Epidermal growth factor receptor function is necessary for normal craniofacial development and palate closure.

Craniofacial malformations are among the most frequent congenital birth defects in humans; cleft palate, that is inadequate fusion of the palatal shelves, occurs with an annual incidence of 1 in 700 to 1 in 1,000 live births among individuals of European descent. The secondary palate arises as bilateral outgrowths from the maxillary processes, and its formation depends on the coordinated development of craniofacial structures including the Meckel's cartilage and the mandible. Cleft lip and palate syndromes in humans are associated with polymorphisms in the gene (TGFA) encoding transforming growth factor-alpha (TGF-alpha), an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) ligand made by most epithelia. Here we have characterized craniofacial development in Egfr-deficient (Egfr-/-) mice. Newborn Egfr-/- mice have facial mediolateral defects including narrow, elongated snouts, underdeveloped lower jaw and a high incidence of cleft palate. Palatal shelf explants from Egfr-/- mice fused, but frequently had residual epithelium in the midline. In addition, morphogenesis of Meckel's cartilage was deficient in cultured mandibular processes from Egfr-/- embryos. The secretion of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) was diminished in Egfr-/- explants, consistent with the ability of EGF to increase MMP secretion and with the decreased MMP expression caused by inhibition of Egfr signalling in wild-type explants. Accordingly, inactivation of MMPs in wild-type explants phenocopied the defective morphology of Meckel's cartilage seen in Egfr-/- explants. Our results indicate that EGFR signalling is necessary for normal craniofacial development and that its role is mediated in part by its downstream targets, the MMPs, and may explain the genetic correlation of human cleft palate with polymorphisms in TGFA.     

Relationship between prospective memory and vigilance: Evidence from ERP

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were used in this study to investigate the neural correlates of prospective memory (PM) and vigilance. Twenty college or graduate students participated in this study. They were administered a PM and a vigilance task and physiological data were collected at the same time. Behavioral results showed that the RT associated with PM cues was longer than those associated with vigilance targets. ERP results showed that PM cues and vigilance targets did not show significant difference in the N2 but PM cues evoked greater N300 than vigilance targets, and vigilance targets evoked greater parietal positivity/P3 than PM cues, suggesting vigilance and PM have similar but also distinctive neural basis.     

Calcium-mediated activation of PI3K and p53 leads to apoptosis in thyroid carcinoma cells

The molecular mechanism responsible for cadmium-induced cell death in thyroid cancer cells (FRO) is unknown. We demonstrated that apoptosis of FRO cells induced by cadmium was concentration and time dependent. Cadmium caused the rapid elevation of intracellular calcium and induced phosphorylation of Akt, p53, JNK, ERK and p38. Inhibition of PI3K/Akt attenuated the cadmium-induced apoptosis, but the inhibition of JNK inhibitor, ERK or p38 aggravated it, indicating that activation of PI3K/Akt was a pro-apoptosis signal in response to cadmium treatment, whereas the activation of stress-activated protein kinase JNK, ERK and p38 functioned as survival signals to counteract the cadmium-induced apoptosis. Buffering of the calcium response attenuated mitochondrial impairment, recovered the cadmium-activated Akt, p53, JNK, ERK and p38, and subsequently blocked the apoptosis. These results suggested that apoptosis induced by cadmium in FRO cells was initiated by the rapid elevation of intracellular calcium, followed by calcium-mediated activation of PI3K/Akt and mitochondrial impairment. Received 28 February 2007; received after revision 2 April 2007; accepted 23 April 2007     

Finite Groups with Character Degrees of Two Distinct Primes

0Introduction Characterdegreesoffinitegroupsandtheirsubgroupshavebeenrecentlystudied[16].Inthisnote,westudytherelationshipsbetweenthegroup theoreticalstructureofafinitegroupGandthearithmeticpropertyofthedegreesofthe irreduciblecharactersofG.Afundamentalfactisthatifafi nitegroupGhasanabeliannormalsubgroupA,thenthede greeofanyirreduciblecharacterofGdividesthequotientorder|G/A|;seeTheorem6.15ofRef.[2]andProperty24of Ref.[7].ForfinitesolvablegroupsG,It gaveapartialin verse.Heshownthatifthede…     

Application of Multimedia and Internet Technology in Learning Mould Design

With the use of multimedia which combines the use o f text, sound, images, motion video and animation, it is more efficient for studen ts to learn mould design interactively. A program is created using several multi media software to simulate the mechanism of moulding processes in order to let s tudents understand the concept of mould design. In addition, students can even access the program through the Internet. Therefore, the software is defined as Multimedia and Internet Technology (MIT) program. T...     

GPS radio occultation: A potential new data source for improvement of antarctic pressure field

Radio occultation technique, first demonstrated by the GPS/MET experiment in 1995[1], has the potential to provide improved spatial and temporal resolution in the probing of the Earth's neutral atmosphere, including pressure,temperature and water vapor profiles, in addition to traditional measurements (e.g.,radiosonde, spaceborne radiometers) and ground-based GPS networks for precipitable water vapor (PWV) measurements. This paper provides an overview of the radio occultation concept and retrieval procedure and current technical limitations including lower troposphere inhomogeneities, signal penetration, multipath, and water vapor ambiguity. The current limitations using atmospheric model pressure fields (ECMWF and NCEP) for the modeling of atmospheric mass load over Antarctica, for its separation from climate sensitive signals observed by gravity mapping satellite,GRACE, are quantified. Atmospheric pressure fields over Antarctica are poorly known and higher temporal variability of pressure causes an "aliasing" error in GRACE-observed climate-sensitive signals such as hydrology, mass balance and oceanic mass variations. In particular, comparison of ECMWF 6-hour data with the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) in Antarctica indicates mean differences of 5 hPa,and rms of 1.7 hPa, exceeding the accuracy requirement for GRACE. Aliasing effec tmanifests as high-frequency errors in GRACE-observed gravity signals and are more pronounced over Antarctica. The possibility of using current operating satellite(SAC-C, CHAMP and GRACE) occultation data to improve Antarctic surface pressure fields is proposed. Preliminary results indicate that in the absence of water vapor over Antarctica, retrieved CHAMP pressure profile agrees well with radiosonde data from Neumayer station, and that occultation signals reach near the surface.     

Neuronal filtering of multiplexed odour representations

Neuronal activity patterns contain information in their temporal structure, indicating that information transfer between neurons may be optimized by temporal filtering. In the zebrafish olfactory bulb, subsets of output neurons (mitral cells) engage in synchronized oscillations during odour responses, but information about odour identity is contained mostly in non-oscillatory firing rate patterns. Using optogenetic manipulations and odour stimulation, we found that firing rate responses of neurons in the posterior zone of the dorsal telencephalon (Dp), a target area homologous to olfactory cortex, were largely insensitive to oscillatory synchrony of mitral cells because passive membrane properties and synaptic currents act as low-pass filters. Nevertheless, synchrony influenced spike timing. Moreover, Dp neurons responded primarily during the decorrelated steady state of mitral cell activity patterns. Temporal filtering therefore tunes Dp neurons to components of mitral cell activity patterns that are particularly informative about precise odour identity. These results demonstrate how temporal filtering can extract specific information from multiplexed neuronal codes.