Evaluation of a Macrophage Attenuated Isolate of PRRSV as a Vaccine for Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus

PRRS continues to be the most economically important disease of swine. While the acute reproductive disease is still prevalent, chronic, or endemic PRRS in nursery and grow/finish pigs is a major problem confronting most swine producers. Post-weaning problems in these herds include a 50-85% reduction in growth rates; a 10-30% increase in unmarketable pigs; and a 10-25% increase in psot-weaning morality. Popular protocols to manage PRRSV infections include bredding herd stabilization; elmination of seronegative sub-populations of susceptible gilts; nursery depopulation; and more recently mass vaccination/unidirectional pig flow in the grow/finsih unit. The goal of this project is to determine if an isolate of PRRSV, that has been moditifed by serial passage in monkey kidney cells (MARC-145) and replicates at very low levels in procine alveolar macrophages, is avirulent for pigs an pregnant gilts

LBL Magnetic-Measurements Data-Acquisition System

The LBL Magnetic Measurements Engineering (MME) Group has developed a Real-Time Data Acquisition System (DAS) for magnetic measurements. The design objective was for a system that was versatile, portable, modular, expandable, quickly and easily reconfigurable both in hardware and software, and inexpensive. All objectives except the last were attained. An LSI 11/23 microcomputer is interfaced to a clock-calendar, printer, CRT control terminal, plotter with hard copy, floppy and hard disks, GPIB, and CAMAC buses. Off-the-shelf hardware and software have been used where possible. Operational capabilities include: (1) measurement of high permeability materials; (2) harmonic error analysis of (a) superconducting dipoles and (b) rare earth cobalt (REC) and conventional quadrupole magnets; and (3) 0.1% accuracy x-y mapping with Hall probes. Results are typically presented in both tabular and graphical form during measurements. Only minutes are required to switch from one measurement capability to another. Brief descriptions of the DAS capabilities, some of the special instrumentation developed to implement these capabilities, and planned developments are given below

AC magnetic measurements of the ALS Booster Dipole Engineering Model Magnet

10 Hz sine wave and 2 Hz sawtooth AC magnetic measurements of he curved ALS Booster Dipole Engineering Model Magnet have been accomplished. Long curved coils were utilized to measure the integral transfer function and uniformity. Point coils and a Hall Probe were used to measure magnetic induction and its uniformity. The data were logged and processed by a Tektronix 11401 digital oscilloscope. The dependence of the effective length on the field was determined from the ratio of the integral coil signals to the point coil signals. Quadrupole and sextupole harmonics were derived from the point and integral uniformity measurements. 5 refs., 4 figs., 2 tabs

Spin-dynamics simulations of the triangular antiferromagnetic XY model

Using Monte Carlo and spin-dynamics methods, we have investigated the dynamic behavior of the classical, antiferromagnetic XY model on a triangular lattice with linear sizes $L \leq 300$. The temporal evolutions of spin configurations were obtained by solving numerically the coupled equations of motion for each spin using fourth-order Suzuki-Trotter decompositions of exponential operators. From space- and time-displaced spin-spin correlation functions and their space-time Fourier transforms we obtained the dynamic structure factor $S({\bf q},w)$ for momentum ${\bf q}$ and frequency $\omega$. Below $T_{KT}$(Kosterlitz-Thouless transition), both the in-plane ($S^{xx}$) and the out-of-plane ($S^{zz}$) components of $S({\bf q},\omega)$ exhibit very strong and sharp spin-wave peaks. Well above $T_{KT}$, $S^{xx}$ and $S^{zz}$ apparently display a central peak, and spin-wave signatures are still seen in $S^{zz}$. In addition, we also observed an almost dispersionless domain-wall peak at high $\omega$ below $T_{c}$(Ising transition), where long-range order appears in the staggered chirality. Above $T_{c}$, the domain-wall peak disappears for all $q$. The lineshape of these peaks is captured reasonably well by a Lorentzian form. Using a dynamic finite-size scaling theory, we determined the dynamic critical exponent $z$ = 1.002(3). We found that our results demonstrate the consistency of the dynamic finite-size scaling theory for the characteristic frequeny $\omega_{m}$ and the dynamic structure factor $S({\bf q},\omega)$ itself.Comment: 8 pages, RevTex, 10 figures, submitted to PR

Truthmakers and modality

This paper attempts to locate, within an actualist ontology, truthmakers for modal truths: truths of the form or . In section 1 I motivate the demand for substantial truthmakers for modal truths. In section 2 I criticise Armstrong’s account of truthmakers for modal truths. In section 3 I examine essentialism and defend an account of what makes essentialist attributions true, but I argue that this does not solve the problem of modal truth in general. In section 4 I discuss, and dismiss, a theistic account of the source of modal truth proposed by Alexander Pruss. In section 5 I offer a means of (dis)solving the problem

Gluino Pair Production at Linear e^+e^- Colliders

We study the potential of high-energy linear $e^+e^-$ colliders for the production of gluino pairs within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). In this model, the process $e^+e^-\to\tilde{g}\tilde{g}$ is mediated by quark/squark loops, dominantly of the third generation, where the mixing of left- and right-handed states can become large. Taking into account realistic beam polarization effects, photon and $Z^0$-boson exchange, and current mass exclusion limits, we scan the MSSM parameter space for various $e^+e^-$ center-of-mass energies to determine the regions, where gluino production should be visible.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figure

A non-Gaussian landscape

Primordial perturbations with wavelengths greater than the observable universe shift the effective background fields in our observable patch from their global averages over the inflating space. This leads to a landscape picture where the properties of our observable patch depend on its location and may significantly differ from the expectation values predicted by the underlying fundamental inflationary model. We show that if multiple fields are present during inflation, this may happen even if our horizon exit would be preceded by only a few e-foldings of inflation. Non-Gaussian statistics are especially affected: for example models of local non-Gaussianity predicting |f_NL|>> 10 over the entire inflating volume can have a probability up to a few tens of percent to generate a non-detectable bispectrum in our observable patch |fNL^{obs.}|<10. In this work we establish systematic connections between the observable local properties of primordial perturbations and the global properties of the inflating space which reflect the underlying high energy physics. We study in detail the implications of both a detection and non-detection of primordial non-Gaussianity by Planck, and discover novel ways of characterising the naturalness of different observational configurations

Passing through the bounce in the ekpyrotic models

By considering a simplified but exact model for realizing the ekpyrotic scenario, we clarify various assumptions that have been used in the literature. In particular, we discuss the new ekpyrotic prescription for passing the perturbations through the singularity which we show to provide a spectrum depending on a non physical normalization function. We also show that this prescription does not reproduce the exact result for a sharp transition. Then, more generally, we demonstrate that, in the only case where a bounce can be obtained in Einstein General Relativity without facing singularities and/or violation of the standard energy conditions, the bounce cannot be made arbitrarily short. This contrasts with the standard (inflationary) situation where the transition between two eras with different values of the equation of state can be considered as instantaneous. We then argue that the usually conserved quantities are not constant on a typical bounce time scale. Finally, we also examine the case of a test scalar field (or gravitational waves) where similar results are obtained. We conclude that the full dynamical equations of the underlying theory should be solved in a non singular case before any conclusion can be drawn.Comment: 17 pages, ReVTeX 4, 13 figures, minor corrections, conclusions unchange

Primordial perturbations in a non singular bouncing universe model

We construct a simple non singular cosmological model in which the currently observed expansion phase was preceded by a contraction. This is achieved, in the framework of pure general relativity, by means of a radiation fluid and a free scalar field having negative energy. We calculate the power spectrum of the scalar perturbations that are produced in such a bouncing model and find that, under the assumption of initial vacuum state for the quantum field associated with the hydrodynamical perturbation, this leads to a spectral index n=-1. The matching conditions applying to this bouncing model are derived and shown to be different from those in the case of a sharp transition. We find that if our bounce transition can be smoothly connected to a slowly contracting phase, then the resulting power spectrum will be scale invariant.Comment: 11 pages, RevTeX 4, 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Formation of superdense hadronic matter in high energy heavy-ion collisions

We present the detail of a newly developed relativistic transport model (ART 1.0) for high energy heavy-ion collisions. Using this model, we first study the general collision dynamics between heavy ions at the AGS energies. We then show that in central collisions there exists a large volume of sufficiently long-lived superdense hadronic matter whose local baryon and energy densities exceed the critical densities for the hadronic matter to quark-gluon plasma transition. The size and lifetime of this matter are found to depend strongly on the equation of state. We also investigate the degree and time scale of thermalization as well as the radial flow during the expansion of the superdense hadronic matter. The flow velocity profile and the temperature of the hadronic matter at freeze-out are extracted. The transverse momentum and rapidity distributions of protons, pions and kaons calculated with and without the mean field are compared with each other and also with the preliminary data from the E866/E802 collaboration to search for experimental observables that are sensitive to the equation of state. It is found that these inclusive, single particle observables depend weakly on the equation of state. The difference between results obtained with and without the nuclear mean field is only about 20\%. The baryon transverse collective flow in the reaction plane is also analyzed. It is shown that both the flow parameter and the strength of the ``bounce-off'' effect are very sensitive to the equation of state. In particular, a soft equation of state with a compressibility of 200 MeV results in an increase of the flow parameter by a factor of 2.5 compared to the cascade case without the mean field. This large effect makes it possible to distinguish the predictions from different theoretical models and to detect the signaturesComment: 55 pages, latex, + 39 figures available upon reques