134 research outputs found
Non-Perturbative Topological Strings And Conformal Blocks
We give a non-perturbative completion of a class of closed topological string
theories in terms of building blocks of dual open strings. In the specific case
where the open string is given by a matrix model these blocks correspond to a
choice of integration contour. We then apply this definition to the AGT setup
where the dual matrix model has logarithmic potential and is conjecturally
equivalent to Liouville conformal field theory. By studying the natural
contours of these matrix integrals and their monodromy properties, we propose a
precise map between topological string blocks and Liouville conformal blocks.
Remarkably, this description makes use of the light-cone diagrams of closed
string field theory, where the critical points of the matrix potential
correspond to string interaction points.Comment: 36 page
Visible and Invisible Trends in Black Men's Health: Pitfalls and Promises for Addressing Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Inequities in Health
Over the past two decades, there has been growing interest in improving black men's health and the health disparities affecting them. Yet, the health of black men consistently ranks lowest across nearly all groups in the United States. Evidence on the health and social causes of morbidity and mortality among black men has been narrowly concentrated on public health problems (e.g., violence, prostate cancer, and HIV/AIDS) and determinants of health (e.g., education and male gender socialization). This limited focus omits age-specific leading causes of death and other social determinants of health, such as discrimination, segregation, access to health care, employment, and income. This review discusses the leading causes of death for black men and the associated risk factors, as well as identifies gaps in the literature and presents a racialized and gendered framework to guide efforts to address the persistent inequities in health affecting black men
Moduli Stabilization and Cosmology of Type IIB on SU(2)-Structure Orientifolds
We consider type IIB flux compactifications on six-dimensional
SU(2)-structure manifolds with O5- and O7-planes. These six-dimensional spaces
allow not only for F_3 and H_3 fluxes but also for F_1 and F_5 fluxes. We
derive the four-dimensional N=1 scalar potential for such compactifications and
present one explicit example of a fully stabilized AdS vacuum with large volume
and small string coupling. We then discuss cosmological aspects of these
compactifications and derive several no-go theorems that forbid dS vacua and
slow-roll inflation under certain conditions. We also study concrete examples
of cosets and twisted tori and find that our no-go theorems forbid dS vacua and
slow-roll inflation in all but one of them. For the latter we find a dS
critical point with \epsilon numerically zero. However, the point has two
tachyons and eta-parameter \eta \approx -3.1.Comment: 35 pages + appendices, LaTeX2e; v2: numerical dS extremum added,
typos corrected, references adde
Brane-World Gravity
The observable universe could be a 1+3-surface (the "brane") embedded in a
1+3+\textit{d}-dimensional spacetime (the "bulk"), with Standard Model
particles and fields trapped on the brane while gravity is free to access the
bulk. At least one of the \textit{d} extra spatial dimensions could be very
large relative to the Planck scale, which lowers the fundamental gravity scale,
possibly even down to the electroweak ( TeV) level. This revolutionary
picture arises in the framework of recent developments in M theory. The
1+10-dimensional M theory encompasses the known 1+9-dimensional superstring
theories, and is widely considered to be a promising potential route to quantum
gravity. At low energies, gravity is localized at the brane and general
relativity is recovered, but at high energies gravity "leaks" into the bulk,
behaving in a truly higher-dimensional way. This introduces significant changes
to gravitational dynamics and perturbations, with interesting and potentially
testable implications for high-energy astrophysics, black holes, and cosmology.
Brane-world models offer a phenomenological way to test some of the novel
predictions and corrections to general relativity that are implied by M theory.
This review analyzes the geometry, dynamics and perturbations of simple
brane-world models for cosmology and astrophysics, mainly focusing on warped
5-dimensional brane-worlds based on the Randall--Sundrum models. We also cover
the simplest brane-world models in which 4-dimensional gravity on the brane is
modified at \emph{low} energies -- the 5-dimensional Dvali--Gabadadze--Porrati
models. Then we discuss co-dimension two branes in 6-dimensional models.Comment: A major update of Living Reviews in Relativity 7:7 (2004)
"Brane-World Gravity", 119 pages, 28 figures, the update contains new
material on RS perturbations, including full numerical solutions of
gravitational waves and scalar perturbations, on DGP models, and also on 6D
models. A published version in Living Reviews in Relativit
Transformative Pedagogies for Sustainable Development
Transformative pedagogies for sustainable development encourage learners to change the direction of development that seems to be inevitable by enhancing their awareness, understanding of complexities, empathy, compassion and empowermentPeer reviewe
Thresholds of large N factorization in CFT4: exploring bulk spacetime in AdS(5)
52 pages, 6 figures52 pages, 6 figure
Ubiquitin fusion expression and tissue-dependent targeting of hG-CSF in transgenic tobacco
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (hG-CSF) is an important human cytokine which has been widely used in oncology and infection protection. To satisfy clinical needs, expression of recombinant hG-CSF has been studied in several organisms, including rice cell suspension culture and transient expression in tobacco leaves, but there was no published report on its expression in stably transformed plants which can serve as a more economical expression platform with potential industrial application.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, hG-CSF expression was investigated in transgenic tobacco leaves and seeds in which the accumulation of hG-CSF could be enhanced through fusion with ubiquitin by up to 7 fold in leaves and 2 fold in seeds, leading to an accumulation level of 2.5 mg/g total soluble protein (TSP) in leaves and 1.3 mg/g TSP in seeds, relative to hG-CSF expressed without a fusion partner. Immunoblot analysis showed that ubiquitin was processed from the final protein product, and ubiquitination was up-regulated in all transgenic plants analyzed. Driven by <it>CaMV </it>35S promoter and phaseolin signal peptide, hG-CSF was observed to be secreted into apoplast in leaves but deposited in protein storage vacuole (PSV) in seeds, indicating that targeting of the hG-CSF was tissue-dependent in transgenic tobacco. Bioactivity assay showed that hG-CSF expressed in both seeds and leaves was bioactive to support the proliferation of NFS-60 cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In this study, the expression of bioactive hG-CSF in transgenic plants was improved through ubiquitin fusion strategy, demonstrating that protein expression can be enhanced in both plant leaves and seeds through fusion with ubiquitin and providing a typical case of tissue-dependent expression of recombinant protein in transgenic plants.</p
Online coupling of reverse-phase and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography for protein and glycoprotein characterization
We have developed a novel system for coupling reverse-phase (RP) and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) online in a micro-flow scheme. In this approach, the inherent solvent incompatibility between RP and HILIC is overcome through the use of constant-pressure online solvent mixing, which allows our system to perform efficient separations of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic compounds for mass spectrometry-based proteomics applications. When analyzing the tryptic digests of bovine serum albumin, ribonuclease B, and horseradish peroxidase, we observed near-identical coverage of peptides and glycopeptides when using online RP-HILIC—with only a single sample injection event—as we did from two separate RP and HILIC analyses. The coupled system was also capable of concurrently characterizing the peptide and glycan portions of deglycosylated glycoproteins from one injection event, as confirmed, for example, through our detection of 23 novel glycans from turkey ovalbumin. Finally, we validated the applicability of using RP-HILIC for the analysis of highly complex biological samples (mouse chondrocyte lysate, deglycosylated human serum). The enhanced coverage and efficiency of online RP-HILIC makes it a viable technique for the comprehensive separation of components displaying dramatically different hydrophobicities, such as peptides, glycopeptides, and glycans
On Brane Back-Reaction and de Sitter Solutions in Higher-Dimensional Supergravity
We argue that the problem of finding lower-dimensional de Sitter solutions to
the classical field equations of higher-dimensional supergravity necessarily
requires understanding the back-reaction of whatever localized objects source
the bulk fields. However, we also find that most of the details of the
back-reacted solutions are not important for determining the lower-dimensional
curvature. We find, in particular, a classically exact expression that, for a
broad class of geometries, directly relates the curvature of the
lower-dimensional geometry to asymptotic properties of various bulk fields near
the sources. Specializing to codimension-two sources, we find that the
contribution involving the asymptotic behaviour of the warp factor (which has a
definite sign for most supergravities and so is usually used to infer a
preference for anti-de Sitter geometries) is precisely canceled by the
contribution of the sources themselves (that are left out in earlier
treatments). We identify which combination of bulk fields survives this
cancelation, and so controls the sign of the lower-dimensional geometry, for
several supergravities in 6, 10 and 11 dimensions. Our results show precisely
why explicit 4D de Sitter solutions to 6D supergravity evade general no-go
theorems. As an application we show that all classical compactifications of
Type IIB supergravity (and F-theory) to 8 dimensions are 8D-flat if they
involve only the metric and the axio-dilaton sourced by codimension-two
sources, extending earlier results to include warped solutions and more general
source properties.Comment: 23 pages plus appendice
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