Lovelock black holes surrounded by quintessence

Lovelock gravity consisting of the dimensionally continued Euler densities is a natural generalization of general relativity to higher dimensions such that equations of motion are still second order, and the theory is free of ghosts. A scalar field with a positive potential that yields an accelerating universe has been termed quintessence. We present exact black hole solutions in $D$-dimensional Lovelock gravity surrounded by quintessence matter and also perform a detailed thermodynamical study. Further, we find that the mass, entropy, and temperature of the black hole are corrected due to the quintessence background. In particular, we find that phase transition occurs with divergence of heat capacity at the critical horizon radius, and that specific heat becomes positive for $r_h<r_c$ allowing the black hole to become thermodynamically stable.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in EPJ

A nuclear magnetic resonance study of water in aggrecan solutions

Aggrecan, a highly-charged macromolecule found in articular cartilage, was investigated in aqueous salt solutions with proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. The longitudinal and transverse relaxation rates were determined at two different field strengths, 9.4 T and 0.5 T, for a range of temperatures and aggrecan concentrations. The diffusion coefficients of the water molecules were also measured as a function of temperature and aggrecan concentration, using a pulsed field gradient technique at 9.4 T. Assuming an Arrhenius relationship, the activation energies for the various relaxation processes and the translational motion of the water molecules were determined from temperature dependencies as a function of aggrecan concentration in the range 0 – 5.3 % w/w. The longitudinal relaxation rate and inverse diffusion coefficient were approximately equally dependent on concentration and only increased by ≤ 20% from that of the salt solution. The transverse relaxation rate at high field demonstrated greatest concentration dependence, changing by an order of magnitude across the concentration range examined. We attribute this primarily to chemical exchange. Activation energies appeared to be approximately independent of aggrecan concentration, except for that of the low-field transverse relaxation rate, which decreased with concentration

Does oral sodium bicarbonate therapy improve function and quality of life in older patients with chronic kidney disease and low-grade acidosis (the BiCARB trial)? Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Date of acceptance: 01/07/2015 © 2015 Witham et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Acknowledgements UK NIHR HTA grant 10/71/01. We acknowledge the financial support of NHS Research Scotland in conducting this trial.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A limitação do direito ao acesso à informação pelas regras de pré-julgamento (discovery) na África do Sul

In South Africa, the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 (PAIA) gives effect to the right of access information in Section 32 of the South African Constitution (the Constitution). Section 7 of PAIA provides that PAIA does not apply to records required for criminal or civil proceedings after commencement of proceedings where access to that record is already provided for in any other law. Where records are obtained in contravention of Section 7, they are not admissible as evidence in criminal or civil proceedings. The aim of this paper is to determine whether the discovery rules of Court limit the constitutional right of everyone to access information. Consequently, the methodology employed in this paper involves a legal analysis namely: a limitations analysis utilising Section 36, the limitations clause of the Constitution. This paper further engages in case law analysis interpreting the exercise of the right of access to information before PAIA was passed and after PAIA was passed to highlight the anomaly of the application of Section 7. This paper argues that Section 7 unconstitutionally limits the ambit of the right of access to information and a direct constitutional challenge on this provision is necessary.Na África do Sul, a Lei de Promoção da Acesso à Informação nº 2 (PAIA), de 2000, dá efetividade ao direito de acesso na Seção 32 da Constituição da África do Sul (a Constituição). A Seção 7 da PAIA prevê que esta lei não se aplica aos registros necessários para processos criminais ou civis após o início do processo, em que o acesso a esse registro já tenha sido previsto em outra lei. Quando os registros são obtidos por violação à Seção 7, não são admissíveis como prova em processos criminais ou civis. O objetivo deste trabalho é verificar se as regras estabelecidas pela corte para a fase de pré-julgamento (Discovery) limitam o direito constitucional de acesso à informação. A metodologia empregada neste artigo envolve uma análise jurídica, a saber: uma análise de limitações utilizando a Seção 36, a cláusula de limitação da Constituição. Este artigo apresenta ainda análises de jurisprudência que interpretam o exercício do direito de acesso à informação antes e depois da aprovação da PAIA, para destacar a anomalia da aplicação da Seção 7. Este artigo argumenta que a Seção 7 representa uma limitação inconstitucional do direito de acesso à informação, o que enseja um desafio no âmbito constitucional

Actin Mutations and Their Role in Disease

Actin is a widely expressed protein found in almost all eukaryotic cells. In humans, there are six different genes, which encode specific actin isoforms. Disease-causing mutations have been described for each of these, most of which are missense. Analysis of the position of the resulting mutated residues in the protein reveals mutational hotspots. Many of these occur in regions important for actin polymerization. We briefly discuss the challenges in characterizing the effects of these actin mutations, with a focus on cardiac actin mutations

Hayward black holes in the novel 4D4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity

We present an exact Hayward-like black hole solution in the $4D$ novel Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet (EGB) gravity and also analyse their thermodynamic properties to calculate exact expressions for the black hole mass, temperature, and entropy. Owing to the magnetic charge $g$ term in the metric, the thermodynamical quantities are corrected, and it is demonstrated that the Hawking-Page phase transition is achievable by showing diverges of the heat capacity at a critical radius $r=r_C$ where incidentally the temperature is maximum. Thus, we have a black hole with Cauchy and event horizons, and it's evaporation leads to a thermodynamically stable extremal black hole remnant with vanishing temperature. The entropy does not satisfy the usual exact horizon Bekenstein-Hawking area law of general relativity with logarithmic area correction term