2,025 research outputs found
A novel cellular pathway of antigen presentation and CD4 T cell activation in vivo
Dendritic cell activation of CD4 T cells in the lymph node draining a site of infection or vaccination is widely considered the central event in initiating adaptive immunity. The accepted dogma is that this occurs by stimulating local activation and antigen acquisition by dendritic cells, with subsequent lymph node migration, however the generalizability of this mechanism is unclear. Here we show that in some circumstances antigen can bypass the injection site inflammatory response, draining freely and rapidly to the lymph nodes where it interacts with subcapsular sinus (SCS) macrophages resulting in their death. Debris from these dying SCS macrophages is internalized by monocytes recruited from the circulation. This coordinated response leads to antigen presentation by monocytes and interactions with naïve CD4 T cells that can drive the initiation of T cell and B cell responses. These studies demonstrate an entirely novel pathway leading to initiation of adaptive immune responses in vivo
Data production models for the CDF experiment
The data production for the CDF experiment is conducted on a large Linux PC
farm designed to meet the needs of data collection at a maximum rate of 40
MByte/sec. We present two data production models that exploits advances in
computing and communication technology. The first production farm is a
centralized system that has achieved a stable data processing rate of
approximately 2 TByte per day. The recently upgraded farm is migrated to the
SAM (Sequential Access to data via Metadata) data handling system. The software
and hardware of the CDF production farms has been successful in providing large
computing and data throughput capacity to the experiment.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures; presented at HPC Asia2005, Beijing, China, Nov 30
- Dec 3, 200
Data processing model for the CDF experiment
The data processing model for the CDF experiment is described. Data
processing reconstructs events from parallel data streams taken with different
combinations of physics event triggers and further splits the events into
datasets of specialized physics datasets. The design of the processing control
system faces strict requirements on bookkeeping records, which trace the status
of data files and event contents during processing and storage. The computing
architecture was updated to meet the mass data flow of the Run II data
collection, recently upgraded to a maximum rate of 40 MByte/sec. The data
processing facility consists of a large cluster of Linux computers with data
movement managed by the CDF data handling system to a multi-petaByte Enstore
tape library. The latest processing cycle has achieved a stable speed of 35
MByte/sec (3 TByte/day). It can be readily scaled by increasing CPU and
data-handling capacity as required.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, submitted to IEEE-TN
Abnormalities in Osteoclastogenesis and Decreased Tumorigenesis in Mice Deficient for Ovarian Cancer G Protein-Coupled Receptor 1
Ovarian cancer G protein-coupled receptor 1 (OGR1) has been shown to be a proton sensing receptor in vitro. We have shown that OGR1 functions as a tumor metastasis suppressor gene when it is over-expressed in human prostate cancer cells in vivo. To examine the physiological functions of OGR1, we generated conditional OGR1 deficient mice by homologous recombination. OGR1 deficient mice were viable and upon gross-inspection appeared normal. Consistent with in vitro studies showing that OGR1 is involved in osteoclastogenesis, reduced osteoclasts were detected in OGR1 deficient mice. A pH-dependent osteoclasts survival effect was also observed. However, overall abnormality in the bones of these animals was not observed. In addition, melanoma cell tumorigenesis was significantly inhibited in OGR1 deficient mice. OGR1 deficient mice in the mixed background produced significantly less peritoneal macrophages when stimulated with thioglycolate. These macrophages also showed altered extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK) activation and nitric oxide (NO) production in response to lipopolysaccharide. OGR1-dependent pH responses assessed by cAMP production and cell survival in macrophages or brown fat cells were not observed, presumably due to the presence of other proton sensing receptors in these cells. Our results indicate that OGR1's role in osteoclastogenesis is not strong enough to affect overall bone development and its role in tumorigenesis warrants further investigation. The mice generated can be potentially used for several disease models, including cancers or osteoclast-related diseases
Direct CP Violation, Branching Ratios and Form Factors , in Decays
The and transitions involved in hadronic B decays are
investigated in a phenomenological way through the framework of QCD
factorization. By comparing our results with experimental branching ratios from
the BELLE, BABAR and CLEO Collaborations for all the B decays including either
a pion or a kaon, we propose boundaries for the transition form factors and depending on the CKM matrix element parameters and
. From this analysis, the form factors required to reproduce the
experimental data for branching ratios are and
. We calculate the direct CP violating asymmetry
parameter, , for and decays, in the case where mixing effects are taken into
account. Based on these results, we find that the direct CP asymmetry for
, ,
, and , reaches its maximum when the invariant mass is
in the vicinity of the meson mass. The inclusion of
mixing provides an opportunity to erase, without ambiguity, the phase
uncertainty mod in the determination of the CKM angles in case
of and in case of .Comment: 74 pages, 15 figures, 8 tables. A few misprints corrected, two
references adde
Japanese Female Professional Soccer Players’ Views on Second Career Development
The purpose of this study was to analyze professional, Japanese, female soccer athletes’ views on second career development and perceived support from the Women’s Empowerment Professional Football League, Japan. This study was underpinned by occupational socialization theory and utilized a qualitative, collective case study design through demographic questionnaires, in-depth face-to-face semistructured interviews, and reflexive thematic analysis. Participants were six current professional soccer players of one professional team of the Women’s Empowerment League. Three themes were generated from the data: (a) avoiding washout effects in second career opportunities, (b) the importance of dual-career pathway opportunities, and (c) professional development and second career training. These findings reflected how participants’ first career as a professional athlete became ingrained within their identity and shaped future desires and preparations for second careers. They also reflect the difficulty participants experienced balancing a professional athletic career with part-time office work for financial stability as well as planning for a second career linked to soccer. Players expressed a need for second career preparation to be facilitated by their clubs and the Women’s Empowerment League, and we provide implications and recommendations to support this work
Observation of Radiative Decay
We report the observation of the decay with a
statistical significance of in 78.1 \ifb of data collected by the
Belle experiment at the KEKB collider. This is the first observation
of a flavor-changing radiative decay of a charmed meson. The Cabibbo- and
color-suppressed decays , are also observed for
the first time. We measure branching fractions \br(D^{0} \to \phi \gamma)
= [ 2.60^{+0.70}_{-0.61} \stat {}^{+0.15}_{-0.17} \syst ] \times 10^{-5},
\br(D^{0} \to \phi \pi^{0})
= [ 8.01 \pm 0.26 \stat \pm 0.47 \syst ] \times 10^{-4}, and \br(D^{0} \to
\phi \eta) = [ 1.48 \pm 0.47 \stat \pm 0.09 \syst ] \times 10^{-4}.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, Belle Preprint 2003-24, KEK Preprint 2003-75,
updated version of BELLE-CONF-0346 (contributed paper to the XXI
International Symposium on Lepton and Photon Interactions at High
Energies,Fermilab Aug 11-16,2003). to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Search for dinucleon decay into pions at Super-Kamiokande
A search for dinucleon decay into pions with the Super-Kamiokande detector
has been performed with an exposure of 282.1 kiloton-years. Dinucleon decay is
a process that violates baryon number by two units. We present the first search
for dinucleon decay to pions in a large water Cherenkov detector. The modes
O C, O
N, and O
O are investigated. No significant excess in the
Super-Kamiokande data has been found, so a lower limit on the lifetime of the
process per oxygen nucleus is determined. These limits are:
years,
years, and
years. The lower
limits on each mode are about two orders of magnitude better than previous
limits from searches for dinucleon decay in iron.Comment: 20 pages, 17 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review D
on March 30, 201
Observation of B+ -> p pbar pi+, B0 -> p pbar K0, and B+ -> p pbar K*+
We report the first observation of a b -> u type charmless baryonic B decay,
B+ -> p pbar pi+, as well as b -> s type B0 -> p pbar K0 and B+ -> p pbar K*+
decays. The analysis is based on a 78fb^{-1} data sample recorded on the
Upsilon(4S) resonance with the Belle detector at KEKB. We find BF(B+ -> p pbar
pi+) = (3.06^{+0.73}_{-0.62} \pm 0.37)*10^{-6}, BF(B0 -> p pbar K0)
=(1.88^{+0.77}_{-0.60} \pm 0.23)*10^{-6}, and BF(B+ -> p pbar K*+) =
(10.3^{+3.6 + 1.3}_{-2.8 -1.7})*10^{-6}. We also update BF(B+ -> p pbar K+) =
(5.66^{+0.67}_{-0.57} \pm 0.62)* 10^{-6}, and present an upper limit on BF(B0
-> p pbar K*0) at the 90% confidence level. A common feature of the observed
decay modes is threshold peaking in baryon pair invariant mass.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figure file
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