13,068 research outputs found
Making financial markets safer for consumers: lessons from consumer goods markets and beyond
In the wake of the mortgage meltdown, policymakers are discussing how best to protect consumers in financial product markets.Consumer protection ; Financial markets
Line-Graph Lattices: Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Flat Bands, and Implementations in Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics
Materials science and the study of the electronic properties of solids are a
major field of interest in both physics and engineering. The starting point for
all such calculations is single-electron, or non-interacting, band structure
calculations, and in the limit of strong on-site confinement this can be
reduced to graph-like tight-binding models. In this context, both
mathematicians and physicists have developed largely independent methods for
solving these models. In this paper we will combine and present results from
both fields. In particular, we will discuss a class of lattices which can be
realized as line graphs of other lattices, both in Euclidean and hyperbolic
space. These lattices display highly unusual features including flat bands and
localized eigenstates of compact support. We will use the methods of both
fields to show how these properties arise and systems for classifying the
phenomenology of these lattices, as well as criteria for maximizing the gaps.
Furthermore, we will present a particular hardware implementation using
superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators that can realize a wide variety
of these lattices in both non-interacting and interacting form
Implications of CoGeNT and DAMA for Light WIMP Dark Matter
In this paper, we study the recent excess of low energy events observed by
the CoGeNT collaboration, and discuss the possibility that these events
originate from the elastic scattering of a light (m_DM ~ 5-10 GeV) dark matter
particle. We find that such a dark matter candidate may also be capable of
generating the annual modulation reported by DAMA, as well as the small excess
recently reported by CDMS, without conflicting with the null results from other
experiments, such as XENON10. A dark matter interpretation of the CoGeNT and
DAMA observations favors a region of parameter space that is especially
attractive within the context of Asymmetric Dark Matter models. In such models,
the cosmological dark matter density arises from the baryon asymmetry of the
universe, naturally leading to the expectation that m_DM ~ 1-10 GeV. We also
discuss neutralino dark matter from extended supersymmetric frameworks, such as
the NMSSM. Lastly, we explore the implications of such a dark matter candidate
for indirect searches, and find that the prospects for detecting the neutrino
and gamma ray annihilation products of such a particle to be very encouraging.Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures. v2: references added, fig 4 and surrounding
discussion modified
Lessons from crossing symmetry at large N
20 pages, v2: Assumptions stated more clearly, version published in JHEPWe consider the four-point correlator of the stress tensor multiplet in N=4 SYM. We construct all solutions consistent with crossing symmetry in the limit of large central charge c ~ N^2 and large g^2 N. While we find an infinite tower of solutions, we argue most of them are suppressed by an extra scale \Delta_{gap} and are consistent with the upper bounds for the scaling dimension of unprotected operators observed in the numerical superconformal bootstrap at large central charge. These solutions organize as a double expansion in 1/c and 1/\Delta_{gap}. Our solutions are valid to leading order in 1/c and to all orders in 1/\Delta_{gap} and reproduce, in particular, instanton corrections previously found. Furthermore, we find a connection between such upper bounds and positivity constraints arising from causality in flat space. Finally, we show that certain relations derived from causality constraints for scattering in AdS follow from crossing symmetry.Peer reviewe
Compound C inhibits nonsense-mediated RNA decay independently of AMPK
The nonsense mediated RNA decay (NMD) pathway safeguards the integrity of the transcriptome by targeting mRNAs with premature translation termination codons (PTCs) for degradation. It also regulates gene expression by degrading a large number of non-mutant RNAs (including mRNAs and noncoding RNAs) that bear NMD-inducing features. Consequently, NMD has been shown to influence development, cellular response to stress, and clinical outcome of many genetic diseases. Small molecules that can modulate NMD activity provide critical tools for understanding the mechanism and physiological functions of NMD, and they also offer potential means for treating certain genetic diseases and cancer. Therefore, there is an intense interest in identifying small-molecule NMD inhibitors or enhancers. It was previously reported that both inhibition of NMD and treatment with the AMPK-selective inhibitor Compound C (CC) induce autophagy in human cells, raising the possibility that CC may be capable of inhibiting NMD. Here we show that CC indeed has a NMD-inhibitory activity. Inhibition of NMD by CC is, however, independent of AMPK activity. As a competitive ATP analog, CC does not affect the kinase activity of SMG1, an essential NMD factor and the only known kinase in the NMD pathway. However, CC treatment down-regulates the protein levels of several NMD factors. The induction of autophagy by CC treatment is independent of ATF4, a NMD target that has been shown to promote autophagy in response to NMD inhibition. Our results reveal a new activity of CC as a NMD inhibitor, which has implications for its use in basic research and drug development
IVOA Recommendation: SAMP - Simple Application Messaging Protocol Version 1.3
SAMP is a messaging protocol that enables astronomy software tools to
interoperate and communicate.
IVOA members have recognised that building a monolithic tool that attempts to
fulfil all the requirements of all users is impractical, and it is a better use
of our limited resources to enable individual tools to work together better.
One element of this is defining common file formats for the exchange of data
between different applications. Another important component is a messaging
system that enables the applications to share data and take advantage of each
other's functionality. SAMP builds on the success of a prior messaging
protocol, PLASTIC, which has been in use since 2006 in over a dozen astronomy
applications and has proven popular with users and developers. It is also
intended to form a framework for more general messaging requirements
The Effective Field Theory of Dark Matter Direct Detection
We extend and explore the general non-relativistic effective theory of dark
matter (DM) direct detection. We describe the basic non-relativistic building
blocks of operators and discuss their symmetry properties, writing down all
Galilean-invariant operators up to quadratic order in momentum transfer arising
from exchange of particles of spin 1 or less. Any DM particle theory can be
translated into the coefficients of an effective operator and any effective
operator can be simply related to most general description of the nuclear
response. We find several operators which lead to novel nuclear responses.
These responses differ significantly from the standard minimal WIMP cases in
their relative coupling strengths to various elements, changing how the results
from different experiments should be compared against each other. Response
functions are evaluated for common DM targets - F, Na, Ge, I, and Xe - using
standard shell model techniques. We point out that each of the nuclear
responses is familiar from past studies of semi-leptonic electroweak
interactions, and thus potentially testable in weak interaction studies. We
provide tables of the full set of required matrix elements at finite momentum
transfer for a range of common elements, making a careful and fully
model-independent analysis possible. Finally, we discuss embedding
non-relativistic effective theory operators into UV models of dark matter.Comment: 32+23 pages, 5 figures; v2: some typos corrected and definitions
clarified; v3: some factors of 4pi correcte
Protocol for the United Kingdom Rotator Cuff Study (UKUFF) : a randomised controlled trial of open and arthroscopic rotator cuff repair
This project was funded by the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme (project number 05/47/02). J. L. Rees has received a grant from Oxford University which is related to this paper. J. Dawson reports that Oxford University has received a grant from HTA which is related to this paper, as well as a study grant.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
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