Oliver Heaviside and the Heaviside layer.

In an entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1902, Oliver Heaviside had suggested the existence of a reflecting layer in the upper atmosphere to account for long range beyond line-of-sight radio propagation of the type demonstrated by Guglielmo Marconi in 1901, in the first transatlantic radio transmission. In about 1910, William Eccles proposed the name 'Heaviside Layer' for this phenomenon, and the name has subsequently been adopted and used quite widely. This paper describes the basis of Marconi's experiments and various interpretations of the results in the context of Heaviside's wider work. It also describes some later experiments to measure the height of the ionosphere.This article is part of the theme issue 'Celebrating 125 years of Oliver Heaviside's 'Electromagnetic Theory''.

Perfluorocarbons enhance a T2*-based MRI technique for identifying the penumbra in a rat model of acute ischemic stroke.

Accurate imaging of ischemic penumbra is crucial for improving the management of acute stroke patients. T2* magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) combined with a T2*oxygen challenge (T2*OC) is being developed to detect penumbra based on changes in blood deoxyhemoglobin. Using 100% O2, T2*OC-defined penumbra exhibits ongoing glucose metabolism and tissue recovery on reperfusion. However, potential limitations in translating this technique include a sinus artefact in human scans with delivery of 100% OC and relatively small signal changes. Here we investigate whether an oxygen-carrying perfluorocarbon (PFC) emulsion can enhance the sensitivity of the technique, enabling penumbra detection with lower levels of inspired oxygen. Stroke was induced in male Sprague-Dawley rats (n=17) with ischemic injury and perfusion deficit determined by diffusion and perfusion MRI, respectively. T2* signal change was measured in regions of interest (ROIs) located within ischemic core, T2*OC-defined penumbra and equivalent contralateral areas during 40% O2±prior PFC injection. Region of interest analyses between groups showed that PFC significantly enhanced the T2* response to 40% O2 in T2*-defined penumbra (mean increase of 10.6±2.3% compared to 5.6±1.5% with 40% O2, P<0.001). This enhancement was specific to the penumbra ROI. Perfluorocarbon emulsions therefore enhances the translational potential of the T2*OC technique for identifying penumbra in acute stroke patients.

Liaison psychiatry and the interface between mental and physical health - perspectives from England.

There has been increasing policy interest in the interface between mental and physical health in recent years. One of the key objectives of the current Cross-Government Mental Health Strategy (for England) is to improve the physical health of those who suffer from mental illness. In parallel, people who suffer from long-term physical conditions have very high rates of comorbid mental ill-health, which are associated with worse outcomes, can delay recovery and can lead to longer hospital stays. Therefore there are opportunities for liaison psychiatry to do its part in helping our healthcare systems to deliver better outcomes in an economically challenging environment.

Cooperative regulation of myosin-S1 binding to actin filaments by a continuous flexible Tm-Tn chain.

The regulation of striated muscle contraction involves cooperative interactions between actin filaments, myosin-S1 (S1), tropomyosin (Tm), troponin (Tn), and calcium. These interactions are modeled by treating overlapping tropomyosins as a continuous flexible chain (CFC), weakly confined by electrostatic interactions with actin. The CFC is displaced locally in opposite directions on the actin surface by the binding of either S1 or Troponin I (TnI) to actin. The apparent rate constants for myosin and TnI binding to and detachment from actin are then intrinsically coupled via the CFC model to the presence of neighboring bound S1s and TnIs. Monte Carlo simulations at prescribed values of the CFC stiffness, the CFC's degree of azimuthal confinement, and the angular displacements caused by the bound proteins were able to predict the stopped-flow transients of S1 binding to regulated F-actin. The transients collected over a large range of calcium concentrations could be well described by adjusting a single calcium-dependent parameter, the rate constant of TnI detachment from actin, k(-I). The resulting equilibrium constant K(B) ≡ 1/K(I) varied sigmoidally with the free calcium, increasing from 0.12 at low calcium (pCa >7) to 12 at high calcium (pCa <5.5) with a Hill coefficient of ~2.15. The similarity of the curves for excess-actin and excess-myosin data confirms their allosteric relationship. The spatially explicit calculations confirmed variable sizes for the cooperative units and clustering of bound myosins at low calcium concentrations. Moreover, inclusion of negative cooperativity between myosin units predicted the observed slowing of myosin binding at excess-myosin concentrations.

Cooperative [Ca²+]-dependent regulation of the rate of myosin binding to actin: solution data and the tropomyosin chain model.

The regulation of muscle contraction by calcium involves interactions among actin filaments, myosin-S1, tropomyosin (Tm), and troponin (Tn). We have extended our previous model in which the TmTn regulatory units are treated as a continuous flexible chain, and applied it to transient kinetic data. We have measured the time course of myosin-S1 binding to actin-Tm-Tn filaments in solution at various calcium levels with [actin]/[myosin] ratios of 10 and 0.1, which exhibit modest slowing as [Ca(2+)] is reduced and a lag phase at low calcium. These observations can be explained if myosin binds to actin in two steps, where the first step is rate-limiting and blocked by TmTnI at low calcium, and the second step is fast, reversible, and controlled by the neighboring configuration of coupled tropomyosin-troponin units. The model can describe the calcium dependence of the observed myosin binding reactions and predicts cooperative calcium binding to TnC with competition between actin and Ca-TnC for the binding of TnI. Implications for theories of thin-filament regulation in muscle are discussed.