Quark Mass Matrices with Four and Five Texture Zeroes, and the CKM Matrix, in terms of Mass Eigenvalues

Using the triangular matrix techniques of Kuo et al and Chiu et al for the four and five texture zero cases, with vanishing (11) elements for U and D matrices, it is shown, from the general eigenvalue equations and hierarchy conditions, that the quark mass matrices, and the CKM matrix can be expressed (except for the phases) entirely in terms of quark masses. The matrix structures are then quite simple and transparent. We confirm their results for the five texture zero case but find, upon closer examination of all the CKM elements which our results provide, that six of their nine patterns for the four texture zero case are not compatible with experiments. In total, only one five-texture zero and three four-texture zero patterns are allowed.Comment: 15 pages, 3 table

The Effects of a High Fat Meal on Blood Flow Regulation during Arm Exercise

A diet high in saturated fats results in endothelial dysfunction and can lead to atherosclerosis, a precursor to cardiovascular disease. Exercise training is a potent stimulus though to mitigate the negative effects of a high saturated fat diet; however, it is unclear how high-saturated fat meal (HSFM) consumption impacts blood flow regulation during a single exercise session. PURPOSE: This study sought to examine the impact of a single HSFM on peripheral vascular function during an acute upper limb exercise bout. METHODS: Ten young healthy individuals completed two sessions of progressive handgrip exercise. Subjects either consumed a HSFM (0.84 g of fat/kg of body weight) 4 hours prior or remained fasted before the exercise bout. Progressive rhythmic handgrip exercise (6kg, 12kg, 18kg) was performed for 3 minutes per stage at rate of 1 Hz. The brachial artery (BA) diameter and blood velocity was obtained using Doppler Ultrasound (GE Logiq e) and BA blood flow was calculated with these values. RESULTS: BA blood flow and flow mediated dilation (normalized for shear rate) during the handgrip exercise significant increased from baseline in all workloads, but no differences were revealed in response to the HSFM consumption. CONCLUSION: Progressive handgrip exercise augmented BA blood flow and flow mediated dilation in both testing days; however, there was no significant differences following the HSFM consumption. This suggests that upper limb blood flow regulation during exercise is unaltered by a high fat meal in young healthy individuals.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/gradposters/1060/thumbnail.jp

Irreversible proliferation of magnetic moments at cleaved surfaces of the topological Kondo insulator SmB6

The compound SmB$_6$ is the best established realization of a topological Kondo insulator, in which a topological insulator state is obtained through Kondo coherence. Recent studies have found evidence that the surface of SmB$_6$ hosts ferromagnetic domains, creating an intrinsic platform for unidirectional ballistic transport at the domain boundaries. Here, surface-sensitive X-ray absorption (XAS) and bulk-sensitive resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) spectra are measured at the Sm N$_{4,5}$-edge, and used to evaluate electronic symmetries, excitations and temperature dependence near the surface of cleaved samples. The XAS data show that the density of large-moment atomic multiplet states on a cleaved surface grows irreversibly over time, to a degree that likely exceeds a related change that has recently been observed in the surface 4f orbital occupation

Treating and Preventing Influenza in Aged Care Facilities: A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial

PMCID: PMC3474842This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Spontaneous Creation of Inflationary Universes and the Cosmic Landscape

We study some gravitational instanton solutions that offer a natural realization of the spontaneous creation of inflationary universes in the brane world context in string theory. Decoherence due to couplings of higher (perturbative) modes of the metric as well as matter fields modifies the Hartle-Hawking wavefunction for de Sitter space. Generalizing this new wavefunction to be used in string theory, we propose a principle in string theory that hopefully will lead us to the particular vacuum we live in, thus avoiding the anthropic principle. As an illustration of this idea, we give a phenomenological analysis of the probability of quantum tunneling to various stringy vacua. We find that the preferred tunneling is to an inflationary universe (like our early universe), not to a universe with a very small cosmological constant (i.e., like today's universe) and not to a 10-dimensional uncompactified de Sitter universe. Such preferred solutions are interesting as they offer a cosmological mechanism for the stabilization of extra dimensions during the inflationary epoch.Comment: 52 pages, 7 figures, 1 table. Added discussion on supercritical string vacua, added reference

Observations and Theoretical Implications of the Large Separation Lensed Quasar SDSS J1004+4112

We study the recently discovered gravitational lens SDSS J1004+4112, the first quasar lensed by a cluster of galaxies. It consists of four images with a maximum separation of 14.62''. The system has been confirmed as a lensed quasar at z=1.734 on the basis of deep imaging and spectroscopic follow-up observations. We present color-magnitude relations for galaxies near the lens plus spectroscopy of three central cluster members, which unambiguously confirm that a cluster at z=0.68 is responsible for the large image separation. We find a wide range of lens models consistent with the data, but they suggest four general conclusions: (1) the brightest cluster galaxy and the center of the cluster potential well appear to be offset by several kpc; (2) the cluster mass distribution must be elongated in the North--South direction, which is consistent with the observed distribution of cluster galaxies; (3) the inference of a large tidal shear (~0.2) suggests significant substructure in the cluster; and (4) enormous uncertainty in the predicted time delays between the images means that measuring the delays would greatly improve constraints on the models. We also compute the probability of such large separation lensing in the SDSS quasar sample, on the basis of the CDM model. The lack of large separation lenses in previous surveys and the discovery of one in SDSS together imply a mass fluctuation normalization \sigma_8=1.0^{+0.4}_{-0.2} (95% CL), if cluster dark matter halos have an inner slope -1.5. Shallower profiles would require higher values of \sigma_8. Although the statistical conclusion might be somewhat dependent on the degree of the complexity of the lens potential, the discovery is consistent with the predictions of the abundance of cluster-scale halos in the CDM scenario. (Abridged)Comment: 21 pages, 24 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in Ap

Dual-gated graphene devices for near-field nano-imaging

Graphene-based heterostructures display a variety of phenomena that are strongly tunable by electrostatic local gates. Monolayer graphene (MLG) exhibits tunable surface plasmon polaritons, as revealed by scanning nano-infrared experiments. In bilayer graphene (BLG), an electronic gap is induced by a perpendicular displacement field. Gapped BLG is predicted to display unusual effects such as plasmon amplification and domain wall plasmons with significantly larger lifetime than MLG. Furthermore, a variety of correlated electronic phases highly sensitive to displacement fields have been observed in twisted graphene structures. However, applying perpendicular displacement fields in nano-infrared experiments has only recently become possible (Ref. 1). In this work, we fully characterize two approaches to realizing nano-optics compatible top-gates: bilayer $\text{MoS}_2$ and MLG. We perform nano-infrared imaging on both types of structures and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Our work paves the way for comprehensive near-field experiments of correlated phenomena and plasmonic effects in graphene-based heterostructures

High potency silencing by single-stranded boranophosphate siRNA

In RNA interference (RNAi), double-stranded short interfering RNA (ds-siRNA) inhibits expression from complementary mRNAs. Recently, it was demonstrated that short, single-stranded antisense RNA (ss-siRNA) can also induce RNAi. While ss-siRNA may offer several advantages in both clinical and research applications, its overall poor activity compared with ds-siRNA has prevented its widespread use. In contrast to the poor gene silencing activity of native ss-siRNA, we found that the silencing activity of boranophosphate-modified ss-siRNA is comparable with that of unmodified ds-siRNA. Boranophosphate ss-siRNA has excellent maximum silencing activity and is highly effective at low concentrations. The silencing activity of boranophosphate ss-siRNA is also durable, with significant silencing up to 1 week after transfection. Thus, we have demonstrated that boranophosphate-modified ss-siRNA can silence gene expression as well as native ds-siRNA, suggesting that boranophosphate-modified ss-siRNAs should be investigated as a potential new class of therapeutic agents