Higher melonic theories

We classify a large set of melonic theories with arbitrary $q$-fold interactions, demonstrating that the interaction vertices exhibit a range of symmetries, always of the form $\mathbb{Z}_2^n$ for some $n$, which may be $0$. The number of different theories proliferates quickly as $q$ increases above $8$ and is related to the problem of counting one-factorizations of complete graphs. The symmetries of the interaction vertex lead to an effective interaction strength that enters into the Schwinger-Dyson equation for the two-point function as well as the kernel used for constructing higher-point functions.Comment: 43 pages, 12 figure

Oncolytic HSV-mediated Regulation of the Host Hypoxia Response

Biological Sciences: 2nd Place (The Ohio State University Denman Undergraduate Research Forum)Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and deadly primary brain tumor, accounting for over 10,000 new cancer diagnoses in the United States each year. The poor prognosis for GBM patients necessitates novel biological treatments. One such approach is the use of oncolytic herpes simplex virus 1 (oHSV). Like many novel treatments, oHSV therapy causes side effects that are not yet well understood. Our lab has demonstrated that oHSV treatment increases the vascularity of brain tumors. The goal of this study is to determine the mechanism by which oHSV treatment increases the vascularity of brain tumors. We have determined that the hypoxia inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF1α) is activated in cells infected with oHSV, even in normal oxygen conditions. HIF1α is a transcription factor which activates a variety of genes in response to a lack of oxygen. We believe that HIF1α activation may be responsible for the increased vascularity of oHSV treated brain tumors. A screen of targetscan.org for herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) miRNAs and their predicted target genes revealed multiple miRNAs predicted to target a protein called, factor inhibiting HIF1α (FIH). This protein functionally inhibits HIF1α activation by preventing the binding of HIF1α to DNA. We hypothesized that FIH would be negatively regulated in GBM cells infected with oHSV, thus allowing HIF1α activation. In this study, we demonstrate that HSV-1 expresses two miRNA molecules, which target and down regulate FIH. Transfection of miRNA inhibitors (antagomirs) was able to successfully abrogate the virus' ability to downregulate FIH as demonstrated by quantitative PCR and western blot. Moreover, transfection of HSV-1 miRNA mimics in the absence of virus was able to downregulate FIH protein levels (western blot) and activate the expression of a variety of HIF1α driven genes, including VEGF and CCN1 (quantitative PCR). Our future aim is to determine if HSV-1 encodes for miRNA capable of binding to the 3' untranslated region (3' UTR) of FIH. For this study we will employ an FIH-3' UTR luciferase reporter vector. This experiment will demonstrate if the miRNA expressed by oHSV directly binds to the 3' UTR of FIH, thus inhibiting FIH gene expression, and activating HIF1α.Pelotonia Undergraduate FellowshipAcademic Major: Biomedical Scienc

Selecting ultra-faint dwarf candidate progenitors in cosmological N-body simulations at high redshifts

The smallest satellites of the Milky Way ceased forming stars during the epoch of reionization and thus provide archaeological access to galaxy formation at $z>6$. Numerical studies of these ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (UFDs) require expensive cosmological simulations with high mass resolution that are carried out down to $z=0$. However, if we are able to statistically identify UFD host progenitors at high redshifts \emph{with relatively high probabilities}, we can avoid this high computational cost. To find such candidates, we analyze the merger trees of Milky Way type halos from the high-resolution ${\it Caterpillar}$ suite of dark matter only simulations. Satellite UFD hosts at $z=0$ are identified based on four different abundance matching (AM) techniques. All the halos at high redshifts are traced forward in time in order to compute the probability of surviving as satellite UFDs today. Our results show that selecting potential UFD progenitors based solely on their mass at z=12 (8) results in a 10\% (20\%) chance of obtaining a surviving UFD at $z=0$ in three of the AM techniques we adopted. We find that the progenitors of surviving satellite UFDs have lower virial ratios ($\eta$), and are preferentially located at large distances from the main MW progenitor, while they show no correlation with concentration parameter. Halos with favorable locations and virial ratios are $\approx 3$ times more likely to survive as satellite UFD candidates at $z=0.$Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication at MNRAS after minor revision

The Caterpillar Project: A Large Suite of Milky Way Sized Halos

We present the largest number of Milky Way sized dark matter halos simulated at very high mass ($\sim$$10^4$ M$_\odot$/particle) and temporal resolution ($\sim$5 Myrs/snapshot) done to date, quadrupling what is currently available in the literature. This initial suite consists of the first 24 halos of the $Caterpillar$ $Project$ (www.caterpillarproject.org) whose project goal of 60 - 70 halos will be made public when complete. We resolve $\sim$20,000 gravitationally bound subhalos within the virial radius of each host halo. Over the ranges set by our spatial resolution our convergence is excellent and improvements were made upon current state-of-the-art halo finders to better identify substructure at such high resolutions (e.g., on average we recover $\sim$4 subhalos in each host halo above 10$^8$ M$_\odot$ which would have otherwise not been found using conventional methods). For our relaxed halos, the inner profiles are reasonably fit by Einasto profiles ($\alpha$ = 0.169 $\pm$ 0.023) though this depends on the relaxed nature and assembly history of a given halo. Averaging over all halos, the substructure mass fraction is $f_{m,subs} = 0.121 \pm 0.041$, and mass function slope is d$N$/d$M\propto M^{-1.88 \pm 0.10}$ though we find scatter in the normalizations for fixed halo mass due to more concentrated hosts having less subhalos at fixed subhalo mass. There are no biases stemming from Lagrangian volume selection as all Lagrangian volume types are included in our sample. Our detailed contamination study of 264 low resolution halos has resulted in obtaining very large and unprecedented, high-resolution regions around our host halos for our target resolution (sphere of radius $\sim$$1.4 \pm 0.4$ Mpc) allowing for accurate studies of low mass dwarf galaxies at large galactocentric radii and the very first stellar systems at high redshift ($z \geq$ 10).Comment: 19 pages; 14 figures; 6 tables; Received September 3, 2015; Accepted November 15, 2015; Published February 2, 201