The Expanded Bead Size of Corneal C-Nerve Fibers Visualized by Corneal Confocal Microscopy Is Associated with Slow Conduction Velocity of the Peripheral Nerves in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

This is the final version of the article. Available from Hindawi Publishing Corporation via the DOI in this record.This study aims to establish the corneal nerve fiber (CNF) morphological alterations in a large cohort of type 2 diabetic patients and to investigate the association between the bead size, a novel parameter representing composite of accumulated mitochondria, glycogen particles, and vesicles in CNF, and the neurophysiological dysfunctions of the peripheral nerves. 162 type 2 diabetic patients and 45 healthy control subjects were studied in detail with a battery of clinical and neurological examinations and corneal confocal microscopy. Compared with controls, patients had abnormal CNF parameters. In particular the patients had reduced density and length of CNF and beading frequency and increased bead size. Alterations in CNF parameters were significant even in patients without neuropathy. The HbA1c levels were tightly associated with the bead size, which was inversely related to the motor and sensory nerve conduction velocity (NCV) and to the distal latency period of the median nerve positively. The CNF density and length positively correlated with the NCV and amplitude. The hyperglycemia-induced expansion of beads in CNF might be a predictor of slow NCV in peripheral nerves in type 2 diabetic patients

Energy response of X-rays under high flux conditions using a thin APD for the energy range of 6–33 keV

This paper reports on the demonstration of a high-rate energy measurement technique using a thin depletion layer silicon avalanche photodiode (Si-APD). A dedicated amplitude-to-time converter is developed to realize simultaneous energy and timing measurement in a high rate condition. The energy response of the system is systematically studied by using monochromatic X-ray beam with an incident energy ranging from 6 to 33 keV. The obtained energy spectra contain clear peaks and tail distributions. The peak fraction monotonously decreases as the incident photon energy increases. This phenomenon can be explained by considering the distribution of the energy deposit in silicon, which is investigated by using a Monte Carlo simulation

A scalable quantum computer with an ultranarrow optical transition of ultracold neutral atoms in an optical lattice

We propose a new quantum-computing scheme using ultracold neutral ytterbium atoms in an optical lattice. The nuclear Zeeman sublevels define a qubit. This choice avoids the natural phase evolution due to the magnetic dipole interaction between qubits. The Zeeman sublevels with large magnetic moments in the long-lived metastable state are also exploited to address individual atoms and to construct a controlled-multiqubit gate. Estimated parameters required for this scheme show that this proposal is scalable and experimentally feasible.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Ice Nucleating Particle Connections to Regional Argentinian Land Surface Emissions and Weather During the Cloud, Aerosol, and Complex Terrain Interactions Experiment

Here, we present a multi-season study of ice-nucleating particles (INPs) active via the immersion freezing mechanism, which took place in north-central Argentina, a worldwide hotspot for mesoscale convective storms. INPs were measured untreated, after heating to 95°C, and after hydrogen peroxide digestion. No seasonal cycle of INP concentrations was observed. Heat labile INPs, which we define as “biological” herein, dominated the population active at −5 to −20°C, while non-heat-labile organic INPs (decomposed by peroxide) dominated at lower temperatures, from −20 to −28°C. Inorganic INPs (remaining after peroxide digestion), were minor contributors to the overall INP activity. Biological INP concentration active around −12°C peaked during rain events and under high relative humidity, reflecting emission mechanisms independent of the background aerosol concentration. The ratio of non-heat-labile organic and inorganic INPs was generally constant, suggesting they originated from the same source, presumably from regional arable topsoil based on air mass histories. Single particle mass spectrometry showed that soil particles aerosolized from a regionally common agricultural topsoil contained known mineral INP sources (K-feldspar and illite) as well as a significant organic component. The INP activity observed in this study correlates well with agricultural soil INP activities from this and other regions of the world, suggesting that the observed INP spectra might be typical of many arable landscapes. These results demonstrate the strong influence of regional continental landscapes, emitting INPs of types that are not yet well represented in global models

Fast x-ray detector system with simultaneous measurement of timing and energy for a single photon

We developed a fast X-ray detector system for nuclear resonant scattering (NRS) experiments. Our system employs silicon avalanche photo-diode (Si-APD) as a fast X-ray sensor. The system is able to acquire both timing and energy of a single X-ray photon simultaneously in a high rate condition, 106 counts per second for one Si-APD. The performance of the system was investigated in SPring-8, a synchrotron radiation facility in Japan. Good time resolution of 120 ps (FWHM) was achieved with a slight tail distribution in the time spectrum by a level of 10-9 at 1 ns apart from the peak. Using this system, we successfully observed the NRS from the 26.27-keV level of mercury-201, which has a half-life of 630(50) ps. We also demonstrated the reduction of background events caused by radioactive decays in a radioactive sample by discriminating photon energy

Vascular Endothelial Adrenomedullin-RAMP2 System Is Essential for Vascular Integrity and Organ Homeostasis

信州大学博士（医学）・学位論文・平成25年3月31日授与（甲第935号）・小山 晃英Background-Revealing the mechanisms underlying the functional integrity of the vascular system could make available novel therapeutic approaches. We previously showed that knocking out the widely expressed peptide adrenomedullin (AM) or receptor activity-modifying protein 2 (RAMP2), an AM-receptor accessory protein, causes vascular abnormalities and is embryonically lethal. Our aim was to investigate the function of the vascular AM-RAMP2 system directly. Methods and Results-We generated endothelial cell-specific RAMP2 and AM knockout mice (E-RAMP2(-/-) and E-AM(-/-)). Most E-RAMP2(-/-) mice died perinatally. In surviving adults, vasculitis occurred spontaneously. With aging, E-RAMP2(-/-) mice showed severe organ fibrosis with marked oxidative stress and accelerated vascular senescence. Later, liver cirrhosis, cardiac fibrosis, and hydronephrosis developed. We next used a line of drug-inducible E-RAMP2(-/-) mice (DI-E-RAMP2(-/-)) to induce RAMP2 deletion in adults, which enabled us to analyze the initial causes of the aforementioned vascular and organ damage. Early after the induction, pronounced edema with enhanced vascular leakage occurred. In vitro analysis revealed the vascular leakage to be caused by actin disarrangement and detachment of endothelial cells. We found that the AM-RAMP2 system regulates the Rac1-GTP/RhoA-GTP ratio and cortical actin formation and that a defect in this system causes the disruption of actin formation, leading to vascular and organ damage at the chronic stage after the gene deletion. Conclusions-Our findings show that the AM-RAMP2 system is a key determinant of vascular integrity and homeostasis from prenatal stages through adulthood. Furthermore, our models demonstrate how endothelial cells regulate vascular integrity and how their dysregulation leads to organ damage. (Circulation. 2013;127:842-853.)ArticleCIRCULATION. 127(7):842-853 (2013)journal articl

Control of daughter centriole formation by the pericentriolar material

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Nature Publishing Group for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Nature Cell Biology 10 (2008): 322-328, doi:10.1038/ncb1694.Controlling the number of its centrioles is vital for the cell as supernumerary centrioles result in multipolar mitosis and genomic instability. Normally, just one daughter centriole forms on each mature (mother) centriole; however, a mother centriole can produce multiple daughters within a single cell cycle. The mechanisms that prevent centriole ‘overduplication’ are poorly understood. Here we use laser microsurgery to test the hypothesis that attachment of the daughter centriole to the wall of the mother inhibits formation of additional daughters. We show that physical removal of the daughter induces reduplication of the mother in Sarrested cells. Under conditions when multiple daughters simultaneously form on a single mother, all of these daughters must be removed to induce reduplication. Intriguingly, the number of daughter centrioles that form during reduplication does not always match the number of ablated daughter centrioles. We also find that exaggeration of the pericentriolar material (PCM) via overexpression of the PCM protein pericentrin in S-arrested CHO cells induces formation of numerous daughter centrioles. We propose that that the size of the PCM cloud associated with the mother centriole restricts the number of daughters that can form simultaneously.This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (GM GM59363) and the Human Frontiers Science Program (RGP0064). Construction of our laser microsurgery workstation was supported in part by a fellowship from Nikon/Marine Biological Laboratory (A.K.)