131 research outputs found
Pea-Barley Bi-Crop Silage in Milk Production
Whole crop silage (WCS) from barley or wheat has many advantages as roughage feed. The possibility to use the same harvest machinery as in harvesting grass reduces investment costs. The farms which are specialised in grass production may have shortage of open field area for manure spreading, in which case WCS can be the answer. However, digestibility and protein content of WCS is usually lower than in grass silage, which is limiting the feed intake and performance of the dairy cows. Cultivation of grains with grain legumes increases digestibility and protein content of the stand (Lunnan, 1988). Feeding of bi-crop pea-wheat silages has increased forage intake and milk yield compared to grass silage (Salawu et al., 2002; Adesogan et al., 2004). In this experiment pea-barley bi-crop silage was studied since in Finland barley harvested for WCS is more digestible than wheat
A previously unobserved conformation for the human Pex5p receptor suggests roles for intrinsic flexibility and rigid domain motions in ligand binding
BACKGROUND: The C-terminal tetratricopeptide (TPR) repeat domain of Pex5p recognises proteins carrying a peroxisomal targeting signal type 1 (PTS1) tripeptide in their C-terminus. Previously, structural data have been obtained from the TPR domain of Pex5p in both the liganded and unliganded states, indicating a conformational change taking place upon cargo protein binding. Such a conformational change would be expected to play a major role both during PTS1 protein recognition as well as in cargo release into the peroxisomal lumen. However, little information is available on the factors that may regulate such structural changes. RESULTS: We have used a range of biophysical and computational methods to further analyse the conformational flexibility and ligand binding of Pex5p. A new crystal form for the human Pex5p C-terminal domain (Pex5p(C)) was obtained in the presence of Sr(2+ )ions, and the structure presents a novel conformation, distinct from all previous liganded and apo crystal structures for Pex5p(C). The difference relates to a near-rigid body movement of two halves of the molecule, and this movement is different from that required to reach a ring-like conformation upon PTS1 ligand binding. The bound Sr(2+ )ion changes the dynamic properties of Pex5p(C) affecting its conformation, possibly by making the Sr(2+)-binding loop â located near the hinge region for the observed domain motions â more rigid. CONCLUSION: The current data indicate that Pex5p(C) is able to sample a range of conformational states in the absence of bound PTS1 ligand. The domain movements between various apo conformations are distinct from those involved in ligand binding, although the differences between all observed conformations so far can be characterised by the movement of the two halves of Pex5p(C) as near-rigid bodies with respect to each other
The influence of accretion geometry on the spectral evolution during thermonuclear (type I) X-ray bursts
© 2014 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. Neutron star (NS)masses and radii can be estimated from observations of photospheric radiusexpansion X-ray bursts, provided the chemical composition of the photosphere, the spectral colour-correction factors in the observed luminosity range, and the emission area during the bursts are known. By analysing 246 X-ray bursts observed by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer from 11 low-mass X-ray binaries, we find a dependence between the persistent spectral properties and the time evolution of the blackbody normalization during the bursts. All NS atmosphere models predict that the colour-correction factor decreases in the early cooling phase when the luminosity first drops below the limiting Eddington value, leading to a characteristic pattern of variability in the measured blackbody normalization. However, the model predictions agree with the observations for most bursts occurring in hard, lowluminosity, island spectral states, but rarely during soft, high-luminosity, banana states. The observed behaviour may be attributed to the accretion flow, which influences cooling of the NS preferentially during the soft state bursts. This result implies that only the bursts occurring in the hard, low-luminosity spectral states can be reliably used for NS mass and radius determination
Inverse Modeling for MEG/EEG data
We provide an overview of the state-of-the-art for mathematical methods that
are used to reconstruct brain activity from neurophysiological data. After a
brief introduction on the mathematics of the forward problem, we discuss
standard and recently proposed regularization methods, as well as Monte Carlo
techniques for Bayesian inference. We classify the inverse methods based on the
underlying source model, and discuss advantages and disadvantages. Finally we
describe an application to the pre-surgical evaluation of epileptic patients.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur
Genome-Wide Meta-Analysis of Sciatica in Finnish Population
Sciatica or the sciatic syndrome is a common and often disabling low back disorder in the working-age population. It has a relatively high heritability but poorly understood molecular mechanisms. The Finnish population is a genetic isolate where small founder population and bottleneck events have led to enrichment of certain rare and low frequency variants. We performed here the first genome-wide association (GWAS) and meta-analysis of sciatica. The meta-analysis was conducted across two GWAS covering 291 Finnish sciatica cases and 3671 controls genotyped and imputed at 7.7 million autosomal variants. The most promising loci (p<1x10(-6)) were replicated in 776 Finnish sciatica patients and 18,489 controls. We identified five intragenic variants, with relatively low frequencies, at two novel loci associated with sciatica at genome-wide significance. These included chr9:14344410:1 (rs71321981) at 9p22.3 (NFIB gene; p = 1.30x10(-8), MAF = 0.08) and four variants at 15q21.2: rs145901849, rs80035109, rs190200374 and rs117458827 (MYO5A; p = 1.34x10(-8), MAF = 0.06; p = 2.32x10(-8), MAF = 0.07; p = 3.85x10(-8), MAF = 0.06; p = 4.78x10(-8), MAF = 0.07, respectively). The most significant association in the meta-analysis, a single base insertion rs71321981 within the regulatory region of the transcription factor NFIB, replicated in an independent Finnish population sample (p = 0.04). Despite identifying 15q21.2 as a promising locus, we were not able to replicate it. It was differentiated; the lead variants within 15q21.2 were more frequent in Finland (6-7%) than in other European populations (1-2%). Imputation accuracies of the three significantly associated variants (chr9:14344410:1, rs190200374, and rs80035109) were validated by genotyping. In summary, our results suggest a novel locus, 9p22.3 (NFIB), which may be involved in susceptibility to sciatica. In addition, another locus, 15q21.2, emerged as a promising one, but failed to replicate
Effects of Benzopyrene-7,8-Diol-9,10-Epoxide (BPDE) In Vitro and of Maternal Smoking In Vivo on Micronuclei Frequencies in Fetal Cord Blood
Up to 20% of pregnant women smoke and there is indirect evidence that certain
tobacco-specific metabolites can cross the placental barrier and are genotoxic to
the fetus. The presence of micronuclei results from chromosome damage and
reflects the degree of underlying genetic instability. Fetal blood was obtained
from the cord blood of 143 newborns (102 from nonsmoking mothers and 41 from
mothers smoking >10 cigarettes/d during pregnancy). The micronucleus assay was
performed following the guidelines established by the Human MicroNucleus project
with modifications. To test the micronucleus assay, we evaluated the effect of a
range of benzopyrene-7,8-diol-9,10-epoxide concentrations (from 3.125 nM to 4
microM) on cord blood from nonsmoking mothers. This validation showed that the
number of micronuclei and apoptotic cells increased with
benzopyrene-7,8-diol-9,10-epoxide dose (p < 0.0001 and p = 0.001, respectively);
the minimal detectable effect was induced by 12.5 nM
benzopyrene-7,8-diol-9,10-epoxide. In our sample, the number of MN was
significantly higher in the 41 cord blood samples from mothers who smoked during
pregnancy [smokers: 4 (1; 10.5); nonsmokers: 3 (0; 8); p = 0.016]. Therefore, the
data reported herein support the hypothesis that tobacco compounds are able to
induce chromosomal losses and breaks that are detectable as an increased number
of micronuclei
Nonuniform Cardiac Denervation Observed by 11C-meta-Hydroxyephedrine PET in 6-OHDA-Treated Monkeys
Parkinson's disease presents nonmotor complications such as autonomic dysfunction that do not respond to traditional anti-parkinsonian therapies. The lack of established preclinical monkey models of Parkinson's disease with cardiac dysfunction hampers development and testing of new treatments to alleviate or prevent this feature. This study aimed to assess the feasibility of developing a model of cardiac dysautonomia in nonhuman primates and preclinical evaluations tools. Five rhesus monkeys received intravenous injections of 6-hydroxydopamine (total dose: 50 mg/kg). The animals were evaluated before and after with a battery of tests, including positron emission tomography with the norepinephrine analog 11C-meta-hydroxyephedrine. Imaging 1 week after neurotoxin treatment revealed nearly complete loss of specific radioligand uptake. Partial progressive recovery of cardiac uptake found between 1 and 10 weeks remained stable between 10 and 14 weeks. In all five animals, examination of the pattern of uptake (using Logan plot analysis to create distribution volume maps) revealed a persistent region-specific significant loss in the inferior wall of the left ventricle at 10 (P<0.001) and 14 weeks (P<0.01) relative to the anterior wall. Blood levels of dopamine, norepinephrine (P<0.05), epinephrine, and 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (P<0.01) were notably decreased after 6-hydroxydopamine at all time points. These results demonstrate that systemic injection of 6-hydroxydopamine in nonhuman primates creates a nonuniform but reproducible pattern of cardiac denervation as well as a persistent loss of circulating catecholamines, supporting the use of this method to further develop a monkey model of cardiac dysautonomia
The first Hubble diagram and cosmological constraints using superluminous supernovae
This paper has gone through internal review by the DES collaboration.
It has Fermilab preprint number 19-115-AE and DES
publication number 13387. We acknowledge support from EU/FP7-
ERC grant 615929. RCN would like to acknowledge support from
STFC grant ST/N000688/1 and the Faculty of Technology at the
University of Portsmouth. LG was funded by the European Unionâs
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under the Marie SkĆodowska-
Curie grant agreement no. 839090. This work has been partially
supported by the Spanish grant PGC2018-095317-B-C21 within
the European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER). Funding
for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department
of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry
of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology
Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education
Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of
Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at
the Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental
Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora
de Estudos e Projetos, Fundacž Ëao Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo
`a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de
Desenvolvimento CientŽıfico e TecnolŽogico and the MinistŽerio da
CiËencia, Tecnologia e Inovacž Ëao, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft,
and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey.
The Collaborating Institutions are Argonne National Laboratory, the
University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Cambridge,
Centro de Investigaciones EnergÂŽeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnol
ÂŽogicas-Madrid, the University of Chicago, University College
London, the DES-Brazil Consortium, the University of Edinburgh,
the Eidgenšossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zšurich, Fermi
NationalAccelerator Laboratory, theUniversity of Illinois atUrbana-
Champaign, the Institut de Ci`encies de lâEspai (IEEC/CSIC), the
Institut de FŽısica dâAltes Energies, Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universitšat Mšunchen and the
associated Excellence Cluster Universe, the University of Michigan,
the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the University of
Nottingham, The Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania,
the University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Accelerator
Laboratory, Stanford University, the University of Sussex, Texas
A&M University, and the OzDES Membership Consortium. Based
in part on observations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory,
National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.
The DES data management system is supported by the
National Science Foundation under grant numbers AST-1138766
and AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions
are partially supported by MINECO under grants AYA2015-
71825, ESP2015-66861, FPA2015-68048, SEV-2016-0588, SEV-
2016-0597, and MDM-2015-0509, some of which include ERDF
funds from the European Union. IFAE is partially funded by the
CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research leading
to these results has received funding from the European Research
Council under the European Union Seventh Framework Programme
(FP7/2007-2013) including ERC grant agreements 240672, 291329,
and 306478.We acknowledge support from the Australian Research
Council Centre of Excellence for All-skyAstrophysics (CAASTRO),
through project number CE110001020, and the Brazilian Instituto
Nacional de CiËencia e Tecnologia (INCT) e-Universe (CNPq grant
465376/2014-2).
This paper has been authored by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC
under Contract No.DE-AC02-07CH11359 with theU.S.Department
of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics. The
United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting
the paper for publication, acknowledges that the United States
Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide
license to publish or reproduce the published form of this paper,
or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes.We present the first Hubble diagram of superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) out to a redshift of two, together with constraints
on the matter density, M, and the dark energy equation-of-state parameter, w(âĄp/Ï). We build a sample of 20 cosmologically
useful SLSNe I based on light curve and spectroscopy quality cuts. We confirm the robustness of the peakâdecline SLSN I
standardization relation with a larger data set and improved fitting techniques than previous works. We then solve the SLSN
model based on the above standardization via minimization of the Ï2 computed from a covariance matrix that includes statistical
and systematic uncertainties. For a spatially flat cold dark matter ( CDM) cosmological model, we find M = 0.38+0.24
â0.19,
with an rms of 0.27 mag for the residuals of the distance moduli. For a w0waCDM cosmological model, the addition of SLSNe I
to a âbaselineâ measurement consisting of Planck temperature together with Type Ia supernovae, results in a small improvement
in the constraints of w0 and wa of 4 per cent.We present simulations of future surveys with 868 and 492 SLSNe I (depending on
the configuration used) and show that such a sample can deliver cosmological constraints in a flat CDM model with the same
precision (considering only statistical uncertainties) as current surveys that use Type Ia supernovae, while providing a factor of
2â3 improvement in the precision of the constraints on the time variation of dark energy, w0 and wa. This paper represents the
proof of concept for superluminous supernova cosmology, and demonstrates they can provide an independent test of cosmology
in the high-redshift (z > 1) universe.EU/FP7-ERC grant 615929STFC grant ST/N000688/1Faculty of Technology at the
University of PortsmouthEuropean Unionâs
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under the Marie SkĆodowska-
Curie grant agreement no. 839090Spanish grant PGC2018-095317-B-C21 within
the European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER)U.S. Department
of EnergyU.S. National Science FoundationMinistry
of Science and Education of SpainScience and Technology
Facilities Council of the United KingdomHigher Education
Funding Council for EnglandNational Center for Supercomputing
Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of
ChicagoCenter for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at
the Ohio State UniversityMitchell Institute for Fundamental
Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora
de Estudos e Projetos, FundacĂŁo Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo
`a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de
Desenvolvimento CientĂfico e TecnolĂłgico and the MinistĂ©rio da
Ciencia, Tecnologia e InovacĂŁoDeutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftCollaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey.National Science Foundation under grant numbers AST-1138766
and AST-1536171.T MINECO under grants AYA2015-
71825, ESP2015-66861, FPA2015-68048, SEV-2016-0588, SEV-
2016-0597, and MDM-2015-0509, some of which include ERDF
funds from the European Union.CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya.European Research
Council under the European Union Seventh Framework Programme
(FP7/2007-2013) including ERC grant agreements 240672, 291329,
and 306478.Australian Research
Council Centre of Excellence for All-skyAstrophysics (CAASTRO),
through project number CE110001020Brazilian Instituto
Nacional de CiËencia e Tecnologia (INCT) e-Universe (CNPq grant
465376/2014-2)Fermi Research Alliance, LLC
under Contract No.DE-AC02-07CH11359 with theU.S.Department
of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physic
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