3,550 research outputs found
Writhe of center vortices and topological charge -- an explicit example
The manner in which continuum center vortices generate topological charge
density is elucidated using an explicit example. The example vortex
world-surface contains one lone self-intersection point, which contributes a
quantum 1/2 to the topological charge. On the other hand, the surface in
question is orientable and thus must carry global topological charge zero due
to general arguments. Therefore, there must be another contribution, coming
from vortex writhe. The latter is known for the lattice analogue of the example
vortex considered, where it is quite intuitive. For the vortex in the
continuum, including the limit of an infinitely thin vortex, a careful analysis
is performed and it is shown how the contribution to the topological charge
induced by writhe is distributed over the vortex surface.Comment: 33 latex pages, 10 figures incorporating 14 ps files. Furthermore,
the time evolution of the vortex line discussed in this work can be viewed as
a gif movie, available for download by following the PostScript link below --
watch for the cute feature at the self-intersection poin
Comparative study of gp130 cytokine effects on corticotroph AtT-20 cells - Redundancy or specificity of neuroimmunoendocrine modulators?
Objective: This comparative in vitro study examined the effects of all known gp130 cytokines on murine corticotroph AtT-20 cell function. Methods: Cytokines were tested at equimolar concentrations from 0.078 to 10 nM. Tyrosine phosphorylation of the signal transducer and activator of transcription ( STAT) 3 and STAT1, the STAT-dependent suppressor of cytokine signaling (SOCS)-3 promoter activity, SOCS-3 gene expression, STAT-dependent POMC promoter activity and adrenocorticotropic hormone ( ACTH) secretion were determined. Results: Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), human oncostatin M (OSM) and cardiotrophin (CT)-1 (LIFR/gp130 ligands), as well as ciliary neurotrophic factor ( CNTF) and novel neurotrophin1/B-cell stimulating factor-3 (CNTFRalpha/LIFR/gp130 ligands) are potent stimuli of corticotroph cells in vitro. In comparison, interleukin (IL)-6 (IL-6R/gp130 ligand) and IL-11 (IL-11R/gp130 ligand) exhibited only modest direct effects on corticotrophs, while murine OSM (OSMR/gp130 ligand) showed no effect. Conclusion: (i) CNTFR complex ligands are potent stimuli of corticotroph function, comparable to LIFR complex ligands; (ii) IL-6 and IL-11 are relatively weak direct stimuli of corticotroph function; (iii) differential effects of human and murine OSM suggest that LIFR/gp130 (OSMR type I) but not OSMR/gp130 (OSMR type II) are involved in corticotroph signaling. (iv) CT-1 has the hitherto unknown ability to stimulate corticotroph function, and (v) despite redundant immuno-neuroendocrine effects of different gp130 cytokines, corticotroph cells are preferably activated through the LIFR and CNTFR complexes. Copyright (C) 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel
On the Spectrum of QCD(1+1) with SU(N_c) Currents
Extending previous work, we calculate in this note the fermionic spectrum of
two-dimensional QCD (QCD_2) in the formulation with SU(N_c) currents. Together
with the results in the bosonic sector this allows to address the as yet
unresolved task of finding the single-particle states of this theory as a
function of the ratio of the numbers of flavors and colors, \lambda=N_f/N_c,
anew. We construct the Hamiltonian matrix in DLCQ formulation as an algebraic
function of the harmonic resolution K and the continuous parameter \lambda.
Amongst the more surprising findings in the fermionic sector chiefly considered
here is that the fermion momentum is a function of \lambda. This dependence is
necessary in order to reproduce the well-known 't Hooft and large N_f spectra.
Remarkably, those spectra have the same single-particle content as the ones in
the bosonic sectors. The twist here is the dramatically different sizes of the
Fock bases in the two sectors, which makes it possible to interpret in
principle all states of the discrete approach. The hope is that some of this
insight carries over into the continuum. We also present some new findings
concerning the single-particle spectrum of the adjoint theory.Comment: 21 pp., 13 figures, version published in PR
Influence of a magnetic field on the viscosity of a dilute gas consisting of linear molecules.
The viscomagnetic effect for two linear molecules, N2 and CO2, has been calculated in the dilute-gas limit directly from the most accurate ab initio intermolecular potential energy surfaces presently available. The calculations were performed by means of the classical trajectory method in the temperature range from 70 K to 3000 K for N2 and 100 K to 2000 K for CO2, and agreement with the available experimental data is exceptionally good. Above room temperature, where no experimental data are available, the calculations provide the first quantitative information on the magnitude and the behavior of the viscomagnetic effect for these gases. In the presence of a magnetic field, the viscosities of nitrogen and carbon dioxide decrease by at most 0.3% and 0.7%, respectively. The results demonstrate that the viscomagnetic effect is dominated by the contribution of the jj¯ polarization at all temperatures, which shows that the alignment of the rotational axes of the molecules in the presence of a magnetic field is primarily responsible for the viscomagnetic effect
Nucleon Electromagnetic Form Factors from Lattice QCD using 2+1 Flavor Domain Wall Fermions on Fine Lattices and Chiral Perturbation Theory
We present a high-statistics calculation of nucleon electromagnetic form
factors in lattice QCD using domain wall quarks on fine lattices, to
attain a new level of precision in systematic and statistical errors. Our
calculations use lattices with lattice spacing a=0.084 fm for
pion masses of 297, 355, and 403 MeV, and we perform an overdetermined analysis
using on the order of 3600 to 7000 measurements to calculate nucleon electric
and magnetic form factors up to 1.05 GeV. Results are shown
to be consistent with those obtained using valence domain wall quarks with
improved staggered sea quarks, and using coarse domain wall lattices. We
determine the isovector Dirac radius , Pauli radius and
anomalous magnetic moment . We also determine connected contributions
to the corresponding isoscalar observables. We extrapolate these observables to
the physical pion mass using two different formulations of two-flavor chiral
effective field theory at one loop: the heavy baryon Small Scale Expansion
(SSE) and covariant baryon chiral perturbation theory. The isovector results
and the connected contributions to the isoscalar results are compared with
experiment, and the need for calculations at smaller pion masses is discussed.Comment: 44 pages, 40 figure
Suspension-adapted Chinese hamster ovary-derived cells expressing green fluorescent protein as a screening tool for biomaterials
Synthetic biomaterials play an important role in regenerative medicine. To be effective they must support cell attachment and proliferation in addition to being non-toxic and non-immunogenic. We used a suspension-adapted Chinese hamster ovary-derived cell line expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) to assess cell attachment and growth on synthetic biomaterials by direct measurement of GFP-specific fluorescence. To simplify operations, all cell cultivation steps were performed in orbitally-shaken, disposable containers. Comparative studies between this GFP assay and previously established cell quantification assays demonstrated that this novel approach is suitable for rapid screening of a large number of samples. Furthermore the utility of our assay system was confirmed by evaluation of cell growth on three polyvinylidene fluoride polymer scaffolds that differed in pore diameter and drawing conditions. The data presented here prove the general utility of GFP-expressing cell lines and orbital shaking technology for the screening of biomaterials for tissue engineering application
Separating PIAAC competencies from general cognitive skills: A dimensionality and explanatory analysis
This study aims to investigate how test scores from PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) can be interpreted, by comparing the PIAAC competencies literacy and numeracy to reasoning and perceptual speed. Dimensionality analyses supported, that the PIAAC competencies can be separated into a common factor overlapping with reasoning and perceptual speed, and domain-specific factors. For the common and specific factors, relations to other variables were analyzed. The nested factor for PIAAC literacy was as expected unrelated to age, positively related to learning opportunities during one’s lifetime, and positively related to literacy skill use. The nested factor for PIAAC numeracy was also as expected unrelated to age, against expectation unrelated to learning opportunities during one’s lifetime, and as expected positively related to numeracy skill use. Results support the validity of the intended test score interpretation for PIAAC literacy, while results for PIAAC numeracy were less clear
QCD near the Light Cone
Starting from the QCD Lagrangian, we present the QCD Hamiltonian for near
light cone coordinates. We study the dynamics of the gluonic zero modes of this
Hamiltonian. The strong coupling solutions serve as a basis for the complete
problem. We discuss the importance of zero modes for the confinement mechanism.Comment: 32 pages, ReVTeX, 2 Encapsulated PostScript figure
Center Dominance in SU(2) Gauge-Higgs Theory
We study the SU(2) gauge-Higgs system in D=4 dimensions, and analyze the
influence of the fundamental-representation Higgs field on the vortex content
of the gauge field. It is shown that center projected Polyakov lines, at low
temperature, are finite in the infinite volume limit, which means that the
center vortex distribution is consistent with color screening. In addition we
confirm and further investigate the presence of a "Kertesz-line" in the
strong-coupling region of the phase diagram, which we relate to the percolation
properties of center vortices. It is shown that this Kertesz-line separates the
gauge-Higgs phase diagram into two regions: a confinement-like region, in which
center vortices percolate, and a Higgs region, in which they do not. The free
energy of the gauge-Higgs system, however, is analytic across the Kertesz line.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figure
A Diagram Is Worth A Dozen Images
Diagrams are common tools for representing complex concepts, relationships
and events, often when it would be difficult to portray the same information
with natural images. Understanding natural images has been extensively studied
in computer vision, while diagram understanding has received little attention.
In this paper, we study the problem of diagram interpretation and reasoning,
the challenging task of identifying the structure of a diagram and the
semantics of its constituents and their relationships. We introduce Diagram
Parse Graphs (DPG) as our representation to model the structure of diagrams. We
define syntactic parsing of diagrams as learning to infer DPGs for diagrams and
study semantic interpretation and reasoning of diagrams in the context of
diagram question answering. We devise an LSTM-based method for syntactic
parsing of diagrams and introduce a DPG-based attention model for diagram
question answering. We compile a new dataset of diagrams with exhaustive
annotations of constituents and relationships for over 5,000 diagrams and
15,000 questions and answers. Our results show the significance of our models
for syntactic parsing and question answering in diagrams using DPGs
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