21,121 research outputs found
Structural and Functional Aspects of Class A Carbapenemases.
The fight against infectious diseases is probably one of the greatest public health challenges faced by our society, especially with the emergence of carbapenem-resistant gram-negatives that are in some cases pan-drug resistant. Currently,β-lactamase-mediated resistance does not spare even the newest and most powerful β-lactams (carbapenems), whose activity is challenged by carbapenemases. The worldwide dissemination of carbapenemases in gram-negative organisms threatens to take medicine back into the pre-antibiotic era since the mortality associated with infections caused by these superbugs is very high, due to limited treatment options. Clinically-relevant carbapenemases belong either to metallo-β- lactamases (MBLs) of Ambler class B or to serine-β-lactamases (SBLs) of Ambler class A and D enzymes. Class A carbapenemases may be chromosomally-encoded (SME, NmcA, SFC-1, BIC-1, PenA, FPH-1, SHV-38), plasmid-encoded (KPC, GES, FRI-1) or both (IMI). The plasmid-encoded enzymes are often associated with mobile elements responsible for their mobilization. These enzymes, even though weakly related in terms of sequence identities, share structural features and a common mechanism of action. They variably hydrolyse penicillins, cephalosporins, monobactams, carbapenems, and are inhibited by clavulanate and tazobactam. Three-dimensional structures of class A carbapenemases, in the apo form or in complex with substrates/inhibitors, together with site-directed mutagenesis studies, provide essential input for identifying the structural factors and subtle conformational changes that influence the hydrolytic profile and inhibition of these enzymes. Overall, these data represent the building blocks for understanding the structure-function relationships that define the phenotypes of class A carbapenemases and can guide the design of new molecules of therapeutic interest
Angular momentum transport and element mixing in the stellar interior I. Application to the rotating Sun
The purpose of this work was to obtain diffusion coefficient for the magnetic
angular momentum transport and material transport in a rotating solar model. We
assumed that the transport of both angular momentum and chemical elements
caused by magnetic fields could be treated as a diffusion process. The
diffusion coefficient depends on the stellar radius, angular velocity, and the
configuration of magnetic fields. By using of this coefficient, it is found
that our model becomes more consistent with the helioseismic results of total
angular momentum, angular momentum density, and the rotation rate in a
radiative region than the one without magnetic fields. Not only can the
magnetic fields redistribute angular momentum efficiently, but they can also
strengthen the coupling between the radiative and convective zones. As a
result, the sharp gradient of the rotation rate is reduced at the bottom of the
convective zone. The thickness of the layer of sharp radial change in the
rotation rate is about 0.036 in our model. Furthermore, the
difference of the sound-speed square between the seismic Sun and the model is
improved by mixing the material that is associated with angular momentum
transport.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure
Solar Models with Revised Abundances and Opacities
Using reconstructed opacities, we construct solar models with low
heavy-element abundance. Rotational mixing and enhanced diffusion of helium and
heavy elements are used to reconcile the recently observed abundances with
helioseismology. The sound speed and density of models where the relative and
absolute diffusion coefficients for helium and heavy elements have been
increased agree with seismically inferred values at better than the 0.005 and
0.02 fractional level respectively. However, the surface helium abundance of
the enhanced diffusion model is too low. The low helium problem in the enhanced
diffusion model can be solved to a great extent by rotational mixing. The
surface helium and the convection zone depth of rotating model M04R3, which has
a surface Z of 0.0154, agree with the seismic results at the levels of 1
and 3 respectively. M04R3 is almost as good as the standard
model M98. Some discrepancies between the models constructed in accord with the
new element abundances and seismic constraints can be solved individually, but
it seems difficult to resolve them as a whole scenario.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur
Seismic analysis of 70 Ophiuchi A: A new quantity proposed
The basic intent of this paper is to model 70 Ophiuchi A using the latest
asteroseismic observations as complementary constraints and to determine the
fundamental parameters of the star. Additionally, we propose a new quantity to
lift the degeneracy between the initial chemical composition and stellar age.
Using the Yale stellar evolution code (YREC7), we construct a series of stellar
evolutionary tracks for the mass range = 0.85 -- 0.93 with
different composition (0.26 -- 0.30) and (0.017 -- 0.023).
Along these tracks, we select a grid of stellar model candidates that fall
within the error box in the HR diagram to calculate the theoretical
frequencies, the large- and small- frequency separations using the Guenther's
stellar pulsation code. Following the asymptotic formula of stellar -modes,
we define a quantity which is correlated with stellar age. Also, we
test it by theoretical adiabatic frequencies of many models. Many detailed
models of 70 Ophiuchi A have been listed in Table 3. By combining all
non-asteroseismic observations available for 70 Ophiuchi A with these
seismological data, we think that Model 60, Model 125 and Model 126, listed in
Table 3, are the optimum models presently. Meanwhile, we predict that the
radius of this star is about 0.860 -- 0.865 and the age is about
6.8 -- 7.0 Gyr with mass 0.89 -- 0.90 . Additionally, we prove that
the new quantity can be a useful indicator of stellar age.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures, accepted by New Astronom
Asteroseismic study of solar-like stars: A method of estimating stellar age
Asteroseismology, as a tool to use the indirect information contained in
stellar oscillations to probe the stellar interiors, is an active field of
research presently. Stellar age, as a fundamental property of star apart from
its mass, is most difficult to estimate. In addition, the estimating of stellar
age can provide the chance to study the time evolution of astronomical
phenomena. In our poster, we summarize our previous work and further present a
method to determine age of low-mass main-sequence star.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figures, submitted to IAUS25
VHE gamma ray absorption by galactic interstellar radiation field
Adopting a recent calculation of the Galactic interstellar radiation field,
we calculate the attenuation of the very high energy gamma rays from the
Galactic sources. The infra-red radiation background near the Galactic Center
is very intense due to the new calculation and our result shows that a cutoff
of high energy gamma ray spectrum begins at about 20 TeV and reaches about 10%
for 50 TeV gamma rays.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, figure is changed, conclusion not change
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Facile and green fabrication of multiple magnetite nano-cores@void@porous shell microspheres for delivery vehicles
Multiple magnetite nano-cores@void@porous shell micro-spheres have been fabricated by using the algae cell wall as the hollow porous shell precursor and the intracellular substances as the reducing agents to form magnetite cores inside the microspheres via hydrothermal reactions. This method not only simplified the fabricating steps and superseded harmful chemical reagents, but also endow the microspheres with a uniform size (~2.5 um), porous shell (~15 nm), multiple magnetite nano-cores (~25 nm) and high void volume ratio (> 70%). The product presents fast magnetic separation and redispersibility as well as pH-switched protein auto-loading (high capacity > 600 mg g-1) and unloading as high performance deliver vehicles
Synthesis of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Images via Multi-channel Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)
Positron emission tomography (PET) image synthesis plays an important role,
which can be used to boost the training data for computer aided diagnosis
systems. However, existing image synthesis methods have problems in
synthesizing the low resolution PET images. To address these limitations, we
propose multi-channel generative adversarial networks (M-GAN) based PET image
synthesis method. Different to the existing methods which rely on using
low-level features, the proposed M-GAN is capable to represent the features in
a high-level of semantic based on the adversarial learning concept. In
addition, M-GAN enables to take the input from the annotation (label) to
synthesize the high uptake regions e.g., tumors and from the computed
tomography (CT) images to constrain the appearance consistency and output the
synthetic PET images directly. Our results on 50 lung cancer PET-CT studies
indicate that our method was much closer to the real PET images when compared
with the existing methods.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure
The Evolution of Optical Depth in the Ly-alpha Forest: Evidence Against Reionization at z~6
We examine the evolution of the IGM Ly-alpha optical depth distribution using
the transmitted flux probability distribution function (PDF) in a sample of 63
QSOs spanning absorption redshifts 1.7 < z < 5.8. The data are compared to two
theoretical optical depth distributions: a model distribution based on the
density distribution of Miralda-Escude et al. (2000) (MHR00), and a lognormal
distribution. We assume a uniform UV background and an isothermal IGM for the
MHR00 model, as has been done in previous works. Under these assumptions, the
MHR00 model produces poor fits to the observed flux PDFs at redshifts where the
optical depth distribution is well sampled, unless large continuum corrections
are applied. However, the lognormal optical depth distribution fits the data at
all redshifts with only minor continuum adjustments. We use a simple
parametrization for the evolution of the lognormal parameters to calculate the
expected mean transmitted flux at z > 5.4. The lognormal optical depth
distribution predicts the observed Ly-alpha and Ly-beta effective optical
depths at z > 5.7 while simultaneously fitting the mean transmitted flux down
to z = 1.6. If the evolution of the lognormal distribution at z < 5 reflects a
slowly-evolving density field, temperature, and UV background, then no sudden
change in the IGM at z ~ 6 due to late reionization appears necessary. We have
used the lognormal optical depth distribution without any assumption about the
underlying density field. If the MHR00 density distribution is correct, then a
non-uniform UV background and/or IGM temperature may be required to produce the
correct flux PDF. We find that an inverse temperature-density relation greatly
improves the PDF fits, but with a large scatter in the equation of state index.
[Abridged]Comment: 45 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Ap
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