821 research outputs found
Persistence of inflationary shocks: Implications for West African Monetary Union Membership
Plans are far advanced to form a second monetary union, the West African Monetary Zone
(WAMZ), in Africa. While much attention is being placed on convergence criteria and
preparedness of the five aspiring member states, less attention is being placed on the extent
to which the dynamics of inflation in individual countries are (dis)similar. This paper aims to
stimulate debate on the long term sustainability of the union by examining the dynamics of
inflation within these countries. Using Fractional Integration (FI) methods, we establish that
some significant differences exist among the countries. Shocks to inflation in Sierra Leone
are non mean reverting; results for The Gambia, Ghana and Guinea-Bissau suggest some
inflation persistence, despite being mean reverting. Some policy implications are discussed
and some warnings are raised
mTORtuous effect on the elastic heart
Both during normal physiological development as well as in the face of cardiac stress, the heart exhibits enormous plasticity in growth, remodeling, and atrophy. Central to this adaptive ability is the heart’s metabolic capacity to react quickly both anabolically and catabolically in order to maintain cardiac output. In response to hemodynamic stress, the heart adapts to maintain overall contractile function via pathological remodeling that often includes cardiomyocyte hypertrophy as well as changes in cardiomyocyte metabolism that eventually lead to contractile dysfunction and heart failure. It is unclear as to whether the metabolic changes that accompany pathological hypertrophy are adaptive or maladaptive; however, as in most complex biological systems, the answer likely resides somewhere in the middle. Goodwin et al. demonstrated in 1998 that hemodynamic stress increases carbohydrate use for ATP generation and induces cardiac remodeling. Numerous subsequent studies have attributed the change in metabolism and cardiac remodeling to activation of the mammalian (or mechanistic) target of rapamycin (mTOR), a kinase that is a primary regulator of myocardial protein synthesis. Recent experimental models that manipulate cardiac metabolism and mTOR signaling have provided new insights into the relationship between metabolic and structural remodeling (reviewed in detail by Kundu et al.). One hopes that such models will identify metabolic changes that precede remodeling in order to find therapeutic targets for cardiac disease
Reorientation of magnetic anisotropy in epitaxial cobalt ferrite thin films
Spin reorientation has been observed in CoFe2O4 thin single crystalline films epitaxially grown on (100) MgO substrate upon varying the film thickness. The critical thickness for such a spin-reorientation transition was estimated to be 300 nm. The reorientation is driven by a structural transition in the film from a tetragonal to cubic symmetry. At low thickness, the in-plane tensile stress induces a tetragonal distortion of the lattice that generates a perpendicular anisotropy, large enough to overcome the shape anisotropy and to stabilize the magnetization easy axis out of plane. However, in thicker films, the lattice relaxation toward the cubic structure of the bulk allows the shape anisotropy to force the magnetization to be in plane aligned
Variational Study of the Phase Transition at Finite T in the -Theory
Assuming triviality of the 4-dimensional -theory we compute
the effective potential by means of a self consistent Feynman-Bogoliubov
method. This potential depends on a UV-cutoff, which is fixed by
a stability condition for the gap-equation for the plasma mass. It shows a
second order phase transition at zero temperature, in agreement with a large
amount of analytical and RG analysis as well as Monte Carlo numerical evidence.
As the cutoff is removed the renormalized self coupling constant
goes to zero consistent with the claim of triviality. At finite
temperature the phase transition becomes weakly first order.Comment: 8 pages, latex, 4 figures available from author e-mail:
[email protected], submitted to Phys. Lett.
Cut Vertices and Semi-Inclusive Deep Inelastic Processes
Cut vertices, a generalization of matrix elements of local operators, are
revisited, and an expansion in terms of minimally subtracted cut vertices is
formulated. An extension of the formalism to deal with semi-inclusive deep
inelastic processes in the target fragmentation region is explicitly
constructed. The problem of factorization is discussed in detail.Comment: LaTex2e, 24 pages including 17 postscript figure
Chiral Unitary Approach To The N*N*pi, N*N*eta Couplings For The N*(1535) Resonance
Using a chiral unitary model in which the negative parity nucleon resonance
is generated dynamically by means of the Bethe
Salpeter equation with coupled meson baryon channels in the sector, we
have obtained the and couplings. The
coupling has smaller strength and the same sign as the
coupling. This rules out the mirror assignment of chiral symmetry
where the ground state nucleon and the negative parity resonance
are envisaged as chiral partners in the baryon sector.Comment: 30 pages, 15 figures (ps files). The new version discusses pi-N
scattering around the N*(1535) resonanc
Vanishing magnetic mass in QED with a Chern-Simons term
We show that, at one loop, the magnetic mass vanishes at finite temperature
in QED in any dimension. In QED, even the zero temperature part can be
regularized to zero. We calculate the two loop contributions to the magnetic
mass in QED with a Chern-Simons term and show that it vanishes. We give a
simple proof which shows that the magnetic mass vanishes to all orders at
finite temperature in this theory. This proof also holds for QED in any
dimension.Comment: revtex, 7 pages, 5 figure
Yang-Mills Interactions and Gravity in Terms of Clifford Algebra
A model of Yang-Mills interactions and gravity in terms of the Clifford
algebra Cl(0,6) is presented. The gravity and Yang-Mills actions are formulated
as different order terms in a generalized action. The feebleness of gravity as
well as the smallness of the cosmological constant and theta terms are
discussed at the classical level. The invariance groups, including the de
Sitter and the Pati-Salam SU(4) subgroups, consist of gauge transformations
from either side of an algebraic spinor. Upon symmetry breaking via the Higgs
fields, the remaining symmetries are the Lorentz SO(1,3), color SU(3),
electromagnetic U(1)_EM, and an additional U(1). The first generation leptons
and quarks are identified with even and odd parts of spinor idempotent
projections. There are still several shortcomings with the current model.
Further research is needed to fully recover the standard model results.Comment: 20 pages, to appear in Advances in Applied Clifford Algebra
Charge Dynamics in Cuprate Superconductors
In this lecture we present some interesting issues that arise when the
dynamics of the charge carriers in the CuO planes of the high temperature
superconductors is considered. Based on the qualitative picture of doping, set
by experiments and some previous calculations, we consider the strength of
various inter and intra-cell charge transfer susceptibilities, the question of
Coulomb screening and charge collective modes. The starting point is the usual
p-d model extended by the long range Coulomb (LRC) interaction. Within this
model it is possible to examine the case in which the LRC forces frustrate the
electronic phase separation, the instability which is present in the model
without an LRC interaction. While the static dielectric function in such
systems is negative down to arbitrarily small wavevectors, the system is not
unstable. We consider the dominant electronic charge susceptibilities and
possible consequences for the lattice properties.Comment: 14 pages, 15 figures, latex, to be published in "From Quantum
Mechanics to Technology", Lecture Notes in Physics, Springe
Modeling the transition from decompensated to pathological hypertrophy
Background--Long-chain acyl-CoA synthetases (ACSL) catalyze the conversion of long-chain fatty acids to fatty acyl-CoAs. Cardiac-specific ACSL1 temporal knockout at 2 months results in a shift from FA oxidation toward glycolysis that promotes mTORC1-mediated ventricular hypertrophy. We used unbiased metabolomics and gene expression analyses to examine the early effects of genetic inactivation of fatty acid oxidation on cardiac metabolism, hypertrophy development, and function. Methods and Results--Global cardiac transcriptional analysis revealed differential expression of genes involved in cardiac metabolism, fibrosis, and hypertrophy development in Acsl1 H-/- hearts 2 weeks after Acsl1 ablation. Comparison of the 2- and 10-week transcriptional responses uncovered 137 genes whose expression was uniquely changed upon knockdown of cardiac ACSL1, including the distinct upregulation of fibrosis genes, a phenomenon not observed after complete ACSL1 knockout. Metabolomic analysis identified metabolites altered in hearts displaying partially reduced ACSL activity, and rapamycin treatment normalized the cardiac metabolomic fingerprint. Conclusions--Short-term cardiac-specific ACSL1 inactivation resulted in metabolic and transcriptional derangements distinct from those observed upon complete ACSL1 knockout, suggesting heart-specific mTOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin) signaling that occurs during the early stages of substrate switching. The hypertrophy observed with partial Acsl1 ablation occurs in the context of normal cardiac function and is reminiscent of a physiological process, making this a useful model to study the transition from physiological to pathological hypertrophy
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