419 research outputs found
A selective role for neuronal activity regulated pentraxin in the processing of sensory-specific incentive value
Neuronal activity regulated pentraxin (Narp) is a secreted neuronal product which clusters AMPA receptors and regulates excitatory synaptogenesis. Although Narp is selectively enriched in brain, its role in behavior is not known. As Narp is expressed prominently in limbic regions, we examined whether Narp deletion affects performance on tasks used to assess motivational consequences of food-rewarded learning. Narp knock-out (KO) mice were unimpaired in learning simple pavlovian discriminations, instrumental lever pressing, and in acquisition of at least two aspects of pavlovian incentive learning, conditioned reinforcement and pavlovian-instrumental transfer. In contrast, Narp deletion resulted in a substantial deficit in the ability to use specific outcome expectancies to modulate instrumental performance in a devaluation task. In this task, mice were trained to respond on two levers for two different rewards. After training, mice were prefed with one of the two rewards, devaluing it. Responding on both levers was then assessed in extinction. Whereas control mice showed a significant preference in responding on the lever associated with the nondevalued reward, Narp KO mice responded equally on both levers, failing to suppress responding on the lever associated with the devalued reward. Both groups consumed more of the nondevalued reward in a subsequent choice test, indicating Narp KO mice could distinguish between the rewards themselves. These data suggest Narp has a selective role in processing sensory-specific information necessary for appropriate devaluation performance, but not in general motivational effects of reward-predictive cues on performance
Molecular Analysis of Salivary Gland Branching Morphogenesis
AbstractRecently, clinicians and scientists have focused on tissue engineering for regenerative medical therapy. This approach promises to provide remarkable clinical breakthroughs for the future. In oral and craniofacial medicine, most scientific approaches to tissue engineering currently involve tooth and bone, while little progress has been made toward regenerating organs such as salivary gland. To develop strategies for salivary gland regeneration, it will be important to understand the molecular mechanisms of normal salivary development. This mini-review describes a recently developed and tested set of approaches for identifying and characterizing molecules essential for branching morphogenesis and other developmental processes. It shows the value of using laser microdissection and the new process of T7-SAGE for gene discovery of putative candidate molecules that may be crucial regulators or mediators. We describe a stepwise series of associated strategies for reliable identification and functional testing of a candidate molecule, as well as its successful application to a specific candidate molecule originally identified by T7-SAGE
A Case of Bifid Mandibular Condyle
Bifid mandibular condyle is a rare anatomic anomaly that can result from congenital malformation, trauma, infection or tumor. We report a case of bifid mandibular condyle found after head injury. A bifid mandibular condyle was seen on the computed tomographic scan of a 41-year-old man after a car accident. The patient had asymmetry in the condylar angle and length of the condylar neck, and anomaly of occlusion resulting from many residual roots with deep caries. Mouth-opening and mandibular movements were normal, however, the presence of temporomandibular joint symptoms was unclear because of the patient’s unconsciousness at the time of the scan. The bifid mandibular condyle could have resulted from a bicycle accident when the patient was 7 years of age, based on information from the patient’s family.Isomura ET, Kobashi H, Tanaka S, Enomoto A, Kogo M (2017) A Case of Bifid Mandibular Condyle. OMICS J Radiol 6: 278. DOI: 10.4172/2167-7964.1000278
General anaesthesia with and without intubation for patients with Cornelia de Lange syndrome
We present the use of different methods of general anaesthesia in two patients with Cornelia de Lange syndrome and its contribution to the patients’ oral health.Case 1: The patient was a 22-year-old woman with Cornelia de Lange syndrome who underwent dental treatment under general anaesthesia. She exhibited the physical characteristics of Cornelia de Lange syndrome, including a small mouth, thin lips, short limbs, stiffness of joints and intellectual disability. General anaesthesia without intubation was performed safely eight times. No other complications except hypersensitivity to hypnotic agents were observed.Case 2: The patient was a 10-year-old boy with Cornelia de Lange syndrome who underwent dental treatment under general anaesthesia. He had a history and symptoms of obstructive airway disorders in addition to showing physical characteristics of the syndrome similar to those seen in Case 1. General anaesthesia with nasal intubation was performed safely twice. Computed tomography (CT) of his head and neck produced unremarkable results. These cases demonstrate that both general anaesthesia with and without nasal intubation can be safely used in managing individuals with Cornelia de Lange syndrome during dental treatment.Keywords: general anaesthesia; Cornelia de Lange syndrome; dental treatmen
Reconstructing the Primordial Spectrum with CMB Temperature and Polarization
We develop a new method to reconstruct the power spectrum of primordial
curvature perturbations, , by using both the temperature and polarization
spectra of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We test this method using
several mock primordial spectra having non-trivial features including the one
with an oscillatory component, and find that the spectrum can be reconstructed
with a few percent accuracy by an iterative procedure in an ideal situation in
which there is no observational error in the CMB data. In particular, although
the previous ``cosmic inversion'' method, which used only the temperature
fluctuations, suffered from large numerical errors around some specific values
of that correspond to nodes in a transfer function, these errors are found
to disappear almost completely in the new method.Comment: 18 pages, 17 figures, submitted to PR
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Experimental and Numerical Simulation of Girth Welded Joints of Dissimilar Metals in Clad Pipes
Welding of two dissimilar materials was carried out in-house with the aid of a Tungsten Arc weld having dynamic measurement of temperature profiles in the vicinity areas of the welding track using high temperature thermocouples. Comparison was shown previously of the simulated and measured transient temperatures versus finite element simulation. Stress analyses of the pipe were carried out using FEA simulations with two different clad thicknesses. Results of thermal analysis showed a close match and laboratory tests revealed the occurrences at the welded joints, FZ and HAZ; the result of stress analysis also showed a good agreement when validated with ND experimental results.The Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF
Reconstructing the primordial power spectrum - a new algorithm
We propose an efficient and model independent method for reconstructing the
primordial power spectrum from Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and large
scale structure observations. The algorithm is based on a Monte Carlo principle
and therefore very simple to incorporate into existing codes such as Markov
Chain Monte Carlo. The algorithm has been used on present cosmological data to
test for features in the primordial power spectrum. No significant evidence for
features is found, although there is a slight preference for an overall bending
of the spectrum, as well as a decrease in power at very large scales. We have
also tested the algorithm on mock high precision CMB data, calculated from
models with non-scale invariant primordial spectra. The algorithm efficiently
extracts the underlying spectrum, as well as the other cosmological parameters
in each case. Finally we have used the algorithm on a model where an artificial
glitch in the CMB spectrum has been imposed, like the ones seen in the WMAP
data. In this case it is found that, although the underlying cosmological
parameters can be extracted, the recovered power spectrum can show significant
spurious features, such as bending, even if the true spectrum is scale
invariant.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures, matches JCAP published versio
Reconstruction of the Primordial Power Spectrum by Direct Inversion
We introduce a new method for reconstructing the primordial power spectrum,
, directly from observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). We
employ Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) to invert the radiation perturbation
transfer function. The degeneracy of the multipole to wavenumber
linear mapping is thus reduced. This enables the inversion to be carried out at
each point along a Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) exploration of the combined
and cosmological parameter space. We present best--fit obtained
with this method along with other cosmological parameters.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figure
Superfield Approach To Nilpotent Symmetries For QED From A Single Restriction: An Alternative To The Horizontality Condition
We derive together the exact local, covariant, continuous and off-shell
nilpotent Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) and anti-BRST symmetry
transformations for the U(1) gauge field (A_\mu), the (anti-)ghost fields
((\bar C)C) and the Dirac fields (\psi, \bar\psi) of the Lagrangian density of
a four (3 + 1)-dimensional QED by exploiting a single restriction on the six
(4, 2)-dimensional supermanifold. A set of four even spacetime coordinates
x^\mu (\mu = 0, 1, 2, 3) and two odd Grassmannian variables \theta and
\bar\theta parametrize this six dimensional supermanifold. The new gauge
invariant restriction on the above supermanifold owes its origin to the (super)
covariant derivatives and their intimate relations with the (super) 2-form
curvatures (\tilde F^{(2)})F^{(2)} constructed with the help of (super) 1-form
gauge connections (\tilde A^{(1)})A^{(1)} and (super) exterior derivatives
(\tilde d)d. The results obtained separately by exploiting (i) the
horizontality condition, and (ii) one of its consistent extensions, are shown
to be a simple consequence of this new single restriction on the above
supermanifold. Thus, our present endeavour provides an alternative to (and, in
some sense, generalization of) the horizontality condition of the usual
superfield formalism applied to the derivation of BRST symmetries.Comment: LaTeX file, 15 pages, journal-versio
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