433 research outputs found
The global corporate elite after the financial crisis: evidence from the transnational network of interlocking directorates
What impact did the recent financial crisis have on the corporate elite's international network? Has corporate governance taken on an essentially national structure or have transnational networks remained robust? We investigate this issue by comparing the networks of interlocking directorates among the 176 largest corporations in the world economy in 1976, 1996, 2006 and 2013. We find that corporate elites have not retrenched into their national business communities: the transnational network increased in relative importance and remained largely intact during the crisis lasting from 2006 to 2013. However, this network does not depend - as it used to do - on a small number of big linkers but on a growing number of single linkers. The network has become less hierarchical. As a group, the corporate elite has become more transnational in character. We see this as indicative of a recomposition of the corporate elite from a national to a transnational orientation
The Cosmological Constant and Horava-Lifshitz Gravity
Horava-Lifshitz theory of gravity with detailed balance is plagued by the
presence of a negative bare (or geometrical) cosmological constant which makes
its cosmology clash with observations. We argue that adding the effects of the
large vacuum energy of quantum matter fields, this bare cosmological constant
can be approximately compensated to account for the small observed (total)
cosmological constant. Even though we cannot address the fine-tuning problem in
this way, we are able to establish a relation between the smallness of observed
cosmological constant and the length scale at which dimension 4 corrections to
the Einstein gravity become significant for cosmology. This scale turns out to
be approximately 5 times the Planck length for an (almost) vanishing observed
cosmological constant and we therefore argue that its smallness guarantees that
Lorentz invariance is broken only at very small scales. We are also able to
provide a first rough estimation for the infrared values of the parameters of
the theory and .Comment: 9 pages, Late
Eating Disorders and the Intestinal Microbiota: Mechanisms of Energy Homeostasis and Behavioral Influence
Purpose of Review: We reviewed and evaluated recently published scientific studies that explored the role of the intestinal microbiota in eating disorders. Recent Findings: Studies have demonstrated that the intestinal microbiota is a contributing factor to both host energy homeostasis and behavior—two traits commonly disrupted in patients with eating disorders. To date, intestinal microbiota research in eating disorders has focused solely on anorexia nervosa (AN). Initial studies have reported an atypical intestinal microbial composition in patients with AN compared to healthy controls. However, the impact of these AN-associated microbial communities on host metabolism and behavior remains unknown. Summary: The intriguing pattern of findings in patients with AN encourages further investigation of the intestinal microbiota in eating disorders. Elucidating the specific role(s) of these microbial communities may yield novel ideas for augmenting current clinical therapies to promote weight gain, decrease gastrointestinal distress, and even reduce psychological symptomatology
Mapping mRNA Expression of Glaucoma Genes in the Healthy Mouse Eye
Purpose/Aim: Many genes have been associated with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). Knowing
exactly where they are expressed in the eye helps to unravel POAG pathology and to select optimal
targets for intervention. We investigated whether RNA in situ hybridization (RNA-ISH) is a convenient
technique to obtain detailed pan-ocular expression data of these genes. We tested this for four diverse
candidate POAG genes, selected because of unclear ocular distribution (F5 and Dusp1) and relevance for
potential new therapies (Tnf, Tgfβr3). Optn, a POAG gene with well-known ocular expression pattern
served as control.
Methods: We made a list of candidate glaucoma genes reported in genetic studies. A table of their
ocular expression at the tissue level was compiled using publicly available microarray data (the ocular
tissue database). To add cellular detail we performed RNA-ISH for Optn, Tnf, Tgfβr3, F5, and Dusp1 on
eyes of healthy, 2-month-old, pigmented, and albino mice.
Results: Expression of the Optn control matched with published immunohistochemistry data. Ocular
expression of Tnf was generally low, with patches of higher Tnf expression, superficially in the corneal
epithelium. F5 had a restricted expression pattern with high expression in the nonpigmented ciliary
body epithelium and moderate expression in the peripapillary region. Tgfβr3 and Dusp1 showed
ubiquitous expression.
Conclusions: RNA-ISH is a suitable technique to determine the ocular expression pattern of POAG
genes, adding meaningful cellular detail to existing microarray expression data. For instance, the high
expression of F5 in the nonpigmented ciliary body epithelium suggests a role of this gene in aqueous
humor dynamics and intraocular pressure. In addition, the ubiquitous expression of Tgfβr3 has implications for designing TGF-β-related glaucoma therapies, with respect to side effects. Creating pan-ocular
expression maps of POAG genes with RNA-ISH will help to identify POAG pathways in speci
SN1A data and the CMB of Modified Curvature at short and long distances
The SN1a data, although inconclusive, when combined with other observations
makes a strong case that our universe is presently dominated by dark energy. We
investigate the possibility that large distance modifications of the curvature
of the universe would perhaps offer an alternative explanation of the
observation. Our calculations indicate that a universe made up of no dark
energy but instead, with a modified curvature at large scales, is not
scale-invariant, therefore quite likely it is ruled out by the CMB
observations. The sensitivity of the CMB spectrum is checked for the whole
range of mode modifications of large or short distance physics. The spectrum is
robust against modifications of short-distance physics and the UV cutoff when:
the initial state is the adiabatic vacuum, and the inflationary background
space is de Sitter.Comment: 13 pages, 2 eps figures, typos corrected, references added; to appear
in Phys. Rev.
Daily Changes in Composition and Diversity of the Intestinal Microbiota in Patients with Anorexia Nervosa: A Series of Three Cases
Anorexia nervosa, a severe psychiatric illness, is associated with an intestinal microbial dysbiosis. Individual microbial signatures dominate in healthy samples, even over time and under controlled conditions, but whether microbial markers of the disorder overcome inter-individual variation during the acute stage of illness or renourishment is unknown. We characterized daily changes in the intestinal microbiota in three acutely ill patients with anorexia nervosa over the entire course of hospital-based renourishment and found significant, patient-specific changes in microbial composition and diversity. This preliminary case series suggests that even in a state of pathology, individual microbial signatures persist in accounting for the majority of intestinal microbial variation
Field Equations and Conservation Laws Derived from the Generalized Einstein Lagrangian Density for A Gravitational System and Their Implications to Cosmology
Based on investigations of the fundamental properties of the generalized
Einstein Lagrangian density for a gravitational system, the theoretical
foundations of the modified Einstein field equations and the Lorentz and
Levi-Civita conservation laws are systematically studied. The theory of
cosmology developed on the basis of these equations and laws is analyzed in
detail. Some new properties and new effects of the cosmos are deduced; these
new properties and new effects could be tested via future experiments and
observations.Comment: 25 pages, no figure, accepted by International Journal of Theoretical
Physic
Coherent QCD phenomena in the Coherent Pion-Nucleon and Pion-Nucleus Production of Two Jets at High Relative Momenta
We use QCD to compute the cross section for coherent production of a di-jet
(treated as a moving at high relative transverse momentum,). In the target rest frame,the space-time evolution of this reaction is
dominated by the process in which the high component of
the pion wave function is formed before reaching the target. It then interacts
through two gluon exchange. In the approximation of keeping the leading order
in powers of and all orders in
the amplitudes for other processes are
shown to be smaller at least by a power of . The resulting dominant
amplitude is proportional to ( is the fraction
light-cone(+)momentum carried by the quark in the final state) times the skewed
gluon distribution of the target. For the pion scattering by a nuclear target,
this means that at fixed (but ) the nuclear process in which there is only a single interaction is the
most important one to contribute to the reaction. Thus in this limit color
transparency phenomena should occur.These findings are in accord with E971
experiment at FNAL. We also re-examine a potentially important nuclear multiple
scattering correction which is positive and . The
meaning of the signal obtained from the experimental measurement of pion
diffraction into two jets is also critically examined and significant
corrections are identified.We show also that for values of achieved
at fixed target energies, di-jet production by the e.m. field of the nucleus
leads to an insignificant correction which gets more important as
increases.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figure
Interacting Dark Energy in Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz Cosmology
In the usual Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz cosmological models, the scalar field is
responsible for dark matter. Using an additional scalar field, Saridakis
\cite{sari} has formulated Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz cosmology with an effective dark
energy sector. In the paper \cite{sari} the scalar fields do not interact with
each other, here we extend this work to the interacting case, where matter
scalar field interact with dark energy scalar field . We will
show that in contrast with \cite{sari}, where -filed is absent, we can
obtain , that is we result to an effective dark energy
presenting phantom behaviour. This behaviour is pure effect of the interaction.Comment: 10 pages, no figur
The Role of Color Neutrality in Nuclear Physics--Modifications of Nucleonic Wave Functions
The influence of the nuclear medium upon the internal structure of a
composite nucleon is examined. The interaction with the medium is assumed to
depend on the relative distances between the quarks in the nucleon consistent
with the notion of color neutrality, and to be proportional to the nucleon
density. In the resulting description the nucleon in matter is a superposition
of the ground state (free nucleon) and radial excitations. The effects of the
nuclear medium on the electromagnetic and weak nucleon form factors, and the
nucleon structure function are computed using a light-front constituent quark
model. Further experimental consequences are examined by considering the
electromagnetic nuclear response functions. The effects of color neutrality
supply small but significant corrections to predictions of observables.Comment: 37 pages, postscript figures available on request to
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