Beneficial effects of Lactobacillus paracasei subsp paracasei NTU 101 and its fermented products

It is well-known that probiotics have a number of beneficial health effects in humans and animals, including the reduction of symptoms in lactose intolerance and enhancement of the bioavailability of nutrients. Probiotics have showed to possess antimutagenic, anticarcinogenic and hypocholesterolemic properties. Further, they were also observed to have antagonistic actions against intestinal and food-borne pathogens, to decrease the prevalence of allergies in susceptible individuals and to have immunomodulatory effects. Typically, the bacteria colonise the intestinal tract first and then reinforce the host defence systems by inducing a generalised mucosal immune response, balanced T-helper cell response, self-limited inflammatory response and secretion of polymeric IgA. Scientific reports showed that the Taiwan native lactic acid bacterium from newborn infant faeces identified as Lactobacillus paracasei subsp. paracasei NTU 101 and its fermented products proved to be effective for the management of blood cholesterol and pressure, prevention of gastric mucosal lesion development, immunomodulation and alleviation of allergies, anti-osteoporosis and inhibition the fat tissue accumulation. This review article describes that the beneficial effects of this Lactobacillus strains and derivative products may be suitable for human and animals

F-theory and linear sigma models

We present an explicit method for translating between the linear sigma model and the spectral cover description of SU(r) stable bundles over an elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau manifold. We use this to investigate the 4-dimensional duality between (0,2) heterotic and F-theory compactifications. We indirectly find that much interesting heterotic information must be contained in the `spectral bundle' and in its dual description as a gauge theory on multiple F-theory 7-branes. A by-product of these efforts is a method for analyzing semistability and the splitting type of vector bundles over an elliptic curve given as the sheaf cohomology of a monad.Comment: 40 pages, no figures; minor cosmetic reorganization of section 4; reference [6] update

Floor plate and motor neuron induction by different concentrations of the amino-terminal cleavage product of sonic hedgehog autoproteolysis

AbstractThe differentiation of floor plate cells and motor neurons can be induced by Sonic hedgehog (SHH), a secreted signaling protein that undergoes autoproteolytic cleavage to generate amino- and carboxy-terminal products. We have found that both floor plate cells and motor neurons are induced by the aminoterminal cleavage product of SHH (SHH-N). The threshold concentration of SHH-N required for motor neuron induction is about 5-fold lower than that required for floor plate induction. Higher concentrations of SHH-N can induce floor plate cells at the expense of motor neuron differentiation. Our results suggest that the induction of floor plate cells and motor neurons by the notochord in vivo is mediated by exposure of neural plate cells to different concentrations of the amino-terminal product of SHH autoproteolytic cleavage

Quantum Wall Crossing in N=2 Gauge Theories

We study refined and motivic wall-crossing formulas in N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories with SU(2) gauge group and N_f < 4 matter hypermultiplets in the fundamental representation. Such gauge theories provide an excellent testing ground for the conjecture that "refined = motivic."Comment: 24 pages, 4 figure

Prepotentials for local mirror symmetry via Calabi-Yau fourfolds

In this paper, we first derive an intrinsic definition of classical triple intersection numbers of K_S, where S is a complex toric surface, and use this to compute the extended Picard-Fuchs system of K_S of our previous paper, without making use of the instanton expansion. We then extend this formalism to local fourfolds K_X, where X is a complex 3-fold. As a result, we are able to fix the prepotential of local Calabi-Yau threefolds K_S up to polynomial terms of degree 2. We then outline methods of extending the procedure to non canonical bundle cases.Comment: 42 pages, 7 figures. Expanded, reorganized, and added a theoretical background for the calculation

Polynomial Structure of Topological String Partition Functions

We review the polynomial structure of the topological string partition functions as solutions to the holomorphic anomaly equations. We also explain the connection between the ring of propagators defined from special K\"ahler geometry and the ring of almost-holomorphic modular forms defined on modular curves.Comment: version 2: references fixe

Lambda_b -> Lambda l+ l- decay within family non-universal Z' model

We perform a comprehensive analysis of the rare "Lambda_b -> Lambda l+ l-" decay in the framework of family non-universal Z' model. It is shown that Z' gives considerable contribution to the decay width. Zero positions of the forward-backward asymmetry and alpha_theta parameter are shifted to the left compared to the Standard Model result. The obtained results could be tested in near future at LHC-b.Comment: 14 pages, 4 postscript figures, LaTeX formatte

Topological Strings and (Almost) Modular Forms

The B-model topological string theory on a Calabi-Yau threefold X has a symmetry group Gamma, generated by monodromies of the periods of X. This acts on the topological string wave function in a natural way, governed by the quantum mechanics of the phase space H^3(X). We show that, depending on the choice of polarization, the genus g topological string amplitude is either a holomorphic quasi-modular form or an almost holomorphic modular form of weight 0 under Gamma. Moreover, at each genus, certain combinations of genus g amplitudes are both modular and holomorphic. We illustrate this for the local Calabi-Yau manifolds giving rise to Seiberg-Witten gauge theories in four dimensions and local P_2 and P_1 x P_1. As a byproduct, we also obtain a simple way of relating the topological string amplitudes near different points in the moduli space, which we use to give predictions for Gromov-Witten invariants of the orbifold C^3/Z_3.Comment: 62 pages, 1 figure; v2: minor correction

Instanton calculus in R-R background and the topological string

We study a system of fractional D3 and D(-1) branes in a Ramond-Ramond closed string background and show that it describes the gauge instantons of N=2 super Yang-Mills theory and their interactions with the graviphoton of N=2 supergravity. In particular, we analyze the instanton moduli space using string theory methods and compute the prepotential of the effective gauge theory exploiting the localization methods of the instanton calculus showing that this leads to the same information given by the topological string. We also comment on the relation between our approach and the so-called Omega-background.Comment: 38 pages, 2 figures, JHEP class (included); final version to be pubished in JHE

Gravitational corrections in supersymmetric gauge theory and matrix models

Gravitational corrections in N=1 and N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories are obtained from topological string amplitudes. We show how they are recovered in matrix model computations. This provides a test of the proposal by Dijkgraaf and Vafa beyond the planar limit. Both, matrix model and topological string theory, are used to check a conjecture of Nekrasov concerning these gravitational couplings in Seiberg-Witten theory. Our analysis is performed for those gauge theories which are related to the cubic matrix model, i.e. pure SU(2) Seiberg-Witten theory and N=2 U(N) SYM broken to N=1 via a cubic superpotential. We outline the computation of the topological amplitudes for the local Calabi-Yau manifolds which are relevant for these two cases.Comment: 27 pages, one eps figur