A New Redshift Interpretation

A nonhomogeneous universe with vacuum energy, but without spacetime expansion, is utilized together with gravitational and Doppler redshifts as the basis for proposing a new interpretation of the Hubble relation and the 2.7K Cosmic Blackbody Radiation.Comment: 9 pages LaTeX, no figure

Non-Commutative Inflation

We show how a radiation dominated universe subject to space-time quantization may give rise to inflation as the radiation temperature exceeds the Planck temperature. We consider dispersion relations with a maximal momentum (i.e. a mimimum Compton wavelength, or quantum of space), noting that some of these lead to a trans-Planckian branch where energy increases with decreasing momenta. This feature translates into negative radiation pressure and, in well-defined circumstances, into an inflationary equation of state. We thus realize the inflationary scenario without the aid of an inflaton field. As the radiation cools down below the Planck temperature, inflation gracefully exits into a standard Big Bang universe, dispensing with a period of reheating. Thermal fluctuations in the radiation bath will in this case generate curvature fluctuations on cosmological scales whose amplitude and spectrum can be tuned to agree with observations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

On Signatures of Short Distance Physics in the Cosmic Microwave Background

Following a self-contained review of the basics of the theory of cosmological perturbations, we discuss why the conclusions reached in the recent paper by Kaloper et al are too pessimistic estimates of the amplitude of possible imprints of trans-Planckian (string) physics on the spectrum of cosmic microwave anisotropies in an inflationary Universe. It is shown that the likely origin of large trans-Planckian effects on late time cosmological fluctuations comes from nonadiabatic evolution of the state of fluctuations while the wavelength is smaller than the Planck (string) scale, resulting in an excited state at the time that the wavelength crosses the Hubble radius during inflation.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Basic concepts of mixture toxicity and relevance for risk evaluation and regulation

Exposure to multiple substances is a challenge for risk evaluation. Currently, there is an ongoing debate if generic “mixture assessment/allocation factors” (MAF) should be introduced to increase public health protection. Here, we explore concepts of mixture toxicity and the potential influence of mixture regulation concepts for human health protection. Based on this analysis, we provide recommendations for research and risk assessment. One of the concepts of mixture toxicity is additivity. Substances may act additively by affecting the same molecular mechanism within a common target cell, for example, dioxin-like substances. In a second concept, an “enhancer substance” may act by increasing the target site concentration and aggravating the adverse effect of a “driver substance”. For both concepts, adequate risk management of individual substances can reliably prevent adverse effects to humans. Furthermore, we discuss the hypothesis that the large number of substances to which humans are exposed at very low and individually safe doses may interact to cause adverse effects. This commentary identifies knowledge gaps, such as the lack of a comprehensive overview of substances regulated under different silos, including food, environmentally and occupationally relevant substances, the absence of reliable human exposure data and the missing accessibility of ratios of current human exposure to threshold values, which are considered safe for individual substances. Moreover, a comprehensive overview of the molecular mechanisms and most susceptible target cells is required. We conclude that, currently, there is no scientific evidence supporting the need for a generic MAF. Rather, we recommend taking more specific measures, which focus on compounds with relatively small ratios between human exposure and doses, at which adverse effects can be expected

The Trans-Planckian Problem of Inflationary Cosmology

In most current models of inflation based on a weakly self-coupled scalar matter field minimally coupled to gravity, the period of inflation lasts so long that, at the beginning of the inflationary period, the physical wavelengths of comoving scales which correspond to the present large-scale structure of the Universe were smaller than the Planck length. Thus, the usual computations of the spectrum of fluctuations in these models involve extrapolating low energy physics (both in the matter and gravitational sector) into regions where this physics is not applicable. In this paper we demonstrate that the usual predictions of inflation for the spectrum of cosmological fluctuations do indeed depend on the hidden assumptions about super-Planck scale physics. We introduce a class of modified dispersion relations to mimic possible effects of super-Planck scale physics, and show that in some cases important deviations from the usual predictions of inflation are obtained. Some implications of this result for the unification of fundamental physics and early Universe cosmology are discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures. One important correction in the Corley/Jacobson case with b_m>0 and some misprints corrected. Version published in PR

Abnormal expression of p27kip1 protein in levator ani muscle of aging women with pelvic floor disorders – a relationship to the cellular differentiation and degeneration

BACKGROUND: Pelvic floor disorders affect almost 50% of aging women. An important role in the pelvic floor support belongs to the levator ani muscle. The p27/kip1 (p27) protein, multifunctional cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor, shows changing expression in differentiating skeletal muscle cells during development, and relatively high levels of p27 RNA were detected in the normal human skeletal muscles. METHODS: Biopsy samples of levator ani muscle were obtained from 22 symptomatic patients with stress urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and overlaps (age range 38–74), and nine asymptomatic women (age 31–49). Cryostat sections were investigated for p27 protein expression and type I (slow twitch) and type II (fast twitch) fibers. RESULTS: All fibers exhibited strong plasma membrane (and nuclear) p27 protein expression. cytoplasmic p27 expression was virtually absent in asymptomatic women. In perimenopausal symptomatic patients (ages 38–55), muscle fibers showed hypertrophy and moderate cytoplasmic p27 staining accompanied by diminution of type II fibers. Older symptomatic patients (ages 57–74) showed cytoplasmic p27 overexpression accompanied by shrinking, cytoplasmic vacuolization and fragmentation of muscle cells. The plasma membrane and cytoplasmic p27 expression was not unique to the muscle cells. Under certain circumstances, it was also detected in other cell types (epithelium of ectocervix and luteal cells). CONCLUSIONS: This is the first report on the unusual (plasma membrane and cytoplasmic) expression of p27 protein in normal and abnormal human striated muscle cells in vivo. Our data indicate that pelvic floor disorders are in perimenopausal patients associated with an appearance of moderate cytoplasmic p27 expression, accompanying hypertrophy and transition of type II into type I fibers. The patients in advanced postmenopause show shrinking and fragmentation of muscle fibers associated with strong cytoplasmic p27 expression

Resumming the large-N approximation for time evolving quantum systems

In this paper we discuss two methods of resumming the leading and next to leading order in 1/N diagrams for the quartic O(N) model. These two approaches have the property that they preserve both boundedness and positivity for expectation values of operators in our numerical simulations. These approximations can be understood either in terms of a truncation to the infinitely coupled Schwinger-Dyson hierarchy of equations, or by choosing a particular two-particle irreducible vacuum energy graph in the effective action of the Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis formalism. We confine our discussion to the case of quantum mechanics where the Lagrangian is $L(x,\dot{x}) = (1/2) \sum_{i=1}^{N} \dot{x}_i^2 - (g/8N) [ \sum_{i=1}^{N} x_i^2 - r_0^2 ]^{2}$. The key to these approximations is to treat both the $x$ propagator and the $x^2$ propagator on similar footing which leads to a theory whose graphs have the same topology as QED with the $x^2$ propagator playing the role of the photon. The bare vertex approximation is obtained by replacing the exact vertex function by the bare one in the exact Schwinger-Dyson equations for the one and two point functions. The second approximation, which we call the dynamic Debye screening approximation, makes the further approximation of replacing the exact $x^2$ propagator by its value at leading order in the 1/N expansion. These two approximations are compared with exact numerical simulations for the quantum roll problem. The bare vertex approximation captures the physics at large and modest $N$ better than the dynamic Debye screening approximation.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figures. The color version of a few figures are separately liste

Bayesian reconstruction of the cosmological large-scale structure: methodology, inverse algorithms and numerical optimization

We address the inverse problem of cosmic large-scale structure reconstruction from a Bayesian perspective. For a linear data model, a number of known and novel reconstruction schemes, which differ in terms of the underlying signal prior, data likelihood, and numerical inverse extra-regularization schemes are derived and classified. The Bayesian methodology presented in this paper tries to unify and extend the following methods: Wiener-filtering, Tikhonov regularization, Ridge regression, Maximum Entropy, and inverse regularization techniques. The inverse techniques considered here are the asymptotic regularization, the Jacobi, Steepest Descent, Newton-Raphson, Landweber-Fridman, and both linear and non-linear Krylov methods based on Fletcher-Reeves, Polak-Ribiere, and Hestenes-Stiefel Conjugate Gradients. The structures of the up-to-date highest-performing algorithms are presented, based on an operator scheme, which permits one to exploit the power of fast Fourier transforms. Using such an implementation of the generalized Wiener-filter in the novel ARGO-software package, the different numerical schemes are benchmarked with 1-, 2-, and 3-dimensional problems including structured white and Poissonian noise, data windowing and blurring effects. A novel numerical Krylov scheme is shown to be superior in terms of performance and fidelity. These fast inverse methods ultimately will enable the application of sampling techniques to explore complex joint posterior distributions. We outline how the space of the dark-matter density field, the peculiar velocity field, and the power spectrum can jointly be investigated by a Gibbs-sampling process. Such a method can be applied for the redshift distortions correction of the observed galaxies and for time-reversal reconstructions of the initial density field.Comment: 40 pages, 11 figure

Can Asymptotic Series Resolve the Problems of Inflation?

We discuss a cosmological scenario in which inflation is driven by a potential which is motivated by an effective Lagrangian approach to gravity. We exploit the recent arguments \cite{ARZ} that an effective Lagrangian $L_{eff}$ which, by definition, contains operators of arbitrary dimensionality is in general not a convergent but rather an asymptotic series with factorially growing coefficients. This behavior of the effective Lagrangian might be responsible for the resolution of the cosmological constant problem. We argue that the same behavior of the potential gives a natural realization of the inflationary scenario.Comment: 12 pages, uses Late

Spontaneous decompactification

Positive vacuum energy together with extra dimensions of space imply that our four-dimensional Universe is unstable, generically to decompactification of the extra dimensions. Either quantum tunneling or thermal fluctuations carry one past a barrier into the decompactifying regime. We give an overview of this process, and examine the subsequent expansion into the higher- dimensional geometry. This is governed by certain fixed-point solutions of the evolution equations, which are studied for both positive and negative spatial curvature. In the case where there is a higher-dimensional cosmological constant, we also outline a possible mechanism for compactification to a four-dimensional de Sitter cosmology.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, harvmac. v2: refs added, minor notation change