506 research outputs found
Decellularized bovine meniscus in morphological assessment prior to bioscaffold preparation
Decellularization is a process of tissue treatment targeting cell removal. Sonication system was developed in order to decellularize meniscus tissues. The samples were sonicated in 0.1% sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) for 10 hours and at 40 kHz ultrasound frequency. All the samples were structurally examined using van Gieson, Picrosirius red, Safranin-O/Fast green staining, and scanning electron microscopic (SEM) observation. Histological analysis of sonication treated-samples by van Gieson staining demonstrated complete nuclei removal compared to the control samples. The Picrosirius red and Safranin-O/Fast green staining indicate the preservation of collagen and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) structure, respectively. In addition, the morphological observation by SEM shows the availability of micropores on the surface of decellularized sample. Consequently, the sonication decellularization treatment did not affect extracellular matrix (ECM) properties, while forming micropores on the surface of meniscus tissues. This made it possible to proceed in other fulfillment of bioscaffold preparation
Immittance Matching for Multi-dimensional Open-system Photonic Crystals
An electromagnetic (EM) Bloch wave propagating in a photonic crystal (PC) is
characterized by the immittance (impedance and admittance) of the wave. The
immittance is used to investigate transmission and reflection at a surface or
an interface of the PC. In particular, the general properties of immittance are
useful for clarifying the wave propagation characteristics. We give a general
proof that the immittance of EM Bloch waves on a plane in infinite one- and
two-dimensional (2D) PCs is real when the plane is a reflection plane of the PC
and the Bloch wavevector is perpendicular to the plane. We also show that the
pure-real feature of immittance on a reflection plane for an infinite
three-dimensional PC is good approximation based on the numerical calculations.
The analytical proof indicates that the method used for immittance matching is
extremely simplified since only the real part of the immittance function is
needed for analysis without numerical verification. As an application of the
proof, we describe a method based on immittance matching for qualitatively
evaluating the reflection at the surface of a semi-infinite 2D PC, at the
interface between a semi-infinite slab waveguide (WG) and a semi-infinite 2D PC
line-defect WG, and at the interface between a semi-infinite channel WG and a
semi-infinite 2D PC slab line-defect WG.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Ultrafast dynamics of coherent optical phonons and nonequilibrium electrons in transition metals
The femtosecond optical pump-probe technique was used to study dynamics of
photoexcited electrons and coherent optical phonons in transition metals Zn and
Cd as a function of temperature and excitation level. The optical response in
time domain is well fitted by linear combination of a damped harmonic
oscillation because of excitation of coherent phonon and a
subpicosecond transient response due to electron-phonon thermalization. The
electron-phonon thermalization time monotonically increases with temperature,
consistent with the thermomodulation scenario, where at high temperatures the
system can be well explained by the two-temperature model, while below
50 K the nonthermal electron model needs to be applied. As the
lattice temperature increases, the damping of the coherent phonon
increases, while the amplitudes of both fast electronic response and the
coherent phonon decrease. The temperature dependence of the damping of
the phonon indicates that population decay of the coherent optical
phonon due to anharmonic phonon-phonon coupling dominates the decay process. We
present a model that accounts for the observed temperature dependence of the
amplitude assuming the photoinduced absorption mechanism, where the signal
amplitude is proportional to the photoinduced change in the quasiparticle
density. The result that the amplitude of the phonon follows the
temperature dependence of the amplitude of the fast electronic transient
indicates that under the resonant condition both electronic and phononic
responses are proportional to the change in the dielectric function.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, to appear in Physical Review
Detecting the (Quasi-)Two-Body Decays of Leptons in Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Experiments
Novel detector schemes are proposed for the short-baseline neutrino
experiments of next generation, aimed at exploring the large-
domain of \omutau oscillations in the appearance mode. These schemes emphasize
good spectrometry for charged particles and for electromagnetic showers and
efficient reconstruction of \ypi_gg decays. The basic elements are a sequence
of relatively thin emulsion targets, immersed in magnetic field and
interspersed with electronic trackers, and a fine-grained electromagnetic
calorimeter built of lead glass. These elements act as an integral whole in
reconstructing the electromagnetic showers. This conceptual scheme shows good
performance in identifying the (quasi-)two-body decays by their
characteristic kinematics and in selecting the electronic decays of the .Comment: 34 pages, 8 figure
Hydrostatic pressure prevents chondrocyte differentiation through heterochromatin remodeling
Articular cartilage protects and lubricates joints for smooth motion and transmission of loads. Owing to its high water content, chondrocytes within the cartilage are exposed to high levels of hydrostatic pressure, which has been shown to promote chondrocyte identity through unknown mechanisms. Here, we investigate the effects of hydrostatic pressure on chondrocyte state and behavior, and discover that application of hydrostatic pressure promotes chondrocyte quiescence and prevents maturation towards the hyperlrophic state. Mechanistically, hydrostatic pressure reduces the amount of trimethylated H3K9 (K3K9me3)-marked constitutive heterochromatin and concomitantly increases H3K27me3-marked facultative heterochromatin. Reduced levels of H3K9me3 attenuates expression of pre-hypertrophic genes, replication and transcription, thereby reducing replicative stress. Conversely, promoting replicative stress by inhibition of topoisomerase II decreases Sox9 expression, suggesting that it enhances chondrocyte maturation. Our results reveal how hydrostatic pressure triggers chromatin remodeling to impact cell fate and function. This article has an associated First Person interview with the first author of the paper.Peer reviewe
Experimental Constraints on the Neutrino Oscillations and a Simple Model of Three Flavour Mixing
A simple model of the neutrino mixing is considered, which contains only one
right-handed neutrino field, coupled via the mass term to the three usual
left-handed fields. This is a simplest model that allows for three-flavour
neutrino oscillations. The existing experimental limits on the neutrino
oscillations are used to obtain constraints on the two free mixing parameters
of the model. A specific sum rule relating the oscillation probabilities of
different flavours is derived.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures in post script, Latex, IFT 2/9
Neutrino Oscillations in the Framework of Three-Generation Mixings with Mass Hierarchy
We have analyzed the results of reactor and accelerator neutrino oscillation
experiments in the framework of a general model with mixing of three neutrino
fields and a neutrino mass hierarchy that can accommodate the results of the
solar neutrino experiments. It is shown that
oscillations with and amplitude
larger than are not compatible with the existing limits on
neutrino oscillations if the non-diagonal elements of the mixing matrix and are small. Thus, if the
excess of electron events recently observed in the LSND experiment is due to oscillations, the mixing in the lepton sector
is basically different from the CKM mixing of quarks. If this type of mixing is
realized in nature, the observation of
oscillations would not influence
oscillations that are being searched for in the CHORUS and NOMAD experiments.Comment: Revtex file, 13 pages + 2 figures (included). The postscript file of
text and figures is available at
http://www.to.infn.it/teorici/giunti/papers.html or
ftp://ftp.to.infn.it/pub/giunti/1995/dftt-25-95/dftt-25-95.ps.
Associated Charm Production in Neutrino-Nucleus Interactions
In this paper a search for associated charm production both in neutral and
charged current -nucleus interactions is presented. The improvement of
automatic scanning systems in the {CHORUS} experiment allows an efficient
search to be performed in emulsion for short-lived particles. Hence a search
for rare processes, like the associated charm production, becomes possible
through the observation of the double charm-decay topology with a very low
background. About 130,000 interactions located in the emulsion target
have been analysed. Three events with two charm decays have been observed in
the neutral-current sample with an estimated background of 0.180.05. The
relative rate of the associated charm cross-section in deep inelastic
interactions, has been
measured. One event with two charm decays has been observed in charged-current
interactions with an estimated background of 0.180.06 and the
upper limit on associated charm production in charged-current interactions at
90% C.L. has been found to be .Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
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