Antigen presentation by hapten-specific B lymphocytes. I. Role of surface immunoglobulin receptors.

The present study examines the ability of hapten-specific murine splenic B lymphocytes to present hapten-proteins to carrier-specific T cell hybridomas. BALB/cB cells specific for 2,4,6-trinitrophenyl (TNP) were isolated from spleens of immune mice by elution from TNP-gelatin-coated dishes. Such cells presented the TNP-modified terpolymer, GL phi, at concentrations as low as 0.1 microgram/ml, to a GL phi-specific, I-Ed-restricted, interleukin 2-producing T cell hybridoma. In contrast, the same B lymphocytes required 1,000-fold higher concentrations of unmodified GL phi to stimulate the same T cell hybridoma. The presentation of low concentrations of TNP-GL phi by TNP-specific B lymphocytes was significantly or completely blocked by anti-Ig antibody or TNP-proteins, indicating that surface Ig receptors were critically involved in this phenomenon. Finally, binding of TNP-proteins did not alter the ability of the B cells to present unrelated, unhaptenated proteins or to stimulate alloreactive T cells. These results suggest that surface Ig receptors serve to focus antigens onto specific B lymphocytes and that such cells are highly efficient at presenting linked antigenic determinants to T cells. The implications of these findings for the mechanisms of physiologic, histocompatibility-restricted T-B collaboration are discussed

New constraints on the Pion EM form factor using Pi'(-Q^2)

We study the constraints arising on the expansion parameters c and d of the Pion electromagnetic form factor from the inclusion of pure space-like data and the phase of time-like data along with one space-like datum, using as input the first derivative of the QCD polarization amplitude Pi'(-Q^2). These constraints when combined with other analyses, provide a valuable check on a determination of c due to Guo et al. and on our previous work where pionic contribution to the (g-2) of the muon was used as the input. This work further illustrates the power of analyticity techniques in form factor analysis.Comment: 8 pages latex, uses EPJA style files, contains 12 figures; replaced with version accepted for publication in EPJA, minor typos corrected, discussion improved, reference adde

Perturbative expansion of the QCD Adler function improved by renormalization-group summation and analytic continuation in the Borel plane

We examine the large-order behaviour of a recently proposed renormalization-group-improved expansion of the Adler function in perturbative QCD, which sums in an analytically closed form the leading logarithms accessible from renormalization-group invariance. The expansion is first written as aneffective series in powers of the one-loop coupling, and its leading singularities in the Borel plane are shown to be identical to those of the standard "contour-improved" expansion. Applying the technique of conformal mappings for the analytic continuation in the Borel plane, we define a class of improved expansions, which implement both the renormalization-group invariance and the knowledge about the large-order behaviour of the series. Detailed numerical studies of specific models for the Adler function indicate that the new expansions have remarkable convergence properties up to high orders. Using these expansions for the determination of the strong coupling from the the hadronic width of the $\tau$ lepton we obtain, with a conservative estimate of the uncertainty due to the nonperturbative corrections, $\alpha_s(M_\tau^2)= 0.3189^{+ 0.0173}_{-0.0151}$, which translates to $\alpha_s(M_Z^2)= 0.1184^{+0.0021}_{-0.0018}$.Comment: 15 pages latex using revtex, 4 figures; v2 corresponds to PRD version; compared to v1, power-correction estimates have been enlarged resulting in somewhat larger errors for alpha_S, relevant discussion has been provided, a reference has been added, minor typographical errors have been remove

Expansions of τ\tau hadronic spectral function moments in a nonpower QCD perturbation theory with tamed large order behavior

The moments of the hadronic spectral functions are of interest for the extraction of the strong coupling $\alpha_s$ and other QCD parameters from the hadronic decays of the $\tau$ lepton. Motivated by the recent analyses of a large class of moments in the standard fixed-order and contour-improved perturbation theories, we consider the perturbative behavior of these moments in the framework of a QCD nonpower perturbation theory, defined by the technique of series acceleration by conformal mappings, which simultaneously implements renormalization-group summation and has a tame large-order behavior. Two recently proposed models of the Adler function are employed to generate the higher order coefficients of the perturbation series and to predict the exact values of the moments, required for testing the properties of the perturbative expansions. We show that the contour-improved nonpower perturbation theories and the renormalization-group-summed nonpower perturbation theories have very good convergence properties for a large class of moments of the so-called "reference model", including moments that are poorly described by the standard expansions. The results provide additional support for the plausibility of the description of the Adler function in terms of a small number of dominant renormalons.Comment: 15 pages, latex using revtex, 4 figures; compared to v1, slightly improved figures and discussion, version to appear in PR

Linear Relationship Statistics in Diffusion Limited Aggregation

We show that various surface parameters in two-dimensional diffusion limited aggregation (DLA) grow linearly with the number of particles. We find the ratio of the average length of the perimeter and the accessible perimeter of a DLA cluster together with its external perimeters to the cluster size, and define a microscopic schematic procedure for attachment of an incident new particle to the cluster. We measure the fractal dimension of the red sites (i.e., the sites upon cutting each of them splits the cluster) equal to that of the DLA cluster. It is also shown that the average number of the dead sites and the average number of the red sites have linear relationships with the cluster size.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

The KπK\pi form factors from Analyticity and Unitarity

Analyticity and unitarity techniques are employed to obtain bounds on the shape parameters of the scalar and vector form factors of semileptonic $K_{l3}$ decays. For this purpose we use vector and scalar correlators evaluated in pQCD, a low energy theorem for scalar form factor, lattice results for the ratio of kaon and pion decay constants, chiral perturbation theory calculations for the scalar form factor at the Callan-Treiman point and experimental information on the phase and modulus of $K\pi$ form factors up to an energy \tin=1 {\rm GeV}^2. We further derive regions on the real axis and in the complex-energy plane where the form factors cannot have zeros.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures; Seminar given at DAE-BRNS Workshop on Hadron Physics Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India October 31-November 4, 2011, submitted to Proceeding

Constraining Form Factors with the Method of Unitarity Bounds

The availability of a reliable bound on an integral involving the square of the modulus of a form factor on the unitarity cut allows one to constrain the form factor at points inside the analyticity domain and its shape parameters, and also to isolate domains on the real axis and in the complex energy plane where zeros are excluded. In this lecture note, we review the mathematical techniques of this formalism in its standard form, known as the method of unitarity bounds, and recent developments which allow us to include information on the phase and modulus along a part of the unitarity cut. We also provide a brief summary of some results that we have obtained in the recent past, which demonstrate the usefulness of the method for precision predictions on the form factors.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures; Lecture given at the DAE-BRNS Workshop on Hadron Physics, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India, October 31-November 4, 2011, submitted to Proceeding

Improved bounds on the radius and curvature of the K pi scalar form factor and implications to low-energy theorems

We obtain stringent bounds in the _S^{K pi}-c plane where these are the scalar radius and the curvature parameters of the scalar pi K form factor respectively using analyticity and dispersion relation constraints, the knowledge of the form factor from the well-known Callan-Treiman point m_K^2-m_pi^2, as well as at m_pi^2-m_K^2 which we call the second Callan-Treiman point. The central values of these parameters from a recent determination are accomodated in the allowed region provided the higher loop corrections to the value of the form factor at the second Callan-Treiman point reduce the one-loop result by about 3% with F_K/F_pi=1.21. Such a variation in magnitude at the second Callan-Treiman point yields 0.12 fm^2 \lesssim _S^{K pi} \lesssim 0.21 fm^2 and 0.56 GeV^{-4} \lesssim c \lesssim 1.47 GeV^{-4} and a strong correlation between them. A smaller value of F_K/F_pi shifts both bounds to lower values.Comment: 4 pages using EPJ style files, accepted for publication in European Physical Journal

A Cloud Platform-as-a-Service for Multimedia Conferencing Service Provisioning

Multimedia conferencing is the real-time exchange of multimedia content between multiple parties. It is the basis of a wide range of applications (e.g., multimedia multiplayer game). Cloud-based provisioning of the conferencing services on which these applications rely will bring benefits, such as easy service provisioning and elastic scalability. However, it remains a big challenge. This paper proposes a PaaS for conferencing service provisioning. The proposed PaaS is based on a business model from the state of the art. It relies on conferencing IaaSs that, instead of VMs, offer conferencing substrates (e.g., dial-in signaling, video mixer and audio mixer). The PaaS enables composition of new conferences from substrates on the fly. This has been prototyped in this paper and, in order to evaluate it, a conferencing IaaS is also implemented. Performance measurements are also made.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, IEEE ISCC 201