389 research outputs found
A serum biomarker reflecting collagen type I degradation (C1M) is an independent risk factor for acute myocardial infarction in postmenopausal women: results from the PERF study
Self-consistent Ornstein-Zernike approximation for three-dimensional spins
An Ornstein-Zernike approximation for the two-body correlation function
embodying thermodynamic consistency is applied to a system of classical
Heisenberg spins on a three-dimensional lattice. The consistency condition
determined in a previous work is supplemented by introducing a simplified
expression for the mean-square fluctuations of the spin on each lattice site.
The thermodynamics and the correlations obtained by this closure are then
compared with approximants based on extrapolation of series expansions and with
Monte Carlo simulations. The comparison reveals that many properties of the
model, including the critical temperature, are very well reproduced by this
simple version of the theory, but that it shows substantial quantitative error
in the critical region, both above the critical temperature and with respect to
its rendering of the spontaneous magnetization curve. A less simple but
conceptually more satisfactory version of the SCOZA is then developed, but not
solved, in which the effects of transverse correlations on the longitudinal
susceptibility is included, yielding a more complete and accurate description
of the spin-wave properties of the model.Comment: 32 pages, 12 figure
Survey of 800+ data sets from human tissue and body fluid reveals xenomiRs are likely artifacts
miRNAs are small 22-nucleotide RNAs that can post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression. It has been proposed that dietary plant miRNAs can enter the human bloodstream and regulate host transcripts; however, these findings have been widely disputed. We here conduct the first comprehensive meta-study in the field, surveying the presence and abundances of cross-species miRNAs (xenomiRs) in 824 sequencing data sets from various human tissues and body fluids. We find that xenomiRs are commonly present in tissues (17%) and body fluids (69%); however, the abundances are low, comprising 0.001% of host human miRNA counts. Further, we do not detect a significant enrichment of xenomiRs in sequencing data originating from tissues and body fluids that are exposed to dietary intake (such as liver). Likewise, there is no significant depletion of xenomiRs in tissues and body fluids that are relatively separated from the main bloodstream (such as brain and cerebro-spinal fluids). Interestingly, the majority (81%) of body fluid xenomiRs stem from rodents, which are a rare human dietary contribution but common laboratory animals. Body fluid samples from the same studies tend to group together when clustered by xenomiR compositions, suggesting technical batch effects. Last, we performed carefully designed and controlled animal feeding studies, in which we detected no transfer of plant miRNAs into rat blood, or bovine milk sequences into piglet blood. In summary, our comprehensive computational and experimental results indicate that xenomiRs originate from technical artifacts rather than dietary intake
4f spin density in the reentrant ferromagnet SmMn2Ge2
The spin contribution to the magnetic moment in SmMn2Ge2 has been measured by
magnetic Compton scattering in both the low and high temperature ferromagnetic
phases. At low temperature, the Sm site is shown to possess a large 4f spin
moment of 3.4 +/- 0.1 Bohr magnetons, aligned antiparallel to the total
magnetic moment. At high temperature, the data show conclusively that ordered
magnetic moments are present on the samarium site.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, transferred from PRL to PRB (Rapid Comm.
Comparison of Two Azithromycin Distribution Strategies for Controlling Trachoma in Nepal
OBJECTIVE:
The study compares the effectiveness of two strategies for distributing azithromycin in an area with mild-to-moderate active trachoma in Nepal. METHODS:
The two strategies investigated were the use of azithromycin for 1) mass treatment of all children, or 2) targeted treatment of only those children who were found to be clinically active, as well as all members of their household. FINDINGS:
Mass treatment of children was slightly more effective in terms of decreasing the prevalence of clinically active trachoma (estimated by clinical examination) and of chlamydial infection (estimated by DNA amplification tests), although neither result was statistically significant. CONCLUSION:
Both strategies appeared to be effective in reducing the prevalence of clinically active trachoma and infection six months after the treatment. Antibiotic treatment reduced the prevalence of chlamydial infection more than it did the level of clinically active trachoma
Critical exponents and equation of state of the three-dimensional Heisenberg universality class
We improve the theoretical estimates of the critical exponents for the
three-dimensional Heisenberg universality class. We find gamma=1.3960(9),
nu=0.7112(5), eta=0.0375(5), alpha=-0.1336(15), beta=0.3689(3), and
delta=4.783(3). We consider an improved lattice phi^4 Hamiltonian with
suppressed leading scaling corrections. Our results are obtained by combining
Monte Carlo simulations based on finite-size scaling methods and
high-temperature expansions. The critical exponents are computed from
high-temperature expansions specialized to the phi^4 improved model. By the
same technique we determine the coefficients of the small-magnetization
expansion of the equation of state. This expansion is extended analytically by
means of approximate parametric representations, obtaining the equation of
state in the whole critical region. We also determine a number of universal
amplitude ratios.Comment: 40 pages, final version. In publication in Phys. Rev.
Exploring the prevalence and diversity of pollen carried by four species of migratory Old World warbler (Sylvioidea) on arrival in the UK
Genomic imprinting: genetic mechanisms and phenotypic consequences in Prader-Willi and Angelman syndromes
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