1. The voluntary discharge characteristics, short term synchronization, coherence and responses to transcranial magnetic stimulation
of a sample of twenty-two pairs of simultaneously recorded low ...threshold motor units in the right human first dorsal interosseus
muscle have been determined. 2. Peristimulus time histograms and cumulative sums (cusums) of motor unit discharge showed either
excitatory or inhibitory responses to cortical stimuli. Over the whole motor unit sample, the primary excitatory response
had a mean onset of 24.6 ms and the inhibitory response a mean onset of 31.0 ms. Responses of pairs of motor units to magnetic
stimulation could be dissimilar; at some stimulus intensities one of the motor unit pair could be excited by the stimulus
whilst the other was inhibited. 3. Most pairs of motor units showed short term synchrony in their voluntary discharge, but
the same motor units driven by magnetic cortical stimuli showed little tendency to discharge together more frequently than
would be predicted from their independent behaviour. This held true for discharges in both the early primary excitatory peak
and in the later secondary peak in peristimulus time histograms. 4. Series of magnetic stimuli, causing either excitation
or inhibition of individual tonically active motor units, had no effect on the size of the central peak of the cross-correlogram
of the motor unit pair. However, frequency analysis of pairs of motor unit spike trains showed an increase in coherence in
the 16-32 Hz band during magnetic stimulation. 5. It is concluded that, whilst many corticospinal fibres branch extensively
within motoneurone pools, there are also fast conducting corticomotoneuronal fibres allowing the independent monosynaptic
activation of individual motoneurones. 6. It is also suggested that during sustained voluntary tonic activity, magnetic stimuli
applied to the brain can increase the synchrony in common input fibres to pairs of motoneurones.
A photomultiplier setup for precise relative CsI(Tl) crystal light yield and uniformity measurements is described. It is used for wrapping material studies to optimize the uniformity and the yield of ...the light output of 36
cm long crystals. The uniformity is an important property in high energy photon calorimetry. Results of an optimization of photodiode coupling to crystals, the influence of temperature and radiation damage to light and photoelectron yield are also presented.
Magnetic stimuli delivered over the scalp can cause single motor units to discharge in intrinsic hand muscles. The discharge characteristics of 26 tonically active, low threshold single motor units ...in the first dorsal interosseous muscle of 13 healthy subjects and of 21 motor units in 9 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) were studied. Up to 500 transcranial magnetic stimuli were delivered at the vertex and were given randomly with respect to, or at a fixed delay after, the previous voluntary discharge. Peristimulus time histograms (PSTHs) of motor unit discharges were constructed. In healthy subjects, two periods of increased firing probability were seen at onset latencies of 20-31 ms and 56-90 ms after the stimulus. These periods have been termed the primary peak and the secondary peak. The primary peak had a mean duration of 4.6 ms and was found to be multimodal in 17 motor units. Subpeaks had intermodal intervals of between 0.6 and 2.4 ms. Subpeaks probably result from a sequence of excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) induced at the motoneuron by corticospinal impulses. In patients with MS, the primary peak could be absent, delayed in onset, of increased duration without discernible subpeaks, or showing increased intermodal intervals between subpeaks. In 3 motor units from patients with MS, PSTHs with normal features were found. It is postulated from this study of the corticospinal inputs to single motoneurons that motor impairment in MS can be due to a number of mechanisms including slowed conduction in corticospinal fibres, dispersion of arrival times of corticospinal impulses at spinal motoneurons and conduction block in corticospinal fibres, which may be frequency dependent.
Quasi‐geostrophic theory forms the basis for much of our understanding of mid‐latitude atmospheric dynamics. The theory is typically presented in either its f‐plane form or its β‐plane form. However, ...for many applications, including diagnostic use in global climate modeling, a fully spherical version would be most useful. Such a global theory does in fact exist and has for many years, but few in the scientific community seem to have ever been aware of it. In the context of shallow water dynamics, it is shown that the spherical version of quasigeostrophic theory is easily derived (re‐derived) based on a partitioning of the flow between nondivergent and irrotational components, as opposed to a partitioning between geostrophic and ageostrophic components. In this way, the invertibility principle is expressed as a relation between the streamfunction and the potential vorticity, rather than between the geopotential and the potential vorticity. This global theory is then extended by showing that the invertibility principle can be solved analytically using spheroidal harmonic transforms, an advancement that greatly improves the usefulness of this “forgotten” theory. When the governing equation for the time evolution of the potential vorticity is linearized about a state of rest, a simple Rossby‐Haurwitz wave dispersion relation is derived and examined. These waves have a horizontal structure described by spheroidal harmonics, and the Rossby‐Haurwitz wave frequencies are given in terms of the eigenvalues of the spheroidal harmonic operator. Except for sectoral harmonics with low zonal wavenumber, the quasi‐geostrophic Rossby‐Haurwitz frequencies agree very well with those calculated from the primitive equations. One of the many possible applications of spherical quasi‐geostrophic theory is to the study of quasi‐geostrophic turbulence on the sphere. In this context, the theory is used to derive an anisotropic Rhines barrier in three‐dimensional wavenumber space.
A cDNA clone encoding a putative protein disulfide isomerase (PDI, EC 5.3.4.1) from alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) was expressed in Escherichia coli cells, and an antiserum was raised against the ...expressed PDI-active protein. The antiserum recognized a protein of approximately 60 kD in extracts from alfalfa, soybean, and tobacco roots and stems. Levels of this protein remained relatively constant on exposure of alfalfa cell suspension cultures to the protein glycosylation inhibitor tunicamycin, whereas a slightly lower molecular mass form, also detected by the antiserum, was induced by this treatment. A lower molecular mass form of PDI was also observed in roots of alfalfa seedlings during the first 5 weeks after germination. PDI levels increased in developing soybean seeds up to 17 d after fertilization and then declined. Tissue print immunoblots revealed highest levels of PDI protein in the cambial tissues of soybean stems and petioles and in epidermal, subepidermal, cortical, and pith tissues of stems of alfalfa and tobacco. Immunogold electron microscopy confirmed the localization of PDI to the endoplasmic reticulum in soybean root nodules
GRAVITY+ is the upgrade of GRAVITY and the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) with wide-separation fringe tracking, new adaptive optics, and laser guide stars on all four 8~m Unit Telescopes ...(UTs), for ever fainter, all-sky, high contrast, milliarcsecond interferometry. Here we present the design and first results of the first phase of GRAVITY+, called GRAVITY Wide. GRAVITY Wide combines the dual-beam capabilities of the VLTI and the GRAVITY instrument to increase the maximum separation between the science target and the reference star from 2 arcseconds with the 8 m UTs up to several 10 arcseconds, limited only by the Earth's turbulent atmosphere. This increases the sky-coverage of GRAVITY by two orders of magnitude, opening up milliarcsecond resolution observations of faint objects, and in particular the extragalactic sky. The first observations in 2019 - 2022 include first infrared interferometry of two redshift \(z\sim2\) quasars, interferometric imaging on the binary system HD 105913A, and repeated observations of multiple star systems in the Orion Trapezium Cluster. We find the coherence loss between the science object and fringe-tracking reference star well described by the turbulence of the Earth's atmosphere. We confirm that the larger apertures of the UTs result in higher visibilities for a given separation due to larger overlap of the projected pupils on sky and give predictions for visibility loss as a function of separation to be used for future planning.
Central Great Plains precipitation deficits during May–August 2012 were the most severe since at least 1895, eclipsing the Dust Bowl summers of 1934 and 1936. Drought developed suddenly in May, ...following near-normal precipitation during winter and early spring. Its proximate causes were a reduction in atmospheric moisture transport into the Great Plains from the Gulf of Mexico. Processes that generally provide air mass lift and condensation were mostly absent, including a lack of frontal cyclones in late spring followed by suppressed deep convection in the summer owing to large-scale subsidence and atmospheric stabilization.
Seasonal forecasts did not predict the summer 2012 central Great Plains drought development, which therefore arrived without early warning. Climate simulations and empirical analysis suggest that ocean surface temperatures together with changes in greenhouse gases did not induce a substantial reduction in sum mertime precipitation over the central Great Plains during 2012. Yet, diagnosis of the retrospective climate simulations also reveals a regime shift toward warmer and drier summertime Great Plains conditions during the recent decade, most probably due to natural decadal variability. As a consequence, the probability of the severe summer Great Plains drought occurring may have increased in the last decade compared to the 1980s and 1990s, and the so-called tail risk for severe drought may have been heightened in summer 2012. Such an extreme drought event was nonetheless still found to be a rare occurrence within the spread of 2012 climate model simulations. The implications of this study's findings for U.S. seasonal drought forecasting are discussed.
An asymptomatic woman (age 38 years) with a family history of ovarian malignancies was referred for presymptomatic genetic testing of mutations in the BRCA genes. A familial Swyer syndrome with the ...occurrence of dysgerminomas is the most likely diagnosis. However, in our case, all known causes of this heterogeneous disorder have been excluded pointing to the existence of another yet unknown genetic locus. The family history revealed three affected paternal aunts. Two of them developed ovarian malignancies at 13 and 15 years of age, and died at ages 19 and 20. The third aunt, 82 years old, was affected by this disease at the age of 35. She underwent hormonal treatment for 3 years starting at the age of 15 because of primary amenorrhea. Under this treatment she developed nearly complete secondary sexual characteristics. Karyotype analysis revealed a normal male karyotype (46 XY, QFQ). Pelvic ultrasound showed an uterus of normal size, incompatible with an androgen resistance syndrome or a defect in testosterone biosynthesis. We excluded a mutation in the sex-determining region on chromosome Y (SRY) by direct sequencing of the SRY gene. An involvement of the subtelomeric region of chromosome 9p (9p 24.3) recently reported to be involved in XY-sex reversal phenotypes was excluded by molecular testing for loss of heterozygosity as well as fluorescence in situ hybridization studies. Analyses of the DAX1 gene in the dosage sensitive sex reversal locus on chromosome Xp21 by Southern blot analysis showed no duplications.
Caffeic acid 3-O-methyltransferase (COMT) and caffeoyl CoA 3-O-methyltransferase (CCOMT) catalyze parallel reactions that are believed to be involved in the biosynthesis of lignin monomers. Antisera ...specific for alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) COMT or CCOMT were raised against the enzymes expressed inEscherichia coli, and were used for immunolocalization studies in lignifying alfalfa stem tissue. Both COMT and CCOMT were localized to xylem parenchyma cells, as assessed by light microscopy and immunocytochemistry. Electron microscopy revealed that both enzymes were located in the cytoplasm of xylem parenchyma cells, and to a lesser extent, in the cytoplasm of phloem cells. There was no significant difference in the localization pattern of COMT and CCOMT, suggesting that the two enzymes may be part of a metabolic grid leading to production of lignin monomers in lignifying tissue of mature alfalfa stem internodes.
Picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) contain very large amounts of computed tomography (CT) data. When querying a PACS for a particular series, the user is often not interested in the ...complete series but in a certain region of interest (ROI), described e.g. by an example view in another series or an anatomical concept.
Restricting a retrieval query to such an ROI saves both loading time and navigational effort. In this paper, we propose an efficient method for defining and retrieving ROIs.
We employ interpolation and regression techniques for mapping the slices of a series to a newly generated standardized height atlas of the human body.
Examinations of the accuracy and the saved input/output (I/O) costs of our new method on a repository of 1,360 CT series demonstrate the advantages of our system. Depending on the scope of the retrieval query, we can economize up to 99% of the total loading time.
Our proposed method for flexible, context-based, partial image retrieval enables the user to directly focus on the relevant portion of the image material and it targets the high potential of I/O cost reduction of a common PACS.
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