Regulation of synaptic connectivity: levels of fasciclin II influence synaptic growth in the Drosophila CNS

Much of our understanding of synaptogenesis comes from studies that deal with the development of the neuromuscular junction (NMJ). Although well studied, it is not clear how far the NMJ represents an adequate model for the formation of synapses within the CNS. Here we investigate the role of Fasciclin II (Fas II) in the development of synapses between identified motor neurons and cholinergic interneurons in the CNS of Drosophila. Fas II is a neural cell adhesion molecule homolog that is involved in both target selection and synaptic plasticity at the NMJ in Drosophila. In this study, we show that levels of Fas II are critical determinants of synapse formation and growth in the CNS. The initial establishment of synaptic contacts between these identified neurons is seemingly independent of Fas II. The subsequent proliferation of these synaptic connections that occurs postembryonically is, in contrast, significantly retarded by the absence of Fas II. Although the initial formation of synaptic connectivity between these neurons is seemingly independent of Fas II, we show that their formation is, nevertheless, significantly affected by manipulations that alter the relative balance of Fas II in the presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons. Increasing expression of Fas II in either the presynaptic or postsynaptic neurons, during embryogenesis, is sufficient to disrupt the normal level of synaptic connectivity that occurs between these neurons. This effect of Fas II is isoform specific and, moreover, phenocopies the disruption to synaptic connectivity observed previously after tetanus toxin light chain-dependent blockade of evoked synaptic vesicle release in these neurons

Gravitational fragmentation and the formation of brown dwarfs in stellar clusters

We investigate the formation of brown dwarfs and very low-mass stars through the gravitational fragmentation of infalling gas into stellar clusters. The gravitational potential of a forming stellar cluster provides the focus that attracts gas from the surrounding molecular cloud. Structures present in the gas grow, forming filaments flowing into the cluster centre. These filaments attain high gas densities due to the combination of the cluster potential and local self-gravity. The resultant Jeans masses are low, allowing the formation of very low-mass fragments. The tidal shear and high velocity dispersion present in the cluster preclude any subsequent accretion thus resulting in the formation of brown dwarfs or very low-mass stars. Ejections are not required as the brown dwarfs enter the cluster with high relative velocities, suggesting that their disc and binary properties should be similar to that of low-mass stars. This mechanism requires the presence of a strong gravitational potential due to the stellar cluster implying that brown dwarf formation should be more frequent in stellar clusters than in distributed populations of young stars. Brown dwarfs formed in isolation would require another formation mechanism such as due to turbulent fragmentation.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. MNRAS, in pres

The efficiency of star formation in clustered and distributed regions

We investigate the formation of both clustered and distributed populations of young stars in a single molecular cloud. We present a numerical simulation of a 10,000 solar mass elongated, turbulent, molecular cloud and the formation of over 2500 stars. The stars form both in stellar clusters and in a distributed mode which is determined by the local gravitational binding of the cloud. A density gradient along the major axis of the cloud produces bound regions that form stellar clusters and unbound regions that form a more distributed population. The initial mass function also depends on the local gravitational binding of the cloud with bound regions forming full IMFs whereas in the unbound, distributed regions the stellar masses cluster around the local Jeans mass and lack both the high-mass and the low-mass stars. The overall efficiency of star formation is ~ 15 % in the cloud when the calculation is terminated, but varies from less than 1 % in the the regions of distributed star formation to ~ 40 % in regions containing large stellar clusters. Considering that large scale surveys are likely to catch clouds at all evolutionary stages, estimates of the (time-averaged) star formation efficiency for the giant molecular cloud reported here is only ~ 4 %. This would lead to the erroneous conclusion of 'slow' star formation when in fact it is occurring on a dynamical timescale.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, MNRAS in pres

TreeCol: a novel approach to estimating column densities in astrophysical simulations

We present TreeCol, a new and efficient tree-based scheme to calculate column densities in numerical simulations. Knowing the column density in any direction at any location in space is a prerequisite for modelling the propagation of radiation through the computational domain. TreeCol therefore forms the basis for a fast, approximate method for modelling the attenuation of radiation within large numerical simulations. It constructs a HEALPix sphere at any desired location and accumulates the column density by walking the tree and by adding up the contributions from all tree nodes whose line of sight contributes to the pixel under consideration. In particular when combined with widely-used tree-based gravity solvers the new scheme requires little additional computational cost. In a simulation with $N$ resolution elements, the computational cost of TreeCol scales as $N \log N$, instead of the $N^{5/3}$ scaling of most other radiative transfer schemes. TreeCol is naturally adaptable to arbitrary density distributions and is easy to implement and to parallelize. We discuss its accuracy and performance characteristics for the examples of a spherical protostellar core and for the turbulent interstellar medium. We find that the column density estimates provided by TreeCol are on average accurate to better than 10 percent. In another application, we compute the dust temperatures for solar neighborhood conditions and compare with the result of a full-fledged Monte Carlo radiation-transfer calculation. We find that both methods give very similar answers. We conclude that TreeCol provides a fast, easy to use, and sufficiently accurate method of calculating column densities that comes with little additional computational cost when combined with an existing tree-based gravity solver.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, submitted to MNRA

Extending a Task Allocation Algorithm for Graceful Degradation of Real-Time Distributed Embedded Systems

Previous research which has considered task allocation and fault-tolerance together has concentrated on construct-ing schedules which accommodate a fixed number of redun-dant tasks. Often, all faults are treated as being equally severe. There is little work which combines task allocation with architectural level fault-tolerance issues such as the number of replicas to use and how they should be config-ured, both of which are tackled by this work. An accepted method for assessing the impact of a combination of faults is to build a system utility model which can be used to assess how the system degrades when components fail. The key challenge addressed here is how to design objective func-tions based on a utility model which can be incorporated into a search algorithm in order to optimise fault-tolerance properties. Other issues such as how to extend the local search neighbourhood and balance objectives with schedu-lability constraints are also discussed.

The Origin and Universality of the Stellar Initial Mass Function

We review current theories for the origin of the Stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) with particular focus on the extent to which the IMF can be considered universal across various environments. To place the issue in an observational context, we summarize the techniques used to determine the IMF for different stellar populations, the uncertainties affecting the results, and the evidence for systematic departures from universality under extreme circumstances. We next consider theories for the formation of prestellar cores by turbulent fragmentation and the possible impact of various thermal, hydrodynamic and magneto-hydrodynamic instabilities. We address the conversion of prestellar cores into stars and evaluate the roles played by different processes: competitive accretion, dynamical fragmentation, ejection and starvation, filament fragmentation and filamentary accretion flows, disk formation and fragmentation, critical scales imposed by thermodynamics, and magnetic braking. We present explanations for the characteristic shapes of the Present-Day Prestellar Core Mass Function and the IMF and consider what significance can be attached to their apparent similarity. Substantial computational advances have occurred in recent years, and we review the numerical simulations that have been performed to predict the IMF directly and discuss the influence of dynamics, time-dependent phenomena, and initial conditions.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication as a chapter in Protostars and Planets VI, University of Arizona Press (2014), eds. H. Beuther, R. S. Klessen, C. P. Dullemond, Th. Hennin

Fragmentation and Evolution of Molecular Clouds. I: Algorithm and First Results

We present a series of simulations of the fragmentation of a molecular cloud, leading to the formation of a cluster of protostellar cores. The purpose of these simulations is to address a specific numerical problem called artificial fragmentation, that plagues SPH simulations of cloud fragmentation. We argue that this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and that the only reasonable and practical way to address it is to use a relatively new technique called particle splitting. Our largest simulation has an effective resolution of 256^3 particles (much higher than most previous SPH simulations of cloud fragmentation) and results in the formation of a dense cluster containing ~3000 protostellar cores. It is the first simulation of this kind to properly resolve the Jeans mass throughout the entire system, at all times, thus preventing artificial fragmentation.Comment: 47 pages, 15 figures (2 grayscale, one color), ApJ Suppl, in pres

LES of non-Newtonian physiological blood flow in a model of arterial stenosis

Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is performed to study the physiological pulsatile transition-to-turbulent non-Newtonian blood flow through a 3D model of arterial stenosis by using five different blood viscosity models: (i) Power-law, (ii) Carreau, (iii) Quemada, (iv) Cross and (v) modified-Casson. The computational domain has been chosen is a simple channel with a biological type stenosis formed eccentrically on the top wall. The physiological pulsation is generated at the inlet of the model using the first four harmonic series of the physiological pressure pulse (Loudon and Tordesillas [1]). The effects of the various viscosity models are investigated in terms of the global maximum shear rate, post-stenotic re-circulation zone, mean shear stress, mean pressure, and turbulent kinetic energy. We find that the non-Newtonian viscosity models enlarge the length of the post-stenotic re-circulation region by moving the reattachment point of the shear layer separating from the upper wall further downstream. But the turbulent kinetic energy at the immediate post-lip of the stenosis drops due to the effects of the non-Newtonian viscosity. The importance of using LES in modelling the non-Newtonian physiological pulsatile blood flow is also assessed for the different viscosity models in terms of the results of the dynamic subgrid-scale (SGS) stress Smagorinsky model constant, C<sub>s</sub>, and the corresponding SGS normalised viscosity

Where are the drought tolerant crops? An assessment of more than two decades of plant biotechnology effort in crop improvement

Since the dawn of modern biotechnology public and private enterprise have pursued the development of a new breed of drought tolerant crop products. After more than 20 years of research and investment only a few such products have reached the market. This is due to several technical and market constraints. The technical challenges include the difficulty in defining tractable single-gene trait development strategies, the logistics of moving traits from initial to commercial genetic backgrounds, and the disconnect between conditions in farmer’s fields and controlled environments. Market constraints include the significant difficulty, and associated costs, in obtaining access to markets around the world. Advances in the biology of plant water management, including response to water deficit reveal new opportunities to improve crop response to water deficit and new genome-based tools promise to usher in the next era of crop improvement. As biotechnology looks to improve crop productivity under drought conditions, the environmental and food security advantages will influence public perception and shift the debate toward benefits rather than risks