: Ergodic Theorems. de Gruyter, Berlin (1985)Lin, M.: On the uniform ergodic theorem. Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 43, 2 (1974)Lotz, H.P.: Uniform convergence of operators on $$L^\infty$$ L ∞ and similar spaces. Math. Z. 190, 207–220 (1985)Manhas, J.S.: Compact multiplication operators on weighted spaces of vector-valued continuous functions. Rocky Mt. J. Math. 34(3), 1047–1057 (2004)Manhas, J.S.: Compact and weakly compact multiplication operators on weighted spaces of vector-valued continuous functions. Acta Sci. Math. (Szeged) 70(1–2), 361–372 (2004)Manhas, J.S., Singh, R.K.: Compact and weakly compact weighted composition operators on weighted spaces of continuous functions. Integral Equ. Oper. Theory 29(1), 63–69 (1997)Meise, R., Vogt, D.: Introduction to Functional Analysis. The Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, New York (1997)Oubbi, L.: Multiplication operators on weighted spaces of continuous functions. Port. Math. (N.S.) 59(1), 111–124 (2002)Oubbi, L.: Weighted composition operators on non-locally convex weighted spaces. Rocky Mt. J. Math. 35(6), 2065–2087 (2005)Singh, R.K., Manhas, J.S.: Multiplication operators on weighted spaces of vector-valued continuous functions. J. Austral. Math. Soc. Ser. A 50(1), 98–107 (1991)Singh, R.K., Manhas, J.S.: Composition operators on function spaces. North-Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam (1993)Singh, R.K., Manhas, J.S.: Operators and dynamical systems on weighted function spaces. Math. Nachr. 169, 279–285 (1994)Wilanski, A.: Topology for Analysis. Ginn, Waltham (1970)Yosida, K.: Functional Analysis. Springer, Berlin (1980

AAV-mediated and pharmacological induction of Hsp70 expression stimulates survival of retinal ganglion cells following axonal injury.

We evaluated the effect of AAV2- and 17-AAG (17-N-allylamino-17-demethoxygeldanamycin)-mediated upregulation of Hsp70 expression on the survival of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) injured by optic nerve crush (ONC). AAV2-Hsp70 expression in the retina was primarily observed in the ganglion cell layer. Approximately 75% of all transfected cells were RGCs. RGC survival in AAV2-Hsp70-injected animals was increased by an average of 110% 2 weeks after the axonal injury compared with the control. The increase in cell numbers was not even across the retinas with a maximum effect of approximately 306% observed in the inferior quadrant. 17-AAG-mediated induction of Hsp70 expression has been associated with cell protection in various models of neurodegenerative diseases. We show here that a single intravitreal injection of 17-AAG (0.2 ug ul(-1)) results in an increased survival of ONC-injured RGCs by approximately 49% compared with the vehicle-treated animals. Expression of Hsp70 in retinas of 17-AAG-treated animals was upregulated approximately by twofold compared with control animals. Our data support the idea that the upregulation of Hsp70 has a beneficial effect on the survival of injured RGCs, and the induction of this protein could be viewed as a potential neuroprotective strategy for optic neuropathies

Combined Effects of Nanoroughness and Ions Produced by Electrodeposition of Mesoporous Bioglass Nanoparticle for Bone Regeneration

Providing appropriate biophysical and biochemical cues to the interface is a facile strategy to enhance the osteogenic ability of metallic implants. Here we exploited this through the incorporation of mesoporous bioactive glass nanoparticles (MBGN) at a high content (1:1 by weight) to a biopolymer chitosan in the electrodeposition process of titanium. The MGBN/chitosan layer thickness, tunable by electrodeposition parameters, exhibited an accelerated ability of apatite mineral induction in a body simulating medium. Of note, the involvement of MBGN could generate nanoscale roughness in a unique range of 10-25 nm. Moreover, the layer showed a slowly releasing profile of ions (calcium and silicate) over weeks at therapeutically relevant doses. The ion-releasing nanotopological surface was demonstrated to alter the preosteoblasts responses in a way favorable for osteogenic differentiation. The combinatory cues of nanotopology (25 nm roughness) and ion release enabled highly accelerated cellular anchorage with somewhat limited spreading area at initial periods. The subsequent osteoblastic differentiation behaviors on the engineered surface, as examined up to 21 days, showed significantly enhanced alkaline phosphate activity and up-regulated expression of bone-associated genes (ALP, Col I, OPN, and OCN). These results indicate that the combinatory cues provided by nanotopology (25 nm roughness) and ions released from MBGN are highly effective in stimulating osteoblastic differentiation and suggest that the MBGN/chitosan may serve as a potential composition for bone implant coatings

Oscillatory, Computational, and Behavioral Evidence for Impaired GABAergic Inhibition in Schizophrenia

The dysconnection hypothesis of schizophrenia (SZ) proposes that psychosis is best understood in terms of aberrant connectivity. Specifically, it suggests that dysconnectivity arises through aberrant synaptic modulation associated with deficits in GABAergic inhibition, excitation-inhibition balance and disturbances of high-frequency oscillations. Using a computational model combined with a graded-difficulty visual orientation discrimination paradigm, we demonstrate that, in SZ, perceptual performance is determined by the balance of excitation-inhibition in superficial cortical layers. Twenty-eight individuals with a DSM-IV diagnosis of SZ, and 30 age- and gender-matched healthy controls participated in a psychophysics orientation discrimination task, a visual grating magnetoencephalography (MEG) recording, and a magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) scan for GABA. Using a neurophysiologically informed model, we quantified group differences in GABA, gamma measures, and the predictive validity of model parameters for orientation discrimination in the SZ group. MEG visual gamma frequency was reduced in SZ, with lower peak frequency associated with more severe negative symptoms. Orientation discrimination performance was impaired in SZ. Dynamic causal modeling of the MEG data showed that local synaptic connections were reduced in SZ and local inhibition correlated negatively with the severity of negative symptoms. The effective connectivity between inhibitory interneurons and superficial pyramidal cells predicted orientation discrimination performance within the SZ group; consistent with graded, behaviorally relevant, disease-related changes in local GABAergic connections. Occipital GABA levels were significantly reduced in SZ but did not predict behavioral performance or oscillatory measures. These findings endorse the importance, and behavioral relevance, of GABAergic synaptic disconnection in schizophrenia that underwrites excitation-inhibition balance