790 research outputs found
A Rare Case of Diffuse Polyarthritis in the Context of an Epididymoorchitis due to Mumps Infection
Mumps is a childhood disease with declining incidence in the western world and arthritis is a rare complication associated to the disease. Various presentations exist making diagnosis even more challenging. The mechanisms responsible for the joint involvement remain largely unknown but the timing of onset of the symptoms usually coincide with the rise in antibody titers arguing for an immunologic mediated response. We hereby report a rare case of polyarthritis in the onset of epididymoorchitis due to mumps infection in a HIV infected male patient. Elevated IL-6 serum level in our patient suggests that this cytokine may be an interesting biomarker for the diagnosis of mumps related arthritis
Density and spin response functions in ultracold fermionic atom gases
We propose a new method of detecting the onset of superfluidity in a
two-component ultracold fermionic gas of atoms governed by an attractive
short-range interaction. By studying the two-body correlation functions we find
that a measurement of the momentum distribution of the density and spin
response functions allows one to access separately the normal and anomalous
densities. The change in sign at low momentum transfer of the density response
function signals the transition between a BEC and a BCS regimes, characterized
by small and large pairs, respectively. This change in sign of the density
response function represents an unambiguous signature of the BEC to BCS
crossover. Also, we predict spin rotational symmetry-breaking in this system
The Eastern Arm of M83 Revisited: High-Resolution Mapping of 12CO 1-0 Emission
We have used the Owens Valley Millimeter Array to map 12CO (J=1-0) along a
3.5 kpc segment of M83's eastern spiral arm at resolutions of 6.5"x3.5", 10",
and 16". The CO emission in most of this segment lies along the sharp dust lane
demarking the inner edge of the spiral arm, but beyond a certain point along
the arm the emission shifts downstream from the dust lane to become better
aligned with the young stars seen in blue and H-beta images. This morphology
resembles that of the western arm of M100. Three possibilities, none of which
is wholly satisfactory, are considered to explain the deviation of the CO arm
from the dust lane: heating of the CO by UV radiation from young stars, heating
by low-energy cosmic rays, and a molecular medium consisting of two (diffuse
and dense) components which react differently to the density wave. Regardless,
the question of what CO emission traces along this spiral arm is a complicated
one. Strong tangential streaming is observed where the arm crosses the
kinematic major axis of the galaxy, implying that the shear becomes locally
prograde in the arms. Inferred from the streaming is a very high gas surface
density of about 230 solar masses/pc**2 and an arm-interarm contrast greater
than 2.3 in the part of the arm near the major axis. Using two different
criteria, we find that the gas at this location is well above the threshold for
gravitational instability -- much more clearly so than in either M51 or M100.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 25 pages, 5 figures. Manuscript in
LaTeX, figures in pdf. Fig 3 in colo
Pump Built-in Hamiltonian Method for Pump-Probe Spectroscopy
We propose a new method of calculating nonlinear optical responses of
interacting electronic systems. In this method, the total Hamiltonian (system +
system-pump interaction) is transformed into a different form that (apparently)
does not have a system-pump interaction. The transformed Hamiltonian, which we
call the pump built-in Hamiltonian, has parameters that depend on the strength
of the pump beam. Using the pump built-in Hamiltonian, we can calculate
nonlinear responses (responses to probe beams as a function of the pump beam)
by applying the {\em linear} response theory. We demonstrate the basic idea of
this new method by applying it to a one-dimensional, two-band model, in the
case the pump excitation is virtual (coherent excitation). We find that the
exponent of the Fermi edge singularity varies with the pump intensity.Comment: 6 page
Innate Lymphoid Cells in Autoimmune Diseases.
Innate lymphoid cells (ILC) are a heterogeneous group of immune cells characterized by lymphoid morphology and cytokine profile similar to T cells but which do not express clonally distributed diverse antigen receptors. These particular cells express transcription factors and cytokines reflecting their similarities to T helper (Th)1, Th2, and Th17 cells and are therefore referred to as ILC1, ILC2, and ILC3. Other members of the ILC subsets include lymphoid tissue inducer (LTi) and regulatory ILC (ILCreg). Natural killer (NK) cells share a common progenitor with ILC and also exhibit a lymphoid phenotype without antigen specificity. ILC are found in low numbers in peripheral blood but are much more abundant at barrier sites such as the skin, liver, airways, lymph nodes, and the gastrointestinal tract. They play an important role in innate immunity due to their capacity to respond rapidly to pathogens through the production of cytokines. Recent evidence has shown that ILC also play a key role in autoimmunity, as alterations in their number or function have been identified in systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Here, we review recent advances in the understanding of the role of ILC in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases, with particular emphasis on their role as a potential diagnostic biomarker and as therapeutic targets
Fluctuations in the Irreversible Decay of Turbulent Energy
A fluctuation law of the energy in freely-decaying, homogeneous and isotropic
turbulence is derived within standard closure hypotheses for 3D incompressible
flow. In particular, a fluctuation-dissipation relation is derived which
relates the strength of a stochastic backscatter term in the energy decay
equation to the mean of the energy dissipation rate. The theory is based on the
so-called ``effective action'' of the energy history and illustrates a
Rayleigh-Ritz method recently developed to evaluate the effective action
approximately within probability density-function (PDF) closures. These
effective actions generalize the Onsager-Machlup action of nonequilibrium
statistical mechanics to turbulent flow. They yield detailed, concrete
predictions for fluctuations, such as multi-time correlation functions of
arbitrary order, which cannot be obtained by direct PDF methods. They also
characterize the mean histories by a variational principle.Comment: 26 pages, Latex Version 2.09, plus seceq.sty, a stylefile for
sequential numbering of equations by section. This version includes new
discussion of the physical interpretation of the formal Rayleigh-Ritz
approximation. The title is also change
Many-body theory of pump-probe spectra for highly excited semiconductors
We present a unified theory for pump-probe spectra in highly excited
semiconductors, which is applicable throughout the whole density regime
including the high-density electron-hole BCS state and the low-density
excitonic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The analysis is based on the BCS-like
pairing theory combined with the Bethe-Salpeter (BS) equation, which first
enables us to incorporate the state-filling effect, the band-gap
renormalization and the strong/weak electron-hole pair correlations in a
unified manner. We show that the electron-hole BCS state is distinctly
stabilized by the intense pump-light, and this result strongly suggests that
the macroscopic quantum state can be observed under the strong photoexcitation.
The calculated spectra considerably deviate from results given by the BCS-like
mean field theory and the simple BS equation without electron-hole pair
correlation especially in the intermediate density states between the
electron-hole BCS state and the excitonic BEC state. In particular, we find the
sharp stimulated emission and absorption lines which originate from the optical
transition accompanied by the collective phase fluctuation mode in the
electron-hole BCS state. From the pump-probe spectral viewpoint, we show that
this fluctuation mode changes to the exciton mode with decreasing carrier
densityComment: RevTeX 11 pages, 10 figures. To appear in Phys.Rev.B1
Restoration of NK Cell Cytotoxic Function With Elotuzumab and Daratumumab Promotes Elimination of Circulating Plasma Cells in Patients With SLE.
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a multisystem autoimmune disease characterized by multiple cellular and molecular dysfunctions of the innate and adaptive immunity. Cytotoxic function of NK cells is compromised in patients with SLE. Herein, we characterized the phenotypic alterations of SLE NK cells in a comprehensive manner to further delineate the mechanisms underlying the cytotoxic dysfunction of SLE NK cells and identify novel potential therapeutic targets. Therefore, we examined PBMC from SLE patients and matched healthy controls by single-cell mass cytometry to assess the phenotype of NK cells. In addition, we evaluated the cell function of NK cells (degranulation and cytokine production) and the killing of B cell subpopulations in a B cell-NK cell in vitro co-culture model. We found that SLE NK cells expressed higher levels of CD38 and were not able to adequately upregulate SLAMF1 and SLAMF7 following activation. In addition, ligation of SLAMF7 with elotuzumab or of CD38 with daratumumab on SLE NK cells enhanced degranulation of both healthy and SLE NK cells and primed them to kill circulating plasma cells in an in vitro co-culture system. Overall, our data indicated that dysregulated expression of CD38, SLAMF1 and SLAMF7 on SLE NK cells is associated with an altered interplay between SLE NK cells and plasma cells, thus suggesting their contribution to the accumulation of (auto)antibody producing cells. Accordingly, targeting SLAMF7 and CD38 may represent novel therapeutic approaches in SLE by enhancing NK cell function and promoting elimination of circulating plasma cell
Survey for Emission-Line Galaxies: Universidad Complutense de Madrid List 3
A new low-dispersion objective-prism search for low-redshift (z<0.045)
emission-line galaxies (ELG) has been carried out by the Universidad
Complutense de Madrid with the Schmidt Telescope at the Calar-Alto Observatory.
This is a continuation of the UCM Survey, which was performed by visual
selection of candidates in photographic plates via the presence of the
Halpha+[NII]6584 blend in emission. In this new list we have applied an
automatic procedure, fully developed by us, for selecting and analyzing the ELG
candidates on the digitized images obtained with the MAMA machine. The analyzed
region of the sky covers 189 square degrees in nine fields near R.A.=14h & 17h,
Dec=25 deg. The final sample contains 113 candidates. Special effort has been
made to obtain a large amount of information directly from our uncalibrated
plates by using several external calibrations. The parameters obtained for the
ELG candidates allow for the study of the statistical properties for the
sample.Comment: 13 pages, 18 PostScript figures, 6 JPEG figures, Table 2 corrected.
Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Supplements, also available
at http://www.ucm.es/info/Astrof/opera/LIST3_ApJS99
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