Mitochondrial BNIP3 upregulation precedes endonuclease G translocation in hippocampal neuronal death following oxygen-glucose deprivation

Background  

Caspase-independent apoptotic pathways are suggested as a mechanism for the delayed neuronal death following ischemic insult. However, the underlying signalling mechanisms are largely unknown. Recent studies imply the involvement of several mitochondrial proteins, including endonuclease G (EndoG) and Bcl-2/adenovirus E1B 19 kDa-interacting protein (BNIP3), in the pathway of non-neuronal cells.     

Nuclear Uptake of Gold Nanoparticles Deduced Using Dual‐Angle X‐Ray Fluorescence Mapping

Studies into the cell nucleus' incorporation of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are often limited by ambiguities arising from conventional imaging techniques. Indeed, it is suggested that to date there is no unambiguous imaging evidence for such uptake in whole cells, particularly at the single nanoparticle level. This shortcoming in understanding exists despite the nucleus being the most important subcellular compartment in eukaryotes and gold being the most commonly used metal nanoparticle in medical applications. Here, dual‐angle X‐ray flouresence is used to show individually resolved nanoparticles within the cell nucleus, finding them to be well separated and 79% of the intranuclear population to be monodispersed. These findings have important implications for nanomedicine, illustrated here through a specific exemplar of the predicted enhancement of radiation effects arising from the observed AuNPs, finding intranuclear dose enhancements spanning nearly five orders of magnitude.     

Equality of the Spectral and Dynamical Definitions of Reflection

For full-line Jacobi matrices, Schrödinger operators, and CMV matrices, we show that being reflectionless, in the sense of the well-known property of m-functions, is equivalent to a lack of reflection in the dynamics in the sense that any state that goes entirely to x = ?∞ as t → ?∞ goes entirely to x = ∞ as t → ∞. This allows us to settle a conjecture of Deift and Simon from 1983 regarding ergodic Jacobi matrices.     

Sub-harmonic response from polymer-shelled contrast agents with a 40-MHz excitation

There is a growing interest in using acoustic contrast agents with high-frequency ultrasound (> 15 MHz) in order to better visualize microcirculation. Experiments were performed with polycaprolactone-shelled agents (POINT Biomedical, San Carlos, CA) having mean diameters of 0.56, 1.1, and 3.4 mum. The agents were heavily diluted in filtered water and injected through a 200 mum channel into the focal zone of a 40-MHz transducer that had a focal length of 12 mm and an outer diameter of 6 mm. Backscatter signals from single agents were digitized using tone bursts of 5 to 20 cycles at peak-negative pressures of 0.6 to 6.3 MPa. 1000 valid single-bubble backscatter events at each exposure condition were digitized and then analyzed for 20-MHz subharmonic content. The data showed that the subharmonic response was initiated between 5 and 10 cycles and the likelihood of a subharmonic event increased as the number of cycles increased. A subharmonic backscatter response was most likely at 3.9 MPa for the 3.4 mum agent and 1.7 MPa for the 0.56 and 1.1 mum agents. The increased pressure for subharmonic activity for larger agent was consistent with its larger size.     

Local structure theory: Calculation on hexagonal arrays,and interaction of rule and lattice

Local structure theory calculations⁷ are applied to the study of cellular automata on the two-dimensional hexagonal lattice. A particular hexagonal lattice rule denoted (3422) is considered in detail. This rule has many features in common with Conway'sLife. The local structure theory captures many of the statistical properties of this rule; this supports hypotheses raised by a study ofLife itself⁽⁶⁾. As inLife, the state of a cell under (3422) depends only on the state of the cell itself and the sum of states in its neighborhood at the previous time step. This property implies that evolution rules which operate in the same way can be studied on different lattices. The differences between the behavior of these rules on different lattices are dramatic. The mean field theory cannot reflect these differences. However, a generalization of the mean field theory, the local structure theory, does account for the rule-lattice interaction.     

Same-sign W pair production as a probe of double-parton scattering at the LHC

We study the production of same-sign W boson pairs at the LHC in double parton interactions. Compared with simple factorised double parton distributions (dPDFs), we show that the recently developed dPDFs, GS09, lead to non-trivial kinematic correlations between the W bosons. A numerical study of the prospects for observing this process using same-sign dilepton signatures, including W ^± W ^± jj, diboson and heavy flavour backgrounds, at 14 TeV centre-of-mass energy is then performed. It is shown that a small excess of same-sign dilepton events from double parton scattering over a background dominated by single scattering W ^± Z(γ ^*) production could be observed at the LHC.     

Rapid surface-to-volume ratio and tortuosity measurement using Difftrain

Analysis of diffusion measurements as a function of observation time (Delta), to calculate surface-to-volume ratios (S/V) and tortuosities (kappa), is a useful tool in the characterisation of porous media using NMR. However, using conventional pulsed field gradient (PFG) measurements, this requires long total experiment times (typically hours). Here, we show how the rapid diffusion measurement pulse sequence, Difftrain, can be used to provide the required experimental data much more rapidly (typically within minutes) with a consequential reduction in total experiment time of typically over an order of magnitude. Several novel modifications to the Difftrain pulse sequence are also presented to tailor it to this particular application; these include a variable delay between echoes (to ensure optimal echo position with respect to Delta) and a variable tip angle for the refocusing pulse (to ensure optimal use of available signal). Difftrain is applied to measure both S/V and kappa for a model glass bead pack; excellent agreement is found with both a conventional PFG measurement and with a bulk gravimetric measurement of S/V.     

Strong Photoluminescence Enhancement from Colloidal Quantum Dot Near Silver Nano-Island Films

We present the fabrication and optical investigation of highly random self-assembled, nano-scale films, probing their influence on the luminescence properties of near surface CdSe/ZnS colloidal quantum dots. When compared to quantum dots distributed on unstructured quartz substrates, the average luminescence intensity is found to be enhanced by a factor of 160×. The silver nanoparticles are prepared using slow thermal evaporation on quartz substrates and post-deposition annealing to produce a randomly-arranged layer of smooth nano-islands. Clear polarization dependent hot spots are observed. Such hot spots deliver a maximal enhancement of the emission intensity of 240× and have a spatial density of (0.050±0.002) μm^− 2. The results show that silver nano-island films strongly enhance the optical efficiency of near quantum dots emitters.     

Fermionization,Convergent Perturbation Theory,and Correlations in the Yang–Mills Quantum Field Theory in Four Dimensions

We show that the Yang–Mills quantum field theory with momentum and spacetime cutoffs in four Euclidean dimensions is equivalent, term by term in an appropriately resummed perturbation theory, to a Fermionic theory with nonlocal interaction terms. When a further momentum cutoff is imposed, this Fermionic theory has a convergent perturbation expansion. To zeroth order in this perturbation expansion, the correlation function E(x,y) of generic components of pairs of connections is given by an explicit, finite-dimensional integral formula, which we conjecture will behave as