Positive selection determines T cell receptor V beta 14 gene usage by CD8+ T cells.

We report here a mAb, 14-2, reactive with TCRs that include V beta 14. The frequency of V beta 14+ T cells varies with CD4 and CD8 subset and is controlled by the H-2 genes. Thus CD8+ T cells from H-2b mice include approximately 2.3% V beta 14+ T cells while CD8+ T cells from mice expressing K kappa include greater than 8% V beta 14+ T cells. In all strains examined, 7-8% of CD4+ T cells express V beta 14. The frequent usage of V beta 14 in CD8+ T cells of K kappa-expressing mice is a result of preferential positive selection of V beta 14+ CD8+ T cells as demonstrated by analysis of radiation chimeras. These studies demonstrate that H-2-dependent positive selection occurs in unmanipulated mice. Furthermore, the results imply that positive selection, and possibly H-2 restriction, can be strongly influenced by a V beta domain, with some independence from the beta-junctional sequence and alpha chain

A New Correlator to Detect and Characterize the Chiral Magnetic Effect

A charge-sensitive in-event correlator is proposed and tested for its efficacy to detect and characterize charge separation associated with the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) in heavy ion collisions. Tests, performed with the aid of two reaction models, indicate discernible responses for background- and CME-driven charge separation, relative to the second- ($\Psi_{2}$) and third-order ($\Psi_{3}$) event planes, which could serve to identify the CME. The tests also indicate a degree of sensitivity which would enable robust characterization of the CME via Anomalous Viscous Fluid Dynamics (AVFD) model comparisons.Comment: 5 pages, 5 Figs.; Published versio

Magnetic Component of Quark-Gluon Plasma is also a Liquid!

The so called magnetic scenario recently suggested in \cite{Liao_ES_mono} emphasizes the role of monopoles in strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma (sQGP) near/above the deconfinement temperature, and specifically predicts that they help reduce its viscosity by the so called "magnetic bottle" effect. Arguments for "magnetic liquid" in 1-2$T_c$ based on lattice measurement of monopole density were provided in \cite{Chernodub}. Here we present results for monopole-(anti)monopole correlation functions from the same classical molecular dynamics simulations, which are found to be in very good agreement with recent lattice results \cite{D'Alessandro:2007su}. We show that the magnetic Coulomb coupling does run in the direction $opposite$ to the electric one, as expected, and it is roughly inverse of the asymptotic freedom formula for the electric one. However, as $T$ decreases to $T_c$, the magnetic coupling never gets weak, with the plasma parameter always large enough ($\Gamma>1$). This nicely agrees with empirical evidences from RHIC experiments, implying that magnetic objects cannot have large mean free path and should also form a good liquid with low viscosity.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. All figs updated. Important changes and new results included in v

Bubbles created from vacuum fluctuation

We show that the bubbles $S^2\times S^2$can be created from vacuum fluctuation in certain De Sitter universe, so the space-time foam-like structure might really be constructed from bubbles of $S^2\times S^2$ in the very early inflating phase of our universe. But whether such foam-like structure persisted during the later evolution of the universe is a problem unsolved now.Comment: 6 page

Towards Semantic Fast-Forward and Stabilized Egocentric Videos

The emergence of low-cost personal mobiles devices and wearable cameras and the increasing storage capacity of video-sharing websites have pushed forward a growing interest towards first-person videos. Since most of the recorded videos compose long-running streams with unedited content, they are tedious and unpleasant to watch. The fast-forward state-of-the-art methods are facing challenges of balancing the smoothness of the video and the emphasis in the relevant frames given a speed-up rate. In this work, we present a methodology capable of summarizing and stabilizing egocentric videos by extracting the semantic information from the frames. This paper also describes a dataset collection with several semantically labeled videos and introduces a new smoothness evaluation metric for egocentric videos that is used to test our method.Comment: Accepted for publication and presented in the First International Workshop on Egocentric Perception, Interaction and Computing at European Conference on Computer Vision (EPIC@ECCV) 201

Chiral magnetic wave at finite baryon density and the electric quadrupole moment of quark-gluon plasma in heavy ion collisions

Chiral Magnetic Wave (CMW) is a gapless collective excitation of quark-gluon plasma in the presence of external magnetic field that stems from the interplay of Chiral Magnetic (CME) and Chiral Separation Effects (CSE); it is composed by the waves of the electric and chiral charge densities coupled by the axial anomaly. We consider CMW at finite baryon density and find that it induces the electric quadrupole moment of the quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy ion collisions: the "poles" of the produced fireball (pointing outside of the reaction plane) acquire additional positive electric charge, and the "equator" acquires additional negative charge. We point out that this electric quadrupole deformation lifts the degeneracy between the elliptic flows of positive and negative pions leading to $v_2(\pi^+) < v_2(\pi^-)$, and estimate the magnitude of the effect.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Effect of Ga Content on Defect States in CuIn\u3csub\u3e1-x\u3c/sub\u3eGa\u3csub\u3ex\u3c/sub\u3eSe\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e Photovoltaic Devices

Defects in the band gap of CuIn1-xGaxSe2 have been characterized using transient photocapacitance spectroscopy. The measured spectra clearly show response from a band of defects centered around 0.8 eV from the valence band edge as well as an exponential distribution of band tail states. Despite Ga contents ranging from Ga/(In+Ga)=0.0 to 0.8, the defect bandwidth and its position relative to the valence band remain constant. This defect band may act as an important recombination center, contributing to the decrease in device efficiency with increasing Ga content

Combined transbrachial and transfemoral strategy to deploy an iliac branch endoprosthesis in the setting of a pre-existing endovascular aortic aneurysm repair

This article describes brachial access to position a long sheath in the abdominal aorta in conjunction with a large caliber sheath via the femoral artery ipsilateral to the target site to deliver a 0.018 bodyfloss wire. This bodyfloss wire is inserted into the precannulation port of the iliac branch endoprosthesis (W. L. Gore and Associates, Flagstaff, Ariz), which is then advanced from the groin. Once the bifurcated device is deployed, hypogastric access and stenting is achieved from the upper extremity. This technique is an alternative to safely extend the distal seal while preserving the hypogastric artery and has the advantage of limited iliac bifurcation manipulation