2,479 research outputs found
GADA titer-related risk for organ-specific autoimmunity in LADA subjects subdivided according to gender (NIRAD study 6).
CONTEXT: Latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA) includes a heterogeneous population wherein, based on glutamic acid decarboxylase antibody (GADA) titer, different subgroups of subjects can be identified.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was to evaluate GADA titer-related risk for β-cell and other organ-specific autoimmunity in LADA subjects.
METHODS: Adult-onset autoimmune diabetes subjects (n=236) and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) subjects (n=450) were characterized for protein tyrosine phosphatase (IA-2IC and IA-2(256-760)), zinc transporter 8 (ZnT8), thyroid peroxidase, (TPO), steroid 21-hydroxylase (21-OH), tissue transglutaminase (tTG), and antiparietal cell (APC) antibodies.
RESULTS: High GADA titer compared to low GADA titer showed a significantly higher prevalence of IA-2IC, IA-2(256-760), ZnT8, TPO, and APC antibodies (P≤0.04 for all comparison). 21-OH antibodies were detected in 3.4% of high GADA titer. A significant decreasing trend was observed from high GADA to low GADA and to T2DM subjects for IA-2(256-760), ZnT8, TPO, tTG, and APC antibodies (P for trend≤0.001). TPO was the only antibody showing a different prevalence between gender; low GADA titer and T2DM female patients had a higher frequency of TPO antibody compared to males (P=0.0004 and P=0.0006, respectively), where the presence of high GADA titer conferred an odds ratio of 8.6 for TPO compared to low GADA titer. After subdividing high and low GADA titer subjects according to the number of antibodies, we observed that 73.3% of high GADA titer subjects were positive for at least one or more antibodies, compared to 38.3% of low GADA titer (P<0.0001).
CONCLUSIONS: In LADA subjects, high GADA titer was associated with a profile of more severe autoimmunity and, in male gender, specifically predisposed to thyroid autoimmunity. A regular screening for other antibodies is recommended in LADA patients according to GADA titer and gender
Search for anisotropies in cosmic-ray positrons detected by the PAMELA experiment
The PAMELA detector was launched on board of the Russian Resurs-DK1 satellite
on June 15, 2006. Data collected during the first four years have been used to
search for large-scale anisotropies in the arrival directions of cosmic-ray
positrons. The PAMELA experiment allows for a full sky investigation, with
sensitivity to global anisotropies in any angular window of the celestial
sphere. Data samples of positrons in the rigidity range 10 GV R
200 GV were analyzed. This article discusses the method and the results of the
search for possible local sources through analysis of anisotropy in positron
data compared to the proton background. The resulting distributions of arrival
directions are found to be isotropic. Starting from the angular power spectrum,
a dipole anisotropy upper limit \delta = 0.166 at 95% C.L. is determined.
Additional search is carried out around the Sun. No evidence of an excess
correlated with that direction was found.Comment: The value of the dipole anisotropy upper limit has been changed. The
method is correct but there was a miscalculation in the relative formul
How isotropic can the UHECR flux be?
Modern observatories of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) have collected
over 10^4 events with energies above 10 EeV, whose arrival directions appear to
be nearly isotropically distributed. On the other hand, the distribution of
matter in the nearby Universe -- and, therefore, presumably also that of UHECR
sources -- is not homogeneous. This is expected to leave an imprint on the
angular distribution of UHECR arrival directions, though deflections by cosmic
magnetic fields can confound the picture. In this work, we investigate
quantitatively this apparent inconsistency. To this end we study observables
sensitive to UHECR source inhomogeneities but robust to uncertainties on
magnetic fields and the UHECR mass composition. We show, in a rather
model-independent way, that if the source distribution tracks the overall
matter distribution, the arrival directions at energies above 30 EeV should
exhibit a sizeable dipole and quadrupole anisotropy, detectable by UHECR
observatories in the very near future. Were it not the case, one would have to
seriously reconsider the present understanding of cosmic magnetic fields and/or
the UHECR composition. Also, we show that the lack of a strong quadrupole
moment above 10 EeV in the current data already disfavours a pure proton
composition, and that in the very near future measurements of the dipole and
quadrupole moment above 60 EeV will be able to provide evidence about the UHECR
mass composition at those energies.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures; accepted versio
Non-conformal higher spin supercurrents
In four spacetime dimensions there exist two off-shell formulations for the
massless multiplet of superspin , where . These
supersymmetric higher spin gauge theories, known as longitudinal and
transverse, are dual to each other and describe two massless fields of spin
and upon elimination of the auxiliary fields. They
respectively reduce, in the limiting case of , to the linearised actions
for the old minimal and the non-minimal supergravity
theories. Associated with these gauge massless theories are non-conformal
higher spin supercurrent multiplets which we describe. We demonstrate that the
longitudinal higher spin supercurrents are realised in the model for a massive
chiral scalar superfield only if is odd, , with .Comment: 12 pages; V2: typos corrected; V3: published versio
Multibrane solutions in cubic superstring field theory
Using the elements of the so-called subalgebra, we study a class
of analytic solutions depending on a single function in the modified
cubic superstring field theory. We compute the energy associated to these
solutions and show that the result can be expressed in terms of a contour
integral. For a particular choice of the function , we show that the
energy is given by integer multiples of a single D-brane tension.Comment: 14 pages, some typos correcte
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