Externally driven parallel arrays of elastic waveguides inelastically coupled along their length are shown to support inelastic modes that span exponentially complex Hilbert spaces. The nonlinear ...coupling takes the form of power functions of the relative displacement between waveguides. First order perturbation theory is employed to obtained closed form solutions for the contribution of nonlinearity to the displacement field in the form of nonseparable superpositions of product states of plane waves. When the system is dissipative, the coefficients of the superposition of product states are complex and can be varied by controlling the characteristics of the way the array is driven externally. The entropy of 'entanglement' of these nonseparable superpositions of product states is calculated from the complex amplitudes through the density matrix. Navigation of the exponentially complex Hilbert space of product states enables manipulation of the degree of nonseparability of the superpositions.
Gut microbiome in adolescent depression Thapa, Santosh; Sheu, Jessica C.; Venkatachalam, Alamelu ...
Journal of affective disorders,
09/2021, Letnik:
292
Journal Article
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•The role of the microbiome-gut-brain axis in psychopathology is gaining attention.•Adolescents with and without major depression showed no gut microbiome differences.•Also, no significant effect of ...selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors was found.
To examine the association of major depressive disorder (MDD) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) use with gut microbiome in older adolescents and younger adults.
Fifteen to 20-year-old participants within a month of starting an SSRI and unmedicated controls were enrolled in a longitudinal study. They underwent a diagnostic evaluation comprising self-completed and rater-administered questionnaires and clinical interview. They also provided a stool sample, which was stored at -80°C until DNA extraction. Microbial DNA was extracted with the MoBio PowerSoil kit, and the V4 region of the 16S rRNA was amplified and sequenced. Raw sequence data was processed with the LotuS pipeline. Only samples with no antibiotic exposure in the last 6 months and with >1000 quality filtered reads were included in the analysis.
160 participants (57.5% female, mean age 20.0±1.9 years, 29% taking SSRIs) were enrolled, comprising 110 MDD patients (60% in acute episode), 27 healthy controls, and 23 psychiatric controls. No significant group differences were observed in bacterial richness or alpha and beta diversity. Differential abundance analysis of bacterial taxa found no significant group differences at the phylum and genus levels. Neither being in a major depressive episode vs. remission nor using SSRIs was associated with differential bacterial composition.
In this sizeable sample of older adolescents, neither MDD nor SSRI use was associated with differences in gut bacterial microbiome. In this age group, the bi-directional interaction between the gut bacteria and brain may be more nuanced than in adults, requiring further investigation.
A strategy to gain insight into early changes that may predispose people to Alzheimer's disease (AD) is to study the brains of younger cognitively healthy people that are at increased genetic risk of ...AD. The Apolipoprotein (APOE) E4 allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for AD, and several neuroimaging studies comparing APOE E4 carriers with non-carriers at age ∼20–30 years have detected hyperactivity (or reduced deactivation) in posteromedial cortex (PMC), a key hub of the default network (DN), which has a high susceptibility to early amyloid deposition in AD. Transgenic mouse models suggest such early network activity alterations may result from altered excitatory/inhibitory (E/I) balance, but this is yet to be examined in humans. Here we test the hypothesis that PMC fMRI hyperactivity could be underpinned by altered levels of excitatory (glutamate) and/or inhibitory (GABA) neurotransmitters in this brain region. Forty-seven participants (20 APOE E4 carriers and 27 non-carriers) aged 18–25 years underwent resting-state proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS), a non-invasive neuroimaging technique to measure glutamate and GABA in vivo. Metabolites were measured in a PMC voxel of interest and in a comparison voxel in the occipital cortex (OCC). There was no difference in either glutamate or GABA between the E4 carriers and non-carriers in either MRS voxel, or in the ratio of glutamate to GABA, a measure of E/I balance. Default Bayesian t-tests revealed evidence in support of this null finding. Our findings suggest that PMC hyperactivity in APOE E4 carriers is unlikely to be associated with, or possibly may precede, alterations in local resting-state PMC neurotransmitters, thus informing our understanding of the spatio-temporal sequence of early network alterations underlying APOE E4 related AD risk.
•Hyperactivity in posteromedial (PM) network linked to AD genetic risk (APOE E4).•Such PM network hyperactivity may initiate pathogenic cascade that triggers AD.•APOE mouse models suggest hyperactivity driven by excitatory/inhibitory imbalance.•Using 1H-MRS at 3T we studied PM cortex E/I balance in young adult APOE E4 carriers.•Found evidence against altered E/I balance in young adult APOE E4 carriers.
The adsorption of simple organic compounds onto minerals that are known to occur in the early solar nebula such as olivine, spinel and water-ice, is examined using first-principles density functional ...theory. The calculations show that electron-rich organics and organics containing cyanide, amine and carboxylic functional groups can strongly bind to low-index surfaces of olivine and spinel. Based on the surface coverage as obtained from these calculations, it can be inferred that an estimated amount of 1013 kg of organics could have been delivered to early Earth via direct adsorption mechanisms, thereby providing an endogenous source of planetary organics. In addition, adsorption of organic compounds on magnesite, a carbonate phase believed to have formed via aqueous processes on asteroidal bodies, is also studied. The adsorption behavior of the organics is observed to be similar in both cases, i.e., for minerals that formed during the earliest stages of nebular evolution through condensation (spinel and olivine) or other processes and for those that formed via hydration processes on asteroidal bodies (magnesite). These results suggest that direct incorporation via adsorption is an important delivery mechanism of organics to both asteroidal bodies and terrestrial planets.
•Organics were accreted by the early Earth from inorganic grains that adsorbed these materials directly.•Organics bind to the surface of mineral grains through chemical bonds.•The amount of organics that were delivered to Earth via direct adsorption is the order of 1013 kg.
The dynamics of brittle fracture in vitreous silica has been a subject of many molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and experiments. A striking similarity between both simulations and experiments is ...the observation of nanoscale voids that eventually coalesce leading to failure. In this work, we review the above MD simulations and carry out further MD investigations using two variations of classical 2-body potentials. We study the effect of charge-transfer, an important aspect neglected by previous simulations. Further, we examine the growth of ‘critical’ voids and characterize regions surrounding the voids.
We have demonstrated experimentally the existence of a giant frequency down-conversion of the translational oscillatory motion of individual submillimeter acoustic bubbles in water in the presence of ...a high frequency (500 kHz) ultrasonic standing wave. The frequency of the translational oscillations (~170 Hz) is more than three orders of magnitude smaller than that of the driving acoustic wave. We elucidate the mechanism of this very slow oscillation with an analytical model leading to an equation of translational motion of a bubble taking the form of Mathieu's equation. This equation illuminates the origin of the giant down conversion in frequency as arising from an unstable equilibrium. We also show that bubbles that form chains along the direction of the acoustic standing wave due to radiation interaction forces exhibit also translation oscillations that form a spectral band. This band extends approximately from 130 Hz up to nearly 370 Hz, a frequency range that is still at least three orders of magnitude lower than the frequency of the driving acoustic wave.
We present a new method to standardize type Ia supernova (SN Ia) luminosities to $\la$0.13 mag using flux ratios from a single flux-calibrated spectrum per SN. Using Nearby Supernova Factory ...spectrophotomery of 58 SNe Ia, we performed an unbiased search for flux ratios that correlate with SN Ia luminosity. After developing the method and selecting the best ratios from a training sample, we verified the results on a separate validation sample and with data from the literature. We identified multiple flux ratios whose correlations with luminosity are stronger than those of light curve shape and color, previously identified spectral feature ratios, or equivalent width measurements. In particular, the flux ratio $\mathcal{R}_{642/443} = F(642~{\rm nm}) / F(443~{\rm nm})$ has a correlation of 0.95 with SN Ia absolute magnitudes. Using this single ratio as a correction factor produces a Hubble diagram with a residual scatter standard deviation of $0.125 \pm 0.011$ mag, compared with $0.161 \pm 0.015$ mag when fit with the SALT2 light curve shape and color parameters x1 and c. The ratio $\mathcal{R}_{642/443}$ is an effective correction factor for both extrinsic dust reddening and instrinsic variations such as those of SN 1991T-like and SN 1999aa-like SNe. When combined with broad-band color measurements, spectral flux ratios can standardize SN Ia magnitudes to ~0.12 mag. These are the first spectral metrics that give robust improvements over the standard normalization methods based upon light curve shape and color, and they provide among the lowest scatter Hubble diagrams ever published.
Background: Peanut oral immunotherapy has emerged as a novel, active management approach for peanut-allergic sufferers, but limited data exist currently on the role of the microbiome in successful ...desensitization. Objective: We examined the oral and gut microbiome in a cohort of 17 children undergoing peanut oral immunotherapy with the aim to identify the microbiome signatures associated with successful desensitization. We also set out to characterize their fecal metabolic profiles after successful therapy. Methods: Participants gradually built up their daily dose from 2 mg (starting dose) to 300 mg (maintenance dose) within approximately 40 weeks. We collected a buccal and stool specimen from each subject at two different time points: at baseline and post-therapy (1 month after reaching maintenance). The oral (buccal) and gut (fecal) microbiome was characterized based on sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons with Illumina MiSeq. Fecal short chain fatty acid levels were measured using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Results: We report increased alpha diversity of the oral microbiome post-therapy and have also identified a significant increase in the relative abundance of oral Actinobacteria, associated with the desensitized state. However, the baseline gut microbiome did not differ from the post-therapy. Additionally, fecal short chain fatty acids increased after therapy, but not significantly. Conclusion: Our research adds to the limited current knowledge on microbiome and metabolic signatures in pediatric patients completing oral immunotherapy. Post-therapy increased trends of fecal fatty acid levels support a role in modulating the allergic response and potentially exerting protective and anti-inflammatory effects alongside successful desensitization. A better understanding of the microbiome-related mechanisms underlying desensitization may allow development of smarter therapeutic approaches in the near future. Clinical implication: The oral microbiome composition is altered following successful peanut oral immunotherapy, with a significant increase in alpha diversity and the relative abundance of phylum Actinobacteria. Capsule summary: Significant microbiome changes in children completing peanut immunotherapy include increase in alpha-diversity and overrepresentation of Actinobacteria in the oral microbiome, and increased trends for fecal short chain fatty acids, suggesting a protective effect against the allergic response.
The recently described phenomenon of resonant acoustic spin pumping is due to resonant coupling between an incident elastic wave and spin waves in a ferromagnetic medium. A classical one-dimensional ...discrete model of a ferromagnet with two forms of magnetoelastic coupling is treated to shed light on the conditions for resonance between phonons and magnons. Nonlinear phonon-magnon interactions in the case of a coupling restricted to diagonal terms in the components of the spin degrees of freedom are analyzed within the framework of the multiple timescale perturbation theory. In that case, one-phonon-two-magnon resonances are the dominant mechanism for pumping. The effect of coupling on the dispersion relations depends on the square of the amplitude of the phonon and magnon excitations. A straightforward analysis of a linear phonon-magnon interaction in the case of a magnetoelastic coupling restricted to off-diagonal terms in the components of the spins shows a one-phonon to one-magnon resonance as the pumping mechanism. The resonant dispersion relations are independent of the amplitude of the waves. In both cases, when an elastic wave with a fixed frequency is used to stimulate magnons, application of an external magnetic field can be used to approach resonant conditions. Both resonance conditions exhibit the same type of dependency on the strength of an applied magnetic field.
We present Keck LRIS spectroscopy and g-band photometry of the metal-poor, low-luminosity host galaxy of the super-Chandrasekhar-mass Type Ia supernova SN 2007if. Deep imaging of the host reveals its ...apparent magnitude to be mg = 23.15 ? 0.06, which at the spectroscopically measured redshift of z helio = 0.07450 ? 0.00015 corresponds to an absolute magnitude of Mg = --14.45 ? 0.06. Galaxy g -- r color constrains the mass-to-light ratio, giving a host stellar mass estimate of log(M */M ) = 7.32 ? 0.17. Balmer absorption in the stellar continuum, along with the strength of the 4000 A break, constrains the age of the dominant starburst in the galaxy to be t burst = 123+165 --77 Myr, corresponding to a main-sequence turnoff mass of M/M = 4.6+2.6 --1.4. Using the R 23 method of calculating metallicity from the fluxes of strong emission lines, we determine the host oxygen abundance to be 12 + log(O/H)KK04 = 8.01 ? 0.09, significantly lower than any previously reported spectroscopically measured Type Ia supernova host galaxy metallicity. Our data show that SN 2007if is very likely to have originated from a young, metal-poor progenitor.
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