616 research outputs found
Quantitative analysis of wide-field specular microscopy. II. Precision of sampling from the central corneal endothelium
The precision of the measurement of mean endothelial cell area obtained by sampling with small-field and wide-field specular microscopy from the central 4 mm of human corneal endothelium was studied by comparing endothelial cell parameters from individual specular micrographs in vivo to the results obtained by montaging the micrographs from the entire central 4 mm of the same corneas. The small samples were at least 10% from the true mean cell size of all cells of the central 4 mm in any endothelium other than that with the most homogeneous pattern. A new algorithm for sampling with these two specular microscopes will need to be derived to permit a more precise measure of the mean area of endothelial cells in the central 4 mm of the human corneal endothelium
Breastfeeding history, pregnancy experience and risk of breast cancer.
Epidemiological evidence suggests that breastfeeding protects against breast cancer. Whether an effect of age at first breastfeeding is independent of an effect of age at first birth is unclear. We hypothesized that nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, which are associated with elevated serum oestradiol levels during pregnancy, may increase risk. Cases were 452 parous, premenopausal women, 40 years or younger, diagnosed with breast cancer in Los Angeles County from July 1983 to December 1988. Control subjects were matched to cases on age, race, parity and neighbourhood. Pregnancy and breastfeeding histories were obtained from in-person interviews. Odds of breast cancer among women who breastfed for at least 16 months relative to those among women who did not breastfeed was 0.66 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.41-1.05]. Number of children breastfed was not associated with risk. Risk was lower in women who first breastfed at older ages. Having ever been treated for nausea or vomiting during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk, especially in women experiencing recent pregnancies (OR = 2.03, 95% CI 1.05-3.92). These results support a protective role of breastfeeding and an adverse role of nausea or vomiting during pregnancy in the development of premenopausal breast cancer, especially in the years immediately following pregnancy
The Landau-Ginzburg to Calabi-Yau Dictionary for D-Branes
Based on work by Orlov, we give a precise recipe for mapping between B-type
D-branes in a Landau-Ginzburg orbifold model (or Gepner model) and the
corresponding large-radius Calabi-Yau manifold. The D-branes in Landau-Ginzburg
theories correspond to matrix factorizations and the D-branes on the Calabi-Yau
manifolds are objects in the derived category. We give several examples
including branes on quotient singularities associated to weighted projective
spaces. We are able to confirm several conjectures and statements in the
literature.Comment: 24 pages, refs added + minor correctio
B-type defects in Landau-Ginzburg models
We consider Landau-Ginzburg models with possibly different superpotentials
glued together along one-dimensional defect lines. Defects preserving B-type
supersymmetry can be represented by matrix factorisations of the difference of
the superpotentials. The composition of these defects and their action on
B-type boundary conditions is described in this framework. The cases of
Landau-Ginzburg models with superpotential W=X^d and W=X^d+Z^2 are analysed in
detail, and the results are compared to the CFT treatment of defects in N=2
superconformal minimal models to which these Landau-Ginzburg models flow in the
IR.Comment: 50 pages, 2 figure
D-brane Categories for Orientifolds -- The Landau-Ginzburg Case
We construct and classify categories of D-branes in orientifolds based on
Landau-Ginzburg models and their orbifolds. Consistency of the worldsheet
parity action on the matrix factorizations plays the key role. This provides
all the requisite data for an orientifold construction after embedding in
string theory. One of our main results is a computation of topological field
theory correlators on unoriented worldsheets, generalizing the formulas of Vafa
and Kapustin-Li for oriented worldsheets, as well as the extension of these
results to orbifolds. We also find a doubling of Knoerrer periodicity in the
orientifold context.Comment: 45 pages, 6 figure
Permutation branes and linear matrix factorisations
All the known rational boundary states for Gepner models can be regarded as
permutation branes. On general grounds, one expects that topological branes in
Gepner models can be encoded as matrix factorisations of the corresponding
Landau-Ginzburg potentials. In this paper we identify the matrix factorisations
associated to arbitrary B-type permutation branes.Comment: 43 pages. v2: References adde
D-branes in Toroidal Orbifolds and Mirror Symmetry
We study D-branes extended in T^2/Z_4 using the mirror description as a
tensor product of minimal models. We describe branes in the mirror both as
boundary states in minimal models and as matrix factorizations in the
corresponding Landau-Ginzburg model. We isolate a minimal set of branes and
give a geometric interpretation of these as D1-branes constrained to the
orbifold fixed points. This picture is supported both by spacetime arguments
and by the explicit construction of the boundary states, adapting the known
results for rational boundary states in the minimal models. Similar techniques
apply to a larger class of toroidal orbifolds.Comment: 30 pages, 2 figure
Integrability of the N=2 boundary sine-Gordon model
We construct a boundary Lagrangian for the N=2 supersymmetric sine-Gordon
model which preserves (B-type) supersymmetry and integrability to all orders in
the bulk coupling constant g. The supersymmetry constraint is expressed in
terms of matrix factorisations.Comment: LaTeX, 19 pages, no figures; v2: title changed, minor improvements,
refs added, to appear in J. Phys. A: Math. Ge
Fractional two-branes, toric orbifolds and the quantum McKay correspondence
We systematically study and obtain the large-volume analogues of fractional
two-branes on resolutions of orbifolds C^3/Z_n. We study a generalisation of
the McKay correspondence proposed in hep-th/0504164 called the quantum McKay
correspondence by constructing duals to the fractional two-branes. Details are
explicitly worked out for two examples -- the crepant resolutions of C^3/Z_3
and C^3/Z_5.Comment: 34 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX (JHEP3 style); (v2) typos corrected; (v3)
sec 3 reorganise
Matrix Factorizations and Homological Mirror Symmetry on the Torus
We consider matrix factorizations and homological mirror symmetry on the
torus T^2 using a Landau-Ginzburg description. We identify the basic matrix
factorizations of the Landau-Ginzburg superpotential and compute the full
spectrum, taking into account the explicit dependence on bulk and boundary
moduli. We verify homological mirror symmetry by comparing three-point
functions in the A-model and the B-model.Comment: 41 pages, 9 figures, v2: reference added, minor corrections and
clarifications, version published in JHE
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