563 research outputs found
The English are healthier than the Americans: really?
Background: When comparing the health of two populations, it is not enough to compare the prevalence of chronic diseases. The objective of this study is therefore to propose a metric of health based on domains of functioning to determine whether the English are healthier than the Americans. Methods: We analysed representative samples aged 50 to 80 years from the 2008 wave of the Health and Retirement Study (N?=?10?349) for the US data, and wave 4 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (N?=?9405) for English counterpart data. We first calculated the age-standardized disease prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, all heart diseases, stroke, lung disease, cancer and obesity. Second, we developed a metric of health using Rasch analyses and the questions and measured tests common to both surveys addressing domains of human functioning. Finally, we used a linear additive model to test whether the differences in health were due to being English or American. Results: The English have better health than the Americans when population health is assessed only by prevalence of selected chronic health conditions. The English health advantage disappears almost completely, however, when health is assessed with a metric that integrates information about functioning domains. Conclusions: It is possible to construct a metric of health, based on data directly collected from individuals, in which health is operationalized as domains of functioning. Its application has the potential to tackle one of the most intractable problems in international research on health, namely the comparability of health across countries
Wormhole with varying cosmological constant
It has been suggested that the cosmological constant is a variable dynamical
quantity. A class of solution has been presented for the spherically symmetric
space time describing wormholes by assuming the erstwhile cosmological constant
to be a space variable scalar, viz., = . It
is shown that the Averaged Null Energy Condition (ANEC) violating exotic matter
can be made arbitrarily small.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Accepted in Gen. Rel. Gra
Can electro-magnetic field, anisotropic source and varying be sufficient to produce wormhole spacetime ?
It is well known that solutions of general relativity which allow for
traversable wormholes require the existence of exotic matter (matter that
violates weak or null energy conditions [WEC or NEC]). In this article, we
provide a class of exact solution for Einstein-Maxwell field equations
describing wormholes assuming the erstwhile cosmological term to be
space variable, viz., .
The source considered here not only a matter entirely but a sum of matters
i.e. anisotropic matter distribution, electromagnetic field and cosmological
constant whose effective parts obey all energy conditions out side the wormhole
throat. Here violation of energy conditions can be compensated by varying
cosmological constant. The important feature of this article is that one can
get wormhole structure, at least theoretically, comprising with physically
acceptable matters.Comment: Some changes have been mad
Kombucha Tea-associated microbes remodel host metabolic pathways to suppress lipid accumulation
The popularity of the ancient, probiotic-rich beverage Kombucha Tea (KT) has surged in part due to its purported health benefits, which include protection against metabolic diseases; however, these claims have not been rigorously tested and the mechanisms underlying host response to the probiotics in KT are unknown. Here, we establish a reproducible method to maintain C. elegans on a diet exclusively consisting of Kombucha Tea-associated microbes (KTM), which mirrors the microbial community found in the fermenting culture. KT microbes robustly colonize the gut of KTM-fed animals and confer normal development and fecundity. Intriguingly, animals consuming KTMs display a marked reduction in total lipid stores and lipid droplet size. We find that the reduced fat accumulation phenotype is not due to impaired nutrient absorption, but rather it is sustained by a programed metabolic response in the intestine of the host. KTM consumption triggers widespread transcriptional changes within core lipid metabolism pathways, including upregulation of a suite of lysosomal lipase genes that are induced during lipophagy. The elevated lysosomal lipase activity, coupled with a decrease in lipid droplet biogenesis, is partially required for the reduction in host lipid content. We propose that KTM consumption stimulates a fasting-like response in the C. elegans intestine by rewiring transcriptional programs to promote lipid utilization. Our results provide mechanistic insight into how the probiotics in Kombucha Tea reshape host metabolism and how this popular beverage may impact human metabolism
Supersymmetry Breaking and Fermi Balls
A simple model is presented where the disappearance of domain walls and the
associated production of ``Fermi balls'', which have been proposed as
candidates for cold dark matter, are features which arise rather naturally in
response to softly broken supersymmetry.Comment: 13 pages, revtex, to appear in Phys. Rev.
The Magnetic Field of the Solar Corona from Pulsar Observations
We present a novel experiment with the capacity to independently measure both
the electron density and the magnetic field of the solar corona. We achieve
this through measurement of the excess Faraday rotation due to propagation of
the polarised emission from a number of pulsars through the magnetic field of
the solar corona. This method yields independent measures of the integrated
electron density, via dispersion of the pulsed signal and the magnetic field,
via the amount of Faraday rotation. In principle this allows the determination
of the integrated magnetic field through the solar corona along many lines of
sight without any assumptions regarding the electron density distribution. We
present a detection of an increase in the rotation measure of the pulsar
J18012304 of approximately 160 \rad at an elongation of 0.95 from
the centre of the solar disk. This corresponds to a lower limit of the magnetic
field strength along this line of sight of . The lack of
precision in the integrated electron density measurement restricts this result
to a limit, but application of coronal plasma models can further constrain this
to approximately 20mG, along a path passing 2.5 solar radii from the solar
limb. Which is consistent with predictions obtained using extensions to the
Source Surface models published by Wilcox Solar ObservatoryComment: 16 pages, 4 figures (1 colour): Submitted to Solar Physic
Decreased body mass index in the preclinical stage of autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease
The relationship between body-mass index (BMI) and Alzheimer´s disease (AD) has been extensively investigated. However, BMI alterations in preclinical individuals with autosomal dominant AD (ADAD) have not yet been investigated. We analyzed cross-sectional data from 230 asymptomatic members of families with ADAD participating in the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) study including 120 preclinical mutation carriers (MCs) and 110 asymptomatic non-carriers (NCs). Differences in BMI and their relation with cerebral amyloid load and episodic memory as a function of estimated years to symptom onset (EYO) were analyzed. Preclinical MCs showed significantly lower BMIs compared to NCs, starting 11.2 years before expected symptom onset. However, the BMI curves begun to diverge already at 17.8 years before expected symptom onset. Lower BMI in preclinical MCs was significantly associated with less years before estimated symptom onset, higher global Aβ brain burden, and with lower delayed total recall scores in the logical memory test. The study provides cross-sectional evidence that weight loss starts one to two decades before expected symptom onset of ADAD. Our findings point toward a link between the pathophysiology of ADAD and disturbance of weight control mechanisms. Longitudinal follow-up studies are warranted to investigate BMI changes over time
Domain wall generation by fermion self-interaction and light particles
A possible explanation for the appearance of light fermions and Higgs bosons
on the four-dimensional domain wall is proposed. The mechanism of light
particle trapping is accounted for by a strong self-interaction of
five-dimensional pre-quarks. We obtain the low-energy effective action which
exhibits the invariance under the so called \tau-symmetry. Then we find a set
of vacuum solutions which break that symmetry and the five-dimensional
translational invariance. One type of those vacuum solutions gives rise to the
domain wall formation with consequent trapping of light massive fermions and
Higgs-like bosons as well as massless sterile scalars, the so-called branons.
The induced relations between low-energy couplings for Yukawa and scalar field
interactions allow to make certain predictions for light particle masses and
couplings themselves, which might provide a signature of the higher dimensional
origin of particle physics at future experiments. The manifest translational
symmetry breaking, eventually due to some gravitational and/or matter fields in
five dimensions, is effectively realized with the help of background scalar
defects. As a result the branons acquire masses, whereas the ratio of Higgs and
fermion (presumably top-quark) masses can be reduced towards the values
compatible with the present-day phenomenology. Since the branons do not couple
to fermions and the Higgs bosons do not decay into branons, the latter ones are
essentially sterile and stable, what makes them the natural candidates for the
dark matter in the Universe.Comment: 34 pages, 2 figures, JHEP style,few important refs. adde
Demonstration of a solid deuterium source of ultra-cold neutrons
Ultra-cold neutrons (UCN), neutrons with energies low enough to be confined
by the Fermi potential in material bottles, are playing an increasing role in
measurements of fundamental properties of the neutron. The ability to
manipulate UCN with material guides and bottles, magnetic fields, and gravity
can lead to experiments with lower systematic errors than have been obtained in
experiments with cold neutron beams. The UCN densities provided by existing
reactor sources limit these experiments. The promise of much higher densities
from solid deuterium sources has led to proposed facilities coupled to both
reactor and spallation neutron sources. In this paper we report on the
performance of a prototype spallation neutron-driven solid deuterium source.
This source produced bottled UCN densities of 145 +/-7 UCN/cm3, about three
times greater than the largest bottled UCN densities previously reported. These
results indicate that a production UCN source with substantially higher
densities should be possible
Magnetic Field Generation in Stars
Enormous progress has been made on observing stellar magnetism in stars from
the main sequence through to compact objects. Recent data have thrown into
sharper relief the vexed question of the origin of stellar magnetic fields,
which remains one of the main unanswered questions in astrophysics. In this
chapter we review recent work in this area of research. In particular, we look
at the fossil field hypothesis which links magnetism in compact stars to
magnetism in main sequence and pre-main sequence stars and we consider why its
feasibility has now been questioned particularly in the context of highly
magnetic white dwarfs. We also review the fossil versus dynamo debate in the
context of neutron stars and the roles played by key physical processes such as
buoyancy, helicity, and superfluid turbulence,in the generation and stability
of neutron star fields.
Independent information on the internal magnetic field of neutron stars will
come from future gravitational wave detections. Thus we maybe at the dawn of a
new era of exciting discoveries in compact star magnetism driven by the opening
of a new, non-electromagnetic observational window.
We also review recent advances in the theory and computation of
magnetohydrodynamic turbulence as it applies to stellar magnetism and dynamo
theory. These advances offer insight into the action of stellar dynamos as well
as processes whichcontrol the diffusive magnetic flux transport in stars.Comment: 41 pages, 7 figures. Invited review chapter on on magnetic field
generation in stars to appear in Space Science Reviews, Springe
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