153 research outputs found
Optimization of a charge-state analyzer for ECRIS beams
A detailed experimental and simulation study of the extraction of a 24 keV
He-ion beam from an ECR ion source and the subsequent beam transport through an
analyzing magnet is presented. We find that such a slow ion beam is very
sensitive to space-charge forces, but also that the neutralization of the
beam's space charge by secondary electrons is virtually complete for beam
currents up to at least 0.5 mA. The beam emittance directly behind the
extraction system is 65 pi mm mrad and is determined by the fact that the ion
beam is extracted in the strong magnetic fringe field of the ion source. The
relatively large emittance of the beam and its non-paraxiality lead, in
combination with a relatively small magnet gap, to significant beam losses and
a five-fold increase of the effective beam emittance during its transport
through the analyzing magnet. The calculated beam profile and phase-space
distributions in the image plane of the analyzing magnet agree well with
measurements. The kinematic and magnet aberrations have been studied using the
calculated second-order transfer map of the analyzing magnet, with which we can
reproduce the phase-space distributions of the ion beam behind the analyzing
magnet. Using the transfer map and trajectory calculations we have worked out
an aberration compensation scheme based on the addition of compensating
hexapole components to the main dipole field by modifying the shape of the
poles. The simulations predict that by compensating the kinematic and geometric
aberrations in this way and enlarging the pole gap the overall beam transport
efficiency can be increased from 16 to 45%
Therapeutic effect of hydroethanolic extract of Trianthema portulacastrum L. against N-Nitroso-N-Methylurea-induced mammary tumors in Wistar rats
This study evaluated the therapeutic action of hydroethanolic extract of Trianthema portulacastrum L. (TPE) on N-nitroso-N-methylurea (NMU)-induced mammary tumors in Wistar rats. A hydroethanolic was prepared and subjected to qualitative and quantitative phytochemical screening. After acclimatization, Wistar rats were divided into 4 groups of 6 rats each: Group A (vehicle control), Group B (TPE control), Group C (TPE treatment) and group D (NMU control). NMU (50 mg/kg body weight) was injected intraperitoneally at 50, 80 and 110 days of age. After the induction of palpable tumors,the rats were administered 200 mg/kg bw of TPE by oral gavage for 2 months. The treatment with TPE significantly (p<0.05) decreased tumor incidence, frequency, size and malignancy in comparison to the tumor-bearing rats that were not administered TPE. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that TPE treatment significantly reduced the expression of PCNA, VEGF, ER-α and ER-β, and caused non-significant reductions in matrix metallopeptidase-9 (MMP-9). Caspase-3 expression significantly increased in TPE-treated rats in comparison with NMU-treated controls. The qRT-PCR resultsshowed PCNA and ER-β expression was down regulated and caspase-3 expression was up regulated in the TPE-treated group. The present study showed the in vivo therapeutic action of TPE extract on NMU-induced mammary tumors. TPE exhibited antitumor activity through its antiproliferative, antiangiogenic, pro-apoptotic, and estrogen receptor-modulatory properties
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Neem: Effective Tool for Push-Pull Strategy of Pest Management in Conjunction with Trap Crop and Biocontrol Agents
Phase diagram of aggregation of oppositely charged colloids in salty water
Aggregation of two oppositely charged colloids in salty water is studied. We
focus on the role of Coulomb interaction in strongly asymmetric systems in
which the charge and size of one colloid is much larger than the other one. In
the solution, each large colloid (macroion) attracts certain number of
oppositely charged small colloids (-ion) to form a complex. If the
concentration ratio of the two colloids is such that complexes are not strongly
charged, they condense in a macroscopic aggregate. As a result, the phase
diagram in a plane of concentrations of two colloids consists of an aggregation
domain sandwiched between two domains of stable solutions of complexes. The
aggregation domain has a central part of total aggregation and two wings
corresponding to partial aggregation. A quantitative theory of the phase
diagram in the presence of monovalent salt is developed. It is shown that as
the Debye-H\"{u}ckel screening radius decreases, the aggregation domain
grows, but the relative size of the partial aggregation domains becomes much
smaller. As an important application of the theory, we consider solutions of
long double-helix DNA with strongly charged positive spheres (artificial
chromatin). We also consider implications of our theory for in vitro
experiments with the natural chromatin. Finally, the effect of different shapes
of macroions on the phase diagram is discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. The text is rewritten, but results are not
change
Injectivity of sections of convex harmonic mappings and convolution theorems
In the article the authors consider the class of
sense-preserving harmonic functions defined in the unit disk
and normalized so that and , where
and are analytic in the unit disk. In the first part of the article we
present two classes and of
functions from and show that if
and , then the harmonic convolution is a univalent
and close-to-convex harmonic function in the unit disk provided certain
conditions for parameters and are satisfied. In the second
part we study the harmonic sections (partial sums) where , and denote the -th partial sums of
and , respectively. We prove, among others, that if
is a univalent harmonic convex mapping,
then is univalent and close-to-convex in the disk for
, and is also convex in the disk for
and . Moreover, we show that the section of is not convex in the disk but is shown to be convex
in a smaller disk.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures; To appear in Czechoslovak Mathematical Journa
Virological, immunological and pathological findings of transplacentally transmitted bluetongue virus serotype 1 in IFNAR1-blocked mice during early and mid gestation
© 2020, The Author(s). Transplacental transmission (TPT) of wild-type Indian BTV-1 had never been experimentally proved. This study was first time investigated TPT of Indian BTV-1 (isolated from aborted and stillborn goat fetal spleens). The sequential pathology, virological and immune cell kinetics (CD4+, CD8+ T-lymphocytes and NK cells in spleen and PBMCs), and apoptosis in IFNAR1-blocked pregnant mice during early (infected on 1 GD) and mid (infected on 8 GD) gestation have been studied. There was higher rate of TPT during mid stage (71.43%) than early (57.14%) stage. In early stage reduced implantation sites, early embryonic deaths, abortions, and necro-haemorrhagic lesions had observed. Mid stage, congenital defects and neurological lesions in foetuses like haemorrhages, diffuse cerebral edema, necrotizing encephalitis and decreased bone size (Alizarin red staining) were noticed. BTV-1 antigen was first time demonstrable in cells of mesometrium, decidua of embryos, placenta, uterus, ovary, and brain of foetuses by immunohistochemistry and quantified by real-time qRT-PCR. BTV-inoculated mice were seroconverted by 7 and 5 dpi, and reached peak levels by 15 and 9 dpi in early and mid gestation, respectively. CD4+ and CD8+ cells were significantly decreased (increased ratio) on 7 dpi but subsequently increased on 15 dpi in early gestation. In mid gestation, increased CD8+ cells (decreased ratio) were observed. Apoptotic cells in PBMCs and tissues increased during peak viral load. This first time TPT of wild-type Indian BTV-1 deserves to be reported for implementation of control strategies. This model will be very suitable for further research into mechanisms of TPT, overwintering, and vaccination strategies
Cancer-related ectopic expression of the bone-related transcription factor RUNX2 in non-osseous metastatic tumor cells is linked to cell proliferation and motility
10.1186/bcr2762Breast Cancer Research125-BCRR
Genome-Wide Differentiation of Various Melon Horticultural Groups for Use in GWAS for Fruit Firmness and Construction of a High Resolution Genetic Map
Ajuts: Funding support is provided by Gus R. Douglass Institute (Evans Allen Project to Nimmakayala) and USDA-NIFA (2010-02247 and 2012-02511).Melon (Cucumis melo L.) is a phenotypically diverse eudicot diploid (2n = 2x = 24) has climacteric and non-climacteric morphotypes and show wide variation for fruit firmness, an important trait for transportation and shelf life. We generated 13,789 SNP markers using genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) and anchored them to chromosomes to understand genome-wide fixation indices (Fst) between various melon morphotypes and genomewide linkage disequilibrium (LD) decay. The FST between accessions of cantalupensis and inodorus was 0.23. The FST between cantalupensis and various agrestis accessions was in a range of 0.19-0.53 and between inodorus and agrestis accessions was in a range of 0.21-0.59 indicating sporadic to wide ranging introgression. The EM (Expectation Maximization) algorithm was used for estimation of 1436 haplotypes. Average genome-wide LD decay for the melon genome was noted to be 9.27 Kb. In the current research, we focused on the genome-wide divergence underlying diverse melon horticultural groups. A high-resolution genetic map with 7153 loci was constructed. Genome-wide segregation distortion and recombination rate across various chromosomes were characterized. Melon has climacteric and non-climacteric morphotypes and wide variation for fruit firmness, a very important trait for transportation and shelf life. Various levels of QTLs were identified with high to moderate stringency and linked to fruit firmness using both genome-wide association study (GWAS) and biparental mapping. Gene annotation revealed some of the SNPs are located in β-D-xylosidase, glyoxysomal malate synthase, chloroplastic anthranilate phosphoribosyltransferase, and histidine kinase, the genes that were previously characterized for fruit ripening and softening in other crops
Conformational Instability of Rodlike Polyelectrolytes due to Counterion Fluctuations
The effective elasticity of highly charged stiff polyelectrolytes is studied
in the presence of counterions, with and without added salt. The rigid polymer
conformations may become unstable due to an effective attraction induced by
counterion density fluctuations. Instabilities at the longest, or intermediate
length scales may signal collapse to globule, or necklace states, respectively.
In the presence of added-salt, a generalized electrostatic persistence length
is obtained, which has a nontrivial dependence on the Debye screening length.
It is also found that the onset of conformational instability is a re-entrant
phenomenon as a function of polyelectrolyte length for the unscreened case, and
the Debye length or salt concentration for the screened case. This may be
relevant in understanding the experimentally observed re-entrant condensation
of DNA.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
VKORC1 Pharmacogenetics and Pharmacoproteomics in Patients on Warfarin Anticoagulant Therapy: Transthyretin Precursor as a Potential Biomarker
Recognizing specific protein changes in response to drug administration in humans has the potential for the development of personalized medicine. Such changes can be identified by pharmacoproteomics approach based on proteomic technologies. It can also be helpful in matching a particular target-based therapy to a particular marker in a subgroup of patients, in addition to the profile of genetic polymorphism. Warfarin is a commonly prescribed oral anticoagulant in patients with prosthetic valve disease, venous thromboembolism and stroke.We used a combined pharmacogenetics and iTRAQ-coupled LC-MS/MS pharmacoproteomics approach to analyze plasma protein profiles of 53 patients, and identified significantly upregulated level of transthyretin precursor in patients receiving low dose of warfarin but not in those on high dose of warfarin. In addition, real-time RT-PCR, western blotting, human IL-6 ELISA assay were done for the results validation.This combined pharmacogenomics and pharmacoproteomics approach may be applied for other target-based therapies, in matching a particular marker in a subgroup of patients, in addition to the profile of genetic polymorphism
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