1,481 research outputs found
Selective Deletion of Sodium Salt Taste during Development Leads to Expanded Terminal Fields of Gustatory Nerves in the Adult Mouse Nucleus of the Solitary Tract.
Neuronal activity plays a key role in the development of sensory circuits in the mammalian brain. In the gustatory system, experimental manipulations now exist, through genetic manipulations of specific taste transduction processes, to examine how specific taste qualities (i.e., basic tastes) impact the functional and structural development of gustatory circuits. Here, we used a mouse knock-out model in which the transduction component used to discriminate sodium salts from other taste stimuli was deleted in taste bud cells throughout development. We used this model to test the hypothesis that the lack of activity elicited by sodium salt taste impacts the terminal field organization of nerves that carry taste information from taste buds to the nucleus of the solitary tract (NST) in the medulla. The glossopharyngeal, chorda tympani, and greater superficial petrosal nerves were labeled to examine their terminal fields in adult control mice and in adult mice in which the α-subunit of the epithelial sodium channel was conditionally deleted in taste buds (αENaC knockout). The terminal fields of all three nerves in the NST were up to 2.7 times greater in αENaC knock-out mice compared with the respective field volumes in control mice. The shapes of the fields were similar between the two groups; however, the density and spread of labels were greater in αENaC knock-out mice. Overall, our results show that disruption of the afferent taste signal to sodium salts disrupts the normal age-dependent "pruning" of all terminal fields, which could lead to alterations in sensory coding and taste-related behaviors.
Neural activity plays a major role in the development of sensory circuits in the mammalian brain. To date, there has been no direct test of whether taste-elicited neural activity has a role in shaping central gustatory circuits. However, recently developed genetic tools now allow an assessment of how specific taste stimuli, in this case sodium salt taste, play a role in the maturation of the terminal fields in the mouse brainstem. We found that the specific deletion of sodium salt taste during development produced terminal fields in adults that were dramatically larger than in control mice, demonstrating for the first time that sodium salt taste-elicited activity is necessary for the normal maturation of gustatory inputs into the brain
Effective scraping in a scraped surface heat exchanger: some fluid flow analysis
An outline of mathematical models that have been used to understand the behaviour of scraped surface heat exchangers is presented. In particular the problem of the wear of the blades is considered. A simple model, exploiting known behaviour of viscous flow in corners and in wedges, and accounting for the forces on the blade is derived and solutions generated. The results shows initial rapid wear but that the wear rate goes to zero
Very strong intrinsic supercurrent carrying ability and vortex avalanches in (Ba,K)Fe2As2 superconducting single crystals
We report that single crystals of (Ba,K)Fe2As2 with Tc = 32 K have a pinning
potential, U0, as high as 10^4 K, with U0 showing very little field
depend-ence. In addition, the (Ba,K)Fe2As2 single crystals become isotropic at
low temperatures and high magnetic fields, resulting in a very rigid vortex
lattice, even in fields very close to Hc2. The rigid vortices in the two
dimensional (Ba,K)Fe2As2 distinguish this compound from 2D high Tc cuprate
superconductors with 2D vortices, and make it being capable of cearrying very
high critical current.Flux jumping due to high Jc was also observed in large
samples at low temperatures.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures. submitte
Effects of TIG Welding Parameters on Morphology and Mechanical Properties of Welded Joint of Ni-base Superalloy
AbstractThe influences of parameters of tungsten inert gas arc welding on the morphology, microstructure, tensile property and fracture of welded joints of Ni-base superalloy have been studied. Results show that the increase of welding current and the decrease of welding speed bring about the large amount of heat input in the welding pool and the enlargement of width and deepness of the welding pool. The increase of impulse frequency has the same effect on the microstructure compared with the increase of welding current. The effect of welding parameters on the tensile strength and fracture was analyzed. It is found that the root of welding joint is unwelded when the welding current is lower, so that the strength and elongation of welded joint are inferior. And the more welding defects in the welding zone and the more hard and brittle phase precipitates in the overheated zone when the welding current is too high. Consequently, the strength and plasticity go up first and then go down, i.e. they have a peak value with welding current increasing. In addition, the decrease of impulse frequency is beneficial to the strength of the welded joint
Oxygen impurities in NiAl: Relaxation effects
We have used a full-potential linear muffin-tin orbital method to calculate
the effects of oxygen impurities on the electronic structure of NiAl. Using the
supercell method with a 16-atom supercell we have investigated the cases where
an oxygen atom is substitutionally placed at either a nickel or an aluminum
site. Full relaxation of the atoms within the supercell was allowed. We found
that oxygen prefers to occupy a nickel site over an aluminum site with a site
selection energy of 138 mRy (21,370 K). An oxygen atom placed at an aluminum
site is found to cause a substantial relaxation of its nickel neighbors away
from it. In contrast, this steric repulsion is hardly present when the oxygen
atom occupies the nickel site and is surrounded by aluminum neighbors. We
comment on the possible relation of this effect to the pesting degradation
phenomenon (essentially spontaneous disintegration in air) in nickel
aluminides.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. B (Aug. 15, 2001
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Characteristics of regional new particle formation in urban and regional background environments in the North China Plain
Long-term measurements of particle number size distributions were carried out both at an urban background site (Peking University, PKU) and a regional Global Atmospheric Watch station (Shangdianzi, SDZ) from March to November in 2008. In total, 52 new particle formation (NPF) events were observed simultaneously at both sites, indicating that this is a regional phenomenon in the North China Plain. On average, the mean condensation sink value before the nucleation events started was 0.025 s−1 in the urban environment, which was 1.6 times higher than that at regional site. However, higher particle formation and growth rates were observed at PKU (10.8 cm−3 s−1 and 5.2 nm h−1) compared with those at SDZ (4.9 cm−3 s−1 and 4.0 nm h−1). These results implied that precursors were much more abundant in the polluted urban environment. Different from the observations in cleaner environments, the background conditions of the observed particle homogeneous nucleation events in the North China Plain could be characterized as the co-existing of a stronger source of precursor gases and a higher condensational sink of pre-existing aerosol particles. Secondary aerosol formation following nucleation events results in an increase of particle mass concentration, particle light scattering coefficient, and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number concentration, with consequences on visibility, radiative effects, and air quality. Typical regional NPF events with significant particle nucleation rates and subsequent particle growth over a sufficiently long time period at both sites were chosen to investigate the influence of NPF on the number concentration of "potential" CCN. As a result, the NPF and the subsequent condensable growth increased the CCN number concentration in the North China Plain by factors in the range from 5.6 to 8.7. Moreover, the potential contribution of anthropogenic emissions to the CCN number concentration was more than 50%, to which more attention should be drawn in regional and global climate modeling, especially in the polluted urban areas
Interplay of superexchange and orbital degeneracy in Cr-doped LaMnO3
We report on structural, magnetic and Electron Spin Resonance (ESR)
investigations in the manganite system LaMn_{1-x}Cr_{x}O_{3} (x<=0.5). Upon
Cr-doping we observe a reduction of the Jahn-Teller distortion yielding less
distorted orthorhombic structures. A transition from the Jahn-Teller distorted
O' to the pseudocubic O phase occurs between 0.3<x<0.4. A clear connection
between this transition and the doping dependence of the magnetic and ESR
properties has been observed. The effective moments determined by ESR seem
reduced with respect to the spin-only value of both Mn^{3+} and Cr^{3+} ions
Left-right asymmetry for pion and kaon production in the semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering process
We analyze the left-right asymmetry in the semi-inclusive deep inelastic
scattering (SIDIS) process without introducing any weighting functions. With
the current theoretical understanding, we find that the Sivers effect plays a
key role in our analysis. We use the latest parametrization of the Sivers and
fragmentation functions to reanalyze the production process and find
that the results are sensitive to the parametrization. We also extend our
calculation on the production, which can help us know more about the
Sivers distribution of the sea quarks and the unfavored fragmentation
processes. HERMES kinematics with a proton target, COMPASS kinematics with a
proton, deuteron, and neutron target (the information on the neutron target can
be effectively extracted from the He target), and JLab kinematics (both 6
GeV and 12 GeV) with a proton and neutron target are considered in our paper.Comment: 7 latex pages, 11 figures, final version for publication, with
references update
Theory of coherent acoustic phonons in InGaN/GaN multi-quantum wells
A microscopic theory for the generation and propagation of coherent LA
phonons in pseudomorphically strained wurzite (0001) InGaN/GaN multi-quantum
well (MQW) p-i-n diodes is presented. The generation of coherent LA phonons is
driven by photoexcitation of electron-hole pairs by an ultrafast Gaussian pump
laser and is treated theoretically using the density matrix formalism. We use
realistic wurzite bandstructures taking valence-band mixing and strain-induced
piezo- electric fields into account. In addition, the many-body Coulomb
ineraction is treated in the screened time-dependent Hartree-Fock
approximation. We find that under typical experimental conditions, our
microscopic theory can be simplified and mapped onto a loaded string problem
which can be easily solved.Comment: 20 pages, 17 figure
Pairing symmetry and long range pair potential in a weak coupling theory of superconductivity
We study the superconducting phase with two component order parameter
scenario, such as, , where . We show, that in absence of orthorhombocity, the usual
does not mix with usual symmetry gap in an anisotropic band
structure. But the symmetry does mix with the usual d-wave for . The d-wave symmetry with higher harmonics present in it also mixes with
higher order extended wave symmetry. The required pair potential to obtain
higher anisotropic and extended s-wave symmetries, is derived by
considering longer ranged two-body attractive potential in the spirit of tight
binding lattice. We demonstrate that the dominant pairing symmetry changes
drastically from to like as the attractive pair potential is obtained
from longer ranged interaction. More specifically, a typical length scale of
interaction , which could be even/odd multiples of lattice spacing leads
to predominant wave symmetry. The role of long range interaction on
pairing symmetry has further been emphasized by studying the typical interplay
in the temperature dependencies of these higher order and wave pairing
symmetries.Comment: Revtex 8 pages, 7 figures embeded in the text, To appear in PR
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