476 research outputs found
Large farm animals used for research purposes: a survey on purchase, housing and hygiene management
Background: Farm animals (FAs) are frequently used in biomedical research. Recommendations for the purchase, housing and health monitoring of these animals (sheep, goats, cattle and pigs) are still missing, and many institutes have developed their own strategies and protocols to face the challenges associated with the use of farm animals. This may influence the comparability of research results and increase data variances, thus increasing animal use that contradicts the obligation to apply the 3Rs principle of reduction, refinement and replacement required in Directive 2010/63 EU and the German animal protection law. Methods: A survey was conducted to define the current state of the art in research institutes working with pigs, and large and small ruminants. Results: The results of the survey clearly show that there are no uniform procedures regarding the purchase, housing and hygiene management of farm animals contrary to small laboratory animals. The facilities make purpose-bound decisions according to their own needs and individual work instructions and implement their own useful protocols to improve and maintain the health of the animals. Conclusion: This survey was the first step to filling the gaps and identifying the status quo and practical applied measures regarding the purchase and hygiene monitoring of FAs in order to improve animal welfare and scientific validity
Modelling of Tirapazamine effects on solid tumour morphology
Bioreductive drugs are in clinical practice to exploit the resistance from tumour microenvironments especially in the hypoxic region of tumour. We pre-sented a tumour treatment model to capture the pharmacology of one of the most prominent bioreductive drugs, Tirapazamine (TPZ) which is in clinical trials I and II. We calculated solid tumour mass in our previous work and then integrated that model with TPZ infusion. We calculated TPZ cytotoxicity, concentration, penetra-tion with increasing distance from blood vessel and offered resistance from micro-environments for drug penetration inside the tumour while considering each cell as an individual entity. The impact of these factors on tumour morphology is also showed to see the drug behaviour inside animals/humans tumours. We maintained the heterogeneity factors in presented model as observed in real tumour mass es-pecially in terms of cells proliferation, cell movement, extracellular matrix (ECM) interaction, and the gradients of partial oxygen pressure (pO2) inside tumour cells during the whole growth and treatment activity. The results suggest that TPZ high concentration in combination with chemotherapy should be given to get maximum abnormal cell killing. This model can be a good choice for oncologists and re-searchers to explore more about TPZ action inside solid tumour
Instantons in N=1/2 Super Yang-Mills Theory via Deformed Super ADHM Construction
We study an extension of the ADHM construction to give deformed
anti-self-dual (ASD) instantons in N=1/2 super Yang-Mills theory with U(n)
gauge group. First we extend the exterior algebra on superspace to
non(anti)commutative superspace and show that the N=1/2 super Yang-Mills theory
can be reformulated in a geometrical way. By using this exterior algebra, we
formulate a non(anti)commutative version of the super ADHM construction and
show that the curvature two-form superfields obtained by our construction do
satisfy the deformed ASD equations and thus we establish the deformed super
ADHM construction. We also show that the known deformed U(2) one instanton
solution is obtained by this construction.Comment: 32 pages, LaTeX, v2: typos corrected, references adde
AdS Dual of the Critical O(N) Vector Model
We suggest a general relation between theories of infinite number of
higher-spin massless gauge fields in and large conformal
theories in dimensions containing -component vector fields. In
particular, we propose that the singlet sector of the well-known critical 3-d
O(N) model with the interaction is dual, in the large
limit, to the minimal bosonic theory in containing massless gauge
fields of even spin.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX; v4: more references added, to appear in Physics
Letters
Chiral 4d string vacua with D-branes and NSNS and RR fluxes
We discuss type IIB orientifolds with D-branes, and NSNS and RR field
strength fluxes. The D-brane sectors lead to open string spectra with
non-abelian gauge symmetry and charged chiral fermions. The closed string field
strengths generate a scalar potential stabilizing most moduli. We describe the
construction of N=1 supersymmetric models in the context of orientifolds of IIB
theory on T^6/Z_2 x Z_2, containing D9-branes with world-volume magnetic
fluxes, and illustrate model building possibilities with several explicit
examples. We comment on a T-dual picture with D8-branes on non-Calabi-Yau
half-flat geometries, and discuss some of the topological properties of such
configurations. We also explore the construction of models with fluxes and with
D3-branes at singularities and present a non-supersymmetric 3-family SU(5)
model.Comment: latex, 49 pages, 2 figure
Higgs Boson Flavor-Changing Neutral Decays into Bottom Quarks in Supersymmetry
We analyze the maximum branching ratios for the Flavor Changing Neutral
Current (FCNC) decays of the neutral Higgs bosons of the Minimal Supersymmetric
Standard Model (MSSM) into bottom quarks, h -> b\bar{s} (h=h^0,H^0,A^0). We
consistently correlate these decays with the radiative B-meson decays (b->
s\gamma). A full-fledged combined numerical analysis is performed of these
high-energy and low-energy FCNC decay modes in the MSSM parameter space. Our
calculation shows that the available data on B(b->s \gamma) severely restricts
the allowed values of B(h->b\bar{s}). While the latter could reach a few
percent level in fine-tuned scenarios, the requirement of naturalness reduces
these FCNC rates into the modest range B(h->b\bar{s}) ~ 10^{-4}-10^{-3}. We
find that the bulk of the MSSM contribution to B(h->b\bar{s}) could originate
from the strong supersymmetric sector. The maximum value of the FCNC rates
obtained in this paper disagree significantly with recent (over-)estimates
existing in the literature. Our results are still encouraging because they show
that the FCNC modes h->b\bar{s} can be competitive with other Higgs boson
signatures and could play a helpful complementary role to identify the
supersymmetric Higgs bosons, particularly the lightest CP-even state in the
critical LHC mass region m_{h^0} ~= 90-130 GeV.Comment: LaTeX, 19 pages, 4 tables, 7 figures. Clarifications and discussions
added, references added. Slight changes in Figs2b,6b and 7b. Version accepted
in JHE
Recommended from our members
Designing an Exploratory Visual Interface to the Results of Citizen Surveys
Surveys are used by public authorities to monitor the quality and reach of public services and provide information needed to help improve them. The results of such surveys tend to be used in internal reports, with highly-aggregated summaries being released to the public. Even where data are released, many citizens do not have the capability to explore and interpret them. This o ffers limited scope for citizens to explore the results and use them to help hold service providers to account - objectives that are increasingly important in public service provision. We work closely with an English local authority to develop an innovative interactive interface to a citizen survey to demonstrate what can be achieved by applying a visual approach to the exploration of such data. In so doing we (a) make a case for web-based interactive visualisation to make this kind of information accessible both internally to those working in local government and externally to citizens in a way that is not achieved through a regular Open Data release or existing applications; (b) use techniques from both cartography and information visualization to inform the design of fluid visual interactions that enable diverse users - from the casual citizen browser to those interested in more in-depth analysis - to view, compare and interpret the survey outputs from a wide variety of perspectives; and (c) document experiences and reactions to the provision of information in this form, with log analysis playing a role in this exercise. Our reflections on our successes and otherwise will inform future exploratory interface design to help citizens access information and hold public service providers to account
Flux-induced SUSY-breaking soft terms on D7-D3 brane systems
We study the effect of RR and NSNS 3-form fluxes on the effective action of
the worldvolume fields of Type IIB D7/D3-brane configurations. The D7-branes
wrap 4-cycles on a local Calabi-Yau geometry. This is an extension of previous
work on hep-th/0311241, where a similar analysis was applied to the case of
D3-branes. Our present analysis is based on the D7- and D3-brane
Dirac-Born-Infeld and Chern-Simons actions, and makes full use of the
R-symmetries of the system, which allow us to compute explicitly results for
the fields lying at the D3-D7 intersections. A number of interesting new
properties appear as compared to the simpler case of configurations with only
D3-branes. As a general result one finds that fluxes stabilize some or all of
the D7-brane moduli. We argue that this is important for the problem of
stabilizing Kahler moduli through non-perturbative effects in KKLT-like vacua.
We also show that (0,3) imaginary self-dual fluxes, which lead to
compactifications with zero vacuum energy, give rise to SUSY-breaking soft
terms including gaugino and scalar masses, and trilinear terms. Particular
examples of chiral MSSM-like models of this class of vacua, based on D3-D7
brane systems at orbifold singularities are presented.Comment: 58 pages, no figures; v2: numerical factor in section 7.2 correcte
INFLAMMATION AND VENTRICULAR-VASCULAR COUPLING IN HYPERTENSIVE PATIENTS WITH METABOLIC SYNDROME
Abstract Background and aims Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is currently considered to raise the risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular events. It has been suggested that part of this risk excess may be due to a cluster of additional factors associated with MetS. We aimed to investigate the role of inflammation on the ventricular-vascular coupling in patients with MetS. Methods and results We enrolled a total of 227 hypertensive patients (106 with MetS and 121 without MetS) matched for age and gender. Aortic pulse wave velocity (aPWV), intima-media thickness (IMT) and high sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP) increased according to the number of MetS components. Patients with MetS showed increased aPWV (11.5 ± 3.7 vs. 10.3 ± 2.5 m/s, P = 0.03) compared with controls. In a model adjusted for age, sex, heart rate and mean blood pressure, aPWV resulted increased in patients with CKD (beta 1.29 m/s, 95%CI 0.61–1.96 m/s, P P = 0.005). After additional adjustment for CRP and IMT, the slope of aPWV was respectively reduced by 16% and 62%, suggesting that inflammation and intima-media thickening could contribute to aortic stiffening in patients with MetS. In these patients, aPWV was also associated with left-ventricular mass index (beta 0.79 g/m 2.7 , 95%CI 0.05–1.52 g/m 2.7 , P = 0.05). Conclusion MetS is characterized by an inflammation-dependent acceleration in cardiovascular ageing. This pattern of pathophysiological abnormalities may contribute to amplify the burden of cardiovascular risk in patients with MetS
New Supersymmetric String Compactifications
We describe a new class of supersymmetric string compactifications to 4d
Minkowski space. These solutions involve type II strings propagating on
(orientifolds of) non Calabi-Yau spaces in the presence of background NS and RR
fluxes. The simplest examples have descriptions as cosets, generalizing the
three-dimensional nilmanifold. They can also be thought of as twisted tori. We
derive a formula for the (super)potential governing the light fields, which is
generated by the fluxes and certain ``twists'' in the geometry. Detailed
consideration of an example also gives strong evidence that in some cases,
these exotic geometries are related by smooth transitions to standard
Calabi-Yau or G2 compactifications of M-theory.Comment: 43 pages, harvmac bi
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