Interferon-induced versus chemokine transcripts as lupus biomarkers

Compelling support for a central role for interferon-alpha in lupus pathogenesis has led to a new focus on the role of innate immune system activation in the generation of pathogenic mediators. These insights have been extended in translational studies of patients with well-characterized disease activity and clinical manifestations in order to identify informative molecular biomarkers. Chemokines are among the interferon-inducible genes, and new data support an association between the expression of chemokines and both lupus disease activity and organ damage. Longitudinal studies that relate molecular biomarkers to disease activity will be needed to validate these promising data and establish a sensitive measure of change for interventional studies and patient care

On the Causal and Topological Structure of the 22-Dimensional Minkowski Space

A list of all possible causal relations in the $2$-dimensional Minkowski space $M$ is exhausted, based on the duality between timelike and spacelike in this particular case, and thirty topologies are introduced, all of them encapsulating the causal structure of $M$. Generalisations of these results are discussed, as well as their significance in a discussion on spacetime singularities

Two-dimensional discrete Ginzburg-Landau solitons

We study the two-dimensional discrete Ginzburg-Landau equation. In the linear limit, the dispersion and gain curves as well as the diffraction pattern are determined analytically. In the nonlinear case, families of two-dimensional discrete solitons are found numerically as well as approximately in the high-confinement limit. The instability dynamics are analyzed by direct simulations

The Directional Dependence of the Lunar Cherenkov Technique for UHE Neutrino Detection

The LUNASKA (Lunar UHE Neutrino Astrophysics with the Square Kilometre Array) project is a theoretical and experimental project developing the lunar Cherenkov technique for the next generation of giant radio-telescope arrays. This contribution presents our simulation results on the directional dependence of the technique for UHE neutrino detection. In particular, these indicate that both the instantaneous sensitivities and time-integrated limits from lunar Cherenkov experiments such as those at Parkes, Goldstone, Kalyazin and ATCA are highly anisotropic. We study the regions of the sky which have not been probed by either these or other experiments, and present the expected sky coverage of future experiments with the SKA. Our results show how the sensitivity of Lunar Cherenkov observations to potential astrophysical sources of UHE particles may be maximised by choosing appropriate observations dates and antenna-beam pointing positions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, presented at ARENA 2008, Rome, Ital