A study of the zinc deficiency in a section of rural people in Bengal, India by soil fortification

Zinc concentration in the soil of some area in Hoogly is less than normal. Flax seed crop was grown in Zn deficient soil of acid lateritic type. The oil extracted from the oil seed obtained from soil fortified with Zn contained higher level of Zn and was fed to persons for judging their biochemical changes with respect to fasting blood sugar (FBS), total cholesterol (TLC), HDL cholesterol (HDLC), LDL cholesterol (LDLC), and triglyceride (TG). The results revealed that feeding flax oil to the volunteers for a period of four years brought considerable changes in lowering down the levels of TLC, LDLC, TG and FBS. However, flax oil with more zinc content has shown more reductions in FBS and LDLC levels. The study tries to find out the relationship between zinc concentration in oil and incidence of non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus. African Journal of Health Sciences Vol. 13 (3-4) 2006: pp. 53-5

Observable signals in a string inspired axion-dilaton background and Randall-Sundrum scenario

Rotation angle of the plane of polarization of the distant galactic radio waves has been estimated in a string inspired axion-dilaton background. It is found that the axion,dual to the field strength of the second rank antisymmetric massless Kalb-Ramond field in the string spectrum, produces a wavelength independent optical rotation which is much larger than that produced by the dilaton. Detection of such rotation has been reported in some recent cosmological experiments. The observed value has been compared with our estimated theoretical value following various cosmological constraints. The effects of warped extra dimensions in a braneworld scenario on such an optical rotation have been investigated.Comment: 17 Pages, Latex, article revised, To appear in Physical Review

Constraining the Randall-Sundrum modulus in the light of recent PVLAS data

Recent PVLAS data put stringent constraints on the measurement of birefringence and dichroism of electromagnetic waves travelling in a constant and homogeneous magnetic field. There have been theoretical predictions in favour of such phenomena when appropriate axion-electromagnetic coupling is assumed. Origin of such a coupling can be traced in a low energy string action from the requirement of quantum consistency. The resulting couplings in such models are an artifact of the compactification of the extra dimensions present inevitably in a string scenario. The moduli parameters which encode the compact manifold therefore play a crucial role in determining the axion-photon coupling. In this work we examine the possible bounds on the value of compact modulus that emerge from the experimental limits on the coupling obtained from the PVLAS data. In particular we focus into the Randall-Sundrum (RS) type of warped geometry model whose modulus parameter is already restricted from the requirement of the resolution of gauge hierarchy problem in connection with the mass of the Higgs. We explore the bound on the modulus for a wide range of the axion mass for both the birefringence and the dichroism data in PVLAS. We show that the proposed value of the modulus in the RS scenario can only be accommodated for axion mass \gsim 0.3 eV.Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure, LaTex; added references, typos corrected. Minor changes in the text, a comment added in the Conclusio

A Study of the Zinc Deficiency in a Section of Rural People in Bengal, India by Soil Fortification

Zinc concentration in the soil of some area in Hoogly is less than normal. Flax seed crop was grown in Zn deficient soil of acid lateritic type. The oil extracted from the oil seed obtained from soil fortified with Zn contained higher level of Zn and was fed to persons for judging their biochemical changes with respect to fasting blood sugar (FBS), total cholesterol (TLC), HDL cholesterol (HDLC), LDL cholesterol (LDLC), and triglyceride (TG). The results revealed that feeding flax oil to the volunteers for a period of four years brought considerable changes in lowering down the levels of TLC, LDLC, TG and FBS. However, flax oil with more zinc content has shown more reductions in FBS and LDLC levels. The study tries to find out the relationship between zinc concentration in oil and incidence of non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus

Effects of Molecular Crowding on stretching of polymers in poor solvent

We consider a linear polymer chain in a disordered environment modeled by percolation clusters on a square lattice. The disordered environment is meant to roughly represent molecular crowding as seen in cells. The model may be viewed as the simplest representation of biopolymers in a cell. We show the existence of intermediate states during stretching arising as a consequence of molecular crowding. In the constant distance ensemble the force-extension curves exhibit oscillations. We observe the emergence of two or more peaks in the probability distribution curves signaling the coexistence of different states and indicating that the transition is discontinuous unlike what is observed in the absence of molecular crowding.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Multifractal Behaviour of n-Simplex Lattice

We study the asymptotic behaviour of resistance scaling and fluctuation of resistance that give rise to flicker noise in an {\em n}-simplex lattice. We propose a simple method to calculate the resistance scaling and give a closed-form formula to calculate the exponent, $\beta_L$, associated with resistance scaling, for any n. Using current cumulant method we calculate the exact noise exponent for n-simplex lattices.Comment: Latex, 9 pages including one figur

The Adsorption and Collapse Transitions in a Linear Polymer Chain near an Attractive Wall

We deduce the qualitative phase diagram of a long flexible neutral polymer chain immersed in a poor solvent near an attracting surface using phenomenological arguments. The actual positions of the phase boundaries are estimated numerically from series expansion up to 19 sites of a self-attracting self avoiding walk in three dimensions. In two dimensions, we calculate analytically phase boundaries in some cases for a partially directed model. Both the numerical as well as analytical results corroborate the proposed qualitative phase diagram.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, revte

Properties of CFTs dual to Charged BTZ black-hole

We study properties of strongly coupled CFT's with non-zero background electric charge in 1+1 dimensions by studying the dual gravity theory - which is a charged BTZ black hole. Correlators of operators dual to scalars, gauge fields and fermions are studied at both T=0 and $T\neq 0$. In the $T=0$ case we are also able to compare with analytical results based on $AdS_2$ and find reasonable agreement. In particular the correlation between log periodicity and the presence of finite spectral density of gapless modes is seen. The real part of the conductivity (given by the current-current correlator) also vanishes as $\omega \rightarrow 0$ as expected. The fermion Green's function shows quasiparticle peaks with approximately linear dispersion but the detailed structure is neither Fermi liquid nor Luttinger liquid and bears some similarity to a "Fermi-Luttinger" liquid. This is expected since there is a background charge and the theory is not Lorentz or scale invariant. A boundary action that produces the observed non-Luttinger-liquid like behavior ($k$-independent non-analyticity at $\omega=0$) in the Greens function is discussed.Comment: major changes: paper reformatted, connection with Fermi-Luttinger liquid theory explored, comparison with expected behavior in 1+1 dimension added, rigorous numerical analysis for finite temperature don

d+idd+id Holographic Superconductors

A holographic model of $d+id$ superconductors based on the action proposed by Benini, Herzog, and Yarom [arXiv:1006.0731] is studied. This model has a charged spin two field in an AdS black hole spacetime. Working in the probe limit, the normalizable solution of the spin two field in the bulk gives rise to a $d+id$ superconducting order parameter at the boundary of the AdS. We calculate the fermion spectral function in this\ superconducting background and confirm the existence of fermi arcs for non-vanishing Majorana couplings. By changing the relative strength $\gamma$ of the $d$ and $id$ condensations, the position and the size of the fermi arcs are changed. When $\gamma =1$, the spectrum becomes isotropic and the spectral function is s-wave like. By changing the fermion mass, the fermi momentum is changed. We also calculate the conductivity for these holographic $d+id$ superconductors where time reversal symmetry has been broken spontaneously. A non-vanishing Hall conductivity is obtained even without an external magnetic field.Comment: 24 pages,17 figures, Add more discussions on hall conductivity, two new figures, Matched with published versio