Mass of galaxy lenses in modified gravity: any need for dark mass?

Using strong lensing data, Milgrom's modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) and its covariant TeVeS (tensor-vector-scalar theory) are examined here as an alternative to the conventional ΛCDM paradigm. We examine 10 double-image, gravitational lensing systems in which the lens masses have been estimated by stellar population synthesis models. While mild deviations exist, we find no strong case of outliers to the TeVeS theory. © 2011 American Physical Society.published_or_final_versio

Studies of glucosidase activities from surface sediments in mangrove swamp

Four transects including sixteen stations were established in the Fugong mangrove (117 degrees 54'-117 degrees 55'E, 24 degrees 22'24 degrees 24'N) of the Jiulong River Estuary, Fujian, China. Besides geochemical characterization and estimation of bacterial abundances, the distribution of alpha- and beta-glucosidase activity was studied to explore the degradation of carbohydrates which can be expected to occur in high quantities in mangrove systems. The distribution pattern of microbial alpha-glucosidase and beta-glucosidase activities was investigated using a fluorogenic model substrate (FMS) technique in order to allow better understanding of in situ enzyme activities, as well as their relation to bacterial biomass, metabolic activity and environmental factors in mangrove sediments. The results showed that the enzyme activities of alpha-glucosidase (10.839 similar to 100.86 mu mol g(-1) h(-1)) and beta-glucosidase (39.60 similar to 222.75 mu mol g(-1) h(-1)) varied among the different stations, and the enzyme activities of beta-glucosidase were higher than those of alpha-glucosidase at all stations. The extracellular enzyme activities were positively related to organic C, organic matter and bacterial abundance. In addition, the use of the FMS technique to measure extracellular enzyme activities of mangrove sediments could help us to evaluate their catabolic behavior in situ and so lead to a better understanding of the bacterial role in material cycle of mangrove swamp ecosystems. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Targeted Delivery of Sildenafil for Inhibiting Pulmonary Vascular Remodeling

Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a fatal lung disease caused by the progressive remodeling of small pulmonary arteries (PAs). Sildenafil can prevent the remodeling of PAs, but conventional sildenafil formulations have shown limited treatment efficacy for their poor accumulation in PAs. Here, glucuronic acid (GlcA)-modified liposomes (GlcA-Lips) were developed to improve the delivery of sildenafil to aberrant over-proliferative PA smooth muscle cells via targeting the GLUT-1 (glucose transport-1), and, therefore, inhibiting the remodeling of PAs in a monocrotaline-induced PA hypertension model. GlcA-Lips encapsulating sildenafil (GlcA-sildenafil-Lips) had a size of 90 nm and a pH-sensitive drug release pattern. Immunostaining assay indicated the overexpression of GLUT-1 in PA smooth muscle cells. Cellular uptake studies showed a 1-fold increase of GlcA-Lips uptake by PA smooth muscle cells and pharmacokinetics and biodistribution experiments indicated longer blood circulation time of GlcA-Lips and increased ability to target PAs by 1-fold after 8 hours administration. Two-week treatment indicated GlcA-sildenafil-Lips significantly inhibited the remodeling of PAs, with a 32% reduction in the PA pressure, a 41% decrease in the medial thickening, and a 44% reduction of the right ventricle cardiomyocyte hypertrophy, and improved survival rate. Immunohistochemical analysis showed enhanced expression of caspase-3, after administration of GlcA-sildenafil-Lips, and reduced expression of P-ERK1/2 (phosphorylated ERK1/2) and HK-2 (hexokinase-2), and increased level of eNOS (endothelial nitric oxide synthase) and cyclic GMP (cGMP). In conclusion, targeted delivery of sildenafil to PA smooth muscle cells with GlcA-Lips could effectively inhibit the remodeling of PAs in the monocrotaline-induced PA hypertension

Micelles as Delivery Vehicles for Oligofluorene for Bioimaging

With the successful development of organic/polymeric light emitting diodes, many organic and polymeric fluorophores with high quantum efficiencies and optical stability were synthesized. However, most of these materials which have excellent optical properties are insoluble in water, limiting their applications in biological fields. Herein, we used micelles formed from an amino-group-containing poly(ε-caprolactone)-block-poly(ethylene glycol) (PCL-b-PEG-NH2) to incorporate a hydrophobic blue emitter oligofluorene (OF) to enable its application in biological conditions. Although OF is completely insoluble in water, it was successfully transferred into aqueous solutions with a good retention of its photophysical properties. OF exhibited a high quantum efficiency of 0.84 in a typical organic solvent of tetrahydrofuran (THF). In addition, OF also showed a good quantum efficiency of 0.46 after being encapsulated into micelles. Two cells lines, human glioblastoma (U87MG) and esophagus premalignant (CP-A), were used to study the cellular internalization of the OF incorporated micelles. Results showed that the hydrophobic OF was located in the cytoplasm, which was confirmed by co-staining the cells with nucleic acid specific SYTO 9, lysosome specific LysoTracker Red®, and mitochondria specific MitoTracker Red. MTT assay indicated non-toxicity of the OF-incorporated micelles. This study will broaden the application of hydrophobic functional organic compounds, oligomers, and polymers with good optical properties to enable their applications in biological research fields

Proteomic Analysis of Rat Hypothalamus Revealed the Role of Ubiquitin–Proteasome System in the Genesis of DR or DIO

Obesity has become a global epidemic, contributing to the increasing burdens of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. However, the precise molecular mechanisms of obesity remain poorly elucidated. The hypothalamus plays a major part in regulating energy homeostasis by integrating all kinds of nutritional signals. This study investigated the hypothalamus protein profile in diet-induced obese (DIO) and diet-resistant (DR) rats using two dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) combined with MALDI-TOF/TOF–MS analysis. Twenty-two proteins were identified in the hypothalamus of DIO or DR rats. These include metabolic enzymes, antioxidant proteins, proteasome related proteins, and signaling proteins, some of which are related to AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) signaling or mitochondrial respiration. Among these proteins, in comparison with the normal-diet group, Ubiquitin was significantly decreased in DR rats but not changed in DIO rats, while Ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal esterase L1 (UCHL-1) was decreased in DIO rats but not changed in DR rats. The expression level of Ubiquitin and UCHL-1 were further validated using Western blot analysis. Our study reveals that Ubiquitin and UCHL-1 are obesity-related factors in the hypothalamus that may play an important role in the genesis of DR or DIO by interfering with the integrated signaling network that control energy balance and feeding

Characterization and System Identification of XY Flexural Mechanism Using Double Parallelogram Manipulator for High Precision Scanning

This article represents modeling of double parallelogram flexural manipulator derived from basic classical mechanics theory. Fourth order vibration wave equation is used for mathematical modeling and its performance is determined for step input and sinusoidal forced input. Static characterization of DFM is carried out to determine stiffness and force deflection characteristics over the entire motion range and dynamic characteristics is carried out using Transient response and Frequency response. Transient response is determined using step input to DFM which gives system properties such as damping, rise time and settling time. These parameters are then compared with theoretical model presented previously. Frequency response of DFM system gives characteristics of system with different frequency inputs which is used for experimental modeling of DFM device. Here, Voice Coil Motor is used as Actuator and optical encoder is used for positioning sensing of motion stage. It is noted that theoretical model is having 5% accuracy with experimental results. To achieve better position and accuracy, PID and LQR (Linear Quadratic Regulator) implementation was carried out on experimental model. PID gains are optimally tuned by using Ziegler Nichols approach. PID control is implemented experimentally using dSPACE DS1104 microcontroller and Control Desk software. Experimentally, it is observed that positioning accuracy is less than 5 μm. Further multiple DFM blocks are arranged for developing XY flexural mechanism and static characterization was carried out on it. The comparison of experimental and FEA results for X-direction and Y-direction is presented at end of paper

Do Twin Boundaries Always Strengthen Metal Nanowires?

It has been widely reported that twin boundaries strengthen nanowires regardless of their morphology—that is, the strength of nanowires goes up as twin spacing goes down. This article shows that twin boundaries do not always strengthen nanowires. Using classical molecular dynamics simulations, the authors show that whether twin boundaries strengthen nanowires depends on the necessary stress for dislocation nucleation, which in turn depends on surface morphologies. When nanowires are circular cylindrical, the necessary stress of dislocation nucleation is high and the presence of twin boundaries lowers this stress; twin boundaries soften nanowires. In contrast, when nanowires are square cylindrical, the necessary stress of dislocation nucleation is low, and a higher stress is required for dislocations to penetrate twin boundaries; they strengthen nanowires

An introduction to Graph Data Management

A graph database is a database where the data structures for the schema and/or instances are modeled as a (labeled)(directed) graph or generalizations of it, and where querying is expressed by graph-oriented operations and type constructors. In this article we present the basic notions of graph databases, give an historical overview of its main development, and study the main current systems that implement them

Analysis of East Asia Genetic Substructure Using Genome-Wide SNP Arrays

Accounting for population genetic substructure is important in reducing type 1 errors in genetic studies of complex disease. As efforts to understand complex genetic disease are expanded to different continental populations the understanding of genetic substructure within these continents will be useful in design and execution of association tests. In this study, population differentiation (Fst) and Principal Components Analyses (PCA) are examined using >200 K genotypes from multiple populations of East Asian ancestry. The population groups included those from the Human Genome Diversity Panel [Cambodian, Yi, Daur, Mongolian, Lahu, Dai, Hezhen, Miaozu, Naxi, Oroqen, She, Tu, Tujia, Naxi, Xibo, and Yakut], HapMap [ Han Chinese (CHB) and Japanese (JPT)], and East Asian or East Asian American subjects of Vietnamese, Korean, Filipino and Chinese ancestry. Paired Fst (Wei and Cockerham) showed close relationships between CHB and several large East Asian population groups (CHB/Korean, 0.0019; CHB/JPT, 00651; CHB/Vietnamese, 0.0065) with larger separation with Filipino (CHB/Filipino, 0.014). Low levels of differentiation were also observed between Dai and Vietnamese (0.0045) and between Vietnamese and Cambodian (0.0062). Similarly, small Fst's were observed among different presumed Han Chinese populations originating in different regions of mainland of China and Taiwan (Fst's <0.0025 with CHB). For PCA, the first two PC's showed a pattern of relationships that closely followed the geographic distribution of the different East Asian populations. PCA showed substructure both between different East Asian groups and within the Han Chinese population. These studies have also identified a subset of East Asian substructure ancestry informative markers (EASTASAIMS) that may be useful for future complex genetic disease association studies in reducing type 1 errors and in identifying homogeneous groups that may increase the power of such studies

A Comparison of Clustering Techniques for Meteorological Analysis

Present work proposes the application of several clustering techniques (k-means, SOM k-means, k-medoids, and agglomerative hierarchical) to analyze the climatological conditions in different places. To do so, real-life data from data acquisition stations in Spain are analyzed, provided by AEMET (Spanish Meteorological Agency). Some of the main meteorological variables daily acquired by these stations are studied in order to analyse the variability of the environmental conditions in the selected places. Additionally, it is intended to characterize the stations according to their location, which could be applied for any other station. A comprehensive analysis of four different clustering techniques is performed, giving interesting results for a meteorological analysis