Influence of estradiol on bovine trophectoderm and uterine gene transcripts around maternal recognition of pregnancy

Embryo survival and pregnancy success is increased among animals that exhibit estrus prior to fixed time-artificial insemination, but there are no differences in conceptus survival to d16. The objective of this study was to determine effects of preovulatory estradiol on uterine transcriptomes, select trophectoderm (TE) transcripts, and uterine luminal fluid proteins. Beef cows/heifers were synchronized, artificially inseminated (d0), and grouped into either high (highE2) or low (lowE2) preovulatory estradiol. Uteri were flushed (d16); conceptuses and endometrial biopsies (n = 29) were collected. RNA sequencing was performed on endometrium. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed on TE (n = 21) RNA to measure relative abundance of IFNT, PTGS2, TM4SF1, C3, FGFR2, and GAPDH. Uterine fluid was analyzed using 2D Liquid Chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry-based Isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ) method. RT-PCR data were analyzed using the MIXED procedure in SAS. There were no differences in messenger RNA (mRNA) abundances in TE, but there were 432 differentially expressed genes (253 downregulated, 179 upregulated) in highE2/conceptus versus lowE2/conceptus groups. There were also 48 differentially expressed proteins (19 upregulated, 29 downregulated); 6 of these were differentially expressed (FDR \u3c 0.10) at the mRNA level. Similar pathways for mRNA and proteins included: calcium signaling, protein kinase A signaling, and corticotropin-releasing hormone signaling. These differences in uterine function may be preparing the conceptus for improved likelihood of survival after d16 among highE2 animals

Transient elastohydrodynamic lubrication analysis of a novel metal-on-metal hip prosthesis with a non-spherical femoral bearing surface

Effective lubrication performance of metal-on-metal hip implants only requires optimum conformity within the main loaded area, while it is advantageous to increase the clearance in the equatorial region. Such a varying clearance can be achieved by using non-spherical bearing surfaces for either acetabular or femoral components. An elastohydrodynamic lubrication model of a novel metal-on-metal hip prosthesis using a non-spherical femoral bearing surface against a spherical cup was solved under loading and motion conditions specified by ISO standard. A full numerical methodology of considering the geometric variation in the rotating non-spherical head in elastohydrodynamic lubrication solution was presented, which is applicable to all non-spherical head designs. The lubrication performance of a hip prosthesis using a specific non-spherical femoral head, Alpharabola, was analysed and compared with those of spherical bearing surfaces and a non-spherical Alpharabola cup investigated in previous studies. The sensitivity of the lubrication performance to the anteversion angle of the Alpharabola head was also investigated. Results showed that the non-spherical head introduced a large squeeze-film action and also led to a large variation in clearance within the loaded area. With the same equatorial clearance, the lubrication performance of the metal-on-metal hip prosthesis using an Alpharabola head was better than that of the conventional spherical bearings but worse than that of the metal-on-metal hip prosthesis using an Alpharabola cup. The reduction in the lubrication performance caused by the initial anteversion angle of the non-spherical head was small, compared with the improvement resulted from the non-spherical geometry

Reduction and evaluation of two-loop graphs with arbitrary masses

We describe a general analytic-numerical reduction scheme for evaluating any 2-loop diagrams with general kinematics and general renormalizable interactions, whereby ten special functions form a complete set after tensor reduction. We discuss the symmetrical analytic structure of these special functions in their integral representation, which allows for optimized numerical integration. The process Z -> bb is used for illustration, for which we evaluate all the 3-point, non-factorizable g^2*alpha_s mixed electroweak-QCD graphs, which depend on the top quark mass. The isolation of infrared singularities is detailed, and numerical results are given for all two-loop three-point graphs involved in this process

The productions of the top-pions and top-Higgs associated with the charm quark at the hadron colliders

In the topcolor-assistant technicolor (TC2) model, the typical physical particles, top-pions and top-Higgs, are predicted and the existence of these particles could be regarded as the robust evidence of the model. These particles are accessible at the Tevatron and LHC, and furthermore the flavor-changing(FC) feature of the TC2 model can provide us a unique chance to probe them. In this paper, we study some interesting FC production processes of top-pions and top-Higgs at the Tevatron and LHC, i.e., $c\Pi_{t}^{-}$ and $c\Pi_{t}^{0}(h_{t}^{0})$ productions. We find that the light charged top-pions are not favorable by the Tevatron experiments and the Tevatron has a little capability to probe neutral top-pion and top-Higgs via these FC production processes. At the LHC, however, the cross section can reach the level of $10\sim 100$ pb for $c\Pi_t^-$ production and $10\sim 100$ fb for $c\Pi_t^0(h_t^0)$ production. So one can expect that enough signals could be produced at the LHC experiments. Furthermore, the SM background should be clean due to the FC feature of the processes and the FC decay modes $\Pi_t^-\to b\bar{c}, \Pi_t^0(h_t^0)\to t\bar{c}$ can provide us the typical signal to detect the top-pions and top-Higgs. Therefore, it is hopeful to find the signal of top-pions and top-Higgs with the running of the LHC via these FC processes.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Tensor meson exchange at low energies

We complete the analysis of meson resonance contributions to chiral low-energy constants of O(p^4) by including all quark-antiquark bound states with orbital angular momentum less or equal to one. Different tensor meson Lagrangians used in previous work are shown to produce the same final results for the low-energy constants once QCD short-distance constraints are properly implemented. We also discuss the possible relevance of axial-vector mesons with odd C-parity.Comment: 20 pages, comparison with previous work updated, typos removed, results unchanged, version to appear in EPJ

A systematic study of J/psi suppression in cold nuclear matter

Based on a Glauber model, a statistical analysis of all mid-rapidity J/psi hadroproduction and leptoproduction data on nuclear targets is carried out. This allows us to determine the J/psi-nucleon inelastic cross section, whose knowledge is crucial to interpret the J/psi suppression observed in heavy-ion collisions, at SPS and at RHIC. The values of sigma are extracted from each experiment. A clear tension between the different data sets is reported. The global fit of all data gives sigma=3.4+/-0.2 mb, which is significantly smaller than previous estimates. A similar value, sigma=3.5+/-0.2 mb, is obtained when the nDS nuclear parton densities are included in the analysis, although we emphasize that the present uncertainties on gluon (anti)shadowing do not allow for a precise determination of sigma. Finally, no significant energy dependence of the J/psi-N interaction is observed, unless strong nuclear modifications of the parton densities are assumed.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure

Franck-Condon Effect in Central Spin System

We study the quantum transitions of a central spin surrounded by a collective-spin environment. It is found that the influence of the environmental spins on the absorption spectrum of the central spin can be explained with the analog of the Franck-Condon (FC) effect in conventional electron-phonon interaction system. Here, the collective spins of the environment behave as the vibrational mode, which makes the electron to be transitioned mainly with the so-called "vertical transitions" in the conventional FC effect. The "vertical transition" for the central spin in the spin environment manifests as, the certain collective spin states of the environment is favored, which corresponds to the minimal change in the average of the total spin angular momentum.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

Three-dimensional Optical-resolution Photoacoustic Microscopy

Optical microscopy, providing valuable insights at the cellular and organelle levels, has been widely recognized as an enabling biomedical technology. As the mainstays of in vivo three-dimensional (3-D) optical microscopy, single-/multi-photon fluorescence microscopy and optical coherence tomography (OCT) have demonstrated their extraordinary sensitivities to fluorescence and optical scattering contrasts, respectively. However, the optical absorption contrast of biological tissues, which encodes essential physiological/pathological information, has not yet been assessable. The emergence of biomedical photoacoustics has led to a new branch of optical microscopy optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR-PAM), where the optical irradiation is focused to the diffraction limit to achieve cellular1 or even subcellular level lateral resolution. As a valuable complement to existing optical microscopy technologies, OR-PAM brings in at least two novelties. First and most importantly, OR-PAM detects optical absorption contrasts with extraordinary sensitivity (i.e., 100%). Combining OR-PAM with fluorescence microscopy or with optical-scattering-based OCT (or with both) provides comprehensive optical properties of biological tissues. Second, OR-PAM encodes optical absorption into acoustic waves, in contrast to the pure optical processes in fluorescence microscopy and OCT, and provides background-free detection. The acoustic detection in OR-PAM mitigates the impacts of optical scattering on signal degradation and naturally eliminates possible interferences (i.e., crosstalks) between excitation and detection, which is a common problem in fluorescence microscopy due to the overlap between the excitation and fluorescence spectra. Unique for optical absorption imaging, OR-PAM has demonstrated broad biomedical applications since its invention, including, but not limited to, neurology, ophthalmology, vascular biology, and dermatology. In this video, we teach the system configuration and alignment of OR-PAM as well as the experimental procedures for in vivo functional microvascular imaging

Confirmation of a pi_1^0 Exotic Meson in the \eta \pi^0 System

The exclusive reaction $\pi^- p \to \eta \pi^0 n$, $\eta \to \pi^+ \pi^- \pi^0$ at 18 GeV$/c$ has been studied with a partial wave analysis on a sample of 23~492 $\eta \pi^0 n$ events from BNL experiment E852. A mass-dependent fit is consistent with a resonant hypothesis for the $P_+$ wave, thus providing evidence for a neutral exotic meson with $J^{PC} = 1^{-+}$, a mass of $1257 \pm 20 \pm 25$ MeV$/c^2$, and a width of $354 \pm 64 \pm 60$ MeV$/c^2$. New interpretations of the meson exotics in neutral $\eta \pi^0$ system observed in E852 and Crystal Barrel experiments are discussed.Comment: p3, rewording the paragraph (at the bottom) about the phase variations. p4, rewording paragrath "The second method ..." . p4, at the bottom of paragrath "The third method ..." added consistent with the results of methods 1 and 2