208 research outputs found
Identification of a novel high molecular weight protein preferentially expressed by sinusoidal endothelial cells in normal human tissues
Mouse mAb MS-1, raised against human spleen, detects an endothelial cell antigen abundantly expressed by the sinusoidal endothelia of spleen, lymph node, liver, and adrenal cortex, but absent from nonsinusoidal continuous endothelia in these organs. Immunoelectron microscopy of splenic tissue demonstrates that the MS-1 antigen is predominantly deposited at zones of intercellular contact between adjacent sinusoidal endothelial cells. mAb MS-1 also reacts with a variable proportion of high endothelial venules in tonsil, but not in other lymphoid tissues, and with an interstitial dendritic cell population most abundant in placenta. mAb MS-1 does not react with cultured resting or mediator-activated human umbilical vein endothelial cells, dermal fibroblasts, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, or the cell lines U937, HL-60, K562 or Mo7E; it does react with the primitive myeloid cell line KG-1. mAb MS-1 immunoprecipitates a major protein of 215 kD and minor proteins of 320 and 120 kD from splenic extracts as analyzed by SDS-PAGE with reduction. These proteins are soluble in aqueous buffers. Immunoprecipitation from KG-1 cell lysates detects four proteins of 280, 300, 205, and 120 kD; the 300-, 205-, and 120-kD species, presumably corresponding to the 320-, 215-, and 120-kD species in spleen, respectively, are secreted into the media. Under nonreducing conditions, immunoprecipitates from KG-1 cell lysates or conditioned media contain one predominant 300-kD species; upon isolation and reduction, this 300-kD species separates into the previously observed 300-, 205-, and 120-kD species. Pulse-chase experiments and limited proteolysis peptide mapping suggest that the 280-kD species is a precursor of the mature 300-kD species which may be subsequently cleaved to yield the 205- and 120-kD species. Because of its size, solubility and expression pattern, the antigen recognized by mAb MS-1 is likely to be an extracellular matrix protein utilized by endothelial cells of contorted, large caliber, or leaky microvessels that lack a well-formed basement membrane
The Power of Non-Determinism in Higher-Order Implicit Complexity
We investigate the power of non-determinism in purely functional programming
languages with higher-order types. Specifically, we consider cons-free programs
of varying data orders, equipped with explicit non-deterministic choice.
Cons-freeness roughly means that data constructors cannot occur in function
bodies and all manipulation of storage space thus has to happen indirectly
using the call stack.
While cons-free programs have previously been used by several authors to
characterise complexity classes, the work on non-deterministic programs has
almost exclusively considered programs of data order 0. Previous work has shown
that adding explicit non-determinism to cons-free programs taking data of order
0 does not increase expressivity; we prove that this - dramatically - is not
the case for higher data orders: adding non-determinism to programs with data
order at least 1 allows for a characterisation of the entire class of
elementary-time decidable sets.
Finally we show how, even with non-deterministic choice, the original
hierarchy of characterisations is restored by imposing different restrictions.Comment: pre-edition version of a paper accepted for publication at ESOP'1
Tricritical Points in Random Combinatorics: the (2+p)-SAT case
The (2+p)-Satisfiability (SAT) problem interpolates between different classes
of complexity theory and is believed to be of basic interest in understanding
the onset of typical case complexity in random combinatorics. In this paper, a
tricritical point in the phase diagram of the random -SAT problem is
analytically computed using the replica approach and found to lie in the range
. These bounds on are in agreement with previous
numerical simulations and rigorous results.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, RevTeX, to appear in J.Phys.
Phase coexistence and finite-size scaling in random combinatorial problems
We study an exactly solvable version of the famous random Boolean
satisfiability problem, the so called random XOR-SAT problem. Rare events are
shown to affect the combinatorial ``phase diagram'' leading to a coexistence of
solvable and unsolvable instances of the combinatorial problem in a certain
region of the parameters characterizing the model. Such instances differ by a
non-extensive quantity in the ground state energy of the associated diluted
spin-glass model. We also show that the critical exponent , controlling
the size of the critical window where the probability of having solutions
vanishes, depends on the model parameters, shedding light on the link between
random hyper-graph topology and universality classes. In the case of random
satisfiability, a similar behavior was conjectured to be connected to the onset
of computational intractability.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, to appear in J. Phys. A. v2: link to the XOR-SAT
probelm adde
Cluster expansions in dilute systems: applications to satisfiability problems and spin glasses
We develop a systematic cluster expansion for dilute systems in the highly
dilute phase. We first apply it to the calculation of the entropy of the
K-satisfiability problem in the satisfiable phase. We derive a series expansion
in the control parameter, the average connectivity, that is identical to the
one obtained by using the replica approach with a replica symmetric ({\sc rs})
{\it Ansatz}, when the order parameter is calculated via a perturbative
expansion in the control parameter. As a second application we compute the
free-energy of the Viana-Bray model in the paramagnetic phase. The cluster
expansion allows one to compute finite-size corrections in a simple manner and
these are particularly important in optimization problems. Importantly enough,
these calculations prove the exactness of the {\sc rs} {\it Ansatz} below the
percolation threshold and might require its revision between this and the
easy-to-hard transition.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figs, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Simplest random K-satisfiability problem
We study a simple and exactly solvable model for the generation of random
satisfiability problems. These consist of random boolean constraints
which are to be satisfied simultaneously by logical variables. In
statistical-mechanics language, the considered model can be seen as a diluted
p-spin model at zero temperature. While such problems become extraordinarily
hard to solve by local search methods in a large region of the parameter space,
still at least one solution may be superimposed by construction. The
statistical properties of the model can be studied exactly by the replica
method and each single instance can be analyzed in polynomial time by a simple
global solution method. The geometrical/topological structures responsible for
dynamic and static phase transitions as well as for the onset of computational
complexity in local search method are thoroughly analyzed. Numerical analysis
on very large samples allows for a precise characterization of the critical
scaling behaviour.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. E (Feb 2001). v2: minor
errors and references correcte
Optimisation problems and replica symmetry breaking in finite connectivity spin-glasses
A formalism capable of handling the first step of hierarchical replica
symmetry breaking in finite-connectivity models is introduced. The emerging
order parameter is claimed to be a probability distribution over the space of
field distributions (or, equivalently magnetisation distributions) inside the
cluster of states. The approach is shown to coincide with the previous works in
the replica symmetric case and in the two limit cases m=0,1 where m is Parisi's
break-point. As an application to the study of optimization problems, the
ground-state properties of the random 3-Satisfiability problem are investigated
and we present a first RSB solution improving replica symmetric results.Comment: 16 pages Revtex file, 1 figure; amended version with two new
appendices; to be published in J.Phys.
Statistical mechanics of the random K-SAT model
The Random K-Satisfiability Problem, consisting in verifying the existence of
an assignment of N Boolean variables that satisfy a set of M=alpha N random
logical clauses containing K variables each, is studied using the replica
symmetric framework of diluted disordered systems. We present an exact
iterative scheme for the replica symmetric functional order parameter together
for the different cases of interest K=2, K>= 3 and K>>1. The calculation of the
number of solutions, which allowed us [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 3881 (1996)] to
predict a first order jump at the threshold where the Boolean expressions
become unsatisfiable with probability one, is thoroughly displayed. In the case
K=2, the (rigorously known) critical value (alpha=1) of the number of clauses
per Boolean variable is recovered while for K>=3 we show that the system
exhibits a replica symmetry breaking transition. The annealed approximation is
proven to be exact for large K.Comment: 34 pages + 1 table + 8 fig., submitted to Phys. Rev. E, new section
added and references update
High mass-to-light ratios of UCDs - Evidence for dark matter ?
Ultra-compact dwarf galaxies (UCDs) are stellar systems with masses of around
10^7 to 10^8 Msun and half mass radii of 10-100 pc. They have some properties
in common with massive globular clusters, however dynamical mass estimates have
shown that UCDs have mass-to-light ratios which are on average about twice as
large than those of globular clusters at comparable metallicity, and tend to be
larger than what one would expect for old stellar systems with standard mass
functions.
One possible explanation for elevated high mass-to-light ratios in UCDs is
the existence of a substantial amount of dark matter, which could have ended up
in UCDs if they are the remnant nuclei of tidally stripped dwarf galaxies.
Tidal stripping of dwarf galaxies has also been suggested has the origin of
several massive globular clusters like Omega Cen, in which case globular
clusters could have also formed with substantial amounts of dark matter.
In this paper, we present collisional N-body simulations which study the
co-evolution of a system composed out of stars and dark matter. We find that
the dark matter gets removed from the central regions of such systems due to
dynamical friction and mass segregation of stars. The friction timescale is
significantly shorter than a Hubble time for typical globular clusters, while
most UCDs have friction times much longer than a Hubble time. Therefore, a
significant dark matter fraction remains within the half-mass radius of
present-day UCDs, making dark matter a viable explanation for the elevated M/L
ratios of UCDs. If at least some globular clusters formed in a way similar to
UCDs, we predict a substantial amount of dark matter in their outer parts.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
A mass-dependent density profile for dark matter haloes including the influence of galaxy formation
We introduce a mass-dependent density profile to describe the distribution of dark matter within galaxies, which takes into account the stellar-to-halo mass dependence of the response of dark matter to baryonic processes. The study is based on the analysis of hydrodynamically simulated galaxies from dwarf to Milky Way mass, drawn from the Making Galaxies In a Cosmological Context project, which have been shown to match a wide range of disc scaling relationships. We find that the best-fitting parameters of a generic double power-law density profile vary in a systematic manner that depends on the stellar-to-halo mass ratio of each galaxy. Thus, the quantity M⋆/Mhalo constrains the inner (γ) and outer (β) slopes of dark matter density, and the sharpness of transition between the slopes (α), reducing the number of free parameters of the model to two. Due to the tight relation between stellar mass and halo mass, either of these quantities is sufficient to describe the dark matter halo profile including the effects of baryons. The concentration of the haloes in the hydrodynamical simulations is consistent with N-body expectations up to Milky Way-mass galaxies, at which mass the haloes become twice as concentrated as compared with pure dark matter runs. This mass-dependent density profile can be directly applied to rotation curve data of observed galaxies and to semi-analytic galaxy formation models as a significant improvement over the commonly used NFW profile
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