MeCP2 regulates the timing of critical period plasticity that shapes functional connectivity in primary visual cortex

Mutations in methyl-CpG-binding protein 2 (MeCP2) cause Rett syndrome, an autism spectrum-associated disorder with a host of neurological and sensory symptoms, but the pathogenic mechanisms remain elusive. Neuronal circuits are shaped by experience during critical periods of heightened plasticity. The maturation of cortical GABA inhibitory circuitry, the parvalbumin+ (PV+) fast-spiking interneurons in particular, is a key component that regulates the initiation and termination of the critical period. Using MeCP2-null mice, we examined experience-dependent development of neural circuits in the primary visual cortex. The functional maturation of parvalbumin interneurons was accelerated upon vision onset, as indicated by elevated GABA synthetic enzymes, vesicular GABA transporter, perineuronal nets, and enhanced GABA transmission among PV interneurons. These changes correlated with a precocious onset and closure of critical period and deficient binocular visual function in mature animals. Reduction of GAD67 expression rescued the precocious opening of the critical period, suggesting its major role in MECP2-mediated regulation of experience-driven circuit development. Our results identify molecular changes in a defined cortical cell type and link aberrant developmental trajectory to functional deficits in a model of neuropsychiatric disorder

Precise determination of stellar parameters of the ZZ Ceti and DAZ white dwarf GD 133 through asteroseismology

An increasing number of white dwarf stars show atmospheric chemical composition polluted by heavy elements accreted from debris disk material. The existence of such debris disks strongly suggests the presence of one or more planet(s) whose gravitational interaction with rocky planetesimals is responsible for their disruption by tidal effect. The ZZ Ceti pulsator and polluted DAZ white dwarf GD 133 is a good candidate for searching for such a potential planet. We started in 2011 a photometric follow-up of its pulsations. As a result of this work in progress, we used the data gathered from 2011 to 2015 to make an asteroseismological analysis of GD 133, providing the star parameters from a best fit model with $M$/$M_{\odot}$ = 0.630 $\pm$ 0.002, $T_{\rm eff}$ = 12400 K $\pm$ 70 K, log($M_{\rm He}/M$) = -2.00 $\pm$ 0.02, log($M_{\rm H}/M$) = -4.50 $\pm$ 0.02 and determining a rotation period of $\approx$ 7 days.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, accepted by MNRA

Linearized Gravity in Isotropic Coordinates in the Brane World

We solve the Einstein equations in the Randall-Sundrum framework using an isotropic ansatz for the metric and obtain an exact expression to first order in the gravitational coupling. The solution is free from metric singularities away from the source and it satisfies the Israel matching condition on a straight brane. At distances far away from the source and on the physical brane this solution coincides with the 4-D Schwarzschild metric in isotropic coordinates. Furthermore we show that the extension of the standard Schwarzschild horizon in the bulk is tubular for any diagonal form of the metric while there is no restriction for the extension of the Schwarzschild horizon in isotropic coordinates.Comment: 13 pages, plain Te

Microwave assisted heterogeneous catalysis: effects of varying oxygen concentrations on the oxidative coupling of methane

The oxidative coupling of methane was investigated over alumina supported La2O3/CeO2 catalysts under microwave dielectric heating conditions at different oxygen concentrations. It was observed that, at a given temperature using microwave heating, selectivities for both ethane and ethylene were notably higher when oxygen was absent than that in oxygen/methane mixtures. The differences were attributed to the localised heating of microwave radiation resulting in temperature inhomogeneity in the catalyst bed. A simplified model was used to estimate the temperature inhomogeneity; the temperature at the centre of the catalyst bed was 85 °C greater than that at the periphery when the catalyst was heated by microwaves in a gas mixture with an oxygen concentration of 12.5% (v/v), and the temperature difference was estimated to be 168 °C in the absence of oxygen

Charged lepton electric dipole moments with the localized leptons and the new Higgs doublet in the two Higgs doublet model

We study the lepton electric dipole moments in the split fermion scenario, in the two Higgs doublet model, where the new Higgs scalars are localized around the origin in the extra dimension, with the help of the localizer field. We observe that the numerical value of the electron (muon, tau) electric dipole moment is at the order of the magnitude of 10^{-31} (10^{-24}, 10^{-22}) (e-cm) and this quantity is sensitive the new Higgs localization in the extra dimension.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure

Resource Allocation for Semantic-Aware Mobile Edge Computing Systems

In this paper, a semantic-aware joint communication and computation resource allocation framework is proposed for mobile edge computing (MEC) systems. In the considered system, each terminal device (TD) has a computation task, which needs to be executed by offloading to the MEC server. To further decrease the transmission burden, each TD sends the small-size extracted semantic information of tasks to the server instead of the large-size raw data. An optimization problem of joint semantic-aware division factor, communication and computation resource management is formulated. The problem aims to minimize the maximum execution delay of all TDs while satisfying energy consumption constraints. The original non-convex problem is transformed into a convex one based on the geometric programming and the optimal solution is obtained by the alternating optimization algorithm. Moreover, the closed-form optimal solution of the semantic extraction factor is derived. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm yields up to 37.10% delay reduction compared with the benchmark algorithm without semantic-aware allocation. Furthermore, small semantic extraction factors are preferred in the case of large task sizes and poor channel conditions

Joint Deployment and Resource Management for VLC-enabled RISs-assisted UAV Networks

In this paper, the problem of the deployment and resource management for visible light communication (VLC)-enabled, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs)-assisted unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks is investigated. In the considered model, UAVs provide terrestrial users with wireless services and illumination simultaneously. Moreover, RISs are utilized to further improve the channel quality between UAVs and users. This joint placement and resource management problem is constructed aiming at acquiring the optimal UAV deployment, RISs phase shift, user and RIS association that satisfies the users’ needs with minimum consumption of the UAVs’ energy. An iterative algorithm that alternately optimizes continuous and binary variables is proposed to solve this mixed-integer programming problem. Specifically, RISs phase shift optimization is solved by phases alignment method and semidefinite program algorithm. Next, the successive convex approximation algorithm is proposed to settle the UAV deployment problem. The user and RIS association variables are relaxed to the continuous ones before adopting the dual method to find the optimal solution. Moreover, a greedy algorithm is proposed as an alternative to RIS association optimization with low complexity. Simulation results show that the proposed two schemes harvest the superior performance of 34.85% and 32.11% energy consumption reduction over the case without RIS, respectively