1,032 research outputs found
Spin correlations in the algebraic spin liquid - implications for high Tc superconductors
We propose that underdoped high superconductors are described by an
algebraic spin liquid (ASL) at high energies, which undergoes a spin-charge
recombination transition at low energies. The spin correlation in the ASL is
calculated via its effective theory - a system of massless Dirac fermions
coupled to a U(1) gauge field. We find that without fine tuning any parameters
the gauge interaction strongly enhances the staggered spin correlation even in
the presence of a large single particle pseudo-gap. This allows us to show that
the ASL plus spin-charge recombination picture can explain many highly unusual
properties of underdoped high superconductors.Comment: 22 pages, 18 figures, submitted to PR
LL37 and Cationic Peptides Enhance TLR3 Signaling by Viral Double-stranded RNAs
BACKGROUND:Toll-like Receptor 3 (TLR3) detects viral dsRNA during viral infection. However, most natural viral dsRNAs are poor activators of TLR3 in cell-based systems, leading us to hypothesize that TLR3 needs additional factors to be activated by viral dsRNAs. The anti-microbial peptide LL37 is the only known human member of the cathelicidin family of anti-microbial peptides. LL37 complexes with bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to prevent activation of TLR4, binds to ssDNA to modulate TLR9 and ssRNA to modulate TLR7 and 8. It synergizes with TLR2/1, TLR3 and TLR5 agonists to increase IL8 and IL6 production. This work seeks to determine whether LL37 enhances viral dsRNA recognition by TLR3. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:Using a human bronchial epithelial cell line (BEAS2B) and human embryonic kidney cells (HEK 293T) transiently transfected with TLR3, we found that LL37 enhanced poly(I:C)-induced TLR3 signaling and enabled the recognition of viral dsRNAs by TLR3. The presence of LL37 also increased the cytokine response to rhinovirus infection in BEAS2B cells and in activated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Confocal microscopy determined that LL37 could co-localize with TLR3. Electron microscopy showed that LL37 and poly(I:C) individually formed globular structures, but a complex of the two formed filamentous structures. To separate the effects of LL37 on TLR3 and TLR4, other peptides that bind RNA and transport the complex into cells were tested and found to activate TLR3 signaling in response to dsRNAs, but had no effect on TLR4 signaling. This is the first demonstration that LL37 and other RNA-binding peptides with cell penetrating motifs can activate TLR3 signaling and facilitate the recognition of viral ligands. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:LL37 and several cell-penetrating peptides can enhance signaling by TLR3 and enable TLR3 to respond to viral dsRNA
Interlayer pair tunneling and gap anisotropy in YBaCuO
Recent ARPES measurement observed a large -axis gap anisotropy,
, in clean YBaCuO. This
indicates that some sub-dominant component may exist in the -wave
dominant gap. We propose that the interlayer pairing tunneling contribution can
be determined through the investigation of the order parameter anisotropy.
Their potentially observable features in transport and spin dynamics are also
studied.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
BTZ black hole and quantum Hall effect in the bulk/boundary dynamics
We point out an interesting analogy between the BTZ black hole and QHE
(Quantum Hall effect) in the (2+1)-dimensional bulk/boundary theories. It is
shown that the Chern-Simons/Liouville(Chern-Simons/chiral boson) is an
effective description for the BTZ black hole (QHE). Also the
IR(bulk)-UV(boundary) connection for a black hole information bound is realized
as the UV(low-lying excitations on bulk)-IR(long-range excitations on boundary)
connection in the QHE. An inflow of conformal anomaly( central charge)
onto the timelike boundary of AdS by the Noether current corresponds to an
inflow of chiral anomaly onto the edge of disk by the Hall current.Comment: 8 pages, this version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Clinical and epidemiological survey and analysis of the first case of human infection with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus in Hangzhou, China
To investigate and report on the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of the first case of human infection with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus in Hangzhou, China. A field epidemiological survey was used to study the first case in Hangzhou. The patient was a 39-year-old male chef with a history of exposure to a farm product market and to poultry prior to the onset of disease on 15 March 2013. He had diarrhea, chills, pyrexia, and intermittent cough with freshly red foamy bloody sputum early in his disease. His fever > 39 °C continued for a week with rapid progression. Computed tomography findings showed extensive bilateral consolidation, followed by multiorgan failure. The patient died on the morning of 27 March. His infection was eventually confirmed 1 week later on 3 April. Flu-like symptoms including fever and cough were found in 46 of his 138 close contacts. This was the first case of human infection with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus in Hangzhou. None of the close contacts had onset of the disease. The case patient’s condition progressed rapidly. The source of infection might be his exposure to the farm product market, but the mode of exposure remains unclear
Magnetic Field Effects in the Pseudogap Phase: A Competing Energy Gap Scenario for Precursor Superconductivity
We study the sensitivity of T_c and T^* to low fields, H, within the
pseudogap state using a BCS-based approach extended to arbitrary coupling. We
find that T^* and T_c, which are of the same superconducting origin, have very
different H dependences. This is due to the pseudogap, \Delta_{pg}, which is
present at the latter, but not former temperature. Our results for the
coherence length \xi fit well with existing experiments.We predict that very
near the insulator \xi will rapidly increase.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, RevTe
Thermodynamics of an Anyon System
We examine the thermal behavior of a relativistic anyon system, dynamically
realized by coupling a charged massive spin-1 field to a Chern-Simons gauge
field. We calculate the free energy (to the next leading order), from which all
thermodynamic quantities can be determined. As examples, the dependence of
particle density on the anyon statistics and the anyon anti-anyon interference
in the ideal gas are exhibited. We also calculate two and three-point
correlation functions, and uncover certain physical features of the system in
thermal equilibrium.Comment: 18 pages; in latex; to be published in Phys. Rev.
Evaluation of microarray-based DNA methylation measurement using technical replicates: the Atherosclerosis Risk In Communities (ARIC) Study
Background: DNA methylation is a widely studied epigenetic phenomenon; alterations in methylation patterns influence human phenotypes and risk of disease. As part of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 (HM450) BeadChip was used to measure DNA methylation in peripheral blood obtained from ~3000 African American study participants. Over 480,000 cytosine-guanine (CpG) dinucleotide sites were surveyed on the HM450 BeadChip. To evaluate the impact of technical variation, 265 technical replicates from 130 participants were included in the study. Results: For each CpG site, we calculated the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) to compare variation of methylation levels within- and between-replicate pairs, ranging between 0 and 1. We modeled the distribution of ICC as a mixture of censored or truncated normal and normal distributions using an EM algorithm. The CpG sites were clustered into low- and high-reliability groups, according to the calculated posterior probabilities. We also demonstrated the performance of this clustering when applied to a study of association between methylation levels and smoking status of individuals. For the CpG sites showing genome-wide significant association with smoking status, most (~96%) were seen from sites in the high reliability cluster. Conclusions: We suggest that CpG sites with low ICC may be excluded from subsequent association analyses, or extra caution needs to be taken for associations at such sites
Two-Loop Analysis of Non-abelian Chern-Simons Theory
Perturbative renormalization of a non-Abelian Chern-Simons gauge theory is
examined. It is demonstrated by explicit calculation that, in the pure
Chern-Simons theory, the beta-function for the coefficient of the Chern-Simons
term vanishes to three loop order. Both dimensional regularization and
regularization by introducing a conventional Yang-Mills component in the action
are used. It is shown that dimensional regularization is not gauge invariant at
two loops. A variant of this procedure, similar to regularization by
dimensional reduction used in supersymmetric field theories is shown to obey
the Slavnov-Taylor identity to two loops and gives no renormalization of the
Chern-Simons term. Regularization with Yang-Mills term yields a finite
integer-valued renormalization of the coefficient of the Chern-Simons term at
one loop, and we conjecture no renormalization at higher order. We also examine
the renormalization of Chern-Simons theory coupled to matter. We show that in
the non-abelian case the Chern-Simons gauge field as well as the matter fields
require infinite renormalization at two loops and therefore obtain nontrivial
anomalous dimensions. We show that the beta function for the gauge coupling
constant is zero to two-loop order, consistent with the topological
quantization condition for this constant.Comment: 48 pages, UU/HEP/91/12; file format changed to standard Latex to
solve the problem with printin
Renormalized mean-field theory of the neutron scattering in cuprate superconductors
The magnetic excitation spectrum of the t-t'-J-model is studied in mean-field
theory and compared to inelastic neutron-scattering (INS) experiments on YBCO
and BSCCO superconductors. Within the slave-particle formulation the dynamical
spin response is calculated from a renormalized Fermi liquid with an effective
interaction ~J in the magnetic particle--hole channel. We obtain the so-called
41meV resonance at wave vector (pi,pi) as a collective spin-1 excitation in the
d-wave superconducting state. It appears sharp (undamped), if the underlying
Fermi surface is hole-like with a sufficient next-nearest-neighbor hopping
t'<0. The double-layer structure of YBCO or BSCCO is not important for the
resonance to form. The resonance energy \omega_{res} and spectral weight at
optimal doping come out comparable to experiment. The observed qualitative
behavior of \omega_{res} with hole filling is reproduced in the underdoped as
well as overdoped regime. A second, much broader peak becomes visible in the
magnetic excitation spectrum if the 2D wave-vector is integrated over. It is
caused by excitations across the maximum gap, and in contrast to the resonance
its energy is almost independent of doping. At energies above or below
\omega_{res} the commensurate resonance splits into incommensurate peaks,
located off (pi,pi). Below \omega_{res} the intensity pattern is of `parallel'
type and the dispersion relation of incommensurate peaks has a negative
curvature. This is in accordance with recent INS experiments on YBCO.Comment: 17pp including 14 figure
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