Dynamics of the infinitely-thin kink

We consider the dynamics of the domain-wall kink soliton, in particular we study the zero mode of translation. In the infinitely-thin kink limit, we show that the zero mode is almost completely frozen out, the only remnant being a dynamically constrained four-dimensional mode of a single but arbitrary frequency. In relation to this result, we show that the usual mode expansion for dealing with zero modes -- implicit collective coordinates -- is not in fact a completely general expansion, and that one must use instead a traditional generalised Fourier analysis.Comment: 13 pages; v2: added references, to appear in Phys Lett

CDASH: Community Data Analytics for Social Harm Prevention

Communities are adversely affected by heterogeneous social harm events (e.g., crime, traffic crashes, medical emergencies, drug use) and police, fire, health and social service departments are tasked with mitigating social harm through various types of interventions. Smart cities of the future will need to leverage IoT, data analytics, and government and community human resources to most effectively reduce social harm. Currently, methods for collection, analysis, and modeling of heterogeneous social harm data to identify government actions to improve quality of life are needed. In this paper we propose a system, CDASH, for synthesizing heterogeneous social harm data from multiples sources, identifying social harm risks in space and time, and communicating the risk to the relevant community resources best equipped to intervene. We discuss the design, architecture, and performance of CDASH. CDASH allows users to report live social harm events using mobile hand-held devices and web browsers and flags high risk areas for law enforcement and first responders. To validate the methodology, we run simulations on historical social harm event data in Indianapolis illustrating the advantages of CDASH over recently introduced social harm indices and existing point process methods used for predictive policing

Educational attainment as a modifier for the effect of polygenic scores for cardiovascular risk factors:cross-sectional and prospective analysis of UK Biobank

BACKGROUND: Understanding the interplay between educational attainment and genetic predictors of cardiovascular risk may improve our understanding of the aetiology of educational inequalities in cardiovascular disease. METHODS: In up to 320 120 UK Biobank participants of White British ancestry (mean age = 57 years, female 54%), we created polygenic scores for nine cardiovascular risk factors or diseases: alcohol consumption, body mass index, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, lifetime smoking behaviour, systolic blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and stroke. We estimated whether educational attainment modified genetic susceptibility to these risk factors and diseases. RESULTS: On the additive scale, higher educational attainment reduced genetic susceptibility to higher body mass index, smoking, atrial fibrillation and type 2 diabetes, but increased genetic susceptibility to higher LDL-C and higher systolic blood pressure. On the multiplicative scale, there was evidence that higher educational attainment increased genetic susceptibility to atrial fibrillation and coronary heart disease, but little evidence of effect modification was found for all other traits considered. CONCLUSIONS: Educational attainment modifies the genetic susceptibility to some cardiovascular risk factors and diseases. The direction of this effect was mixed across traits considered and differences in associations between the effect of the polygenic score across strata of educational attainment was uniformly small. Therefore, any effect modification by education of genetic susceptibility to cardiovascular risk factors or diseases is unlikely to substantially explain the development of inequalities in cardiovascular risk

XMM-Newton observations of the merging galaxy cluster CIZA J2242.8+5301

We studied the intracluster medium of the galaxy cluster CIZA J2242.8+5301 using deep XMM-Newton observations. The cluster hosts a remarkable 2-Mpc long, ~50-kpc wide radio relic that has been nicknamed the "Sausage". A smaller, more irregular counter-relic is also present, along with a faint giant radio halo. We analysed the distribution of the ICM physical properties, and searched for shocks by trying to identify density and temperature discontinuities. East of the southern relic, we find evidence of shock compression corresponding to a Mach number of 1.3, and speculate that the shock extends beyond the length of the radio structure. The ICM temperature increases at the northern relic. More puzzling, we find a "wall" of hot gas east of the cluster centre. A partial elliptical ring of hot plasma appears to be present around the merger. While radio observations and numerical simulations predict a simple merger geometry, the X-ray results point towards a more complex merger scenario.Comment: Extensively revised and expanded, with 18 pages and 17 figure

Trust Estimation of Historical Social Harm Events in Indianapolis Metro Area

Social harm involves incidents resulting in physical, financial, and emotional hardships such as crime, drug overdoses and abuses, traffic accidents, and suicides. These incidents require various law-enforcement and emergencyresponding agencies to coordinate together for mitigating their impact on society. In this paper, we discuss the enhancements made to Community Data Analytic for Social Harm Prevention (CDASH) - a system that we have created for analyzing historical social harm events. CDASH predicts `hot-spots’ and displays them graphically to law-enforcement officials. The enhanced system, called Trusted-CDASH (T-CDASH), superimposes a trust estimation framework on top of CDASH. We discuss the importance and necessity of associating a degree of trust with each social harm incident reported to T-CDASH. We also describe different trust models that can be incorporated for assigning trust while examining their impact on prediction accuracy of future social harm events. To validate the trust models, we run simulations on historical social harm data of Indianapolis metro area, illustrating the behavior of each trust model and exploring their significance

Separating the direct effects of traits on atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease from those mediated by type 2 diabetes

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: Type 2 diabetes and atherosclerotic CVD share many risk factors. This study aimed to systematically assess a broad range of continuous traits to separate their direct effects on coronary and peripheral artery disease from those mediated by type 2 diabetes. METHODS: Our main analysis was a two-step Mendelian randomisation for mediation to quantify the extent to which the associations observed between continuous traits and liability to atherosclerotic CVD were mediated by liability to type 2 diabetes. To support this analysis, we performed several univariate Mendelian randomisation analyses to examine the associations between our continuous traits, liability to type 2 diabetes and liability to atherosclerotic CVD. RESULTS: Eight traits were eligible for the two-step Mendelian randomisation with liability to coronary artery disease as the outcome and we found similar direct and total effects in most cases. Exceptions included fasting insulin and hip circumference where the proportion mediated by liability to type 2 diabetes was estimated as 56% and 52%, respectively. Six traits were eligible for the analysis with liability to peripheral artery disease as the outcome. Again, we found limited evidence to support mediation by liability to type 2 diabetes for all traits apart from fasting insulin (proportion mediated: 70%). CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION: Most traits were found to affect liability to atherosclerotic CVD independently of their relationship with liability to type 2 diabetes. These traits are therefore important for understanding atherosclerotic CVD risk regardless of an individual’s liability to type 2 diabetes. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00125-022-05653-1