The details of auditory response at the subthreshold level in the rodent primary somatosensory cortex, the barrel cortex, have not been studied extensively, although several phenomenological reports ...have been published. Multisensory features may act as neuronal representations of links between inputs from one sensory modality to other sensory modalities. Here, we examined the basic multisensory postsynaptic responses in the rodent barrel cortex using in vivo whole-cell recordings of neurons. We observed robust responses to acoustic stimuli in most barrel cortex neurons. Acoustically evoked responses were mediated by hearing and reached approximately 60% of the postsynaptic response amplitude elicited by strong somatosensory stimuli. Compared to tactile stimuli, auditory stimuli evoked postsynaptic potentials with a longer latency and longer duration. Specifically, auditory stimuli in barrel cortex neurons appeared to trigger "up states", episodes associated with membrane depolarization and increased synaptic activity. Taken together, our data suggest that barrel cortex neurons have multisensory properties, with distinct synaptic mechanisms underlying tactile and non-tactile responses.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Recent studies have demonstrated that microRNAs (miRNAs) are stably detectable in blood and can serve as useful biomarkers for cancer.
We performed an miRNA array using serum samples obtained from ...oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients or healthy controls. MiR-1246 was the most markedly elevated in ESCC patients. Therefore, miR-1246 was selected as a candidate for further analysis. The serum miR-1246 level in 46 healthy controls and 101 ESCC patients was evaluated and compared among various clinicopathological characteristics. MiR-1246 expressions in tissue, exosomal, and cellular samples were also examined.
Serum miR-1246 alone yielded an receiver-operating characteristic curve area of 0.754, with 71.3% sensitivity and 73.9% specificity for distinguishing ESCC patients from healthy controls. Serum miR-1246 was significantly correlated with the TNM stage and showed to be the strongest independent risk factor for poor survival (HR, 4.032; P=0.017). Unlike the tendency shown in previous reports, miR-1246 was not upregulated in ESCC tissue samples. Furthermore, exosomal miR-1246 did not reflect the abundance in the cell of origin.
These data support our contention that serum miR-1246 has strong potential as a novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in ESCC, and its releasing mechanism is selective and independent of tissue miRNA abundance.
The effect of grain boundary microstructure on the fracture resistance of sulfur-doped polycrystalline nickel was investigated using specimens with different grain boundary microstructures to reveal ...the usefulness of grain boundary engineering for control of segregation-induced intergranular brittle fracture of polycrystalline materials. The sulfur-doped polycrystalline nickel specimen with more homogeneous fine-grained structure and a higher fraction of low-Σ coincidence site lattice (CSL) boundaries shows higher fracture resistance than the specimen with coarse-grained structure and a lower fraction of low-Σ CSL boundaries. It was found that high-energy random boundaries play a key role as the preferential crack path in fracture processes. The resistance to sulfur segregation-induced intergranular brittle fracture was evaluated by analyzing the fractal dimension of random boundary connectivity in the polycrystalline nickel specimens studied. The fractal dimension of random boundary connectivity decreases with increasing fraction of low-Σ CSL boundaries, resulting in the generation of a higher fracture resistance by restricting more frequent branching and deflection of propagating crack path along random boundaries from the main crack.
In the field of spintronics, researchers have manipulated magnetization using spin-polarized currents. Another option is to use a voltage-induced symmetry change in a ferromagnetic material to cause ...changes in magnetization or in magnetic anisotropy. However, a significant improvement in efficiency is needed before this approach can be used in memory devices with ultralow power consumption. Here, we show that a relatively small electric field (less than 100 mV nm(-1)) can cause a large change (approximately 40%) in the magnetic anisotropy of a bcc Fe(001)/MgO(001) junction. The effect is tentatively attributed to the change in the relative occupation of 3d orbitals of Fe atoms adjacent to the MgO barrier. Simulations confirm that voltage-controlled magnetization switching in magnetic tunnel junctions is possible using the anisotropy change demonstrated here, which could be of use in the development of low-power logic devices and non-volatile memory cells.
Abstract
We studied
ex situ
thermal cycle annealing on metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) grown CdTe on (211) Si substrates for dislocation density reduction and its effect on the performance ...of gamma-ray detector fabricated. The
ex situ
annealing was performed by varying temperatures from 600 °C to 1000 °C for different anneal durations and cycles varied from 1 to 7 in a hydrogen environment. Gamma-ray detector was fabricated in a p-CdTe/n-CdTe/n
+
-Si heterojunction diode structure. Dislocation densities were evaluated by the etch pit density (EPD) technique. Dislocation densities were decreased when the annealing temperature was increased above 800 °C. This is due to the annealing enhancing dislocations’ glide motion, which annihilate and reduce their density. The device property could be improved by subjecting the annealing during the early stage of the growth. Devices subjected to annealing showed lower dark current and improved gamma detection property when compared to the devices that were not subjected to annealing during their fabrications.
This paper presents a method to derive the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) and to estimate the biases of GPS satellites and dual frequency receivers using the GPS Earth Observation Network ...(GEONET) in Japan. Based on the consideration that the TEC is uniform in a small area, the method divides the ionosphere over Japan into 32 meshes. The size of each mesh is 2° by 2° in latitude and longitude, respectively. By assuming that the TEC is identical at any point within a given mesh and the biases do not vary within a day, the method arranges unknown TECs and biases with dual GPS data from about 209 receivers in a day unit into a set of equations. Then the TECs and the biases of satellites and receivers were determined by using the least-squares fitting technique. The performance of the method is examined by applying it to geomagnetically quiet days in various seasons, and then comparing the GPS-derived TEC with ionospheric critical frequencies (foF2). It is found that the biases of GPS satellites and most receivers are very stable. The diurnal and seasonal variation in TEC and foF2 shows a high degree of conformity. The method using a highly dense receiver network like GEONET is not always applicable in other areas. Thus, the paper also proposes a simpler and faster method to estimate a single receiver’s bias by using the satellite biases determined from GEONET. The accuracy of the simple method is examined by comparing the receiver biases determined by the two methods. Larger deviation from GEONET derived bias tends to be found in the receivers at lower (<30° N) latitudes due to the effects of equatorial anomaly.Key words. Ionosphere (mid-latitude ionosphere; instruments and techniques) – Radio science (radio-wave propagation)
FSCN1 and matrix metalloproteinase 14 (MMP14) are both invadopodia-related proteins. We herein elucidate the tumourigenicity of these proteins and identify novel therapeutic agents in esophageal ...squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).
FSCN1 and MMP14 were evaluated by immunohistochemistry and quantitative PCR, and microRNA (miR)-133a was also evaluated by PCR in surgical ESCC specimens. The roles of FSCN1, MMP14 and miR-133a were established in ESCC cells.
The expression of FSCN1 or MMP14 was an independent poor prognostic factor according to a multivariate analysis of immunohistochemistry, and their co-expression correlated with the poorest overall survival (OS) out of all the examined factors. Additionally, their mRNAs significantly correlated and both inversely correlated with miR-133a in surgical specimens. Transfection of a miR-133a mimic decreased the mRNA and protein levels of both FSCN1 and MMP14 in ESCC cells. The knockdown of FSCN1 or MMP14 and transfection of a miR-133a mimic inhibited the proliferation and invasion of ESCC cells. Patients with a lower miR-133a expression have a significantly poorer OS than those with a higher expression.
The combined expression of FSCN1 and MMP14 is associated with a poor prognosis, and miR-133a, which regulates their mRNAs, can serve as a strong tumour suppressor of ESCC.
We studied the effectiveness of post-growth patterning and annealing on threading dislocation (TD) reduction in (211) CdTe/Si epilayers grown using metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy (MOVPE). ...Sixty-micrometer-wide square patterns were formed on the as-grown CdTe samples using photolithography and then subjected to ex situ annealing in a flowing hydrogen environment. The annealing temperature was varied from 550°C to 800°C, then held at this temperature for a fixed duration of 5 min. The TD densities were determined using the etch pit density (EPD) technique. A comparison of EPD values revealed that the patterned samples had lower EPD values than the unpatterned samples annealed under similar conditions. This suggests that annealing promotes dislocation glide to the sidewalls of the islands and is thus more effective at dislocation removal for the patterned samples in comparison to the unpatterned samples.
A potential factor dominating the obstacle strength of second phase precipitate particles in dispersion strengthening is the crystallographic mismatch between the matrix phase and the second phase; ...however, yet this concept has not been fully assessed by experiments and simulations. In the present study, we experimentally investigated the obstacle strength of body centered cubic (bcc) Nb particles and nanometric Nb clusters embedded in hexagonal close packed (hcp) Zr matrix. The bcc Nb is softer than the hcp Zr in terms of shear modulus, whereas from a crystallographic viewpoint, the bcc Nb particles can be nonshearable, strong obstacles because the slip plane inside the particles is not parallel with that in the matrix. Although the bcc Nb is thermodynamically the stable configuration for Nb atoms precipitating from the Zr matrix, in the very early stage of solute agglomeration, the crystal structure of Nb nanoclusters is possibly hcp rather than bcc. The obstacle strength (α) was no greater than 0.5 for the Nb nanoclusters, whereas 0.85 ≤ α ≤ 1 for the coarse bcc Nb particles; α = 1 was obtained with the Taylor factor (M) of 5.5 and α = 0.85 with M = 6.5, respectively. These results indicate that the bcc Nb particles are strong obstacles, and that the Nb nanoclusters are weak obstacles.
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There are few practical applications for flow prediction in and around porous objects such as radiators, filters, fences or plant canopies. Reproduction of the configuration of solid obstacles in the ...fine mesh discretization is a direct way to make numerical calculations on porous objects. However, calculations using the fine mesh increase the computational load and cost a lot of time and money. In order to reduce these factors, we applied space averaging to the Navier–Stokes equations and derived filtered equations with a subgrid scale turbulent modeling for the large eddy simulation (LES). This paper demonstrates how we were able to calculate the space-averaged property of flows with coarse meshes without a heavy computational load. Finally, we also present a numerical calculation for the turbulent field around a windbreak placed on a flat plane and compare the results to a wind tunnel test data.
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