Abstract
The distribution and evolution of photospheric magnetic fields in sunspots, plages, and network, and variations in their relative flux content, play key roles in radial velocity (RV) ...fluctuations observed in Sun-as-a-star spectra. Differentiating and disentangling such magnetic contributions to RVs help in building models to account for stellar activity signals in high-precision RV exoplanet searches. In this work, as earlier authors, we employ high-resolution images of the solar magnetic field and continuum intensities from SDO/HMI to understand the activity contributions to RVs from HARPS-N solar observations. Using well-observed physical relationships between strengths and fluxes of photospheric magnetic fields, we show that the strong fields (spots, plages, and network) and the weak inter-network fields leave distinguishing features in their contributions to the RV variability. We also find that the fill factors and average unsigned magnetic fluxes of different features correlate differently with the RVs and hence warrant care in employing either of them as a proxy for RV variations. In addition, we examine disk-averaged UV intensities at 1600 and 1700 Å wavelength bands imaged by SDO/AIA and their performances as proxies for variations in different magnetic features. We find that the UV intensities provide a better measure of contributions of plage fields to RVs than the Ca
ii
H-K emission indices, especially during high activity levels when the latter tend to saturate.
Most of the Earth's Ecosystem Services (ESs) have experienced a decreasing trend in the last few decades, primarily due to increasing human dominance in the natural environment. Identification and ...categorization of factors that affect the provision of ESs from global to local scales are challenging. This study makes an effort to identify the key driving factors and examine their effects on different ESs in the Sundarbans region, India. We carry out the analysis following five successive steps: (1) quantifying biophysical and economic values of ESs using three valuation approaches; (2) identifying six major driving forces on ESs; (3) categorizing principal data components with dimensionality reduction; (4) constructing multivariate regression models with variance partitioning; (5) implementing six spatial regression models to examine the causal effects of natural and anthropogenic forcings on ESs. Results show that climatic factors, biophysical factors, and environmental stressors significantly affect the ESs. Among the six driving factors, climate factors are highly associated with the ESs variation and explain the maximum model variances (R2 = 0.75–0.81). Socioeconomic (R2 = 0.44–0.66) and development (R2 = 27–0.44) factors have weak to moderate effects on the ESs. Furthermore, the joint effects of the driving factors are much higher than their individual effects. Among the six spatial regression models, Geographical Weighted Regression (GWR) performs the most accurately and explains the maximum model variances. The proposed hybrid valuation method aggregates biophysical and economic estimates of ESs and addresses methodological biases existing in the valuation process. The presented framework can be generalized and applied to other ecosystems at different scales. The outcome of this study could be a reference for decision-makers, planners, land administrators in formulating a suitable action plan and adopting relevant management practices to improve the overall socio-ecological status of the region.
Display omitted
•Multiple valuation approaches were used to quantify Ecosystem Services (ESs).•Six regression models were utilized for spatial modeling of ESs.•Six major driving factors were considered for spatial regression modeling.•Climate change is the most crucial component of ESs degradation.•Socio-economic and developmental factors have negligible effects on ESs.
SerpinF2, SerpinG1, CystatinC and CD14 are involved in inflammatory processes and plasma extracellular vesicle (EV) -levels of these proteins have been reported to be associated with systemic ...vascular events. Evidence is accumulating that inflammatory processes may play a pivotal role both in systemic vascular events and in heart failure. Therefore, we studied the association between plasma extracellular vesicle SerpinF2-, SerpinG1-, CystatinC and CD14-levels and the occurrence of acute heart failure in patients.
Extracellular vesicle protein levels of SerpinG1, SerpinF2, CystatinC and CD14 were measured in an observational study of 404 subjects presenting with dysponea at the emergency department (4B-cohort). Plasma extracellular vesicles were precipitated in a total extracellular vesicles (TEX)-fraction and in separate LDL- and HDL-subfractions. Extracellular vesicle protein levels were measured with a quantitative immune assay in all 3 precipitates. Out of 404 subjects, 141 (35%) were diagnosed with acutely decompensated heart failure. After correction for confounders (including comorbidities and medications), levels of CD14 in the HDL-fraction (OR 1.53, p = 0.01), SerpinF2 in the TEX-and LDL-fraction (ORs respectively 0.71 and 0.65, p<0.05) and SerpinG1 in the TEX-fraction (OR 1.55, p = 0.004) were statistically significantly related to heart failure. Furthermore, extracellular vesicle CD14- and SerpinF2-levels were significantly higher in heart failure patients with preserved ejection fraction than in those with reduced ejection fraction.
Extracellular vesicle levels of CD14, SerpinG1 and SerpinF2 are associated with the occurrence of heart failure in subjects suspected for acute heart failure, suggesting common underlying pathophysiological mechanisms for heart failure and vascular events.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
We demonstrate experimentally that a macroscopic topological insulator (TI) phase can emerge in a granular conductor composed of an assembly of tunnel coupled TI nanocrystals of dimension ∼10 nm × 10 ...nm × 2 nm. Electrical transport measurements on thin films of Bi
Se
nanocrystals reveal the presence of decoupled top and bottom topological surface states that exhibit large surface state penetration depths (∼30 nm at 2 K). By tuning the size of the nanocrystals and the couplings between them, this new class of TIs may be readily tuned from a non-topological to a topological insulator phase, that too with designer properties. Paradoxically, this seemingly 'dirty' system displays properties that are closer to an ideal TI than most known single crystal systems, making granular/nanocrystalline TIs an attractive platform for future TI research.
Organic–inorganic nanocomposite self-standing films of Gd3Ga3Al2O12 (GGAG) uniformly dispersed in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and polystyrene polymer are prepared for radiography application. ...GGAG:Ce nanoscintillator has been chosen because of its high light output and fast decay time. The nanopowder of GGAG is synthesized by coprecipitation method and dispersed in the polymer matrix by a simple blending technique. The nanocomposite films of thickness in the range of 150–450 μm with a very high inorganic content is achieved by this technique. These films are characterized by their uniformity, optical absorption, photoluminescence, and radioluminescence. These films are further tested for their application in radiography by recording X-ray images using a commercially available charge-coupled device camera. A resolution of 10 lp/mm is obtained using GGAG:PMMA composite film with 50% loading, confirming their application in imaging devices.
Electrical transport in three dimensional topological insulators (TIs) occurs through spin-momentum locked topological surface states that enclose an insulating bulk. In the presence of a magnetic ...field, surface states get quantized into Landau levels giving rise to chiral edge states that are naturally spin-polarized due to spin momentum locking. It has been proposed that p-n junctions of TIs exposed to external magnetic fields can manifest unique spin dependent effects, apart from forming basic building blocks for highly functional spintronic devices. Here, for the first time we study electrostatically defined n-p-n junctions of dual-gated devices of the three dimensional topological insulator BiSbTe1.25Se1.75 in the presence of a strong magnetic field, revealing striking signatures of suppressed or enhanced electrical transport depending upon the chirality of quantum Hall edge states created at the n-p and p-n junction interfaces. Theoretical modeling combining the electrostatics of the dual gated TI n-p-n junction with the Landauer Buttiker formalism for transport through a network of chiral edge states explains our experimental data. Our work not only opens up a route towards exotic spintronic devices but also provides a test bed for investigating the unique signatures of quantum Hall effects in topological insulators.
PDBe: Protein Data Bank in Europe Velankar, S; Alhroub, Y; Best, C ...
Nucleic acids research,
01/2012, Letnik:
40, Številka:
D1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The Protein Data Bank in Europe (PDBe; pdbe.org) is a partner in the Worldwide PDB organization (wwPDB; wwpdb.org) and as such actively involved in managing the single global archive of ...biomacromolecular structure data, the PDB. In addition, PDBe develops tools, services and resources to make structure-related data more accessible to the biomedical community. Here we describe recently developed, extended or improved services, including an animated structure-presentation widget (PDBportfolio), a widget to graphically display the coverage of any UniProt sequence in the PDB (UniPDB), chemistry- and taxonomy-based PDB-archive browsers (PDBeXplore), and a tool for interactive visualization of NMR structures, corresponding experimental data as well as validation and analysis results (Vivaldi).
Polypeptide polymer-grafted silica nanoparticles are of considerable interest because the ordered secondary structure of the polypeptide grafts imparts novel functional properties onto the ...nanoparticle composite. The synthesis of poly-l-lysine-grafted silica nanoparticles would be of particular interest because the high density of cationic charges on the surface could lead to many applications such as gene delivery and antimicrobial agents. In this work, we have developed a “grafting-to” approach using a combination of NCA polymerization and “click chemistry” to synthesize poly-l-lysine-grafted silica nanoparticles with a high graft density of 1 chain/nm2. The covalent attachment of poly-l-lysine to silica nanoparticles (PLL−silica) was confirmed using a variety of techniques such as 13C CP MAS NMR, TGA, and IR. This methodology was then extended to graft poly-l-lysine-b-poly-l-leucine copolymer (PLL-b-PLLeu−silica) and poly-l-benzylglutamate (PLBG−silica) onto silica nanoparticles. All of these polypeptide-grafted nanoparticles show interesting aggregation properties in solution. The efficacy of PLL−silica and PLL-b-PLLeu−silica as antimicrobial agents was tested on both gram-negative E. coli and gram-positive Bacillus subtilis.
BACKGROUND:Dobutamine stress echocardiography is widely used to test for ischemia in patients with stable coronary artery disease. In this analysis, we studied the ability of the prerandomization ...stress echocardiography score to predict the placebo-controlled efficacy of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) within the ORBITA trial (Objective Randomised Blinded Investigation With Optimal Medical Therapy of Angioplasty in Stable Angina).
METHODS:One hundred eighty-three patients underwent dobutamine stress echocardiography before randomization. The stress echocardiography score is broadly the number of segments abnormal at peak stress, with akinetic segments counting double and dyskinetic segments counting triple. The ability of prerandomization stress echocardiography to predict the placebo-controlled effect of PCI on response variables was tested by using regression modeling.
RESULTS:At prerandomization, the stress echocardiography score was 1.56±1.77 in the PCI arm (n=98) and 1.61±1.73 in the placebo arm (n=85). There was a detectable interaction between prerandomization stress echocardiography score and the effect of PCI on angina frequency score with a larger placebo-controlled effect in patients with the highest stress echocardiography score (Pinteraction=0.031). With our sample size, we were unable to detect an interaction between stress echocardiography score and any other patient-reported response variablesfreedom from angina (Pinteraction=0.116), physical limitation (Pinteraction=0.461), quality of life (Pinteraction=0.689), EuroQOL 5 quality-of-life score (Pinteraction=0.789), or between stress echocardiography score and physician-assessed Canadian Cardiovascular Society angina class (Pinteraction=0.693), and treadmill exercise time (Pinteraction=0.426).
CONCLUSIONS:The degree of ischemia assessed by dobutamine stress echocardiography predicts the placebo-controlled efficacy of PCI on patient-reported angina frequency. The greater the downstream stress echocardiography abnormality caused by a stenosis, the greater the reduction in symptoms from PCI.
CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION:URLhttps://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifierNCT02062593.
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