Lipid raft microdomain compartmentalization of TC10 is required for insulin signaling and GLUT4 translocation.

Recent studies indicate that insulin stimulation of glucose transporter (GLUT)4 translocation requires at least two distinct insulin receptor-mediated signals: one leading to the activation of phosphatidylinositol 3 (PI-3) kinase and the other to the activation of the small GTP binding protein TC10. We now demonstrate that TC10 is processed through the secretory membrane trafficking system and localizes to caveolin-enriched lipid raft microdomains. Although insulin activated the wild-type TC10 protein and a TC10/H-Ras chimera that were targeted to lipid raft microdomains, it was unable to activate a TC10/K-Ras chimera that was directed to the nonlipid raft domains. Similarly, only the lipid raft-localized TC10/ H-Ras chimera inhibited GLUT4 translocation, whereas the TC10/K-Ras chimera showed no significant inhibitory activity. Furthermore, disruption of lipid raft microdomains by expression of a dominant-interfering caveolin 3 mutant (Cav3/DGV) inhibited the insulin stimulation of GLUT4 translocation and TC10 lipid raft localization and activation without affecting PI-3 kinase signaling. These data demonstrate that the insulin stimulation of GLUT4 translocation in adipocytes requires the spatial separation and distinct compartmentalization of the PI-3 kinase and TC10 signaling pathways

Cosmological Constraints on Neutrino Injection

We derive general constraints on the relic abundances of a long-lived particle which mainly decays into a neutrino (and something else) at cosmological time scales. Such an exotic particle may show up in various particle-physics models based on physics beyond the standard model. The constraints are obtained from big-bang nucleosynthesis, cosmic microwave background and diffuse neutrino and photon fluxes, depending on the lifetime and the electromagnetic and hadronic branching ratios.Comment: 33 pages, 23 figure

Monte Carlo integration on GPU

We use a graphics processing unit (GPU) for fast computations of Monte Carlo integrations. Two widely used Monte Carlo integration programs, VEGAS and BASES, are parallelized on GPU. By using $W^{+}$ plus multi-gluon production processes at LHC, we test integrated cross sections and execution time for programs in FORTRAN and C on CPU and those on GPU. Integrated results agree with each other within statistical errors. Execution time of programs on GPU run about 50 times faster than those in C, and more than 60 times faster than the original FORTRAN programs.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Calculation of HELAS amplitudes for QCD processes using graphics processing unit (GPU)

We use a graphics processing unit (GPU) for fast calculations of helicity amplitudes of quark and gluon scattering processes in massless QCD. New HEGET ({\bf H}ELAS {\bf E}valuation with {\bf G}PU {\bf E}nhanced {\bf T}echnology) codes for gluon self-interactions are introduced, and a C++ program to convert the MadGraph generated FORTRAN codes into HEGET codes in CUDA (a C-platform for general purpose computing on GPU) is created. Because of the proliferation of the number of Feynman diagrams and the number of independent color amplitudes, the maximum number of final state jets we can evaluate on a GPU is limited to 4 for pure gluon processes ($gg\to 4g$), or 5 for processes with one or more quark lines such as $q\bar{q}\to 5g$ and $qq\to qq+3g$. Compared with the usual CPU-based programs, we obtain 60-100 times better performance on the GPU, except for 5-jet production processes and the $gg\to 4g$ processes for which the GPU gain over the CPU is about 20

On the use of graphics processing units (GPUs) for molecular dynamics simulation of spherical particles

General-purpose computation on Graphics Processing Units (GPU) on personal computers has recently become an attractive alternative to parallel computing on clusters and supercomputers. We present the GPU-implementation of an accurate molecular dynamics algorithm for a system of spheres. The new hybrid CPU-GPU implementation takes into account all the degrees of freedom, including the quaternion representation of 3D rotations. For additional versatility, the contact interaction between particles is defined using a force law of enhanced generality, which accounts for the elastic and dissipative interactions, and the hard-sphere interaction parameters are translated to the soft-sphere parameter set. We prove that the algorithm complies with the statistical mechanical laws by examining the homogeneous cooling of a granular gas with rotation. The results are in excellent agreement with well established mean-field theories for low-density hard sphere systems. This GPU technique dramatically reduces user waiting time, compared with a traditional CPU implementation

Antagonistic action of Agrobacterium tumefaciens and essential oils against Aspergillus flavus isolates from Bertholletia excelsa (brasil-nuts).

The chestnut-do-brasil (Bertholletia excelsa) is a tree found in the Amazon region, whose fruit called ?the Brazil nut? has an important role in regional economy. Such seeds are affected by the growth of several fungi that produce mycotoxins. The fungus Aspergillus flavus is the main producer of aflatoxins, compromising the nuts. The main objective of this study was study the growth inhibitory action of A. flavus by essential oils of rosemary, anise, beta-caryophyllene, cinnamon, lemongrass, clove, eucalyptus, limonene, mint-citrata and thyme. The culture medium used was the LB, and the incubation was performed at 28°C for 48 hours in the presence of 10μL of the respective oils. Simultaneously, were tested the Agrobacterium tumefaciens and yeasts as possible agents for controlling A. flavus. The results point to a more effective inhibitory activity of essential oils of rosemary, anise, mint-citrata, eucaliptus, lemongrass, thyme, beta-caryophylelene and limonene. Cinnamon and clove oils were unable to inhibit the growth of A. flavus strains. The A. tumefaciens was able to inhibit 16 of 70 A. flavus strains, but is not recorded any inhibition by yeasts

Prospects for the Search for a Standard Model Higgs Boson in ATLAS using Vector Boson Fusion

The potential for the discovery of a Standard Model Higgs boson in the mass range m_H < 2 m_Z in the vector boson fusion mode has been studied for the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. The characteristic signatures of additional jets in the forward regions of the detector and of low jet activity in the central region allow for an efficient background rejection. Analyses for the H -> WW and H -> tau tau decay modes have been performed using a realistic simulation of the expected detector performance. The results obtained demonstrate the large discovery potential in the H -> WW decay channel and the sensitivity to Higgs boson decays into tau-pairs in the low-mass region around 120 GeV.Comment: 20 pages, 13 ps figures, uses EPJ style fil