6,670 research outputs found
A pathway analysis of genome-wide association study highlights novel type 2 diabetes risk pathways.
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been widely used to identify common type 2 diabetes (T2D) variants. However, the known variants just explain less than 20% of the overall estimated genetic contribution to T2D. Pathway-based methods have been applied into T2D GWAS datasets to investigate the biological mechanisms and reported some novel T2D risk pathways. However, few pathways were shared in these studies. Here, we performed a pathway analysis using the summary results from a large-scale meta-analysis of T2D GWAS to investigate more genetic signals in T2D. Here, we selected PLNK and VEGAS to perform the gene-based test and WebGestalt to perform the pathway-based test. We identified 8 shared KEGG pathways after correction for multiple tests in both methods. We confirm previous findings, and highlight some new T2D risk pathways. We believe that our results may be helpful to study the genetic mechanisms of T2D
Phenomenological Implications of Supersymmetric Family Non-universal U(1)-prime Models
We construct a class of anomaly-free supersymmetric U(1)' models that are
characterized by family non-universal U(1)' charges motivated from E_6
embeddings. The family non-universality arises from an interchange of the
standard roles of the two SU(5) 5* representations within the 27 of E_6 for the
third generation. We analyze U(1)' and electroweak symmetry breaking and
present the particle mass spectrum. The models, which include additional Higgs
multiplets and exotic quarks at the TeV scale, result in specific patterns of
flavor-changing neutral currents in the b to s transitions that can accommodate
the presently observed deviations inthis sector from the SM predictions.Comment: 25 pages, 3 figure
Detecting High-Frequency Gravitational Waves in Planetary Magnetosphere
High-frequency gravitational waves (HFGWs) carry a wealth of information on
the early Universe with a tiny comoving Hubble horizon and astronomical objects
of small scale but with dense energy. We demonstrate that the nearby planets,
such as Earth and Jupiter, can be utilized as a laboratory for detecting the
HFGWs. These GWs are then expected to convert to signal photons in the
planetary magnetosphere, across the frequency band of astronomical observation.
As a proof of concept, we present the first limits from the existing
low-Earth-orbit satellite for specific frequency bands and project the
sensitivities for the future more-dedicated detections. The first limits from
Juno, the latest mission orbiting Jupiter, are also presented. Attributed to
the long path of effective GW-photon conversion and the wide angular
distribution of signal flux, we find that these limits are highly encouraging,
for a broad range of frequencies including a large portion unexplored before.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. Updated Fig.3 (projected limits) with the
extreme UV band. Typos are fixe
Pulsar Polarization Arrays
Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) consisting of widely distributed and well-timed
millisecond pulsars can serve as a galactic interferometer to measure
gravitational waves. With the same data acquired for PTAs, we propose to
develop pulsar polarization arrays (PPAs), to explore astrophysics and
fundamental physics. As in the case of PTAs, PPAs are best suited to reveal
temporal and spatial correlations at large scales that are hard to mimic by
local noise. To demonstrate the physical potential of PPAs, we consider
detection of ultralight axion-like dark matter (ALDM), through cosmic
birefringence induced by its Chern-Simon coupling. Because of its tiny mass,
the ultralight ALDM can be generated as a Bose-Einstein condensate,
characterized by a strong wavy nature. Incorporating both temporal and spatial
correlations of the signal, we show that PPAs have a potential to probe the
Chern-Simon coupling up to GeV, with a mass
range eV.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures; comments welcom
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