A Simple Method for the Optimal Transportation

In this paper we will give a new proof of the monotonicity of Wasserstein distances of two diffusions under super Ricci flow. Our proof is based on the coupling method of B.Andrew and J.Clutterbuck. The same method can also be applied to the contractivity of normalized L-Wasserstein distance under backward Ricci flow.Comment: 15 pages, to appear in Communications in Analysis and Geometr

Determination of the pion distribution amplitude

Right now, we have not enough knowledge to determine the hadron distribution amplitudes (DAs) which are universal physical quantities in the high energy processes involving hadron for applying pQCD to exclusive processes. Even for the simplest pion, one can't discriminate from different DA models. Inversely, one expects that processes involving pion can in principle provide strong constraints on the pion DA. For example, the pion-photon transition form factor (TFF) can get accurate information of the pion wave function or DA, due to the single pion in this process. However, the data from Belle and BABAR have a big difference on TFF in high $Q^2$ regions, at present, they are helpless for determining the pion DA. At the present paper, we think it is still possible to determine the pion DA as long as we perform a combined analysis of the most existing data of the processes involving pion such as $\pi \to \mu \bar{\nu}$, $\pi^0 \to \gamma \gamma$, $B\to \pi l \nu$, $D \to \pi l \nu$, and etc. Based on the revised light-cone harmonic oscillator model, a convenient DA model has been suggested, whose parameter $B$ which dominates its longitudinal behavior for $\phi_{\pi}(x,\mu^2)$ can be determined in a definite range by those processes. A light-cone sum rule analysis of the semi-leptonic processes $B \to \pi l \nu$ and $D \to \pi l \nu$ leads to a narrow region $B = [0.01,0.14]$, which indicate a slight deviation from the asymptotic DA. Then, one can predict the behavior of the pion-photon TFF in high $Q^2$ regions which can be tested in the future experiments. Following this way it provides the possibility that the pion DA will be determined by the global fit finally.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Modeling long-term longitudinal HIV dynamics with application to an AIDS clinical study

A virologic marker, the number of HIV RNA copies or viral load, is currently used to evaluate antiretroviral (ARV) therapies in AIDS clinical trials. This marker can be used to assess the ARV potency of therapies, but is easily affected by drug exposures, drug resistance and other factors during the long-term treatment evaluation process. HIV dynamic studies have significantly contributed to the understanding of HIV pathogenesis and ARV treatment strategies. However, the models of these studies are used to quantify short-term HIV dynamics ($<$ 1 month), and are not applicable to describe long-term virological response to ARV treatment due to the difficulty of establishing a relationship of antiviral response with multiple treatment factors such as drug exposure and drug susceptibility during long-term treatment. Long-term therapy with ARV agents in HIV-infected patients often results in failure to suppress the viral load. Pharmacokinetics (PK), drug resistance and imperfect adherence to prescribed antiviral drugs are important factors explaining the resurgence of virus. To better understand the factors responsible for the virological failure, this paper develops the mechanism-based nonlinear differential equation models for characterizing long-term viral dynamics with ARV therapy. The models directly incorporate drug concentration, adherence and drug susceptibility into a function of treatment efficacy and, hence, fully integrate virologic, PK, drug adherence and resistance from an AIDS clinical trial into the analysis. A Bayesian nonlinear mixed-effects modeling approach in conjunction with the rescaled version of dynamic differential equations is investigated to estimate dynamic parameters and make inference. In addition, the correlations of baseline factors with estimated dynamic parameters are explored and some biologically meaningful correlation results are presented. Further, the estimated dynamic parameters in patients with virologic success were compared to those in patients with virologic failure and significantly important findings were summarized. These results suggest that viral dynamic parameters may play an important role in understanding HIV pathogenesis, designing new treatment strategies for long-term care of AIDS patients.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/08-AOAS192 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

The longitudinal and transverse distributions of the pion wavefunction from the present experimental data on the pion-photon transition form factor

It is noted that the low-energy behavior of the pion-photon transition form factor $F_{\pi\gamma}(Q^2)$ is sensitive to the transverse distribution of the pion wavefunction, and its high-energy behavior is sensitive to the longitudinal one. Thus a careful study on $F_{\pi\gamma}(Q^2)$ can provide helpful information on the pion wavefunction precisely. In this paper, we present a combined analysis of the data on $F_{\pi\gamma}(Q^2)$ reported by the CELLO, the CLEO, the BABAR and the BELLE collaborations. It is performed by using the method of least squares. By using the combined measurements of BELLE and CLEO Collaborations, the pion wavefunction longitudinal and transverse behavior can be fixed to a certain degree, i.e. we obtain $\beta \in [0.691,0.757] \rm GeV$ and $B \in [0.00,0.235]$ for $P_{\chi^2} \geq 90\%$, where $\beta$ and $B$ are two parameters of a convenient pion wavefunction model whose distribution amplitude can mimic the various longitudinal behavior under proper choice of parameters. We observe that the CELLO, CLEO and BELLE data are consistent with each other, all of which prefers the asymptotic-like distribution amplitude; while the BABAR data prefers a more broad distribution amplitude, such as the CZ-like one.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figure