Psychophysiological Assessment of Buddhist Taiwanese Chanting

The psychophysiological responses and subjective experience correlates of Buddhist chanting were recorded from a 54 year-old female Buddhist monk who performed chanting for approximately 30 to 60 minutes twice daily for 25 years. The measutes included respiration rate from upper thorax, blood volume pulse (BVP) from left middle finger with heart rate derived from BVP, finger temperature from right index finger, skin conductance (SC) from the left index finger and the ring finger and sutface electromyographic (sEMG) from right trapezius and left sternocleidomastoid muscles (SCM) and were recorded during normal chanting sequence which included reading sutra aloud with her eyes open (chanting "The Samanta-Mukha") and silent mental repetition of sutra with the eyes closed (chanting "The Heart Sutra" inside her mind). After chanting she reported feeling peaceful, more relaxation with a total focus of attention and "consciousness"-an experience that was similar to when she chanted in the temple with other monks. The most significant finding was that respiration rate changed from 7.2 br/min during pre-baseline, to 12.1 brlmin during reading sutra aloud, 5.7 brlmin during silent mental repetition of sutra and 7.5 brl/min during post-baseline. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was significantly higher during post-baseline than reading chanting and silent mental repetition of sutra. All physiological measures were significantly different for each condition. This study suggests that the subjective experience associated with chanting can not be attributed to increased RSA and slower breathing as it depends upon the style of chanting. The spiritual experience associated with chanting appears to be evoked through the focused attention on the sutra

A Simple Model of Epidemics with Pathogen Mutation

We study how the interplay between the memory immune response and pathogen mutation affects epidemic dynamics in two related models. The first explicitly models pathogen mutation and individual memory immune responses, with contacted individuals becoming infected only if they are exposed to strains that are significantly different from other strains in their memory repertoire. The second model is a reduction of the first to a system of difference equations. In this case, individuals spend a fixed amount of time in a generalized immune class. In both models, we observe four fundamentally different types of behavior, depending on parameters: (1) pathogen extinction due to lack of contact between individuals, (2) endemic infection (3) periodic epidemic outbreaks, and (4) one or more outbreaks followed by extinction of the epidemic due to extremely low minima in the oscillations. We analyze both models to determine the location of each transition. Our main result is that pathogens in highly connected populations must mutate rapidly in order to remain viable.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figure

Colourful orb-weaving spiders, Nephila pilipes, through a bee's eyes

Many orb-weaving spiders in the tropics forage in open sites during the day and some of them have both bright and dark colourations. The conspicuous UV-reflective colour markings of these spiders have been reported to be attractive to visually oriented prey and thus could increase the spiders' foraging success. Using a combination of field and laboratory studies, we examine whether or not the body colouration of orb-weaving spiders exhibits optical properties that are attractive to insect prey from the viewpoint of insect visual physiology. We compared the prey interception rates and colour contrasts of the typical and melanic morphs of the giant wood spider, Nephila pilipes. Results of the field study showed that the typical morph caught significantly more insects than the melanic morph. Colour contrasts calculated from spectral reflectances of the background and body surface of spiders showed that the brightly coloured body parts of the typical morph exhibited rather high values, but those of the dark body parts were below the discrimination threshold. The differential colour contrasts of body parts generated a visual signal unlike that of a spider but rather like certain forms of food resources. On the other hand, the melanic morphs did not have bright colouration and the colour contrasts of every part of the body were significantly higher than the threshold, making the contour of spiders quite clear to bees

Quasi-Isotropization of the Inhomogeneous Mixmaster Universe Induced by an Inflationary Process

We derive a ``generic'' inhomogeneous ``bridge'' solution for a cosmological model in the presence of a real self-interacting scalar field. This solution connects a Kasner-like regime to an inflationary stage of evolution and therefore provides a dynamical mechanism for the quasi-isotropization of the universe. In the framework of a standard Arnowitt-Deser-Misner Hamiltonian formulation of the dynamics and by adopting Misner-Chitr\`e-like variables, we integrate the Einstein-Hamilton-Jacobi equation corresponding to a ``generic'' inhomogeneous cosmological model whose evolution is influenced by the coupling with a bosonic field, expected to be responsible for a spontaneous symmetry breaking configuration. The dependence of the detailed evolution of the universe on the initial conditions is then appropriately characterized.Comment: 17 pages, no figure, to appear on PR

Human papillomavirus 16 L2 inhibits the transcriptional activation function, but not the DNA replication function, of HPV-16 E2

In this study we analysed the outcome of the interaction between HPV-16 L2 and E2 on the transactivation and DNA replication functions of E2. When E2 was expressed on its own, it transactivated a number of E2-responsive promoters but co-expression of L2 led to the down-regulation of the transcription transactivation activity of the E2 protein. This repression is not mediated by an increased degradation of the E2 protein. In contrast, the expression of L2 had no effect on the ability of E2 to activate DNA replication in association with the viral replication factor E1. Deletion mutagenesis identified L2 domains responsible for binding to E2 (first 50 N-terminus amino acid residues) and down-regulating its transactivation function (residues 301–400). The results demonstrate that L2 selectively inhibits the transcriptional activation property of E2 and that there is a direct interaction between the two proteins, although this is not sufficient to mediate the transcriptional repression. The consequences of the L2–E2 interaction for the viral life cycle are discussed

On the effect of heterovalent substitutions in ruthenocuprates

We discuss the properties of superconducting derivatives of the RuSr2GdCu2O8 (1212-type) ruthenocuprate, for which heterovalent doping has been achieved through partial substitution of Cu ions into the RuO2 planes (Ru1-xSr2GdCu2+xO8-d, 0<x<0.75, Tcmax=72 K for x=0.3-0.4) and Ce ions into the Gd sites (RuSr2Gd1-yCeyCu2O8, 0<y<0.1). The measurements of XANES, thermopower, and magnetization under external pressure reveal an underdoped character of all compounds. Muon spin rotation experiments indicate the presence of magnetic order at low temperatures (Tm=14-2 K for x=0.1-0.4). Properties of these two series lead us to the qualitative phase diagram for differently doped 1212-type ruthenocuprates. The difference in temperature of magnetic ordering found for superconducting and non-superconducting RuSr2GdCu2O8 is discussed in the context of the properties of substituted compounds. The high pressure oxygen conditions required for synthesis of Ru1-xSr2RECu2+xO8-d, have been extended to synthesis of a Ru1-xSr2Eu2-yCeyCu2+xO10-d series. The Cu->Ru doping achieved in these phases is found to decrease the temperature for magnetic ordering as well the volume fraction of the magnetic phase.Comment: Proceedings of the 3rd Polish-US Workshop on Magnetism and Superconductivity of Advanced Materials, July 14-19, 2002, Ladek Zdroj (Poland) to appear in Physica

The signals of FGFs on the neurogenesis of embryonic stem cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Neural induction is a complex process and the detailed mechanism of FGF-induced neurogenesis remains unclear.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>By using a serum-free neural induction method, we showed that FGF1 dose-dependently promoted the induction of Sox1/N-cadherin/nestin triple positive cells, which represent primitive neuroblasts, from mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We demonstrated that FGF1, FGF2, and FGF4, but not FGF8b, enhanced this neurogenesis. Especially, FGF-enhanced neurogenesis is not mediated through the rescue of the apoptosis or the enhancement of the proliferation of Sox1⁺cells. We further indicated that the inactivation of c-Jun N-terminal kinase-1 (JNK-1) and extracellular signal-related kinase-2 (ERK-2), but not p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), inhibited the neural formation through the inhibition of ES differentiation, but not through the formation of endomesodermal cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These lines of evidence delineated the roles of FGF downstream signals in the early neural differentiation of ES cells.</p

Magnetic Moment of The Θ+\Theta^+ Pentaquark State

We have calculated the magnetic moment of the recently observed $\Theta^+$ pentaquark in the framework of the light cone QCD sum rules using the photon distribution amplitudes. We find that $\mu_{\Theta^+}=(0.12\pm 0.06) \mu_N$, which is quite small. We also compare our result with predictions of other groups.Comment: 1 eps figure, 13 page

Логіко-лінгвістична модель як засіб відображення синтаксичних особливостей текстової інформації

Запропоновано використовувати логіко-лінгвістичні моделі як засіб відображення синтаксичних особливостей текстової інформації, перелічено та обґрунтовано правила їх формування, наведено алгоритм створення всіх складових таких моделей.Предложено использовать логико-лингвистические модели как способ отображения синтаксических особенностей текстовой информации, перечислены и обоснованы правила их формирования, приведен алгоритм создания всех составных таких моделей.It is suggested using a logico-linguistic model as a method of display the syntactical features of text information. There are listed and justified the rules for their forming and also are shown an algorithm of creation of all components of such models in this paper

On Vanishing Theorems For Vector Bundle Valued p-Forms And Their Applications

Let $F: [0, \infty) \to [0, \infty)$ be a strictly increasing $C^2$ function with $F(0)=0$. We unify the concepts of $F$-harmonic maps, minimal hypersurfaces, maximal spacelike hypersurfaces, and Yang-Mills Fields, and introduce $F$-Yang-Mills fields, $F$-degree, $F$-lower degree, and generalized Yang-Mills-Born-Infeld fields (with the plus sign or with the minus sign) on manifolds. When $F(t)=t, \frac 1p(2t)^{\frac p2}, \sqrt{1+2t} -1,$ and $1-\sqrt{1-2t},$ the $F$-Yang-Mills field becomes an ordinary Yang-Mills field, $p$-Yang-Mills field, a generalized Yang-Mills-Born-Infeld field with the plus sign, and a generalized Yang-Mills-Born-Infeld field with the minus sign on a manifold respectively. We also introduce the $E_{F,g}-$energy functional (resp. $F$-Yang-Mills functional) and derive the first variational formula of the $E_{F,g}-$energy functional (resp. $F$-Yang-Mills functional) with applications. In a more general frame, we use a unified method to study the stress-energy tensors that arise from calculating the rate of change of various functionals when the metric of the domain or base manifold is changed. These stress-energy tensors, linked to $F$-conservation laws yield monotonicity formulae. A "macroscopic" version of these monotonicity inequalities enables us to derive some Liouville type results and vanishing theorems for $p-$forms with values in vector bundles, and to investigate constant Dirichlet boundary value problems for 1-forms. In particular, we obtain Liouville theorems for $F-$harmonic maps (e.g. $p$-harmonic maps), and $F-$Yang-Mills fields (e.g. generalized Yang-Mills-Born-Infeld fields on manifolds). We also obtain generalized Chern type results for constant mean curvature type equations for $p-$forms on $\Bbb{R}^m$ and on manifolds $M$ with the global doubling property by a different approach. The case $p=0$ and $M=\mathbb{R}^m$ is due to Chern.Comment: 1. This is a revised version with several new sections and an appendix that will appear in Communications in Mathematical Physics. 2. A "microscopic" approach to some of these monotonicity formulae leads to celebrated blow-up techniques and regularity theory in geometric measure theory. 3. Our unique solution of the Dirichlet problems generalizes the work of Karcher and Wood on harmonic map