On the viability of a CSO architecture for on-demand virtualized cloud planning and provisioning

As bandwidth requirements and computing capacity for future applications have been predicted to exceed current network and IT infrastructure capabilities, providers face the need to adapt their provisioning models. This article presents the benefits of Cross Stratum Optimized architectures (provision of network and IT resources in a coordinated way) in support of Cloud-based applications. We also present the architecture's potential impact and benefits for operators, based on MACTOR methodology. MACTOR results show the interactions among value-chain actors and identify their business convergences and divergences, revealing the architecture feasibility

Semileptonic Hyperon Decays

We review the status of hyperon semileptonic decays. The central issue is the $V_{us}$ element of the CKM matrix, where we obtain $V_{us}=0.2250 (27)$. This value is of similar precision, but higher, than the one derived from $K_{l3}$, and in better agreement with the unitarity requirement, $|V_{ud}|^2+|V_{us}|^2+|V_{ub}|^2=1$. We find that the Cabibbo model gives an excellent fit of the existing form factor data on baryon beta decays ($\chi^{2} = 2.96$ for 3 degrees of freedom) with $F + D = 1.2670 \pm 0.0030$, $F - D = -0.341 \pm 0.016$, and no indication of flavour-SU(3)-breaking effects. We indicate the need of more experimental and theoretical work, both on hyperon beta decays and on $K_{l3}$ decays.Comment: 37 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables, Final version of this material is scheduled to appear in the Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science Vol. 5

Health Care Resource Utilization and Related Costs of Patients With CKD From the United States: A Report From the DISCOVER CKD Retrospective Cohort

Introduction: It is well established that chronic kidney disease (CKD) results in a significant burden on patients’ health and health care providers. However, detailed estimates of the health care resource utilization (HCRU) of CKD are limited, particularly those which consider severity, comorbidities, and payer type. This study aimed to bridge this evidence gap by reporting contemporary HCRU and costs in patients with CKD across the US health care providers. Methods: Cost and HCRU estimates of CKD and reduced kidney function without CKD (estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR]: 60−75 and urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio [UACR]: <30) were derived for US patients included in the DISCOVER CKD cohort study, using linked inpatient and outpatient data from the limited claims-EMR data set (LCED) and TriNetX database. Patients with a history of transplant or undergoing dialysis were not included. HCRU and costs were stratified by CKD severity using UACR and eGFR. Results: Overall health care costs ranged from $26,889 (A1) to$42,139 (A3), and from $28,627 (G2) to$42,902 (G5) per patient per year (PPPY), demonstrating a considerable early disease burden which continued to increase with declining kidney function. The PPPY costs of later stage CKD were particularly notable for patients with concomitant heart failure ($50,191 [A3]) and those covered by commercial payers ($55,735 [A3]). Conclusions: Health care costs and resource use associated with CKD and reduced kidney function pose a substantial burden across health care systems and payers, increasing in line with CKD progression. Early CKD screening, particularly of UACR, paired with proactive disease management may provide both an improvement to patient outcomes and a significant HCRU and cost saving to health care providers

Shaking-induced dynamics of cold atoms in magnetic traps

We describe an experiment in which cold rubidium atoms, confined in an elongated magnetic trap, are excited by transverse oscillation of the trap center. The temperature after excitation exhibits resonance as a function of the driving frequency. We measure these resonances at several different trap frequencies. In order to interpret the experiments, we develop a simple model that incorporates both collisions between atoms and the anharmonicity of the real three-dimensional trapping potential. As well as providing a precise connection between the transverse harmonic oscillation frequency and the temperature resonance frequency, this model gives insight into the heating and loss mechanisms and into the dynamics of driven clouds of cold trapped atoms

Refining the scalar and tensor contributions in τ→πππντ\tau\to \pi\pi\pi\nu_\tau decays

In this article we analyze the contribution from intermediate spin-0 and spin-2 resonances to the $\tau\to\nu \pi\pi\pi$ decay by means of a chiral invariant Lagrangian incorporating these mesons. In particular, we study the corresponding axial-vector form-factors. The advantage of this procedure with respect to previous analyses is that it incorporates chiral (and isospin) invariance and, hence, the partial conservation of the axial-vector current. This ensures the recovery of the right low-energy limit, described by chiral perturbation theory, and the transversality of the current in the chiral limit at all energies. Furthermore, the meson form-factors are further improved by requiring appropriate QCD high-energy conditions. We end up with a brief discussion on its implementation in the Tauola Monte Carlo and the prospects for future analyses of Belle's data.Comment: 32 pages, 13 figures. Extended discussion on the numerical importance of the tensor and scalar resonances and the parametrization of the scalar propagator. Version published in JHE

The "Solar Model Problem" Solved by the Abundance of Neon in Stars of the Local Cosmos

The interior structure of the Sun can be studied with great accuracy using observations of its oscillations, similar to seismology of the Earth. Precise agreement between helioseismological measurements and predictions of theoretical solar models has been a triumph of modern astrophysics (Bahcall et al. 2005). However, a recent downward revision by 25-35% of the solar abundances of light elements such as C, N, O and Ne (Asplund et al. 2004) has broken this accordance: models adopting the new abundances incorrectly predict the depth of the convection zone, the depth profiles of sound speed and density, and the helium abundance (Basu Antia 2004, Bahcall et al. 2005). The discrepancies are far beyond the uncertainties in either the data or the model predictions (Bahcall et al. 2005b). Here we report on neon abundances relative to oxygen measured in a sample of nearby solar-like stars from their X-ray spectra. They are all very similar and substantially larger than the recently revised solar value. The neon abundance in the Sun is quite poorly determined. If the Ne/O abundance in these stars is adopted for the Sun the models are brought back into agreement with helioseismology measurements (Antia Basu 2005, Bahcall et al. 2005c).Comment: 13 pages, 3 Figure

How and why DNA barcodes underestimate the diversity of microbial eukaryotes

Background: Because many picoplanktonic eukaryotic species cannot currently be maintained in culture, direct sequencing of PCR-amplified 18S ribosomal gene DNA fragments from filtered sea-water has been successfully used to investigate the astounding diversity of these organisms. The recognition of many novel planktonic organisms is thus based solely on their 18S rDNA sequence. However, a species delimited by its 18S rDNA sequence might contain many cryptic species, which are highly differentiated in their protein coding sequences. Principal Findings: Here, we investigate the issue of species identification from one gene to the whole genome sequence. Using 52 whole genome DNA sequences, we estimated the global genetic divergence in protein coding genes between organisms from different lineages and compared this to their ribosomal gene sequence divergences. We show that this relationship between proteome divergence and 18S divergence is lineage dependant. Unicellular lineages have especially low 18S divergences relative to their protein sequence divergences, suggesting that 18S ribosomal genes are too conservative to assess planktonic eukaryotic diversity. We provide an explanation for this lineage dependency, which suggests that most species with large effective population sizes will show far less divergence in 18S than protein coding sequences. Conclusions: There is therefore a trade-off between using genes that are easy to amplify in all species, but which by their nature are highly conserved and underestimate the true number of species, and using genes that give a better description of the number of species, but which are more difficult to amplify. We have shown that this trade-off differs between unicellular and multicellular organisms as a likely consequence of differences in effective population sizes. We anticipate that biodiversity of microbial eukaryotic species is underestimated and that numerous ''cryptic species'' will become discernable with the future acquisition of genomic and metagenomic sequences

Improved Diagnosis and Management of Paediatric Renal Transplant Recipients Using the Banff 2013 Histopathological Classification

Introduction: Since the publication of the 2013 Banff classification, adult studies have shown evidence of improved prognosis using the new histopathological criteria. Our study assesses for the first time the impact of the new classification on the diagnosis of acute antibody-mediated rejection (AMR) in paediatric renal transplant recipients (pRTR). / Methods: This single-centre study is a retrospective evaluation of 56 paediatric post-transplant de novo DSA-positive patients who had a percutaneous renal transplant biopsy due to renal allograft dysfunction from January 2006 to March 2012. Their biopsies were re-scored by a solitary specialist trained in 2013 Banff classification. The results were compared with previous classification as per 2003/2007 Banff criteria with results presented as range (median). / Results: At the time of biopsy, pRTR were aged 1.6 - 17.5 (median 14.9) years old with 412 - 2735 mean fluorescence intensity (MFI; maximal at 713 - 31,625; median 3466 and 4809). Following the 2013 Banff classification, there was a total of 5 cases of acute AMR compared to one confirmed and one suspicious AMR with the 2003/2007 Banff classification (with no change in the remaining 51 patients’ classification). Consequently, 5.3% (3 of 56) patients would have been diagnosed with T-cell mediated rejection with suboptimal treatment. There was an overall 70% (48 - 112%) decrease in the renal allograft function in the 6 months follow-up period after aggressive treatment for acute AMR and 2 of 3 patients had further rejection episodes in the following year. / Conclusion: This research supports the new Banff 2013 classification as a more precise classification in pRTR in the diagnosis of AMR with 5% of patients being correctly diagnosed and managed with improvement in renal allograft function

F-theory and Neutrinos: Kaluza-Klein Dilution of Flavor Hierarchy

We study minimal implementations of Majorana and Dirac neutrino scenarios in F-theory GUT models. In both cases the mass scale of the neutrinos m_nu ~ (M_weak)^2/M_UV arises from integrating out Kaluza-Klein modes, where M_UV is close to the GUT scale. The participation of non-holomorphic Kaluza-Klein mode wave functions dilutes the mass hierarchy in comparison to the quark and charged lepton sectors, in agreement with experimentally measured mass splittings. The neutrinos are predicted to exhibit a "normal" mass hierarchy, with masses m_3,m_2,m_1 ~ .05*(1,(alpha_GUT)^(1/2),alpha_GUT) eV. When the interactions of the neutrino and charged lepton sectors geometrically unify, the neutrino mixing matrix exhibits a mild hierarchical structure such that the mixing angles theta_23 and theta_12 are large and comparable, while theta_13 is expected to be smaller and close to the Cabibbo angle: theta_13 ~ theta_C ~ (alpha_GUT)^(1/2) ~ 0.2. This suggests that theta_13 should be near the current experimental upper bound.Comment: v2: 83 pages, 10 figures, references adde