We report Lee-Yang zeros behavior at finite temperature and density. The quark number densities, 〈n〉, are calculated at the pure imaginary chemical potential iμqI, where no sign problem occurs. Then, ...the canonical partition functions, ZC(n,T,V), up to some maximal values of n are estimated through fitting theoretically motivated functions to 〈n〉, which are used to compute the Lee-Yang zeros. We study the temperature dependence of the distributions of the Lee-Yang zeros around the pseudo-critical temperature region T/Tc=0.84-1.35.
In the distributions of the Lee-Yang zeros, we observe the Roberge-Weiss phase transition at T/Tc≥1.20. We discuss the dependence of the behaviors of Lee-Yang zeros on the maximal value of n, so that we can estimate a reliable infinite volume limit.
l-Asparaginase (EC 3.5.1.1) is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of l-asparagine to l-aspartic acid. This enzyme has an important role in medicine and food. l-Asparaginase is a potential drug ...in cancer therapy. Furthermore, it is also applied for reducing acrylamide, a carcinogenic compound in baked and fried foods. Until now, approved l-asparaginases for both applications are few due to their lack of appropriate properties. As a result, researchers have been enthusiastically seeking new sources of enzyme with better performance. A great number of terrestrial l-asparaginase-producing microorganisms have been reported but unfortunately, almost all failed to meet criteria for cancer therapy and acrylamide reducing agent. As a largest area than Earth, marine environment, by contrast, has not been optimally explored yet. So far, a great challenge facing an exploration of marine microorganisms is mainly due to their harsh, mysterious, and dangerous environment. It is clear that marine environment, a gigantic potential source for marine natural products is scantily revealed, although several approaches and technologies have been developed. This chapter presents the historical of l-asparaginase discovery and applications. It is also discussed, how the marine environment, even though offering a great potency but is still one of the less explored area for l-asparaginase-producing microorganisms.
We simulate lattice QCD with two flavors of Wilson fermions at imaginary baryon chemical potential. Results for the baryon number density computed in the confining and deconfining phases at imaginary ...baryon chemical potential are used to determine the baryon number density and higher cumulants at the real chemical potential via analytical continuation.
In its leaf blade, Arundinella hirta has unusual Kranz cells that lie distant from the veins (distinctive cells; DCs), in addition to the usual Kranz units composed of concentric layers of mesophyll ...cells (MCs) and bundle sheath cells (BSCs; usual Kranz cells) surrounding the veins. We examined whether chlorophyllous organs other than leaf blades—namely, the leaf sheath, stem, scale leaf, and constituents of the spike—also have this unique anatomy and the C4 pattern of expression of photosynthetic enzymes. All the organs developed DCs to varying degrees, as well as BSCs. The stem, rachilla, and pedicel had C4-type anatomy with frequent occurrence of DCs, as in the leaf blade. The leaf sheath, glume, and scale leaf had a modified C4 anatomy with MCs more than two cells distant from the Kranz cells; DCs were relatively rare. An immunocytochemical study of C3 and C4 enzymes revealed that all the organs exhibited essentially the same C4 pattern of expression as in the leaf blade. In the scale leaf, however, intense expression of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) occurred in the MCs as well as in the BSCs and DCs. In the leaf sheath, the distant MCs also expressed Rubisco. In Arundinella hirta, it seems that the ratio of MC to Kranz cell volumes, and the distance from the Kranz cells, but not from the veins, affects the cellular expression of photosynthetic enzymes. We suggest that the main role of DCs is to keep a constant quantitative balance between the MCs and Kranz cells, which is a prerequisite for effective C4 pathway operation.
We examined the histopathological features of systemic vasculitis caused in mice by injection of a Candida albicans ( C. albicans) extract and investigated the principal genetic roles in the ...development of vasculitis.
C. albicans extract was injected intraperitoneally for five consecutive days in the 1st and 5th weeks to CD-1, C57BL/6N, C3H/HeN, BALB/cAnN, DBA/2N and CBA/JN mice. At week 8, mice were killed, and histological examination was performed by light microscopy.
Arteritis had developed in 66% of CD-1 mice. The extramural coronary arteries and aortic root close to the orifice of coronary arteries were most frequently involved. Histologically, the characteristic feature of the arteritis was proliferative and granulomatous inflammation accompanied by numerous macrophages, lymphocytes, plasma cells and neutrophils. Fibrocellular intimal thickening with destruction of the internal elastic lamina and media was also observed. Five mouse strains after injection of C. albicans extract were clearly classified into a resistant group (CBA/JN, DBA/2N and BALB/cAnN mice) and a sensitive group (C3H/HeN and C57BL/6N mice). The inbred mouse strains which showed the same histocompatibility-2 (H-2) haplotype exhibited a different susceptibility to development of vasculitis.
This arteritis murine model shows unique histological features that have not been observed in other animal vasculitis models and it most closely resembles Kawasaki disease in humans. The genetic control of susceptibility to induction of vasculitis by the C. albicans extract is dependent to the mouse strains, but is not linked to the H-2 loci.
The amino acid compositions of proteins from halophilic archaea were compared with those from non-halophilic mesophiles and thermophiles, in terms of the protein surface and interior, on a ...genome-wide scale. As we previously reported for proteins from thermophiles, a biased amino acid composition also exists in halophiles, in which an abundance of acidic residues was found on the protein surface as compared to the interior. This general feature did not seem to depend on the individual protein structures, but was applicable to all proteins encoded within the entire genome. Unique protein surface compositions are common in both halophiles and thermophiles. Statistical tests have shown that significant surface compositional differences exist among halophiles, non-halophiles, and thermophiles, while the interior composition within each of the three types of organisms does not significantly differ. Although thermophilic proteins have an almost equal abundance of both acidic and basic residues, a large excess of acidic residues in halophilic proteins seems to be compensated by fewer basic residues. Aspartic acid, lysine, asparagine, alanine, and threonine significantly contributed to the compositional differences of halophiles from meso- and thermophiles. Among them, however, only aspartic acid deviated largely from the expected amount estimated from the dinucleotide composition of the genomic DNA sequence of the halophile, which has an extremely high G+C content (68%). Thus, the other residues with large deviations (Lys, Ala, etc.) from their non-halophilic frequencies could have arisen merely as “dragging effects” caused by the compositional shift of the DNA, which would have changed to increase principally the fraction of aspartic acid alone.
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: It is well documented that C₄ grasses have a shorter distance between longitudinal veins in the leaves than C₃ grasses. In grass leaves, however, veins with different structures ...and functions are differentiated: large longitudinal veins, small longitudinal veins and transverse veins. Thus, the densities of the three types of vein in leaves of C₃ and C₄ grasses were investigated from a two-dimensional perspective. METHODS: Vein densities in cleared leaves of 15 C₃ and 26 C₄ grasses representing different taxonomic groups and photosynthetic subtypes were analysed. KEY RESULTS: The C₄ grasses had denser transverse veins and denser small longitudinal veins than the C₃ grasses (1·9 and 2·1 times in interveinal distance), but there was no significant difference in large longitudinal veins. The total length of the three vein types per unit area in the C₄ grasses was 2·1 times that in the C₃ grasses. The ratio of transverse vein length to total vein length was 14·3 % in C₃ grasses and 9·9 % in C₄ grasses. The C₃ grasses generally had greater species variation in the vascular distances than the C₄ grasses. The bambusoid and panicoid C₃ grasses tended to have a denser vascular system than the festucoid C₃ grasses. There were no significant differences in the interveinal distances of the three vein types between C₄ subtypes, although the NADP-malic enzyme grasses tended to have a shorter distance between small longitudinal veins than the NAD-malic enzyme and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase grasses. CONCLUSIONS: It seems that C₄ grasses have structurally a superior photosynthate translocation and water distribution system by developing denser networks of small longitudinal and transverse veins, while keeping a constant density of large longitudinal veins. The bambusoid and panicoid C₃ grasses have a vascular system that is more similar to that in C₄ grasses than to that in the festucoid C₃ grasses.
Effects of magnetic fields on breathing Wakayama, N.I.; Wakayama, M.; Nishiyasu, T.
IEEE transactions on applied superconductivity,
06/2004, Letnik:
14, Številka:
2
Journal Article, Conference Proceeding
Recenzirano
Since oxygen gas is paramagnetic and easily attracted by magnets, it may be possible to assist respiration using permanent magnets. To investigate the effects of magnetic fields on respirations, we ...measured the velocity of inhalation and exhalation in the presence and absence of permanent magnets. When a U-shaped permanent magnet of central magnetic field 0.7 T was set around the air intake, the averaged velocity of inhaled and exhaled flows increased by about 23% compared with that without a magnet. When a block of magnet was set on the nose, the averaged velocity increased by about 18%. Next, we measured the volume of ventilation (VE), the volume of oxygen intake, breathing frequency, and heart rate for trained young men group and untrained women group when a pair of permanent magnets was set near or inside the nostril, and compared the results with those of control measurements. The fluctuation of VE with time decreased or increased, depending on the strength of magnets and if tested persons were trained or not.
Aims
We have previously demonstrated that 18Ffluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) accumulation is increased in the right ventricular (RV) free wall of patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH), and that this ...accumulation is ameliorated after the treatment with epoprostenol associated with improvement of haemodynamic overload. The aim of this study was to examine whether enhanced RV FDG accumulation by gated positron emission tomography (PET) has a prognostic impact in patients with PH.
Methods and results
We examined the prognostic impact of the RV standardized uptake value (SUV) of FDG-PET corrected for the partial volume effect (cRV-SUV) in 27 patients with PH who underwent gated FDG-PET from March 2001 to June 2004. During the follow-up period of 69 ± 49 (mean ± SD) months, among the 27 patients, 15 showed clinical worsening (CW) and 11 died. FDG-PET examination showed that cRV-SUV was significantly higher in the CW group compared with the non-CW group (10.1 vs. 7.6, P = 0.02). Univariate Cox hazard analysis showed that cRV-SUV was significantly correlated with the time to CW (hazard ratio 1.25, 95% confidence interval 1.04–1.51, P = 0.02), which remained significant even after adjustment of World Health Organization functional class. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that the patients with cRV-SUV ≥8.3 had poor prognosis compared with those with cRV-SUV <8.3 (log-rank P = 0.005 for time to CW and P = 0.07 for mortality).
Conclusion
These results indicate that enhanced FDG accumulation in the RV free wall may be a novel prognostic factor in patients with PH.
A ciliated muconodular papillary tumor has been reported to be a peripheral low-grade malignant tumor, consisting of ciliated columnar cells and goblet cells with basaloid cell proliferation. ...Although ciliated muconodular papillary tumors have not yet been classified according to the World Health Organization classification, they can pose diagnostic and therapeutic problems. Here we report a resected case of ciliated muconodular papillary tumor with computed tomography findings reminiscent of adenocarcinoma, showing a small irregular nodule adjacent to the intersegment pulmonary vein. There was no uptake of F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography. The patient underwent surgical resection, and a lobectomy was performed because intraoperative needle biopsy suggested neoplastic proliferation. No EGFR mutations were detected. No recurrence was noted during 24-month follow-up after lobectomy.
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