108 research outputs found
Fighting on a New Battlefield Armed with Old Laws: How to Monitor Terrorism in the Virtual World
Fighting on a New Battlefield Armed with Old Laws: How to Monitor Terrorism in the Virtual World
Single-valued harmonic polylogarithms and the multi-Regge limit
We argue that the natural functions for describing the multi-Regge limit of
six-gluon scattering in planar N=4 super Yang-Mills theory are the
single-valued harmonic polylogarithmic functions introduced by Brown. These
functions depend on a single complex variable and its conjugate, (w,w*). Using
these functions, and formulas due to Fadin, Lipatov and Prygarin, we determine
the six-gluon MHV remainder function in the leading-logarithmic approximation
(LLA) in this limit through ten loops, and the next-to-LLA (NLLA) terms through
nine loops. In separate work, we have determined the symbol of the four-loop
remainder function for general kinematics, up to 113 constants. Taking its
multi-Regge limit and matching to our four-loop LLA and NLLA results, we fix
all but one of the constants that survive in this limit. The multi-Regge limit
factorizes in the variables (\nu,n) which are related to (w,w*) by a
Fourier-Mellin transform. We can transform the single-valued harmonic
polylogarithms to functions of (\nu,n) that incorporate harmonic sums,
systematically through transcendental weight six. Combining this information
with the four-loop results, we determine the eigenvalues of the BFKL kernel in
the adjoint representation to NNLLA accuracy, and the MHV product of impact
factors to NNNLLA accuracy, up to constants representing beyond-the-symbol
terms and the one symbol-level constant. Remarkably, only derivatives of the
polygamma function enter these results. Finally, the LLA approximation to the
six-gluon NMHV amplitude is evaluated through ten loops.Comment: 71 pages, 2 figures, plus 10 ancillary files containing analytic
expressions in Mathematica format. V2: Typos corrected and references added.
V3: Typos corrected; assumption about single-Reggeon exchange made explici
Social, cultural and economic aspects of antimicrobial resistance.
Although often considered only a medical problem, antimicrobial resistance is an evolutionary challenge accelerated by social, cultural and economic factors that lead to the misuse, overuse and abuse of life-saving antimicrobial medicines. The antimicrobial resistance challenge is compounded by inadequate attention to disease prevention and response, global circulation of people and products, differences in industry and market regulations across countries, and a fragile pipeline of new antibiotics and their alternatives. While the discovery of new antimicrobials will provide temporary solutions, sustainable success requires rigorous social science research that explores the drivers of antimicrobial resistance. These solutions should promote balance between equitable access to, conservation of, and innovation for antimicrobials, adapted to local conditions across the globe
Beyond fossil fuel–driven nitrogen transformations
How much carbon does it take to make nitric acid? The counterintuitive answer nowadays is quite a lot. Nitric acid is manufactured by ammonia oxidation, and all the hydrogen to make ammonia via the Haber-Bosch process comes from methane. That's without even accounting for the fossil fuels burned to power the process. Chen et al. review research prospects for more sustainable routes to nitrogen commodity chemicals, considering developments in enzymatic, homogeneous, and heterogeneous catalysis, as well as electrochemical, photochemical, and plasma-based approaches
Delivering an Optimised Behavioural Intervention (OBI) to people with low back pain with high psychological risk; results and lessons learnt from a feasibility randomised controlled trial of Contextual Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CCBT) vs. Physiotherapy
Background: Low Back Pain (LBP) remains a common and costly problem. Psychological obstacles to recovery have been identified, but psychological and behavioural interventions have produced only moderate improvements. Reviews of trials have suggested that the interventions lack clear theoretical basis, are often compromised by low dose, lack of fidelity, and delivery by non-experts. In addition, interventions do not directly target known risk mechanisms. We identified a theory driven intervention (Contexual Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, CCBT) that directly targets an evidence-based risk mechanism (avoidance and ensured dose and delivery were optimised. This feasibility study was designed to test the credibility and acceptability of optimised CCBT against physiotherapy for avoidant LBP patients, and to test recruitment, delivery of the intervention and response rates prior to moving to a full definitive trial. Methods: A randomised controlled feasibility trial with patients randomised to receive CCBT or physiotherapy. CCBT was delivered by trained supervised psychologists on a one to one basis and comprised up to 8 one-hour sessions. Physiotherapy comprised back to fitness group exercises with at least 60 % of content exercise-based. Patients were eligible to take part if they had back pain for more than 3 months, and scored above a threshold indicating fear avoidance, catastrophic beliefs and distress. Results: 89 patients were recruited. Uptake rates were above those predicted. Scores for credibility and acceptability of the interventions met the set criteria. Response rates at three and six months fell short of the 75 % target. Problems associated with poor response rates were identified and successfully resolved, rates increased to 77 % at 3 months, and 68 % at 6 months. Independent ratings of treatment sessions indicated that CCBT was delivered to fidelity. Numbers were too small for formal analysis. Although average scores for acceptance were higher in the CCBT group than in the group attending physiotherapy (increase of 7.9 versus 5.1) and change in disability and pain from baseline to 6 months were greater in the CCBT group than in the physiotherapy group, these findings should be interpreted with caution. Conclusions: CCBT is a credible and acceptable intervention for LBP patients who exhibit psychological obstacles to recovery
Aberrant crossed corticospinal facilitation in muscles distant from a spinal cord injury.
Crossed facilitatory interactions in the corticospinal pathway are impaired in humans with chronic incomplete spinal cord injury (SCI). The extent to which crossed facilitation is affected in muscles above and below the injury remains unknown. To address this question we tested 51 patients with neurological injuries between C2-T12 and 17 age-matched healthy controls. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation we elicited motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in the resting first dorsal interosseous, biceps brachii, and tibialis anterior muscles when the contralateral side remained at rest or performed 70% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) into index finger abduction, elbow flexion, and ankle dorsiflexion, respectively. By testing MEPs in muscles with motoneurons located at different spinal cord segments we were able to relate the neurological level of injury to be above, at, or below the location of the motoneurons of the muscle tested. We demonstrate that in patients the size of MEPs was increased to a similar extent as in controls in muscles above the injury during 70% of MVC compared to rest. MEPs remained unchanged in muscles at and within 5 segments below the injury during 70% of MVC compared to rest. However, in muscles beyond 5 segments below the injury the size of MEPs increased similar to controls and was aberrantly high, 2-fold above controls, in muscles distant (>15 segments) from the injury. These aberrantly large MEPs were accompanied by larger F-wave amplitudes compared to controls. Thus, our findings support the view that corticospinal degeneration does not spread rostral to the lesion, and highlights the potential of caudal regions distant from an injury to facilitate residual corticospinal output after SCI
Concentration and preservation of very low abundance biomarkers in urine, such as human growth hormone (hGH), by Cibacron Blue F3G-A loaded hydrogel particles
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