670 research outputs found
Effects of dietary diludine supplementation on growth, proximate composition, muscle and texture structure of rainbow trout juveniles
A feeding trial which lasted for eight weeks was conducted to investigate the effects of diludine, a growth promoter, on feed efficiency, muscle structure and proximate composition of juvenile rainbow trout. Diludine was added at 0.0(D0) 0.2(D1), 0.5(D2) and 1(D3) g kg^-1 to a casein-based diet, and every diet was given to the triplicated groups of juvenile rainbow trout. At the end of experiment, it was determined that a significant improvability existed for both growth and feed utilization in fish fed diets supplemented with diludine (p<0.05). Similarly, different concentrations of diludine affected the densitometric quantification of myofibrillar proteins in fish muscle according to results obtained by Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). The mean value of fiber diameters significantly increased in skeletal muscle with increasing concentrations of diludine. The histological results also showed hypertrophic adipocytes in skeletal muscle of fish fed D2 and D3 diets. The lowest elasticity values were observed in fish fed the control diet while those fed D3 diet had highest elasticity values. On the other hand, no differences were found between fish fed experimental diets in terms of survival rate and all fish exhibited similar proximate composition for protein, lipid, moisture and ash. Consequently, it may be suggested that dietary diludine supplementation up to 1 g kg^-1 concentration in the diets have positive impacts on growth of rainbow trout juveniles and the better growth in the fish fed with diludine supplements could be arise from muscle characteristics, in particular changes in fibres than proximate composition of the muscles
Electromagnetically Induced Transparency and Slow Light with Optomechanics
Controlling the interaction between localized optical and mechanical
excitations has recently become possible following advances in micro- and
nano-fabrication techniques. To date, most experimental studies of
optomechanics have focused on measurement and control of the mechanical
subsystem through its interaction with optics, and have led to the experimental
demonstration of dynamical back-action cooling and optical rigidity of the
mechanical system. Conversely, the optical response of these systems is also
modified in the presence of mechanical interactions, leading to strong
nonlinear effects such as Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) and
parametric normal-mode splitting. In atomic systems, seminal experiments and
proposals to slow and stop the propagation of light, and their applicability to
modern optical networks, and future quantum networks, have thrust EIT to the
forefront of experimental study during the last two decades. In a similar
fashion, here we use the optomechanical nonlinearity to control the velocity of
light via engineered photon-phonon interactions. Our results demonstrate EIT
and tunable optical delays in a nanoscale optomechanical crystal device,
fabricated by simply etching holes into a thin film of silicon (Si). At low
temperature (8.7 K), we show an optically-tunable delay of 50 ns with
near-unity optical transparency, and superluminal light with a 1.4 microseconds
signal advance. These results, while indicating significant progress towards an
integrated quantum optomechanical memory, are also relevant to classical signal
processing applications. Measurements at room temperature and in the analogous
regime of Electromagnetically Induced Absorption (EIA) show the utility of
these chip-scale optomechanical systems for optical buffering, amplification,
and filtering of microwave-over-optical signals.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure
Observation of exclusive DVCS in polarized electron beam asymmetry measurements
We report the first results of the beam spin asymmetry measured in the
reaction e + p -> e + p + gamma at a beam energy of 4.25 GeV. A large asymmetry
with a sin(phi) modulation is observed, as predicted for the interference term
of Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering and the Bethe-Heitler process. The
amplitude of this modulation is alpha = 0.202 +/- 0.028. In leading-order and
leading-twist pQCD, the alpha is directly proportional to the imaginary part of
the DVCS amplitude.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Synchronous Symmetry Breaking in Neurons with Different Neurite Counts
As neurons develop, several immature processes (i.e., neurites) grow out of the cell body. Over time, each neuron breaks symmetry when only one of its neurites grows much longer than the rest, becoming an axon. This symmetry breaking is an important step in neurodevelopment, and aberrant symmetry breaking is associated with several neuropsychiatric diseases, including schizophrenia and autism. However, the effects of neurite count in neuronal symmetry breaking have never been studied. Existing models for neuronal polarization disagree: some predict that neurons with more neurites polarize up to several days later than neurons with fewer neurites, while others predict that neurons with different neurite counts polarize synchronously. We experimentally find that neurons with different neurite counts polarize synchronously. We also show that despite the significant differences among the previously proposed models, they all agree with our experimental findings when the expression levels of the proteins responsible for symmetry breaking increase with neurite count. Consistent with these results, we observe that the expression levels of two of these proteins, HRas and shootin1, significantly correlate with neurite count. This coordinated symmetry breaking we observed among neurons with different neurite counts may be important for synchronized polarization of neurons in developing organisms
Tisagenlecleucel in children and young adults with B-cell lymphoblastic leukemia
BACKGROUND: In a single-center phase 1-2a study, the anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy tisagenlecleucel produced high rates of complete remission and was associated with serious but mainly reversible toxic effects in children and young adults with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
METHODS: We conducted a phase 2, single-cohort, 25-center, global study of tisagenlecleucel in pediatric and young adult patients with CD19+ relapsed or refractory B-cell ALL. The primary end point was the overall remission rate (the rate of complete remission or complete remission with incomplete hematologic recovery) within 3 months.
RESULTS: For this planned analysis, 75 patients received an infusion of tisagenlecleucel and could be evaluated for efficacy. The overall remission rate within 3 months was 81%, with all patients who had a response to treatment found to be negative for minimal residual disease, as assessed by means of flow cytometry. The rates of event-free survival and overall survival were 73% (95% confidence interval [CI], 60 to 82) and 90% (95% CI, 81 to 95), respectively, at 6 months and 50% (95% CI, 35 to 64) and 76% (95% CI, 63 to 86) at 12 months. The median duration of remission was not reached. Persistence of tisagenlecleucel in the blood was observed for as long as 20 months. Grade 3 or 4 adverse events that were suspected to be related to tisagenlecleucel occurred in 73% of patients. The cytokine release syndrome occurred in 77% of patients, 48% of whom received tocilizumab. Neurologic events occurred in 40% of patients and were managed with supportive care, and no cerebral edema was reported.
CONCLUSIONS: In this global study of CAR T-cell therapy, a single infusion of tisagenlecleucel provided durable remission with long-term persistence in pediatric and young adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell ALL, with transient high-grade toxic effects. (Funded by Novartis Pharmaceuticals; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02435849.
The green biorefinery concept for the valorisation of pistachio shell by high-pressure CO2/H2O system
ABSTRACT: The use of high-pressure CO2/H2O in valorisation of pistachio shell to produce hemicellulose-derived, oligomeric and monomeric sugars and their further transformation to furfural as well as enzymatic transformation of cellulose-rich solids is presented in this work. Different pre-treatment conditions i.e. temperature ranged from 160 to 200 degrees C; reaction time varied between 0 and 30 min and liquid to solid mass ratio between 4 and 8 with constant initial pressure of CO2 of 50 bars were examined. At the optimal pre-treatment conditions, the concentrations of xylose and xylo-oligosaccharide were of 1.7 and 35.5 g/L. Furthermore, this work demonstrates the high-pressure CO2 catalysed production of furfural in an aqueous/tetrahydrofuran system. For model solution containing a mixture of xylose and acetic acid, the optimised furfural yield was as high as 53.3 mol%, while for real sample of hemicellulose hydrolysate, the furfural yield of 39.6 mol% and the selectivity of 40.0 mol% were obtained. Additionally, quantitative glucan to glucose conversion by enzymatic hydrolysis of pre-treated cellulose-rich biomasses was achieved.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Distal junctional kyphosis in patients with Scheuermann’s disease: a retrospective radiographic analysis
Purpose
To investigate the relationship between preoperative and postoperative spinopelvic alignment and occurrence of DJK/DJF.
Study design/setting
This was a retrospective observational cohort study.
Patient sample
The sample included 40 patients who underwent posterior correction of SK from January 2006 to December 2014.
Outcome measures
Correlation analysis between the preoperative and postoperative spinopelvic alignment parameters and development of DJK over the course of the study period were studied.
Methods
Whole spine X-rays obtained before surgery, 3 months after surgery and at the latest follow-up were analyzed. The following parameters were measured: maximum of thoracic kyphosis (TK), lumbar lordosis (LL), sagittal vertical axis (SVA), pelvic incidence (PI), pelvic tilt (PT), sacral slope (SS), lower instrumented vertebra (LIV) and LIV plumb line. Development of DJK was considered as the primary end point of the study. The patient population was split into a control and DJK group, with 34 patients and 6 patients, respectively. Statistic analysis was performed using unpaired t test for normal contribution and Mann–Whitney test for skew distributed values. The significance level was set to 0.05.
Results
DJK occurred in 15% (n = 6) over the study period. There was a significantly lower postoperative TK for the group with DJK (42.4 ± 5.3 vs 49.8 ± 6.7, p = 0.015). LIV plumb line showed higher negative values in the DJK group (−43.6 ± 25.1 vs −2.2 ± 17.8, p = 0.0435). Furthermore, postoperative LL changes were lower for the DJK group (33.84 ± 13.86% vs 31.77 ± 14.05, p < 0.0001.) The age of the patients who developed DJK was also significantly lower than that of the control group (16.8 ± 1.7 vs 19.6 ± 4.9, p = 0.0024.)
Conclusions
SK patients who developed DJK appeared to have a significantly higher degree of TK correction and more negative LIV plumb line. In addition, there may be a higher risk for DJK in patients undergoing corrective surgery at a younger age
Photonic transistor and router using a single quantum-dotconfined spin in a single-sided optical microcavity
The future Internet is very likely the mixture of all-optical Internet with low power consumption and quantum Internet with absolute security guaranteed by the laws of quantum mechanics. Photons would be used for processing, routing and com-munication of data, and photonic transistor using a weak light to control a strong light is the core component as an optical analogue to the electronic transistor that forms the basis of modern electronics. In sharp contrast to previous all-optical tran-sistors which are all based on optical nonlinearities, here I introduce a novel design for a high-gain and high-speed (up to terahertz) photonic transistor and its counterpart in the quantum limit, i.e., single-photon transistor based on a linear optical effect: giant Faraday rotation induced by a single electronic spin in a single-sided optical microcavity. A single-photon or classical optical pulse as the gate sets the spin state via projective measurement and controls the polarization of a strong light to open/block the photonic channel. Due to the duality as quantum gate for quantum information processing and transistor for optical information processing, this versatile spin-cavity quantum transistor provides a solid-state platform ideal for all-optical networks and quantum networks
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