222 research outputs found
HBsAg-vectored DNA vaccines elicit concomitant protective responses to multiple CTL epitopes relevant in human disease.
Vaccines capable of controlling neoplastic and infectious diseases which depend on the cellular immune response for their resolution, have proven difficult to develop. We, and others, have previously demonstrated that the potent immunogenicity of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), the already- licensed human vaccine for hepatitis B infection, may be exploited to deliver foreign antigens for cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) induction. In this study we demonstrate that recombinant (r) HBsAg DNA delivering a CTL polyepitope appended at the C' terminus elicits concomitant responses to multiple epitopes restricted through a diversity of MHC class I haplotypes, which are relevant in a number of human diseases. We show that the rHBsAg DNA vaccine elicits concomitant protection against neoplastic and infectious disease. These studies vindicate the use of HBsAg as a powerful vector to deliver CTL responses to foreign antigens, and have implications for a multi-disease vaccine applicable to the HLA-polymorphic human population
The Extreme Microlensing Event OGLE-2007-BLG-224: Terrestrial Parallax Observation of a Thick-Disk Brown Dwarf
Parallax is the most fundamental technique to measure distances to
astronomical objects. Although terrestrial parallax was pioneered over 2000
years ago by Hipparchus (ca. 140 BCE) to measure the distance to the Moon, the
baseline of the Earth is so small that terrestrial parallax can generally only
be applied to objects in the Solar System. However, there exists a class of
extreme gravitational microlensing events in which the effects of terrestrial
parallax can be readily detected and so permit the measurement of the distance,
mass, and transverse velocity of the lens. Here we report observations of the
first such extreme microlensing event OGLE-2007-BLG-224, from which we infer
that the lens is a brown dwarf of mass M=0.056 +- 0.004 Msun, with a distance
of 525 +- 40 pc and a transverse velocity of 113 +- 21 km/s. The velocity
places the lens in the thick disk, making this the lowest-mass thick-disk brown
dwarf detected so far. Follow-up observations may allow one to observe the
light from the brown dwarf itself, thus serving as an important constraint for
evolutionary models of these objects and potentially opening a new window on
sub-stellar objects. The low a priori probability of detecting a thick-disk
brown dwarf in this event, when combined with additional evidence from other
observations, suggests that old substellar objects may be more common than
previously assumed.Comment: ApJ Letters, in press, 15 pages including 2 figure
OGLE-2005-BLG-018: Characterization of Full Physical and Orbital Parameters of a Gravitational Binary Lens
We present the analysis result of a gravitational binary-lensing event
OGLE-2005-BLG-018. The light curve of the event is characterized by 2 adjacent
strong features and a single weak feature separated from the strong features.
The light curve exhibits noticeable deviations from the best-fit model based on
standard binary parameters. To explain the deviation, we test models including
various higher-order effects of the motions of the observer, source, and lens.
From this, we find that it is necessary to account for the orbital motion of
the lens in describing the light curve. From modeling of the light curve
considering the parallax effect and Keplerian orbital motion, we are able to
measure not only the physical parameters but also a complete orbital solution
of the lens system. It is found that the event was produced by a binary lens
located in the Galactic bulge with a distance kpc from the Earth.
The individual lens components with masses and are separated with a semi-major axis of AU and
orbiting each other with a period yr. The event demonstrates
that it is possible to extract detailed information about binary lens systems
from well-resolved lensing light curves.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure
MOA-2009-BLG-387Lb: A massive planet orbiting an M dwarf
We report the discovery of a planet with a high planet-to-star mass ratio in
the microlensing event MOA-2009-BLG-387, which exhibited pronounced deviations
over a 12-day interval, one of the longest for any planetary event. The host is
an M dwarf, with a mass in the range 0.07 M_sun < M_host < 0.49M_sun at 90%
confidence. The planet-star mass ratio q = 0.0132 +- 0.003 has been measured
extremely well, so at the best-estimated host mass, the planet mass is m_p =
2.6 Jupiter masses for the median host mass, M = 0.19 M_sun. The host mass is
determined from two "higher order" microlensing parameters. One of these, the
angular Einstein radius \theta_E = 0.31 +- 0.03 mas, is very well measured, but
the other (the microlens parallax \pi_E, which is due to the Earth's orbital
motion) is highly degenate with the orbital motion of the planet. We
statistically resolve the degeneracy between Earth and planet orbital effects
by imposing priors from a Galactic model that specifies the positions and
velocities of lenses and sources and a Kepler model of orbits. The 90%
confidence intervals for the distance, semi-major axis, and period of the
planet are 3.5 kpc < D_L < 7.9 kpc, 1.1 AU < a < 2.7AU, and 3.8 yr < P < 7.6
yr, respectively.Comment: 20 pages including 8 figures. A&A 529 102 (2011
Interpretation of Strong Short-Term Central Perturbations in the Light Curves of Moderate-Magnification Microlensing Events
To improve the planet detection efficiency, current planetary microlensing
experiments are focused on high-magnification events searching for planetary
signals near the peak of lensing light curves. However, it is known that
central perturbations can also be produced by binary companions and thus it is
important to distinguish planetary signals from those induced by binary
companions. In this paper, we analyze the light curves of microlensing events
OGLE-2007-BLG-137/MOA-2007-BLG-091, OGLE-2007-BLG-355/MOA-2007-BLG-278, and
MOA-2007-BLG-199/OGLE-2007-BLG-419, for all of which exhibit short-term
perturbations near the peaks of the light curves. From detailed modeling of the
light curves, we find that the perturbations of the events are caused by binary
companions rather than planets. From close examination of the light curves
combined with the underlying physical geometry of the lens system obtained from
modeling, we find that the short time-scale caustic-crossing feature occurring
at a low or a moderate base magnification with an additional secondary
perturbation is a typical feature of binary-lens events and thus can be used
for the discrimination between the binary and planetary interpretations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
Re-assessing the Current Assessment Practices of Children with Special Education Needs in Europe
Introduces the study developed countries that comprise the project DAFFODIL about assessment practices used frequently with children and young people with special educational needs. Apresenta o estudo desenvolvido nos países que integram o projecto DAFFODIL acerca das práticas de avaliação mais frequentes com crianças e jovens com necessidades educativas especiais
Frequency of Solar-Like Systems and of Ice and Gas Giants Beyond the Snow Line from High-Magnification Microlensing Events in 2005-2008
We present the first measurement of planet frequency beyond the "snow line"
for planet/star mass-ratios[-4.5<log q<-2]: d^2 N/dlog q/dlog
s=(0.36+-0.15)/dex^2 at mean mass ratio q=5e-4, and consistent with being flat
in log projected separation, s. Our result is based on a sample of 6 planets
detected from intensive follow-up of high-mag (A>200) microlensing events
during 2005-8. The sample host stars have typical mass M_host 0.5 Msun, and
detection is sensitive to planets over a range of projected separations
(R_E/s_max,R_E*s_max), where R_E 3.5 AU sqrt(M_host/Msun) is the Einstein
radius and s_max (q/5e-5)^{2/3}, corresponding to deprojected separations ~3
times the "snow line". Though frenetic, the observations constitute a
"controlled experiment", which permits measurement of absolute planet
frequency. High-mag events are rare, but the high-mag channel is efficient:
half of high-mag events were successfully monitored and half of these yielded
planet detections. The planet frequency derived from microlensing is a factor 7
larger than from RV studies at factor ~25 smaller separations [2<P<2000 days].
However, this difference is basically consistent with the gradient derived from
RV studies (when extrapolated well beyond the separations from which it is
measured). This suggests a universal separation distribution across 2 dex in
semi-major axis, 2 dex in mass ratio, and 0.3 dex in host mass. Finally, if all
planetary systems were "analogs" of the Solar System, our sample would have
yielded 18.2 planets (11.4 "Jupiters", 6.4 "Saturns", 0.3 "Uranuses", 0.2
"Neptunes") including 6.1 systems with 2 or more planet detections. This
compares to 6 planets including one 2-planet system in the actual sample,
implying a first estimate of 1/6 for the frequency of solar-like systems.Comment: 42 pages, 10 figure
OGLE-2009-BLG-092/MOA-2009-BLG-137: A Dramatic Repeating Event With the Second Perturbation Predicted by Real-Time Analysis
We report the result of the analysis of a dramatic repeating gravitational
microlensing event OGLE-2009-BLG-092/MOA-2009-BLG-137, for which the light
curve is characterized by two distinct peaks with perturbations near both
peaks. We find that the event is produced by the passage of the source
trajectory over the central perturbation regions associated with the individual
components of a wide-separation binary. The event is special in the sense that
the second perturbation, occurring days after the first, was
predicted by the real-time analysis conducted after the first peak,
demonstrating that real-time modeling can be routinely done for binary and
planetary events. With the data obtained from follow-up observations covering
the second peak, we are able to uniquely determine the physical parameters of
the lens system. We find that the event occurred on a bulge clump giant and it
was produced by a binary lens composed of a K and M-type main-sequence stars.
The estimated masses of the binary components are
and , respectively, and they are separated in
projection by . The measured distance to the
lens is . We also detect the orbital motion
of the lens system.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl
Binary microlensing event OGLE-2009-BLG-020 gives a verifiable mass, distance and orbit predictions
We present the first example of binary microlensing for which the parameter
measurements can be verified (or contradicted) by future Doppler observations.
This test is made possible by a confluence of two relatively unusual
circumstances. First, the binary lens is bright enough (I=15.6) to permit
Doppler measurements. Second, we measure not only the usual 7 binary-lens
parameters, but also the 'microlens parallax' (which yields the binary mass)
and two components of the instantaneous orbital velocity. Thus we measure,
effectively, 6 'Kepler+1' parameters (two instantaneous positions, two
instantaneous velocities, the binary total mass, and the mass ratio). Since
Doppler observations of the brighter binary component determine 5 Kepler
parameters (period, velocity amplitude, eccentricity, phase, and position of
periapsis), while the same spectroscopy yields the mass of the primary, the
combined Doppler + microlensing observations would be overconstrained by 6 + (5
+ 1) - (7 + 1) = 4 degrees of freedom. This makes possible an extremely strong
test of the microlensing solution. We also introduce a uniform microlensing
notation for single and binary lenses, we define conventions, summarize all
known microlensing degeneracies and extend a set of parameters to describe full
Keplerian motion of the binary lenses.Comment: 51 pages, 8 figures, 2 appendices. Submitted to ApJ. Fortran codes
for Appendix B are attached to this astro-ph submission and are also
available at http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~jskowron/OGLE-2009-BLG-020
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