69 research outputs found
Possible black universes in a brane world
A black universe is a nonsingular black hole where, beyond the horizon, there
is an expanding, asymptotically isotropic universe. Such spherically symmetric
configurations have been recently found as solutions to the Einstein equations
with phantom scalar fields (with negative kinetic energy) as sources of
gravity. They have a Schwarzschild-like causal structure but a de Sitter
infinity instead of a singularity. It is attempted to obtain similar
configurations without phantoms, in the framework of an RS2 type brane world
scenario, considering the modified Einstein equations that describe gravity on
the brane. By building an explicit example, it is shown that black-universe
solutions can be obtained there in the presence of a scalar field with positive
kinetic energy and a nonzero potential.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, gc styl
The impact of negative selection on thymocyte migration in the medulla
Developing thymocytes are screened for self-reactivity before they exit the thymus, but how thymocytes scan the medulla for self antigens is unclear. Using two-photon microscopy, we observed that medullary thymocytes migrated rapidly and made frequent, transient contacts with dendritic cells. In the presence of a negative selecting ligand, thymocytes slowed, became confined to areas of approximately 30 mum in diameter and had increased contact with dendritic cells surrounding confinement zones. One third of polyclonal medullary thymocytes also showed confined, slower migration and may correspond to autoreactive thymocytes. Our data suggest that many autoreactive thymocytes do not undergo immediate arrest and death after encountering a negative selecting ligand but instead adopt an altered migration program while remaining in the medullary microenvironment
The earliest thymic T cell progenitors sustain B cell and myeloid lineage potential
The stepwise commitment from hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow to T lymphocyte-restricted progenitors in the thymus represents a paradigm for understanding the requirement for distinct extrinsic cues during different stages of lineage restriction from multipotent to lineage-restricted progenitors. However, the commitment stage at which progenitors migrate from the bone marrow to the thymus remains unclear. Here we provide functional and molecular evidence at the single-cell level that the earliest progenitors in the neonatal thymus had combined granulocyte-monocyte, T lymphocyte and B lymphocyte lineage potential but not megakaryocyte-erythroid lineage potential. These potentials were identical to those of candidate thymus-seeding progenitors in the bone marrow, which were closely related at the molecular level. Our findings establish the distinct lineage-restriction stage at which the T cell lineage-commitment process transits from the bone marrow to the remote thymus. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved
Using of PL-estimator of a dose at a point for dose calculation in heterogeneous media by Monte Carlo method
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