Quantum Black Holes as the Link Between Microphysics and Macrophysics

There appears to be a duality between elementary particles, which span the mass range below the Planck scale, and black holes, which span the mass range range above it. In particular, the Black Hole Uncertainty Principle Correspondence posits a smooth transition between the Compton and Schwarzschild scales as a function of mass. This suggests that all black holes are in some sense quantum, that elementary particles can be interpreted as sub-Planckian black holes, and that there is a subtle connection between quantum and classical physics.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 2015 Karl Schwarzschild Meeting on Gravitational Physics, eds. P. Nicolini, J. Mureika, M. Kaminski and M. Bleiche

Classical and quantum: a conflict of interest

We highlight three conflicts between quantum theory and classical general relativity, which make it implausible that a quantum theory of gravity can be arrived at by quantising classical gravity. These conflicts are: quantum nonlocality and space-time structure; the problem of time in quantum theory; and the quantum measurement problem. We explain how these three aspects bear on each other, and how they point towards an underlying noncommutative geometry of space-time.Comment: 15 pages. Published in `Gravity and the quantum' [Essays in honour of Thanu Padmanabhan on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday] Eds. Jasjeet Singh Bagla and Sunu Engineer (Springer, 2017

Priority for the Worse Off and the Social Cost of Carbon

The social cost of carbon (SCC) is a monetary measure of the harms from carbon emission. Specifically, it is the reduction in current consumption that produces a loss in social welfare equivalent to that caused by the emission of a ton of CO2. The standard approach is to calculate the SCC using a discounted-utilitarian social welfare function (SWF)—one that simply adds up the well-being numbers (utilities) of individuals, as discounted by a weighting factor that decreases with time. The discounted-utilitarian SWF has been criticized both for ignoring the distribution of well-being, and for including an arbitrary preference for earlier generations. Here, we use a prioritarian SWF, with no time-discount factor, to calculate the SCC in the integrated assessment model RICE. Prioritarianism is a well-developed concept in ethics and theoretical welfare economics, but has been, thus far, little used in climate scholarship. The core idea is to give greater weight to well-being changes affecting worse off individuals. We find substantial differences between the discounted-utilitarian and non-discounted prioritarian SCC

Plasma Perturbations and Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy in the Linearly Expanding Milne-like Universe

We expose the scenarios of primordial baryon-photon plasma evolution within the framework of the Milne-like universe models. Recently, such models find a second wind and promise an inflation-free solution of a lot of cosmological puzzles including the cosmological constant one. Metric tensor perturbations are considered using the five-vectors theory of gravity admitting the Friedmann equation satisfied up to some constant. The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) spectrum is calculated qualitatively.Comment: 20 page

Educational difference in the prevalence of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women: a study in northern Iran

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Osteoporosis is the most common metabolic bone disease in the world and it is rapidly increasing in Iran. In this study the relationship between educational levels and osteoporosis was investigated among Iranian postmenopausal women.</p> <p>Method and subjects</p> <p>Seven hundred and six women aged 50-75 years old were randomly recruited from urban (<it>n </it>= 440) and rural (<it>n </it>= 266) areas in Guilan. Osteoporosis was diagnosed by quantitative ultrasound technique and dual X-ray absorptiometry. Serum 25(OH) D3, body weight and height were measured in all subjects. Other data including age, educational level, menopause age, medications and history of illness were also collected.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that the prevalence of osteoporosis was significantly greater among women with low educational level than women with high educational status (18.0% vs 3.8% <it>P </it>< 0.0001). However, women with low educational level had higher mean serum level of vitamin D than women with high educational level. Osteoporosis was significantly more prevalent among women living in rural areas than women living in urban areas (19.1% v.s 13.3%, <it>P </it>< 0.0001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study showed that educational level is associated with bone health in this population of postmenopausal women with significantly higher osteoporosis found in lower social groups. Therefore, we suggest that women with low social level should be carefully evaluated for signs of osteoporosis during routine physical examinations.</p

Atorvastatin reduces lipopolysaccharide-induced expression of cyclooxygenase-2 in human pulmonary epithelial cells

OBJECTIVE: To explore the effects of atorvastatin on expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in human pulmonary epithelial cells (A549). METHODS: A549 cells were incubated in DMEM medium containing lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in the presence or absence of atorvastatin. After incubation, the medium was collected and the amount of prostaglandin E(2 )(PGE(2)) was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The cells were harvested, and COX-2 mRNA and protein were analyzed by RT-PCR and western-blot respectively. RESULTS: LPS increased the expression of COX-2 mRNA and production of PGE(2 )in a dose- and time-dependent manner in A549. Induction of COX-2 mRNA and protein by LPS were inhibited by atorvastatin in a dose-dependent manner. Atorvastatin also significantly decreased LPS-induced production of PGE(2). There was a positive correlation between reduced of COX-2 mRNA and decreased of PGE(2 )(r = 0.947, P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Atorvastatin down-regulates LPS-induced expression of the COX-2 and consequently inhibits production of PGE(2 )in cultured A549 cells

Amplified mid-latitude planetary waves favour particular regional weather extremes

Copyright © 2014 Nature Publishing GroupThere has been an ostensibly large number of extreme weather events in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes during the past decade [1]. An open question that is critically important for scientists and policy makers is whether any such increase in weather extremes is natural or anthropogenic in origin [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. One mechanism proposed to explain the increased frequency of extreme weather events is the amplification of mid-latitude atmospheric planetary waves [14, 15, 16, 17]. Disproportionately large warming in the northern polar regions compared with mid-latitudes—and associated weakening of the north–south temperature gradient—may favour larger amplitude planetary waves [14, 15, 16, 17], although observational evidence for this remains inconclusive [18, 19, 20, 21]. A better understanding of the role of planetary waves in causing mid-latitude weather extremes is essential for assessing the potential environmental and socio-economic impacts of future planetary wave changes. Here we show that months of extreme weather over mid-latitudes are commonly accompanied by significantly amplified quasi-stationary mid-tropospheric planetary waves. Conversely, months of near-average weather over mid-latitudes are often accompanied by significantly attenuated waves. Depending on geographical region, certain types of extreme weather (for example, hot, cold, wet, dry) are more strongly related to wave amplitude changes than others. The findings suggest that amplification of quasi-stationary waves preferentially increases the probabilities of heat waves in western North America and central Asia, cold outbreaks in eastern North America, droughts in central North America, Europe and central Asia, and wet spells in western Asia.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC

Genetic, serological and biochemical characterization of Leishmania tropica from foci in northern Palestine and discovery of zymodeme MON-307

Background Many cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) have been recorded in the Jenin District based on their clinical appearance. Here, their parasites have been characterized in depth. Methods Leishmanial parasites isolated from 12 human cases of CL from the Jenin District were cultured as promastigotes, whose DNA was extracted. The ITS1 sequence and the 7SL RNA gene were analysed as was the kinetoplast minicircle DNA (kDNA) sequence. Excreted factor (EF) serotyping and multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MLEE) were also applied. Results This extensive characterization identified the strains as Leishmania tropica of two very distinct sub-types that parallel the two sub-groups discerned by multilocus microsatellite typing (MLMT) done previously. A high degree of congruity was displayed among the results generated by the different analytical methods that had examined various cellular components and exposed intra-specific heterogeneity among the 12 strains. Three of the ten strains subjected to MLEE constituted a new zymodeme, zymodeme MON-307, and seven belonged to the known zymodeme MON-137. Ten of the 15 enzymes in the profile of zymodeme MON-307 displayed different electrophoretic mobilities compared with the enzyme profile of the zymodeme MON-137. The closest profile to that of zymodeme MON-307 was that of the zymodeme MON-76 known from Syria. Strains of the zymodeme MON-307 were EF sub-serotype A2 and those of the zymodeme MON-137 were either A9 or A9B4. The sub-serotype B4 component appears, so far, to be unique to some strains of L. tropica of zymodeme MON-137. Strains of the zymodeme MON-137 displayed a distinctive fragment of 417 bp that was absent in those of zymodeme MON-307 when their kDNA was digested with the endonuclease RsaI. kDNA-RFLP after digestion with the endonuclease MboI facilitated a further level of differentiation that partially coincided with the geographical distribution of the human cases from which the strains came. Conclusions The Palestinian strains that were assigned to different genetic groups differed in their MLEE profiles and their EF types. A new zymodeme, zymodeme MON-307 was discovered that seems to be unique to the northern part of the Palestinian West Bank. What seemed to be a straight forward classical situation of L. tropica causing anthroponotic CL in the Jenin District might be a more complex situation, owing to the presence of two separate sub-types of L. tropica that, possibly, indicates two separate transmission cycles involving two separate types of phlebotomine sand fly vector

Linear MIM-Width of Trees

We provide an $O(n \log n)$ algorithm computing the linear maximum induced matching width of a tree and an optimal layout.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, full version of WG19 paper of same nam