9,639 research outputs found
Permeability evolution across carbonate hosted normal fault zones
Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Total E&P and BG Group for project funding and support, and the Industry Technology Facilitator for facilitating the collaborative development (grant number 3322PSD). The authors would also like to express their gratitude to the Aberdeen Formation Evaluation Society and the College of Physical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen for partial financial support. Raymi Castilla (Total E&P), Fabrizio Agosta and Cathy Hollis are also thanked for their constructive comments and suggestions to improve the standard of this manuscript as are John Still and Colin Taylor (University of Aberdeen) for technical assistance in the laboratory. Piero Gianolla is thanked for his editorial handling of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprin
Current utility of the ankle-brachial index (ABI) in general practice: implications for its use in cardiovascular disease screening
Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a marker of systemic atherosclerosis and associated with a three to six fold increased risk of death from cardiovascular causes. Furthermore, it is typically asymptomatic and under-diagnosed; this has resulted in escalating calls for the instigation of Primary Care PAD screening via Ankle Brachial Index (ABI) measurement. However, there is limited evidence regarding the feasibility of this and if the requisite core skills and knowledge for such a task already exist within primary care. This study aimed to determine the current utility of ABI measurement in general practices across Wales, with consideration of the implications for its use as a cardiovascular risk screening tool
The role of atrial natriuretic peptide to attenuate inflammation in a mouse skin wound and individually perfused rat mesenteric microvessels.
We tested the hypothesis that the anti-inflammatory actions of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) result from the modulation of leukocyte adhesion to inflamed endothelium and not solely ANP ligation of endothelial receptors to stabilize endothelial barrier function. We measured vascular permeability to albumin and accumulation of fluorescent neutrophils in a full-thickness skin wound on the flank of LysM-EGFP mice 24 h after formation. Vascular permeability in individually perfused rat mesenteric microvessels was also measured after leukocytes were washed out of the vessel lumen. Thrombin increased albumin permeability and increased the accumulation of neutrophils. The thrombin-induced inflammatory responses were attenuated by pretreating the wound with ANP (30 min). During pretreatment ANP did not lower permeability, but transiently increased baseline albumin permeability concomitant with the reduction in neutrophil accumulation. ANP did not attenuate acute increases in permeability to histamine and bradykinin in individually perfused rat microvessels. The hypothesis that anti-inflammatory actions of ANP depend solely on endothelial responses that stabilize the endothelial barrier is not supported by our results in either individually perfused microvessels in the absence of circulating leukocytes or the more chronic skin wound model. Our results conform to the alternate hypothesis that ANP modulates the interaction of leukocytes with the inflamed microvascular wall of the 24 h wound. Taken together with our previous observations that ANP reduces deformability of neutrophils and their strength of attachment, rolling, and transvascular migration, these observations provide the basis for additional investigations of ANP as an anti-inflammatory agent to modulate leukocyte-endothelial cell interactions
Electroweak baryogenesis induced by a scalar field
A cosmological pseudoscalar field coupled to hypercharge topological number
density can exponentially amplify hyperelectric and hypermagnetic fields while
coherently rolling or oscillating, leading to the formation of a time-dependent
condensate of topological number density. The topological condensate can be
converted, under certain conditions, into baryons in sufficient quantity to
explain the observed baryon asymmetry in the universe. The amplified
hypermagnetic field can perhaps sufficiently strengthen the electroweak phase
transition, and by doing so, save any pre-existing baryon number asymmetry from
extinction.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Optimal interlayer hopping and high temperature Bose–Einstein condensation of local pairs in quasi 2D superconductors
Both FeSe and cuprate superconductors are quasi 2D materials with high transition temperatures and local fermion pairs. Motivated by such systems, we investigate real space pairing of fermions in an anisotropic lattice model with intersite attraction, V, and strong local Coulomb repulsion, U, leading to a determination of the optimal conditions for superconductivity from Bose–Einstein condensation. Our aim is to gain insight as to why high temperature superconductors tend to be quasi 2D. We make both analytically and numerically exact solutions for two body local pairing applicable to intermediate and strong V. We find that the Bose–Einstein condensation temperature of such local pairs pairs is maximal when hopping between layers is intermediate relative to in-plane hopping, indicating that the quasi 2D nature of unconventional superconductors has an important contribution to their high transition temperatures
Curvaton reheating: an application to braneworld inflation
The curvaton was introduced recently as a distinct inflationary mechanism for
generating adiabatic density perturbations. Implicit in that scenario is that
the curvaton offers a new mechanism for reheating after inflation, as it is a
form of energy density not diluted by the inflationary expansion. We consider
curvaton reheating in the context of a braneworld inflation model, {\em steep
inflation}, which features a novel use of the braneworld to give a new
mechanism for ending inflation. The original steep inflation model featured
reheating by gravitational particle production, but the inefficiency of that
process brings observational difficulties. We demonstrate here that the
phenomenology of steep inflation is much improved by curvaton reheating.Comment: 8 pages RevTeX4 file with two figures incorporated. Improved
referencing, matches PRD accepted versio
Type IIA Orientifold Limit of M-Theory on Compact Joyce 8-Manifold of Spin(7)-Holonomy
We show that M-theory compactified on a compact Joyce 8-manifold of
-holonomy, which yields an effective theory in with = 1
supersymmetry, admits at some special points in it moduli space a description
in terms of type IIA theory on an orientifold of compact Joyce 7-manifold of
-holonomy. We find the evidence in favour of this duality by computing the
massless spectra on both M-thory side and type IIA side. For the latter, we
compute the massless spectra by going to the orbifold limit of the Joyce
7-manifold.Comment: 26 pages, 2 eps figures, Latex file, two references and one footnote
added, corrected some typo
Gene duplication in an African cichlid adaptive radiation
Background Gene duplication is a source of evolutionary innovation and can contribute to the divergence of lineages; however, the relative importance of this process remains to be determined. The explosive divergence of the African cichlid adaptive radiations provides both a model for studying the general role of gene duplication in the divergence of lineages and also an exciting foray into the identification of genomic features that underlie the dramatic phenotypic and ecological diversification in this particular lineage. We present the first genome-wide study of gene duplication in African cichlid fishes, identifying gene duplicates in three species belonging to the Lake Malawi adaptive radiation (Metriaclima estherae, Protomelas similis, Rhamphochromis “chilingali”) and one closely related species from a non-radiated riverine lineage (Astatotilapia tweddlei). Results Using Astatotilapia burtoni as reference, microarray comparative genomic hybridization analysis of 5689 genes reveals 134 duplicated genes among the four cichlid species tested. Between 51 and 55 genes were identified as duplicated in each of the three species from the Lake Malawi radiation, representing a 38%–49% increase in number of duplicated genes relative to the non-radiated lineage (37 genes). Duplicated genes include several that are involved in immune response, ATP metabolism and detoxification. Conclusions These results contribute to our understanding of the abundance and type of gene duplicates present in cichlid fish lineages. The duplicated genes identified in this study provide candidates for the analysis of functional relevance with regard to phenotype and divergence. Comparative sequence analysis of gene duplicates can address the role of positive selection and adaptive evolution by gene duplication, while further study across the phylogenetic range of cichlid radiations (and more generally in other adaptive radiations) will determine whether the patterns of gene duplication seen in this study consistently accompany rapid radiation
Quintessential inflation
We present an explicit observationally acceptable model for evolution from
inflation to the present epoch under the assumption that the entropy and matter
of the familiar universe are from gravitational particle production at the end
of inflation. This eliminates the problem of finding a satisfactory coupling of
the inflaton and matter fields. Since the inflaton potential may be a
monotonic function of the inflaton , the inflaton energy could produce an
observationally significant effective cosmological constant, as in
quintessence.Comment: 6 pages, REVTeX, 1 figur
The asymptotic quasi-stationary states of the two-dimensional magnetically confined plasma and of the planetary atmosphere
We derive the differential equation governing the asymptotic quasi-stationary
states of the two dimensional plasma immersed in a strong confining magnetic
field and of the planetary atmosphere. These two systems are related by the
property that there is an intrinsic constant length: the Larmor radius and
respectively the Rossby radius and a condensate of the vorticity field in the
unperturbed state related to the cyclotronic gyration and respectively to the
Coriolis frequency. Although the closest physical model is the
Charney-Hasegawa-Mima (CHM) equation, our model is more general and is related
to the system consisting of a discrete set of point-like vortices interacting
in plane by a short range potential. A field-theoretical formalism is developed
for describing the continuous version of this system. The action functional can
be written in the Bogomolnyi form (emphasizing the role of Self-Duality of the
asymptotic states) but the minimum energy is no more topological and the
asymptotic structures appear to be non-stationary, which is a major difference
with respect to traditional topological vortex solutions. Versions of this
field theory are discussed and we find arguments in favor of a particular form
of the equation. We comment upon the significant difference between the CHM
fluid/plasma and the Euler fluid and respectively the Abelian-Higgs vortex
models.Comment: Latex 126 pages, 7 eps figures included. Discussion on various forms
of the equatio
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