212 research outputs found
Religious diversity, empathy, and God images : perspectives from the psychology of religion shaping a study among adolescents in the UK
Major religious traditions agree in advocating and promoting love of neighbour as well as love of God. Love of neighbour is reflected in altruistic behaviour and empathy stands as a key motivational factor underpinning altruism. This study employs the empathy scale from the Junior Eysenck Impulsiveness Questionnaire to assess the association between empathy and God images among a sample of 5993 religiously diverse adolescents (13â15 years old) attending state maintained schools in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and London. The key psychological theory being tested by these data concerns the linkage between God images and individual differences in empathy. The data demonstrate that religious identity (e.g. Christian, Muslim) and religious attendance are less important than the God images which young people hold. The image of God as a God of mercy is associated with higher empathy scores, while the image of God as a God of justice is associated with lower empathy scores
Primordial magnetic fields and the HI signal from the epoch of reionization
The implication of primordial magnetic-field-induced structure formation for
the HI signal from the epoch of reionization is studied. Using semi-analytic
models, we compute both the density and ionization inhomogeneities in this
scenario. We show that: (a) The global HI signal can only be seen in emission,
unlike in the standard CDM models, (b) the density perturbations
induced by primordial fields, leave distinctive signatures of the magnetic
field Jeans' length on the HI two-point correlation function, (c) the length
scale of ionization inhomogeneities is \la 1 \rm Mpc. We find that the peak
expected signal (two-point correlation function) is in
the range of scales for magnetic field strength in the
range . We also discuss the
detectability of the HI signal. The angular resolution of the on-going and
planned radio interferometers allows one to probe only the largest magnetic
field strengths that we consider. They have the sensitivity to detect the
magnetic field-induced features. We show that thefuture SKA has both the
angular resolution and the sensitivity to detect the magnetic field-induced
signal in the entire range of magnetic field values we consider, in an
integration time of one week.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, to appear in JCA
Macrophage Ontogeny Underlies Differences in Tumor-Specific Education in Brain Malignancies.
Extensive transcriptional and ontogenetic diversity exists among normal tissue-resident macrophages, with unique transcriptional profiles endowing the cells with tissue-specific functions. However, it is unknown whether the origins of different macrophage populations affect their roles in malignancy. Given potential artifacts associated with irradiation-based lineage tracing, it remains unclear if bone-marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) are present in tumors of the brain, a tissue with no homeostatic involvement of BMDMs. Here, we employed multiple models of murine brain malignancy and genetic lineage tracing to demonstrate that BMDMs are abundant in primary and metastatic brain tumors. Our data indicate that distinct transcriptional networks in brain-resident microglia and recruited BMDMs are associated with tumor-mediated education yet are also influenced by chromatin landscapes established before tumor initiation. Furthermore, we demonstrate that microglia specifically repress Itga4 (CD49D), enabling its utility as a discriminatory marker between microglia and BMDMs in primary and metastatic disease in mouse and human
Interrogation of the Microenvironmental Landscape in Brain Tumors Reveals Disease-Specific Alterations of Immune Cells
Brain malignancies encompass a range of primary and metastatic cancers, including low-grade and high-grade gliomas and brain metastases (BrMs) originating from diverse extracranial tumors. Our understanding of the brain tumor microenvironment (TME) remains limited, and it is unknown whether it is sculpted differentially by primary versus metastatic disease. We therefore comprehensively analyzed the brain TME landscape via flow cytometry, RNA sequencing, protein arrays, culture assays, and spatial tissue characterization. This revealed disease-specific enrichment of immune cells with pronounced differences in proportional abundance of tissue-resident microglia, infiltrating monocyte-derived macrophages, neutrophils, and T cells. These integrated analyses also uncovered multifaceted immune cell activation within brain malignancies entailing converging transcriptional trajectories while maintaining disease- and cell-type-specific programs. Given the interest in developing TME-targeted therapies for brain malignancies, this comprehensive resource of the immune landscape offers insights into possible strategies to overcome tumor-supporting TME properties and instead harness the TME to fight cancer
Spectral quark model and low-energy hadron phenomenology
We propose a spectral quark model which can be applied to low energy hadronic
physics. The approach is based on a generalization of the Lehmann
representation of the quark propagator. We work at the one-quark-loop level.
Electromagnetic and chiral invariance are ensured with help of the gauge
technique which provides particular solutions to the Ward-Takahashi identities.
General conditions on the quark spectral function follow from natural physical
requirements. In particular, the function is normalized, its all positive
moments must vanish, while the physical observables depend on negative moments
and the so-called log-moments. As a consequence, the model is made finite,
dispersion relations hold, chiral anomalies are preserved, and the twist
expansion is free from logarithmic scaling violations, as requested of a
low-energy model. We study a variety of processes and show that the framework
is very simple and practical. Finally, incorporating the idea of vector-meson
dominance, we present an explicit construction of the quark spectral function
which satisfies all the requirements. The corresponding momentum representation
of the resulting quark propagator exhibits only cuts on the physical axis, with
no poles present anywhere in the complex momentum space. The momentum-dependent
quark mass compares very well to recent lattice calculations. A large number of
predictions and relations can be deduced from our approach for such quantities
as the pion light-cone wave function, non-local quark condensate, pion
transition form factor, pion valence parton distribution function, etc.Comment: revtex, 24 pages, 3 figure
InfluĂȘncia de prĂĄticas culturais e da resistĂȘncia genĂ©tica na intensidade do cancro da haste e produção de soja no Cerrado
Os efeitos de prĂĄticas culturais e resistĂȘncia genĂ©tica na intensidade ao cancro-da-haste da soja (Diaporthe phaseolorum f.sp. meridionalis - Dpm) foram examinados na safra 1995-96 em ĂĄreas de produção comercial, que haviam sido severamente atacadas na safra anterior (1994-95). Um experimento investigou os efeitos de cultivo mĂnimo (MT) e do plantio direto (NT) no desenvolvimento da doença e produtividade das cultivares FT-Cristalina e FT-Seriema. Em outro experimento, semeado em plantio direto, estudou-se o efeito da densidade de plantas (8, 15, 21 e 36 plantas/m) no desenvolvimento da doença e produtividade das cvs. FT-Cristalina (suscetivel), FT- 101 (moderadamente resistente) e FT-104 (resistente). IncidĂȘncia e severidade da doença foram menores em NT do que em MT. A produtividade aumentou no sistema NT (23% para âFT-Cristalinaâ e 14% para âFT-Seriemaâ), comparada com as produtividades em MT. As curvas de progresso da doença foram melhor descritas pelos mo- delos de Gompertz e logĂstico. A severidade do cancro aumentou pro- porcionalmente ao aumento das densidades de plantio nas cvs. suscetĂvel e moderadamente resistente. No final do ciclo, 100% das plantas da cv. FT-Cristalina estavam infetadas por Dpm, em todas as densidades de plantio. NĂveis intermediĂĄrios de doença foram observa- dos na cv. FT-101, enquanto apenas nĂveis muito baixos de doença ocorreram na cv. FT-104. Estabeleceu-se uma correlação negativa entre severidade de cancro-da-haste e produção. Algumas das prĂĄticas estudadas demonstraram potential para aplicação direta no controle da doença, e poderiam ser combinadas considerando-se seus efeitos aditivos.Field experiments were conducted in the 1995-96 soybean (Glycine max) growing season to evaluate the effects of cultural practices and host genetic resistance on the intensity of soybean stem canker, caused by Diaporthe phaseolorum f.sp. meridionalis (Dpm). Experiments were conducted in a commercial field severely infected in the previous (1994-95) season. In one study, minimum tillage (MT) and no-tillage (NT) cropping systems were investigated for their effects on disease development and on plant yields in cvs. FT- Cristalina (susceptible) and FT-Seriema (moderately resistant). Another study evaluated the effects of plant densities (8, 15, 21 and 36 plants/m) on disease development in cvs. FT-Cristalina, FT-101 (moderately resistant) and FT-104 (resistant). Disease incidence and severity were consistently lower in NT than in MT, and plant yields were increased by 23% and 14% in the NT system for the susceptible and moderately resistant cultivars, respectively, compared to the yields in the MT system. The Gompertz and Logistic models described well the disease progress curves in all situations. For both susceptible and moderately resistant cultivars, disease severity increased proportionately to the increase in plant densities. At the end of the season, 100% of the plants of cv. FT-Cristalina were infected by Dpm, at all plant densities. Disease levels on cv. FT-101 were intermediate while only very low disease levels were recorded on cv. FT-104. There was a consistent negative correlation between stem canker severity and yield. Some practices demonstrated potential for direct application in disease control, and could be combined considering their additive effects
Limits on Fast Radio Bursts and other transient sources at 182 MHz using the Murchison Widefield Array
The Murchison Widefield Array Transients Survey (MWATS):A search for low-frequency variability in a bright Southern hemisphere sample
TRY plant trait database â enhanced coverage and open access
Plant traitsâthe morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plantsâdetermine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of traitâbased plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traitsâalmost complete coverage for âplant growth formâ. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and traitâenvironmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives
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