256 research outputs found
Derivation of Amplitude Equations by Renormalization Group Method
A proper formulation in the perturbative renormalization group method is
presented to deduce amplitude equations. The formulation makes it possible not
only avoiding a serious difficulty in the previous reduction to amplitude
equations by eliminating all of the secular terms but also consistent
derivation of higher-order correction to amplitude equations.Comment: 6 page, revte
Renormalization Group Method and Reductive Perturbation Method
It is shown that the renormalization group method does not necessarily
eliminate all secular terms in perturbation series to partial differential
equations and a functional subspace of renormalizable secular solutions
corresponds to a choice of scales of independent variables in the reductive
perturbation method.Comment: 5 pages, late
P-Process Nucleosynthesis inside Supernova-Driven Supercritical Accretion Disks
We investigate p-process nucleosynthesis in a supercritical accretion disk
around a compact object of 1.4 M_solar, using the self-similar solution of an
optically thick advection dominated flow. Supercritical accretion is expected
to occur in a supernova with fallback material accreting onto a new-born
compact object. It is found that appreciable amounts of p-nuclei are
synthesized via the p-process in supernova-driven supercritical accretion disks
(SSADs) when the accretion rate m_dot = M_dot c^2/(16 L_Edd) >10^5, where L_Edd
is the Eddington luminosity. Abundance profiles of p-nuclei ejected from SSADs
have similar feature to those of the oxygen/neon layers in Type II supernovae
when the abundance of the fallback gas far from the compact object is that of
the oxygen/neon layers in the progenitor. The overall abundance profile is in
agreement with that of the solar system. Some p-nuclei, such as Mo, Ru, Sn, and
La, are underproduced in the SSADs as in Type II supernovae. If the fallback
gas is mixed with a small fraction of proton through Rayleigh-Taylor
instability during the explosion, significant amounts of Mo92 are produced
inside the SSADs. Ru96 and La138 are also produced when the fallback gas
contains abundant proton though the overall abundance profile of p-nuclei is
rather different from that of the solar system. The p-process nucleosynthesis
in SSADs contributes to chemical evolution of p-nuclei, in particular Mo92, if
several percents of fallback matter are ejected via jets and/or winds.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures included, 3 tables, LaTeX emulateapj5.sty,
accepted for publication by the Astronomical Journal (March, 2003
Exact Solutions for Domain Walls in Coupled Complex Ginzburg - Landau Equations
The complex Ginzburg Landau equation (CGLE) is a ubiquitous model for the
evolution of slowly varying wave packets in nonlinear dissipative media. A
front (shock) is a transient layer between a plane-wave state and a zero
background. We report exact solutions for domain walls, i.e., pairs of fronts
with opposite polarities, in a system of two coupled CGLEs, which describe
transient layers between semi-infinite domains occupied by each component in
the absence of the other one. For this purpose, a modified Hirota bilinear
operator, first proposed by Bekki and Nozaki, is employed. A novel
factorization procedure is applied to reduce the intermediate calculations
considerably. The ensuing system of equations for the amplitudes and
frequencies is solved by means of computer-assisted algebra. Exact solutions
for mutually-locked front pairs of opposite polarities, with one or several
free parameters, are thus generated. The signs of the cubic gain/loss, linear
amplification/attenuation, and velocity of the coupled-front complex can be
adjusted in a variety of configurations. Numerical simulations are performed to
study the stability properties of such fronts.Comment: Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, in pres
RNA-seq discovery, functional characterization, and comparison of sesquiterpene synthases from Solanum lycopersicum and Solanum habrochaites trichomes
Solanum lycopersicum and Solanum habrochaites (f. typicum) accession PI127826 emit a variety of sesquiterpenes. To identify terpene synthases involved in the production of these volatile sesquiterpenes, we used massive parallel pyrosequencing (RNA-seq) to obtain the transcriptome of the stem trichomes from these plants. This approach resulted initially in the discovery of six sesquiterpene synthase cDNAs from S. lycopersicum and five from S. habrochaites. Searches of other databases and the S. lycopersicum genome resulted in the discovery of two additional sesquiterpene synthases expressed in trichomes. The sesquiterpene synthases from S. lycopersicum and S. habrochaites have high levels of protein identity. Several of them appeared to encode for non-functional proteins. Functional recombinant proteins produced germacrenes, Ī²-caryophyllene/Ī±-humulene, viridiflorene and valencene from (E,E)-farnesyl diphosphate. However, the activities of these enzymes do not completely explain the differences in sesquiterpene production between the two tomato plants. RT-qPCR confirmed high levels of expression of most of the S. lycopersicum sesquiterpene synthases in stem trichomes. In addition, one sesquiterpene synthase was induced by jasmonic acid, while another appeared to be slightly repressed by the treatment. Our data provide a foundation to study the evolution of terpene synthases in cultivated and wild tomato
Scanning tunneling spectroscopy of high-temperature superconductors
Tunneling spectroscopy played a central role in the experimental verification
of the microscopic theory of superconductivity in the classical
superconductors. Initial attempts to apply the same approach to
high-temperature superconductors were hampered by various problems related to
the complexity of these materials. The use of scanning tunneling
microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS) on these compounds allowed to overcome the
main difficulties. This success motivated a rapidly growing scientific
community to apply this technique to high-temperature superconductors. This
paper reviews the experimental highlights obtained over the last decade. We
first recall the crucial efforts to gain control over the technique and to
obtain reproducible results. We then discuss how the STM/STS technique has
contributed to the study of some of the most unusual and remarkable properties
of high-temperature superconductors: the unusual large gap values and the
absence of scaling with the critical temperature; the pseudogap and its
relation to superconductivity; the unprecedented small size of the vortex cores
and its influence on vortex matter; the unexpected electronic properties of the
vortex cores; the combination of atomic resolution and spectroscopy leading to
the observation of periodic local density of states modulations in the
superconducting and pseudogap states, and in the vortex cores.Comment: To appear in RMP; 65 pages, 62 figure
Six new candidate ultracompact X-ray binaries
Ultracompact X-ray binaries (UCXBs) appear able to sustain accretion onto the
compact accretor at rates lower than in wider X-ray binaries. This may be
understood by the smaller accretion disks in UCXBs: a lower X-ray luminosity
suffices to keep a disk completely ionized through irradiation and, thus, keep
the viscosity at a sufficiently high level to allow effective transport of
matter to the compact object. We employ this distinguishing factor on data from
RXTE and BeppoSAX to identify six new candidate UCXBs, thus increasing the
population by one quarter. The candidates are drawn from the population of
persistently accreting and type-I X-ray bursting low-mass X-ray binaries. The
X-ray bursts establish the low-mass X-ray binary nature and provide a handle on
the accretion rate. We find that the low accretion rates are supported by the
long burst recurrence times and the hard X-ray spectra of the persistent
emission as derived from the 2nd INTEGRAL catalog of soft gamma-ray sources. We
discuss the peculiar light curves of some new UCXB candidates.Comment: Section 2 corrected and improved thanks to comments by J.-P. Lasota.
Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic
Limited accessibility to designs and results of Japanese large-scale clinical trials for cardiovascular diseases
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Clinical evidence is important for improving the treatment of patients by health care providers. In the study of cardiovascular diseases, large-scale clinical trials involving thousands of participants are required to evaluate the risks of cardiac events and/or death. The problems encountered in conducting the Japanese Acute Myocardial Infarction Prospective (JAMP) study highlighted the difficulties involved in obtaining the financial and infrastructural resources necessary for conducting large-scale clinical trials. The objectives of the current study were: 1) to clarify the current funding and infrastructural environment surrounding large-scale clinical trials in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in Japan, and 2) to find ways to improve the environment surrounding clinical trials in Japan more generally.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We examined clinical trials examining cardiovascular diseases that evaluated true endpoints and involved 300 or more participants using Pub-Med, Ichushi (by the Japan Medical Abstracts Society, a non-profit organization), websites of related medical societies, the University Hospital Medical Information Network (UMIN) Clinical Trials Registry, and clinicaltrials.gov at three points in time: 30 November, 2004, 25 February, 2007 and 25 July, 2009.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found a total of 152 trials that met our criteria for 'large-scale clinical trials' examining cardiovascular diseases in Japan. Of these, 72.4% were randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Of 152 trials, 9.2% of the trials examined more than 10,000 participants, and 42.8% examined between 1,000 and 10,000 participants. The number of large-scale clinical trials markedly increased from 2001 to 2004, but suddenly decreased in 2007, then began to increase again. Ischemic heart disease (39.5%) was the most common target disease. Most of the larger-scale trials were funded by private organizations such as pharmaceutical companies. The designs and results of 13 trials were not disclosed.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>To improve the quality of clinical trials, all sponsors should register trials and disclose the funding sources before the enrolment of participants, and publish their results after the completion of each study.</p
The tomato terpene synthase gene family
Compounds of the terpenoid class play numerous roles in the interactions of plants with their environment, such as attracting pollinators and defending the plant against pests. We show here that the genome of cultivated tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) contains 44 terpene synthase (TPS) genes, including 29 that are functional or potentially functional. Of these 29 TPS genes, 26 were expressed in at least some organs or tissues of the plant. The enzymatic functions of eight of the TPS proteins were previously reported, and here we report the specific in vitro catalytic activity of 10 additional tomato terpene synthases. Many of the tomato TPS genes are found in clusters, notably on chromosomes 1, 2, 6, 8, and 10. All TPS family clades previously identified in angiosperms are also present in tomato. The largest clade of functional TPS genes found in tomato, with 12 members, is the TPS-a clade, and it appears to encode only sesquiterpene synthases, one of which is localized to the mitochondria, while the rest are likely cytosolic. A few additional sesquiterpene synthases are encoded by TPS-b clade genes. Some of the tomato sesquiterpene synthases use z,z-farnesyl diphosphate in vitro as well, or more efficiently than, the e,e-farnesyl diphosphate substrate. Genes encoding monoterpene synthases are also prevalent, and they fall into three clades: TPS-b, TPS-g, and TPS-e/f. With the exception of two enzymes involved in the synthesis of ent-kaurene, the precursor of gibberellins, no other tomato TPS genes could be demonstrated to encode diterpene synthases so far
Chronic HCV infection promotes cytotoxicity in antigen-specific CD8+ T cells regardless of virus specificity
IntroductionDespite advancements in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection treatment, HCV still represents a significant public health burden. Besides progressive hepatic damage, viral persistence has lasting effects on innate and adaptive immune responses. Lack of a complete understanding of the factors driving an effective HCV response contributes to the failure to develop a vaccine for prevention. This study advances the existing knowledge on HCV-specific CD8+ T cells and describes the impact of current or past HCV infection on CD8+ T cells specific for other viruses.MethodsWe used barcoded-dextramers to identify and sort CD8+ T cells specific for HCV, cytomegalovirus, and influenza, and characterized them using single-cell RNA sequencing technology. Our cohort included chronic (cHCV), spontaneously resolved (rHCV), and subjects undergoing direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy.ResultsWe show that HCV-specific CD8+ T cells have cytotoxic features in patients with cHCV, which is progressively reduced with DAA therapy and persists 12 weeks after treatment completion. We also observe a shift in the CD8+ T cell phenotype on DAA treatment, with decreased effector memory and exhausted cell signatures. In rHCV, we also detected a smaller proportion of effector memory cells compared to cHCV. The proportion of CD8+ exhausted T cells in cHCV and rHCV subjects was comparable. Moreover, we also observed that non-HCV virus-specific CD8+ T cells exhibit robust cytotoxic traits during cHCV infection.DiscussionAltogether, our findings suggest that cHCV infection promotes cytotoxicity in CD8+ T cells regardless of virus specificity. The immunological changes caused by cHCV infection in CD8+ T cells may contribute to worsening the ongoing hepatic damage caused by HCV infection or exacerbate the immune response to possible co-infections. Our data provide a resource to groups exploring the underlying mechanisms of HCV-specific T cell spontaneous and treatment-induced resolution to inform the development of effective vaccines against HCV infection
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