Interaction of hemojuvelin with neogenin results in iron accumulation in human embryonic kidney 293 cells

Type 2 hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) or juvenile hemochromatosis is an early onset, genetically heterogeneous, autosomal recessive disorder of iron overload. Type 2A HH is caused by mutations in the recently cloned hemojuvelin gene (HJV; also called HFE2) (Papanikolaou, G., Samuels, M. E., Ludwig, E. H., MacDonald, M. L., Franchini, P. L., Dube, M. P., Andres, L., MacFarlane, J., Sakellaropoulos, N., Politou, M., Nemeth, E., Thompson, J., Risler, J. K., Zaborowska, C., Babakaiff, R., Radomski, C. C., Pape, T. D., Davidas, O., Christakis, J., Brissot, P., Lockitch, G., Ganz, T., Hayden, M. R., and Goldberg, Y. P. (2004) Nat. Genet. 36, 77–82), whereas Type 2B HH is caused by mutations in hepcidin. HJV is highly expressed in both skeletal muscle and liver. Mutations in HJV are implicated in the majority of diagnosed juvenile hemochromatosis patients. In this study, we stably transfected HJV cDNA into human embryonic kidney 293 cells and characterized the processing of HJV and its effect on iron homeostasis. Our results indicate that HJV is a glycosylphosphatidylinositol-linked protein and undergoes a partial autocatalytic cleavage during its intracellular processing. HJV co-immunoprecipitated with neogenin, a receptor involved in a variety of cellular signaling processes. It did not interact with the closely related receptor DCC (deleted in Colon Cancer). In addition, the HJV G320V mutant implicated in Type 2A HH did not co-immunoprecipitate with neogenin. Immunoblot analysis of ferritin levels and transferrin-55Fe accumulation studies indicated that the HJV-induced increase in intracellular iron levels in human embryonic kidney 293 cells is dependent on the presence of neogenin in the cells, thus linking these two proteins to intracellular iron homeostasis

Efficacy of a self-help manual in increasing resilience in carers of adults with depression in Thailand

Caring for a person with a mental illness can have adverse effects on caregivers; however, little is known about how best to help such caregivers. The aim of the present study was to examine the efficacy of a cognitive behaviour therapy-guided self-help manual in increasing resilience in caregivers of individuals with depression, in comparison to caregivers who receive routine support only. A randomized, controlled trial was conducted, following CONSORT guidelines, with 54 caregivers allocated to parallel intervention (self-help manual) (n = 27) or control (standard support) (n = 27) groups. Resilience was assessed at baseline, post-test (week 8), and follow up (week 12). Intention-to-treat analyses were undertaken. Repeated-measures ANOVA indicated a significant difference in resilience scores between the three time points, showing a large effect. Pairwise comparisons between intervention and control groups indicated resilience to be significantly different between baseline and post-test, and between baseline and follow up, but not between post-test and follow up. Overall, the intervention group showed a slightly greater increase in resilience over time than the control group; however, the time–group interaction was not significant. Guided self-help is helpful in improving caregivers’ resilience and could be used as an adjunct to the limited support provided to carers by mental health nurses and other clinicians

System for the measurement of ultra-low stray light levels

An apparatus is described for measuring the effectiveness of stray light suppression light shields and baffle arrangements used in optical space experiments and large space telescopes. The light shield and baffle arrangement and a telescope model are contained in a vacuum chamber. A source of short, high-powered light energy illuminates portions of the light shield and baffle arrangement and reflects a portion of same to a photomultiplier tube by virtue of multipath scattering. The resulting signal is transferred to time-channel electronics timed by the firing of the high energy light source allowing time discrimination of the signal thereby enabling the light scattered and suppressed by the model to be distinguished from the walls and holders around the apparatus

On the stability of gas bubbles in sea water

Laboratory experiments have been performed to determine the rate of solution and the change in composition of air bubbles in stirred sea water as a function of depth (0-200 m) and temperature (1-27° C). At each depth the shrinking of the diameter is nearly linear. This rate of solution increases with increasing pressure up to a limiting value which is almost reached at a depth of 20 m. The rate of disappearance of a bubble is only imperceptibly influenced by temperature. When a bubble of air dissolves at a given depth it becomes richer in nitrogen until a final constant composition is reached. This final nitrogen percentage increases with increasing depth. Equations have been developed, based on the theory of diffusion, which satisfactorily account for the observed facts

Enhanced Peculiar Velocities in Brane-Induced Gravity

The mounting evidence for anomalously large peculiar velocities in our Universe presents a challenge for the LCDM paradigm. The recent estimates of the large scale bulk flow by Watkins et al. are inconsistent at the nearly 3 sigma level with LCDM predictions. Meanwhile, Lee and Komatsu have recently estimated that the occurrence of high-velocity merging systems such as the Bullet Cluster (1E0657-57) is unlikely at a 6.5-5.8 sigma level, with an estimated probability between 3.3x10^{-11} and 3.6x10^{-9} in LCDM cosmology. We show that these anomalies are alleviated in a broad class of infrared-modifed gravity theories, called brane-induced gravity, in which gravity becomes higher-dimensional at ultra large distances. These theories include additional scalar forces that enhance gravitational attraction and therefore speed up structure formation at late times and on sufficiently large scales. The peculiar velocities are enhanced by 24-34% compared to standard gravity, with the maximal enhancement nearly consistent at the 2 sigma level with bulk flow observations. The occurrence of the Bullet Cluster in these theories is 10^4 times more probable than in LCDM cosmology.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures. v2: added reference

The Dynamical Instability of Static, Spherically Symmetric Solutions in Nonsymmetric Gravitational Theories

We consider the dynamical stability of a class of static, spherically-symmetric solutions of the nonsymmetric gravitational theory. We numerically reproduce the Wyman solution and generate new solutions for the case where the theory has a nontrivial fundamental length scale \mu^{-1}. By considering spherically symmetric perturbations of these solutions we show that the Wyman solutions are generically unstable.Comment: 13 pages, uses amslatex, graphicx and subfigure package

All static spherically symmetric perfect fluid solutions of Einstein's Equations

An algorithm based on the choice of a single monotone function (subject to boundary conditions) is presented which generates all regular static spherically symmetric perfect fluid solutions of Einstein's equations. For physically relevant solutions the generating functions must be restricted by non-trivial integral-differential inequalities. Nonetheless, the algorithm is demonstrated here by the construction of an infinite number of previously unknown physically interesting exact solutions.Comment: Final form to appear in Phys Rev D. Includes a number of clarification

Open String Tachyon in Supergravity Solution

We study the tachyon condensation of the D-\bar{D}-brane system with a constant tachyon vev in the context of classical solutions of the Type II supergravity. We find that the general solution with the symmetry ISO(1,p)xSO(9-p) (the three-parameter solution) includes the extremal black p-brane solution as an appropriate limit of the solution with fixing one of the three parameters (c_1). Furthermore, we compare the long distance behavior of the solution with the massless modes of the closed strings from the boundary state of the D-\bar{D}-brane system with a constant tachyon vev. We find that we must fix c_1 to zero and the only two parameters are needed to express the tachyon condensation of the D\={D}-brane system. This means that the parameter $c_1$ does not correspond to the tachyon vev of the D\={D}-brane system.Comment: 20 pages, no figures, LaTeX2e, typos corrected, references added and more general result presente

Algorithmic Randomness and Capacity of Closed Sets

We investigate the connection between measure, capacity and algorithmic randomness for the space of closed sets. For any computable measure m, a computable capacity T may be defined by letting T(Q) be the measure of the family of closed sets K which have nonempty intersection with Q. We prove an effective version of Choquet's capacity theorem by showing that every computable capacity may be obtained from a computable measure in this way. We establish conditions on the measure m that characterize when the capacity of an m-random closed set equals zero. This includes new results in classical probability theory as well as results for algorithmic randomness. For certain computable measures, we construct effectively closed sets with positive capacity and with Lebesgue measure zero. We show that for computable measures, a real q is upper semi-computable if and only if there is an effectively closed set with capacity q