1,617 research outputs found
Minimal immersions of closed surfaces in hyperbolic three-manifolds
We study minimal immersions of closed surfaces (of genus ) in
hyperbolic 3-manifolds, with prescribed data , where
is a conformal structure on a topological surface , and is a holomorphic quadratic differential on the surface . We
show that, for each for some , depending only on
, there are at least two minimal immersions of closed surface
of prescribed second fundamental form in the conformal structure
. Moreover, for sufficiently large, there exists no such minimal
immersion. Asymptotically, as , the principal curvatures of one
minimal immersion tend to zero, while the intrinsic curvatures of the other
blow up in magnitude.Comment: 16 page
Cluster Structure of Disoriented Chiral Condensates in Rapidity Distribution
We study the creation of disoriented chiral condensates with some initial
boundary conditions that may be expected in the relativistic heavy ion
collisions. The equations of motion in the linear -model are solved
numerically with and without a Lorentz-boost invariance. We suggest that a
distinct cluster structure of coherent pion production in the rapidity
distribution may emerge due to a quench and may be observed in experiments.Comment: 10 pages in LaTex, 2 uuencoded ps figures, LBL-3493
Comparative analysis of full genomic sequences among different genotypes of dengue virus type 3
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although the previous study demonstrated the envelope protein of dengue viruses is under purifying selection pressure, little is known about the genetic differences of full-length viral genomes of DENV-3. In our study, complete genomic sequencing of DENV-3 strains collected from different geographical locations and isolation years were determined and the sequence diversity as well as selection pressure sites in the DENV genome other than within the E gene were also analyzed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches, our phylogenetic analysis revealed that the Taiwan's indigenous DENV-3 isolated from 1994 and 1998 dengue/DHF epidemics and one 1999 sporadic case were of the three different genotypes – I, II, and III, each associated with DENV-3 circulating in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka, respectively. Sequence diversity and selection pressure of different genomic regions among DENV-3 different genotypes was further examined to understand the global DENV-3 evolution. The highest nucleotide sequence diversity among the fully sequenced DENV-3 strains was found in the nonstructural protein 2A (mean ± SD: 5.84 ± 0.54) and envelope protein gene regions (mean ± SD: 5.04 ± 0.32). Further analysis found that positive selection pressure of DENV-3 may occur in the non-structural protein 1 gene region and the positive selection site was detected at position 178 of the NS1 gene.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our study confirmed that the envelope protein is under purifying selection pressure although it presented higher sequence diversity. The detection of positive selection pressure in the non-structural protein along genotype II indicated that DENV-3 originated from Southeast Asia needs to monitor the emergence of DENV strains with epidemic potential for better epidemic prevention and vaccine development.</p
Inflammasome Inhibition as a Pathogenic Stealth Mechanism
The activation of inflammasomes containing NBD-LRR (NLRs) or non-NLRs is critical for effective host defense against microbial pathogens. Recent discoveries have uncovered a plethora of pathogenic strategies to inhibit inflammasome-mediated processing of IL-1β and IL-18. We review recent evidence for viral and bacterial manipulation of the inflammasome ranging from perturbation of caspase-1 activation to targeting of specific inflammasome components
Robust causal inference using directed acyclic graphs: the R package ‘dagitty’
Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs), which offer systematic representations of causal relationships, have become an established framework for the analysis of causal inference in epidemiology, often being used to determine covariate adjustment sets for minimizing confounding bias. DAGitty is a popular web application for drawing and analysing DAGs. Here we introduce the R package ‘dagitty’, which provides access to all of the capabilities of the DAGitty web application within the R platform for statistical computing, and also offers several new functions. We describe how the R package ‘dagitty’ can be used to: evaluate whether a DAG is consistent with the dataset it is intended to represent; enumerate ‘statistically equivalent’ but causally different DAGs; and identify exposure outcome adjustment sets that are valid for causally different but statistically equivalent DAGs. This functionality enables epidemiologists to detect causal misspecifications in DAGs and make robust inferences that remain valid for a range of different DAGs. The R package ‘dagitty’ is available through the comprehensive R archive network (CRAN) at
[https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/dagitty/]. The source code is available on github at [https://github.com/jtextor/dagitty]. The web application ‘DAGitty’ is free software, licensed under the GNU general public licence (GPL) version 2 and is available at [http://
dagitty.net/]
Conserving and Gapless Approximations for an Inhomogeneous Bose Gas at Finite Temperatures
We derive and discuss the equations of motion for the condensate and its
fluctuations for a dilute, weakly interacting Bose gas in an external potential
within the self--consistent Hartree--Fock--Bogoliubov (HFB) approximation.
Account is taken of the depletion of the condensate and the anomalous Bose
correlations, which are important at finite temperatures. We give a critical
analysis of the self-consistent HFB approximation in terms of the
Hohenberg--Martin classification of approximations (conserving vs gapless) and
point out that the Popov approximation to the full HFB gives a gapless
single-particle spectrum at all temperatures. The Beliaev second-order
approximation is discussed as the spectrum generated by functional
differentiation of the HFB single--particle Green's function. We emphasize that
the problem of determining the excitation spectrum of a Bose-condensed gas
(homogeneous or inhomogeneous) is difficult because of the need to satisfy
several different constraints.Comment: plain tex, 19 page
Advances in the proposed electromagnetic zero-point field theory of inertia
A NASA-funded research effort has been underway at the Lockheed Martin
Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto and at California State University in
Long Beach to develop and test a recently published theory that Newton's
equation of motion can be derived from Maxwell's equations of electrodynamics
as applied to the zero-point field (ZPF) of the quantum vacuum. In this
ZPF-inertia theory, mass is postulated to be not an intrinsic property of
matter but rather a kind of electromagnetic drag force that proves to be
acceleration dependent by virtue of the spectral characteristics of the ZPF.
The theory proposes that interactions between the ZPF and matter take place at
the level of quarks and electrons, hence would account for the mass of a
composite neutral particle such as the neutron. An effort to generalize the
exploratory study of Haisch, Rueda and Puthoff (1994) into a proper
relativistic formulation has been successful. Moreover the principle of
equivalence implies that in this view gravitation would also be electromagnetic
in origin along the lines proposed by Sakharov (1968). With regard to exotic
propulsion we can definitively rule out one speculatively hypothesized
mechanism: matter possessing negative inertial mass, a concept originated by
Bondi (1957) is shown to be logically impossible. On the other hand, the linked
ZPF-inertia and ZPF-gravity concepts open the conceptual possibility of
manipulation of inertia and gravitation, since both are postulated to be
electromagnetic phenomena. It is hoped that this will someday translate into
actual technological potential. A key question is whether the proposed
ZPF-matter interactions generating the phenomenon of mass might involve one or
more resonances. This is presently under investigation.Comment: Revised version of invited presentation at 34th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE
Joint Propulsion Conference, July 13-15, 1998, Cleveland, OH, 10 pages, no
figure
Spin Transfer from a Ferromagnet into a Semiconductor through an Oxide barrier
We present results on the magnetoresistance of the system Ni/Al203/n-doped
Si/Al2O3/Ni in fabricated nanostructures. The results at temperature of 14K
reveal a 75% magnetoresistance that decreases in value up to approximately 30K
where the effect disappears. We observe minimum resistance in the antiparallel
configurations of the source and drain of Ni. As a possibility, it seems to
indicate the existence of a magnetic state at the Si/oxide interface. The
average spin diffusion length obtained is of 650 nm approximately. Results are
compared to the window of resistances that seems to exist between the tunnel
barrier resistance and two threshold resistances but the spin transfer seems to
work in the range and outside the two thresholds
The Free Quon Gas Suffers Gibbs' Paradox
We consider the Statistical Mechanics of systems of particles satisfying the
-commutation relations recently proposed by Greenberg and others. We show
that although the commutation relations approach Bose (resp.\ Fermi) relations
for (resp.\ ), the partition functions of free gases are
independent of in the range . The partition functions exhibit
Gibbs' Paradox in the same way as a classical gas without a correction factor
for the statistical weight of the -particle phase space, i.e.\ the
Statistical Mechanics does not describe a material for which entropy, free
energy, and particle number are extensive thermodynamical quantities.Comment: number-of-pages, LaTeX with REVTE
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