262 research outputs found
Viscous Quark-Gluon Plasma in the Early Universe
We consider the evolution of a flat, isotropic and homogeneous
Friedmann-Robertson-Walker Universe, filled with a causal bulk viscous
cosmological fluid, that can be characterized by an ultra-relativistic equation
of state and bulk viscosity coefficient obtained from recent lattice QCD
calculations. The basic equation for the Hubble parameter is derived under the
assumption that the total energy in the Universe is conserved. By assuming a
power law dependence of bulk viscosity coefficient, temperature and relaxation
time on energy density, an approximate solution of the field equations has been
obtained, in which we utilized equations of state from recent lattice QCD
simulations QCD and heavy-ion collisions to derive an evolution equation. In
this treatment for the viscous cosmology, we found no evidence for singularity.
For example, both Hubble parameter and scale factor are finite at , is
the comoving time. Furthermore, their time evolution essentially differs from
the one associated with non-viscous and ideal gas. Also thermodynamic
quantities, like temperature, energy density and bulk pressure remain finite as
well. In order to prove that the free parameter in our model does influence the
final results, qualitatively, we checked out other articular solutions.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures including 7 eps graph
Phytotherapeutic effects of Echinacea purpurea in gamma-irradiated mice
Echinacea (E.) purpurea herb is commonly known as the purple coneflower, red sunflower and rudbeckia. In this paper, we report the curative efficacy of an Echinacea extract in γ-irradiated mice. E. purpurea was given to male mice that were divided into five groups (control, treated, irradiated, treated before irradiation & treated after irradiation) at a dose of 30 mg/kg body weight for 2 weeks before and after irradiation with 3 Gy of γ-rays. The results reflected the detrimental reduction effects of γ-rays on peripheral blood hemoglobin and the levels of red blood cells, differential white blood cells, and bone marrow cells. The thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARs) level, Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSPx) activities and DNA fragmentation were also investigated. FT-Raman spectroscopy was used to explore the structural changes in liver tissues. Significant changes were observed in the microenvironment of the major constituents, including tyrosine and protein secondary structures. E. purpurea administration significantly ameliorated all estimated parameters. The radio-protection effectiveness was similar to the radio-recovery curativeness in comparison to the control group in most of the tested parameters. The radio-protection efficiency was greater than the radio-recovery in hemoglobin level during the first two weeks, in lymphoid cell count and TBARs level at the fourth week and in SOD activity during the first two weeks, as compared to the levels of these parameters in the control group
Bicistronic DNA display for in vitro selection of Fab fragments
In vitro display methods are superior tools for obtaining monoclonal antibodies. Although totally in vitro display methods, such as ribosome display and mRNA display, have the advantages of larger library sizes and quicker selection procedures compared with phage display, their applications have been limited to single-chain Fvs due to the requirement for linking of the mRNA and the nascent protein on the ribosome. Here we describe a different type of totally in vitro method, DNA display, that is applicable to heterodimeric Fab fragments: in vitro compartmentalization in water-in-oil emulsions allows the linking of an oligomeric protein and its encoding DNA with multiple ORFs. Since previously used emulsions impaired the synthesis of functional Fab fragments, we modified conditions for preparing emulsions, and identified conditions under which it was possible to enrich Fab fragments 106-fold per three rounds of affinity selection. Furthermore, we confirmed that genes encoding stable Fab fragments could be selected from a Fab fragment library with a randomized hydrophobic core in the constant region by applying heat treatment as a selection pressure. Since this method has all advantages of both phage display and totally in vitro display, it represents a new option for many applications using display methods
The impact of health system governance and policy processes on health services in Iraqi Kurdistan
BACKGROUND: Relative to the amount of global attention and media coverage since the first and second Gulf Wars, very little has been published in the health services research literature regarding the state of health services in Iraq, and particularly on the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan. Building on findings from a field visit, this paper describes the state of health services in Kurdistan, analyzes their underlying governance structures and policy processes, and their overall impact on the quality, accessibility and cost of the health system, while stressing the importance of reinvesting in public health and community-based primary care. DISCUSSION: Very little validated, research-based data exists relating to the state of population health and health services in Kurdistan. What little evidence exists, points to a region experiencing an epidemiological polarization, with different segments of the population experiencing rapidly-diverging rates of morbidity and mortality related to different etiological patterns of communicable, non-communicable, acute and chronic illness and disease. Simply put, the rural poor suffer from malnutrition and cholera, while the urban middle and upper classes deal with issues of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. The inequity is exacerbated by a poorly governed, fragmented, unregulated, specialized and heavily privatized system, that not only leads to poor quality of care and catastrophic health expenditures, but also threatens the economic and political stability of the region. There is an urgent need to revisit and clearly define the core values and goals of a future health system, and to develop an inclusive governance and policy framework for change, towards a more equitable and effective primary care-based health system, with attention to broader social determinants of health and salutogenesis. SUMMARY: This paper not only frames the situation in Kurdistan in terms of a human rights or special political issue of a minority population, but provides important generalizable lessons for other constituencies, highlighting the need for political action before effective public health policies can be implemented - as embodied by Rudolf Virchow, the father of European public health and pathology, in his famous quote "politics is nothing but medicine at a larger scale"
How Protein Stability and New Functions Trade Off
Numerous studies have noted that the evolution of new enzymatic specificities is accompanied by loss of the protein's thermodynamic stability (ΔΔG), thus suggesting a tradeoff between the acquisition of new enzymatic functions and stability. However, since most mutations are destabilizing (ΔΔG>0), one should ask how destabilizing mutations that confer new or altered enzymatic functions relative to all other mutations are. We applied ΔΔG computations by FoldX to analyze the effects of 548 mutations that arose from the directed evolution of 22 different enzymes. The stability effects, location, and type of function-altering mutations were compared to ΔΔG changes arising from all possible point mutations in the same enzymes. We found that mutations that modulate enzymatic functions are mostly destabilizing (average ΔΔG = +0.9 kcal/mol), and are almost as destabilizing as the “average” mutation in these enzymes (+1.3 kcal/mol). Although their stability effects are not as dramatic as in key catalytic residues, mutations that modify the substrate binding pockets, and thus mediate new enzymatic specificities, place a larger stability burden than surface mutations that underline neutral, non-adaptive evolutionary changes. How are the destabilizing effects of functional mutations balanced to enable adaptation? Our analysis also indicated that many mutations that appear in directed evolution variants with no obvious role in the new function exert stabilizing effects that may compensate for the destabilizing effects of the crucial function-altering mutations. Thus, the evolution of new enzymatic activities, both in nature and in the laboratory, is dependent on the compensatory, stabilizing effect of apparently “silent” mutations in regions of the protein that are irrelevant to its function
Centrality and transverse momentum dependence of elliptic flow of multi-strange hadrons and meson in Au+Au collisions at = 200 GeV
We present high precision measurements of elliptic flow near midrapidity
() for multi-strange hadrons and meson as a function of
centrality and transverse momentum in Au+Au collisions at center of mass energy
200 GeV. We observe that the transverse momentum dependence of
and is similar to that of and , respectively,
which may indicate that the heavier strange quark flows as strongly as the
lighter up and down quarks. This observation constitutes a clear piece of
evidence for the development of partonic collectivity in heavy-ion collisions
at the top RHIC energy. Number of constituent quark scaling is found to hold
within statistical uncertainty for both 0-30 and 30-80 collision
centrality. There is an indication of the breakdown of previously observed mass
ordering between and proton at low transverse momentum in the
0-30 centrality range, possibly indicating late hadronic interactions
affecting the proton .Comment: 7 pages and 4 figures, Accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Energy dependence of acceptance-corrected dielectron excess mass spectrum at mid-rapidity in Au+Au collisions at and 200 GeV
The acceptance-corrected dielectron excess mass spectra, where the known
hadronic sources have been subtracted from the inclusive dielectron mass
spectra, are reported for the first time at mid-rapidity in
minimum-bias Au+Au collisions at = 19.6 and 200 GeV. The excess
mass spectra are consistently described by a model calculation with a broadened
spectral function for GeV/. The integrated
dielectron excess yield at = 19.6 GeV for
GeV/, normalized to the charged particle multiplicity at mid-rapidity, has
a value similar to that in In+In collisions at = 17.3 GeV. For
= 200 GeV, the normalized excess yield in central collisions is
higher than that at = 17.3 GeV and increases from peripheral to
central collisions. These measurements indicate that the lifetime of the hot,
dense medium created in central Au+Au collisions at = 200 GeV
is longer than those in peripheral collisions and at lower energies.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure
Observation of charge asymmetry dependence of pion elliptic flow and the possible chiral magnetic wave in heavy-ion collisions
We present measurements of and elliptic flow, , at
midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at 200, 62.4, 39, 27,
19.6, 11.5 and 7.7 GeV, as a function of event-by-event charge asymmetry,
, based on data from the STAR experiment at RHIC. We find that
() elliptic flow linearly increases (decreases) with charge asymmetry
for most centrality bins at and higher.
At , the slope of the difference of
between and as a function of exhibits a
centrality dependence, which is qualitatively similar to calculations that
incorporate a chiral magnetic wave effect. Similar centrality dependence is
also observed at lower energies.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Azimuthal anisotropy in U+U and Au+Au collisions at RHIC
Collisions between prolate uranium nuclei are used to study how particle
production and azimuthal anisotropies depend on initial geometry in heavy-ion
collisions. We report the two- and four-particle cumulants, and
, for charged hadrons from U+U collisions at =
193 GeV and Au+Au collisions at = 200 GeV. Nearly fully
overlapping collisions are selected based on the amount of energy deposited by
spectators in the STAR Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDCs). Within this sample, the
observed dependence of on multiplicity demonstrates that ZDC
information combined with multiplicity can preferentially select different
overlap configurations in U+U collisions. An initial-state model with gluon
saturation describes the slope of as a function of multiplicity in
central collisions better than one based on Glauber with a two-component
multiplicity model.Comment: Final paper version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett. New
version includes comparisons to a constituent quark glauber mode
Observation of Transverse Spin-Dependent Azimuthal Correlations of Charged Pion Pairs in at GeV
We report the observation of transverse polarization-dependent azimuthal
correlations in charged pion pair production with the STAR experiment in
collisions at RHIC. These correlations directly probe quark
transversity distributions. We measure signals in excess of five standard
deviations at high transverse momenta, at high pseudorapidities eta>0.5, and
for pair masses around the mass of the rho-meson. This is the first direct
transversity measurement in p+p collisions. Comparing the results to data from
lepton-nucleon scattering will test the universality of these spin-dependent
quantities.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 15 tables. Submitted to PR
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