1,448 research outputs found
Continuous measurements of greenhouse gases and atmospheric oxygen at the Namib Desert atmospheric observatory
A new coastal background site has been established for observations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the central Namib Desert at Gobabeb, Namibia. The location of the site was chosen to provide observations for a data-poor region in the global sampling network for GHGs. Semi-automated continuous measurements of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, atmospheric oxygen, and basic meteorology are made at a height of 21 m a.g.l., 50 km from the coast at the northern border of the Namib Sand Sea. Atmospheric oxygen is measured with a differential fuel cell analyzer (DFCA). Carbon dioxide and methane are measured with an early-model cavity ring-down spectrometer (CRDS); nitrous oxide and carbon monoxide are measured with an off-axis integrated cavity output spectrometer (OA-ICOS). Instrument-specific water corrections are employed for both the CRDS and OA-ICOS instruments in lieu of drying. The performance and measurement uncertainties are discussed in detail. As the station is located in a remote desert environment, there are some particular challenges, namely fine dust, high diurnal temperature variability, and minimal infrastructure. The gas handling system and calibration scheme were tailored to best fit the conditions of the site. The CRDS and DFCA provide data of acceptable quality when base requirements for operation are met, specifically adequate temperature control in the laboratory and regular supply of electricity. In the case of the OA-ICOS instrument, performance is significantly improved through the implementation of a drift correction through frequent measurements of a reference cylinder
Primordial black holes from cosmic necklaces
Cosmic necklaces are hybrid topological defects consisting of monopoles and
strings. We argue that primordial black holes(PBHs) may have formed from loops
of the necklaces, if there exist stable winding states, such as coils and
cycloops. Unlike the standard scenario of PBH formation from string loops, in
which the kinetic energy plays important role when strings collapse into black
holes, the PBH formation may occur in our scenario after necklaces have
dissipated their kinetic energy. Then, the significant difference appears in
the production ratio. In the standard scenario, the production ratio
becomes a tiny fraction , however it becomes in our
case. On the other hand, the typical mass of the PBHs is much smaller than the
standard scenario, if they are produced in the same epoch. As the two
mechanisms may work at the same time, the necklaces may have more than one
channel of the gravitational collapse. Although the result obtained in this
paper depends on the evolution of the dimensionless parameter , the
existence of the winding state could be a serious problem in some cases. Since
the existence of the winding state in brane models is due to the existence of a
non-tivial circle in the compactified space, the PBH formation can be used to
probe the structure of the compactified space. Black holes produced by this
mechanism may have peculiar properties.Comment: 22pages, 3 figures, added many comments, +1 figure, accepted for
publication in JHE
Four Light Neutrinos in Singular Seesaw Mechanism with Abelian Flavor Symmetry
The four light neutrino scenario, which explains the atmosphere, solar and
LSND neutrino experiments, is studied in the framework of the seesaw mechanism.
By taking both the Dirac and Majorana mass matrix of neutrinos to be singular,
the four neutrino mass spectrum consisting of two almost degenerate pairs
separated by a mass gap eV is naturally generated. Moreover the
right-handed neutrino Majorana mass can be at GeV scale unlike
in the usual singular seesaw mechanism. Abelian flavor symmetry is used to
produce the required neutrino mass pattern. A specific example of the flavor
charge assignment is provided to show that maximal mixings between the
and are respectively attributed to the
atmosphere and solar neutrino anomalies while small mixing between two pairs to
the LSND results. The implication in the other fermion masses is also
discussed.Comment: Firnal version to appear in PR
Racetrack Inflation
We develop a model of eternal topological inflation using a racetrack
potential within the context of type IIB string theory with KKLT volume
stabilization. The inflaton field is the imaginary part of the K\"ahler
structure modulus, which is an axion-like field in the 4D effective field
theory. This model does not require moving branes, and in this sense it is
simpler than other models of string theory inflation. Contrary to
single-exponential models, the structure of the potential in this example
allows for the existence of saddle points between two degenerate local minima
for which the slow-roll conditions can be satisfied in a particular range of
parameter space. We conjecture that this type of inflation should be present in
more general realizations of the modular landscape. We also consider
`irrational' models having a dense set of minima, and discuss their possible
relevance for the cosmological constant problem.Comment: 23 pages 7 figures. The final version with minor modifications, to
appear in JHE
Model-informed machine learning for multi-component T<sub>2</sub> relaxometry.
Recovering the T <sub>2</sub> distribution from multi-echo T <sub>2</sub> magnetic resonance (MR) signals is challenging but has high potential as it provides biomarkers characterizing the tissue micro-structure, such as the myelin water fraction (MWF). In this work, we propose to combine machine learning and aspects of parametric (fitting from the MRI signal using biophysical models) and non-parametric (model-free fitting of the T <sub>2</sub> distribution from the signal) approaches to T <sub>2</sub> relaxometry in brain tissue by using a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) for the distribution reconstruction. For training our network, we construct an extensive synthetic dataset derived from biophysical models in order to constrain the outputs with a priori knowledge of in vivo distributions. The proposed approach, called Model-Informed Machine Learning (MIML), takes as input the MR signal and directly outputs the associated T <sub>2</sub> distribution. We evaluate MIML in comparison to a Gaussian Mixture Fitting (parametric) and Regularized Non-Negative Least Squares algorithms (non-parametric) on synthetic data, an ex vivo scan, and high-resolution scans of healthy subjects and a subject with Multiple Sclerosis. In synthetic data, MIML provides more accurate and noise-robust distributions. In real data, MWF maps derived from MIML exhibit the greatest conformity to anatomical scans, have the highest correlation to a histological map of myelin volume, and the best unambiguous lesion visualization and localization, with superior contrast between lesions and normal appearing tissue. In whole-brain analysis, MIML is 22 to 4980 times faster than the non-parametric and parametric methods, respectively
A Comment on Masses, Quantum Affine Symmetries and PP-Wave Backgrounds
Two dimensional light cone world sheet massive models can be used to define
good string backgrounds.In many cases these light cone world sheet lagrangians
flow from a CFT in the UV to a theory of massive particles in the IR. The
relevant symmetry in the IR, playing a similar role to Virasoro in the UV, are
quantum affine Kac Moody algebras. Finite dimensional irreps of this algebra
are associated with the spectrum of massive particles. The case of N=0 Sine
Gordon at the N=2 point is associated with a Landau Ginzburg model that defines
a good string background. For the world sheet symmetry the N=2 piece is associated with the string conformal
invariance and the piece with the world sheet RG. The two
dimensional light cone world sheet massive model can be promoted to a CFT by
adding extra light cone fields and . From the point of view of
the quantum affine symmetry these two fields are associated, respectively, with
the center and the derivation of the affine Kac Moody algebra.Comment: 9 pages. Typos correcte
Electrified Fuzzy Spheres and Funnels in Curved Backgrounds
We use the non-Abelian DBI action to study the dynamics of coincident
-branes in an arbitrary curved background, with the presence of a
homogenous world-volume electric field. The solutions are natural extensions of
those without electric fields, and imply that the spheres will collapse toward
zero size. We then go on to consider the intersection in a curved
background and find various dualities and automorphisms of the general
equations of motion. It is possible to map the dynamical equation of motion to
the static one via Wick rotation, however the additional spatial dependence of
the metric prevents this mapping from being invertible. Instead we find that a
double Wick rotation leaves the static equation invariant. This is very
different from the behaviour in Minkowski space. We go on to construct the most
general static fuzzy funnel solutions for an arbitrary metric either by solving
the static equations of motion, or by finding configurations which minimise the
energy. As a consistency check we construct the Abelian -brane world-volume
theory in the same generic background and find solutions consistent with energy
minimisation. In the 5-brane background we find time dependent solutions to
the equations of motion, representing a time dependent fuzzy funnel. These
solutions match those obtained from the -string picture to leading order
suggesting that the action in the large limit does not need corrections. We
conclude by generalising our solutions to higher dimensional fuzzy funnels.Comment: 38 pages, Latex; references adde
Can R-parity violation explain the LSND data as well?
The recent Super-Kamiokande data now admit only one type of mass hierarchy in
a framework with three active and one sterile neutrinos. We show that neutrino
masses and mixings generated by R-parity-violating couplings, with values
within their experimental upper limits, are capable of reproducing this
hierarchy, explaining all neutrino data particularly after including the LSND
results.Comment: 7 pages, Latex, 3 PS figures; in v2 a few clarifying remarks included
and two references added (to appear in Physical Review D
Formation of monopoles and domain walls after brane inflation
We study cosmological defect formation after brane inflation. The
cosmological defects are corresponding to the branes that have less than three
spacial dimensions in the uncompactified spacetime. Contrary to the previous
arguments, production of monopoles and domain walls are not always negligible.
Monopoles and domain walls are formed by the branes extended between mother
branes.Comment: 27pages, 7 figures, many comments, footnotes and reviews are added,
to appear in JHE
Transcriptional silencing of the Dickkopfs-3 (Dkk-3) gene by CpG hypermethylation in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia
Dkk-3 is a newly characterised mortalisation-related gene and an antagonist of the Wnt oncogenic signalling pathway whose
expression is decreased in a variety of cancer cell lines, suggesting that the Dkk-3 gene, located at chromosome 11p15.1, functions as
a tumour suppressor gene. Although 11p15 is a ‘hot spot’ for methylation in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), the role of Dkk-3
abnormalities has never been evaluated in this disease. We analysed CpG island methylation of the Dkk-3 promoter in six ALL cell
lines and 183 ALL patients. We observed Dkk-3 hypermethylation in all cell lines and in cells from 33% (60/183) of ALL patients.
Moreover, Dkk-3 methylation was associated with decreased Dkk-3 mRNA expression and this expression was restored after
exposure to the demethylating agent 5-AzaC. Clinical features did not differ between hypermethylated and unmethylated patients.
Estimated disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival at 10 and 11 years, respectively, were 49.8 and 45.6% for normal patients
and 10.5 and 15.1% for hypermethylated patients (P¼0.001 and 0.09). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that Dkk-3 methylation
was an independent prognostic factor predicting DFS (P¼0.0009). Our data suggest that Dkk-3 methylation occurs at an early stage
in ALL pathogenesis and probably influences the clinical behaviour of the disease
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