Quantum Gravity in Everyday Life: General Relativity as an Effective Field Theory

This article is meant as a summary and introduction to the ideas of effective field theory as applied to gravitational systems. Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Effective Field Theories 3. Low-Energy Quantum Gravity 4. Explicit Quantum Calculations 5. ConclusionsComment: 56 pages, 2 figures, JHEP style, Invited review to appear in Living Reviews of Relativit

The Weak Gravity Conjecture and the Viscosity Bound with Six-Derivative Corrections

The weak gravity conjecture and the shear viscosity to entropy density bound place constraints on low energy effective field theories that may help to distinguish which theories can be UV completed. Recently, there have been suggestions of a possible correlation between the two constraints. In some interesting cases, the behavior was precisely such that the conjectures were mutually exclusive. Motivated by these works, we study the mass to charge and shear viscosity to entropy density ratios for charged AdS5 black branes, which are holographically dual to four-dimensional CFTs at finite temperature. We study a family of four-derivative and six-derivative perturbative corrections to these backgrounds. We identify the region in parameter space where the two constraints are satisfied and in particular find that the inclusion of the next-to-leading perturbative correction introduces wider possibilities for the satisfaction of both constraints.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, v2: published version, refs added, minor clarificatio

Counseling with guided use of a mobile well-being app for students experiencing anxiety or depression: Clinical outcomes of a feasibility trial embedded in a student counseling service

Background: Anxiety and depression continue to be prominent experiences of students approaching their university counseling service. These services face unique challenges to ensure that they continue to offer quality support with fewer resources to a growing student population. The convenience and availability of mobile phone apps offer innovative solutions to address therapeutic challenges and expand the reach of traditional support. Objective: The primary aim of this study was to establish the feasibility of a trial in which guided use of a mobile phone well-being app was introduced into a student counseling service and offered as an adjunct to face-to-face counseling. Methods: The feasibility trial used a two-arm, parallel nonrandomized design comparing counseling alone (treatment as usual) versus counseling supplemented with guided use of a mobile phone well-being app (intervention) for 38 university students experiencing moderate anxiety or depression. Students in both conditions received up to 6 sessions of face-to-face counseling within a 3-month period. Students who approached the counseling service and were accepted for counseling were invited to join the trial. Feasibility factors evaluated include recruitment duration, treatment preference, randomization acceptability, and intervention fidelity. Clinical outcomes and clinical change were assessed with routine clinical outcome measures administered every counseling session and follow-up phases at 3 and 6 months after recruitment. Results: Both groups demonstrated reduced clinical severity by the end of counseling. This was particularly noticeable for depression, social anxiety, and hostility, whereby clients moved from elevated clinical to low clinical or from low clinical to nonclinical by the end of the intervention. By the 6-month follow-up, TAU clients' (n=18) anxiety had increased whereas intervention clients' (n=20) anxiety continued to decrease, and this group difference was significant (Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7: t22=3.46, P=.002). This group difference was not replicated for levels of depression: students in both groups continued to decrease their levels of depression by a similar amount at the 6-month follow-up (Physical Health Questionnaire-9: t22=1.30, P=.21). Conclusion: Supplementing face-to-face counseling with guided use of a well-being app is a feasible and acceptable treatment option for university students experiencing moderate anxiety or depression. The feasibility trial was successfully embedded into a university counseling service without denying access to treatment and with minimal disruption to the service. This study provides preliminary evidence for using a well-being app to maintain clinical improvements for anxiety following the completion of counseling. The design of the feasibility trial provides the groundwork for the development of future pilot trials and definitive trials embedded in a student counseling service

Wilsonian Approach to Fluid/Gravity Duality

The problem of gravitational fluctuations confined inside a finite cutoff at radius $r=r_c$ outside the horizon in a general class of black hole geometries is considered. Consistent boundary conditions at both the cutoff surface and the horizon are found and the resulting modes analyzed. For general cutoff $r_c$ the dispersion relation is shown at long wavelengths to be that of a linearized Navier-Stokes fluid living on the cutoff surface. A cutoff-dependent line-integral formula for the diffusion constant $D(r_c)$ is derived. The dependence on $r_c$ is interpreted as renormalization group (RG) flow in the fluid. Taking the cutoff to infinity in an asymptotically AdS context, the formula for $D(\infty)$ reproduces as a special case well-known results derived using AdS/CFT. Taking the cutoff to the horizon, the effective speed of sound goes to infinity, the fluid becomes incompressible and the Navier-Stokes dispersion relation becomes exact. The resulting universal formula for the diffusion constant $D(horizon)$ reproduces old results from the membrane paradigm. Hence the old membrane paradigm results and new AdS/CFT results are related by RG flow. RG flow-invariance of the viscosity to entropy ratio $\eta /s$ is shown to follow from the first law of thermodynamics together with isentropy of radial evolution in classical gravity. The ratio is expected to run when quantum gravitational corrections are included.Comment: 34 pages, harvmac, clarified boundary conditio

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

Does publication bias inflate the apparent efficacy of psychological treatment for major depressive disorder? A systematic review and meta-analysis of US national institutes of health-funded trials

Background The efficacy of antidepressant medication has been shown empirically to be overestimated due to publication bias, but this has only been inferred statistically with regard to psychological treatment for depression. We assessed directly the extent of study publication bias in trials examining the efficacy of psychological treatment for depression. Methods and Findings We identified US National Institutes of Health grants awarded to fund randomized clinical trials comparing psychological treatment to control conditions or other treatments in patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder for the period 1972–2008, and we determined whether those grants led to publications. For studies that were not published, data were requested from investigators and included in the meta-analyses. Thirteen (23.6%) of the 55 funded grants that began trials did not result in publications, and two others never started. Among comparisons to control conditions, adding unpublished studies (Hedges’ g = 0.20; CI95% -0.11~0.51; k = 6) to published studies (g = 0.52; 0.37~0.68; k = 20) reduced the psychotherapy effect size point estimate (g = 0.39; 0.08~0.70) by 25%. Moreover, these findings may overestimate the "true" effect of psychological treatment for depression as outcome reporting bias could not be examined quantitatively. Conclusion The efficacy of psychological interventions for depression has been overestimated in the published literature, just as it has been for pharmacotherapy. Both are efficacious but not to the extent that the published literature would suggest. Funding agencies and journals should archive both original protocols and raw data from treatment trials to allow the detection and correction of outcome reporting bias. Clinicians, guidelines developers, and decision makers should be aware that the published literature overestimates the effects of the predominant treatments for depression

Evidence and argument in policymaking: development of workplace smoking legislation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We sought to identify factors that affect the passage of public health legislation by examining the use of arguments, particularly arguments presenting research evidence, in legislative debates regarding workplace smoking restrictions.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a case-study based content analysis of legislative materials used in the development of six state workplace smoking laws, including written and spoken testimony and the text of proposed and passed bills and amendments. We coded testimony given before legislators for arguments used, and identified the institutional affiliations of presenters and their position on the legislation. We compared patterns in the arguments made in testimony to the relative strength of each state's final legislation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Greater discussion of scientific evidence within testimony given was associated with the passage of workplace smoking legislation that provided greater protection for public health, regardless of whether supporters outnumbered opponents or vice versa.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings suggest that an emphasis on scientific discourse, relative to other arguments made in legislative testimony, might help produce political outcomes that favor public health.</p