496 research outputs found
Flavour-Dependent Type II Leptogenesis
We reanalyse leptogenesis via the out-of-equilibrium decay of the lightest
right-handed neutrino in type II seesaw scenarios, taking into account
flavour-dependent effects. In the type II seesaw mechanism, in addition to the
type I seesaw contribution, an additional direct mass term for the light
neutrinos is present. We consider type II seesaw scenarios where this
additional contribution arises from the vacuum expectation value of a Higgs
triplet, and furthermore an effective model-independent approach. We
investigate bounds on the flavour-specific decay asymmetries, on the mass of
the lightest right-handed neutrino and on the reheat temperature of the early
universe, and compare them to the corresponding bounds in the type I seesaw
framework. We show that while flavour-dependent thermal type II leptogenesis
becomes more efficient for larger mass scale of the light neutrinos, and the
bounds become relaxed, the type I seesaw scenario for leptogenesis becomes more
constrained. We also argue that in general, flavour-dependent effects cannot be
ignored when dealing with leptogenesis in type II seesaw models.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures; v3: minor additions, typos corrected, results
and conclusions unchange
Corticosteroids reverse cytokine-induced block of survival and differentiation of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells from rats
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) is a frequent complication of preterm delivery. Proinflammatory cytokines, such as interferon-γ (IFN-γ) and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) released from astrocytes and microglia activated by infection or ischemia have previously been shown to impair survival and maturation of oligodendrocyte progenitors and could thus be considered as potential factors contributing to the generation of this disease. The first goal of the present study was to investigate whether exposure of oligodendrocyte precursors to these cytokines arrests the maturation of ion currents in parallel to its effects on myelin proteins and morphological maturation. Secondly, in the search for agents, that can protect differentiating oligodendrocyte precursor cells from cytokine-induced damage we investigated effects of coapplications of corticosteroids with proinflammatory cytokines on the subsequent survival and differentiation of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To exclude influences from factors released from other cell types purified cultures of oligodendrocyte precursors were exposed to cytokines and/or steroids and allowed to differentiate for further 6 days in culture. Changes in membrane surface were investigated with capacitance recordings and Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopy. Na<sup>+</sup>- and K<sup>+</sup>- currents were investigated using whole cell patch clamp recordings. The expression of myelin specific proteins was investigated using western blots and the precursor cells were identified using immunostaining with A2B5 antibodies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Surviving IFN-γ and TNF-α treated cells continued to maintain voltage-activated Na<sup>+</sup>- and K<sup>+ </sup>currents characteristic for the immature cells after 6 days in differentiation medium. Corticosterone, dihydrocorticosterone and, most prominently dexamethasone, counteracted the deleterious effects of IFN-γ and TNF-α on cell survival, A2B5-immunostaining and expression of myelin basic protein. The most potent corticosteroid tested, dexamethasone, was shown to counteract cytokine effects on membrane surface extension and capacitance. Furthermore, coapplication of dexamethasone blocked the cytokine-induced downregulation of the inwardly rectifying potassium current in 80% of the precursor cells and restored the cytokine-blocked down-regulation of the voltage activated Na<sup>+</sup>- and K<sup>+ </sup>currents during subsequent differentiation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results show that treatment of oligodendrocyte precursors with the inflammatory cytokines TNF-α and IFN-γ block the differentiation of oligodendrocyte precursors at the level of the differentiation of the voltage-gated ion currents. Co-treatment with corticosteroids at the time of cytokine application restores to a considerable extent survival and differentiation of oligodendrocytes at the level of morphological, myelin protein as well as ion current maturation suggesting the option for a functional restoration of cytokine-damaged immature oligodendrocytes.</p
A Spinning Anti-de Sitter Wormhole
We construct a 2+1 dimensional spacetime of constant curvature whose spatial
topology is that of a torus with one asymptotic region attached. It is also a
black hole whose event horizon spins with respect to infinity. An observer
entering the hole necessarily ends up at a "singularity"; there are no inner
horizons.
In the construction we take the quotient of 2+1 dimensional anti-de Sitter
space by a discrete group Gamma. A key part of the analysis proceeds by
studying the action of Gamma on the boundary of the spacetime.Comment: Latex, 28 pages, 7 postscript figures included in text, a Latex file
without figures can be found at http://vanosf.physto.se/~stefan/spinning.html
Replaced with journal version, minor change
Generalized polarizabilities and the chiral structure of the nucleon
We discuss the virtual Compton scattering reaction at
low energies. We present results for the generalized polarizabilities of the
nucleon obtained in heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory at .Comment: 5 pages, LaTex file, 1 postscript figure, uses ``espcrc1.sty'', talk
given by S. Scherer at the 15th International Conference on Few Body Problems
in Physics, Groningen, The Netherlands, 22-26 July 1997, to appear in the
proceedings (Nucl. Phys. A
Virtual Compton Scattering off the Nucleon in Chiral Perturbation Theory
We investigate the spin-independent part of the virtual Compton scattering
(VCS) amplitude off the nucleon within the framework of chiral perturbation
theory. We perform a consistent calculation to third order in external momenta
according to Weinberg's power counting. With this calculation we can determine
the second- and fourth-order structure-dependent coefficients of the general
low-energy expansion of the spin-averaged VCS amplitude based on gauge
invariance, crossing symmetry and the discrete symmetries. We discuss the
kinematical regime to which our calculation can be applied and compare our
expansion with the multipole expansion by Guichon, Liu and Thomas. We establish
the connection of our calculation with the generalized polarizabilities of the
nucleon where it is possible.Comment: 26 pages, 2 Postscript figures, RevTex using epsfi
Improved tensor-product expansions for the two-particle density matrix
We present a new density-matrix functional within the recently introduced
framework for tensor-product expansions of the two-particle density matrix. It
performs well both for the homogeneous electron gas as well as atoms. For the
homogeneous electron gas, it performs significantly better than all previous
density-matrix functionals, becoming very accurate for high densities and
outperforming Hartree-Fock at metallic valence electron densities. For isolated
atoms and ions, it is on a par with previous density-matrix functionals and
generalized gradient approximations to density-functional theory. We also
present analytic results for the correlation energy in the low density limit of
the free electron gas for a broad class of such functionals.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Black holes and black branes in Lifshitz spacetimes
We construct analytic solutions describing black holes and black branes in
asymptotically Lifshitz spacetimes with arbitrary dynamical exponent z and for
arbitrary number of dimensions. The model considered consists of Einstein
gravity with negative cosmological constant, a scalar, and N U(1) gauge fields
with dilatonic-like couplings. We study the phase diagrams and thermodynamic
instabilities of the solution, and find qualitative differences between the
cases with 12.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures; v2 references added, minor comments adde
Erratum:The 'pause' in global warming in historical context: II. Comparing models to observations (Environmental Research Letters (2018)13 (123007) DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aaf372)
The 'pause' in global warming in historical context : (II). Comparing models to observations
We review the evidence for a putative early 21st-century divergence between global mean surface temperature (GMST) and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) projections. We provide a systematic comparison between temperatures and projections using historical versions of GMST products and historical versions of model projections that existed at the times when claims about a divergence were made. The comparisons are conducted with a variety of statistical techniques that correct for problems in previous work, including using continuous trends and a Monte Carlo approach to simulate internal variability. The results show that there is no robust statistical evidence for a divergence between models and observations. The impression of a divergence early in the 21st century was caused by various biases in model interpretation and in the observations, and was unsupported by robust statistics
New phosphosite-specific antibodies to unravel the role of GRK phosphorylation in dopamine D2 receptor regulation and signaling
The dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) is the target of drugs used to treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia. The D2R is regulated through its interaction with and phosphorylation by G protein receptor kinases (GRKs) and interaction with arrestins. More recently, D2R arrestin-mediated signaling has been shown to have distinct physiological functions to those of G protein signalling. Relatively little is known regarding the patterns of D2R phosphorylation that might control these processes. We aimed to generate antibodies specific for intracellular D2R phosphorylation sites to facilitate the investigation of these mechanisms. We synthesised double phosphorylated peptides corresponding to regions within intracellular loop 3 of the hD2R and used them to raise phosphosite-specific antibodies to capture a broad screen of GRK-mediated phosphorylation. We identify an antibody specific to a GRK2/3 phosphorylation site in intracellular loop 3 of the D2R. We compared measurements of D2R phosphorylation with other measurements of D2R signalling to profile selected D2R agonists including previously described biased agonists. These studies demonstrate the utility of novel phosphosite-specific antibodies to investigate D2R regulation and signalling
- …