7,483 research outputs found
An example of resonance saturation at one loop
We argue that the large-Nc expansion of QCD can be used to treat a Lagrangian
of resonances in a perturbative way. As an illustration of this we compute the
L_10 coupling of the Chiral Lagrangian by integrating out resonance fields at
one loop. Given a Lagrangian and a renormalization scheme, this is how in
principle one can answer in a concrete and unambiguous manner questions such as
at what scale resonance saturation takes place.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. Enlarged discussion, results unchanged. To be
published in Phys. Rev.
Reunion overseas: introduced wild boars and cultivated orange trees interact in the Brazilian Atlantic forest
Little is known concerning novel interactions between species that typically
interact in their native range but, as a consequence of human activity, are also interacting out of their original
distribution under new ecological conditions. Objective: We investigate the interaction between the orange tree
and wild boar, both of which share Asian origins and have been introduced to the Americas (i.e. the overseas).
Methods: Specifically, we assessed whether i) wild boars consume orange (Citrus sinensis) fruits and seeds
in orchards adjacent to a remnant of the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, ii) the orange seeds are viable after passing
through boar’s digestive tract and iii) whether the orange tree may naturalise in the forest remnant assisted by
wild boars. Results: Our camera surveys indicated that wild boar was by far the most frequent consumer of
orange fruits (40.5 % of camera trap-days). A considerable proportion of sown orange seeds extracted from fresh
boar feces emerged seedlings (27.8 %, N = 386) under controlled greenhouse conditions. Further, 37.6 % of sown
seeds (N = 500) in the forest remnant emerged seedlings in July 2015; however, after ~4 years (March 2019)
only 9 seedlings survived (i.e. 4.8 %, N = 188). Finally, 52 sweet orange seedlings were found during surveys
within the forest remnant which is intensively used by wild boars. This study indicates a high potential of boars
to act as effective seed dispersers of the sweet orange. However, harsh competition with native vegetation and
the incidence of lethal diseases, which quickly kill sweet orange trees under non-agricultural conditions, could
seriously limit orange tree establishment in the forest. Conclusions: Our results have important implications not
only because the wild boar could be a vector of potential invasive species, but also because they disperse seeds
of some native species (e.g. the queen palm, Syagrus romanzofiana) in defaunated forests, where large native
seed dispersers are missing; thus, wild boars could exert critical ecological functions lost due to human activityinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
A relativistic chiral quark model for pseudoscalar emission from heavy mesons
The amplitudes for one-pion mediated transitions between heavy meson excited
states are obtained in the framework of the relativistic chiral quark model.
The effective coupling constants to pions and the decay widths of excited heavy
mesons with l<=2 for non-radially excited, and the l=0 radially excited mesons
are presented for both charmed and beauty mesons. We also discuss the allowed
decays of strange excited heavy mesons by emission of a K-meson.Comment: 20 pages, revte
Long-distance dimension-eight operators in B_K
Besides their appearance at short distances \gtrsim 1/M_W, local
dimension-eight operators also contribute to kaon matrix elements at long
distances of order \gtrsim 1/mu_ope, where mu_ope is the scale controlling the
Operator Product Expansion in pure QCD, without weak interactions. This comes
about in the matching condition between the effective quark Lagrangian and the
Chiral Lagrangian of mesons. Working in dimensional regularization and in a
framework where these effects can be systematically studied, we calculate the
correction from these long-distance dimension-eight operators to the
renormalization group invariant B_K factor of K^0-K^0bar mixing, to
next-to-leading order in the 1/Nc expansion and in the chiral limit. The
correction is controlled by the matrix element <0|\bar s_L \tilde{G}_{mu
nu}gamma^mu d_L|K^0>, is small, and lowers B_K.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX. Explanatory comments added to match version in
journa
The Gribov horizon and the one-loop color-Coulomb potential
We recalculate the color-Coulomb potential to one-loop order, under the
assumption that the effect of the Gribov horizon is to make i) the transverse
gluon propagator less singular; and ii) the color-Coulomb potential more
singular, than their perturbative behavior in the low-momentum limit. As a
first guess, the effect of the Gribov horizon is mimicked by introducing a
transverse momentum-dependent gluon mass term, leading to a propagator of the
Gribov form, with the prescription that the mass parameter should be adjusted
to the unique value where the infrared behavior of the Coulomb potential is
enhanced. We find that this procedure leads to a Coulomb potential rising
asymptotically as a linear term modified by a logarithm.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure
Effects of adenotonsillectomy on plasma inflammatory biomarkers in obese children with obstructive sleep apnea: A community-based study.
BackgroundObesity and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSA) are highly prevalent and frequently overlapping conditions in children that lead to systemic inflammation, the latter being implicated in the various end-organ morbidities associated with these conditions.AimTo examine the effects of adenotonsillectomy (T&A) on plasma levels of inflammatory markers in obese children with polysomnographically diagnosed OSA who were prospectively recruited from the community.MethodsObese children prospectively diagnosed with OSA, underwent T&A and a second overnight polysomnogram (PSG) after surgery. Plasma fasting morning samples obtained after each of the two PSGs were assayed for multiple inflammatory and metabolic markers including interleukin (IL)-6, IL-18, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), adiponectin, apelin C, leptin and osteocrin.ResultsOut of 122 potential candidates, 100 obese children with OSA completed the study with only one-third exhibiting normalization of their PSG after T&A (that is, apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) ≤1/hour total sleep time). However, overall significant decreases in MCP-1, PAI-1, MMP-9, IL-18 and IL-6, and increases in adropin and osteocrin plasma concentrations occurred after T&A. Several of the T&A-responsive biomarkers exhibited excellent sensitivity and moderate specificity to predict residual OSA (that is, AHI⩾5/hTST).ConclusionsA defined subset of systemic inflammatory and metabolic biomarkers is reversibly altered in the context of OSA among community-based obese children, further reinforcing the concept on the interactive pro-inflammatory effects of sleep disorders such as OSA and obesity contributing to downstream end-organ morbidities
Interactive-predictive neural multimodal systems
[EN] Despite the advances achieved by neural models in sequence
to sequence learning, exploited in a variety of tasks, they still make errors.
In many use cases, these are corrected by a human expert in a posterior
revision process. The interactive-predictive framework aims to minimize
the human effort spent on this process by considering partial corrections
for iteratively refining the hypothesis. In this work, we generalize the
interactive-predictive approach, typically applied in to machine translation field, to tackle other multimodal problems namely, image and video
captioning. We study the application of this framework to multimodal
neural sequence to sequence models. We show that, following this framework, we approximately halve the effort spent for correcting the outputs
generated by the automatic systems. Moreover, we deploy our systems
in a publicly accessible demonstration, that allows to better understand
the behavior of the interactive-predictive framework.The research leading to these results has received funding from MINECO under grant
IDIFEDER/2018/025 Sistemas de fabricacion inteligentes para la industria 4.0,
action co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund 2014-2020 (FEDER),
and from the European Commission under grant H2020, reference 825111 (DeepHealth). We also acknowledge NVIDIA Corporation for the donation of GPUs used
in this work.Peris, Á.; Casacuberta Nolla, F. (2019). Interactive-predictive neural multimodal systems. Springer. 16-28. https://doi.org/978-3-030-31332-6_2S162
Novel Therapeutic Strategies in the Topical Treatment of Atopic Dermatitis
Topical agents that are currently available for the treatment of atopic dermatitis may represent a valid approach in the management of mild or mild–moderate cases, whereas they are often supplemented with systemic therapies for handling more complex or unresponsive cases. The most used compounds include topical corticosteroids and calcineurin inhibitors, although their use might be burdened by side effects, poor response, and low patient compliance. Consequently, new innovative drugs with higher efficacy and safety both in the short and long term need to be integrated into clinical practice. A deeper understanding of the complex pathogenesis of the disease has led to identifying new therapeutic targets and to the development of innovative therapeutics. This narrative review aims to collect data on selected promising topical drugs that are in an advanced stage of development
Therapeutic potential of targeting interleukin-1 family cytokines in chronic inflammatory skin diseases*
The interleukin (IL)-1 family of cytokines is a central regulator of a myriad of immunological responses. It comprises several cytokines, including those belonging to the IL-1, IL-36 and IL-18 subfamilies, as well as IL-33. The IL-1 family primarily plays a role in orchestrating innate immune responses, but is also involved in adaptive immunity. Increased interest in the IL-1 family occurred following the discovery that dysregulation of IL-1 signalling underlies the pathogenesis of several monogenic autoinflammatory diseases, characterized by sterile inflammation involving the skin and other organs. This also provided increased understanding of the role of innate immunity and the IL-1 family in polygenic autoinflammatory skin conditions, such as neutrophilic dermatoses, as well as in some of the most common chronic inflammatory skin diseases, such as psoriasis and hidradenitis suppurativa. Several therapeutic agents have been developed to inhibit the IL-1 family members and their signalling pathways. These have shown therapeutic efficacy in several chronic inflammatory skin disorders. The aim of this review is to thoroughly describe the consequences of pathological dysregulation of the IL-1, IL-33, IL-36 and IL-18 pathways in dermatological conditions and to provide a forward-looking update on therapeutic strategies targeting signalling by IL-1 family cytokines
- …