21,488 research outputs found
Animal models of Zika virus infection, pathogenesis, and immunity
Zika virus (ZIKV) is an emerging mosquito-transmitted flavivirus that now causes epidemics affecting millions of people on multiple continents. The virus has received global attention because of some of its unusual epidemiological and clinical features, including persistent infection in the male reproductive tract and sexual transmission, an ability to cross the placenta during pregnancy and infect the developing fetus to cause congenital malformations, and its association with Guillain-Barré syndrome in adults. This past year has witnessed an intensive effort by the global scientific community to understand the biology of ZIKV and to develop pathogenesis models for the rapid testing of possible countermeasures. Here, we review the recent advances in and utility and limitations of newly developed mouse and nonhuman primate models of ZIKV infection and pathogenesis
QED with Dynamical Fermions in an External Magnetic Field
In this paper, we present results of numerical lattice simulations of
two-flavor QED in three space-time dimensions. First, we provide evidence that
chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken in the chiral and continuum limit. Next
we discuss the role of an external magnetic field on the dynamically
generated fermion mass. We investigate the -dependence of the condensate
through calculations with dynamical fermions using the non-compact formulation
of the gauge field, and compare the results with those of a comparable study
using the quenched approximation.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figure
Two-colour QCD at non-zero quark-number density
We have simulated two-colour four-flavour QCD at non-zero chemical potential
for quark number. Simulations were performed on and lattices. Clear evidence was seen for the formation of a colourless diquark
condensate which breaks quark number spontaneously, for . The transition appears to be second order. We have measured the
spectrum of scalar and pseudoscalar bosons which shows clear evidence for the
expected Goldstone boson. Our results are in qualitative agreement with those
from effective Lagrangians for the potential Goldstone excitations of this
theory.Comment: 22 pages RevTeX, 6 figures in 10 postscript file
Observation of Enhanced Beaming from Photonic Crystal Waveguides
We report on the experimental observation of the beaming effect in photonic
crystals enhanced via surface modes. We experimentally map the spatial field
distribution of energy emitted from a subwavelength photonic crystal waveguide
into free-space, rendering with crisp clarity the diffractionless beaming of
energy. Our experimental data agree well with our numerical studies of the
beaming enhancement in photonic crystals with modulated surfaces. Without loss
of generality, we study the beaming effect in a photonic crystal scaled to
microwave frequencies and demonstrate the technological capacity to deliver
long-range, wavelength-scaled beaming of energy.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure
Passivation of pigment particles for thermal control coatings
The preparation of a matrix of 48 samples consisting of pigments and pigmented paints is described. The results obtained from testing these samples by electron spin resonance and by in situ spectral reflectance measurements in space simulation tests are presented. Conclusions and recommendations for further research are given
Cell-Type Specific Changes in Glial Morphology and Glucocorticoid Expression During Stress and Aging in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex.
Repeated exposure to stressors is known to produce large-scale remodeling of neurons within the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Recent work suggests stress-related forms of structural plasticity can interact with aging to drive distinct patterns of pyramidal cell morphological changes. However, little is known about how other cellular components within PFC might be affected by these challenges. Here, we examined the effects of stress exposure and aging on medial prefrontal cortical glial subpopulations. Interestingly, we found no changes in glial morphology with stress exposure but a profound morphological change with aging. Furthermore, we found an upregulation of non-nuclear glucocorticoid receptors (GR) with aging, while nuclear levels remained largely unaffected. Both changes are selective for microglia, with no stress or aging effect found in astrocytes. Lastly, we show that the changes found within microglia inversely correlated with the density of dendritic spines on layer III pyramidal cells. These findings suggest microglia play a selective role in synaptic health within the aging brain
Mesons and Flavor on the Conifold
We explore the addition of fundamental matter to the Klebanov-Witten field
theory. We add probe D7-branes to the theory obtained from placing
D3-branes at the tip of the conifold and compute the meson spectrum for the
scalar mesons. In the UV limit of massless quarks we find the exact dimensions
of the associated operators, which exhibit a simple scaling in the large-charge
limit. For the case of massive quarks we compute the spectrum of scalar mesons
numerically.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, v2: typos fixe
Some Navigation Rules for D-Brane Monodromy
We explore some aspects of monodromies of D-branes in the Kahler moduli space
of Calabi-Yau compactifications. Here a D-brane is viewed as an object of the
derived category of coherent sheaves. We compute all the interesting
monodromies in some nontrivial examples and link our work to recent results and
conjectures concerning helices and mutations. We note some particular
properties of the 0-brane.Comment: LaTeX2e, 28 pages, 4 figures, some typos corrected and refs adde
A Five-year Spectroscopic and Photometric Campaign on the Prototypical alpha Cygni Variable and A-type Supergiant Star Deneb
Deneb is often considered the prototypical A-type supergiant, and is one of
the visually most luminous stars in the Galaxy. A-type supergiants are
potential extragalactic distance indicators, but the variability of these stars
needs to be better characterized before this technique can be considered
reliable. We analyzed 339 high resolution echelle spectra of Deneb obtained
over the five-year span of 1997 through 2001 as well as 370 Stromgren
photometric measurements obtained during the same time frame. Our spectroscopic
analysis included dynamical spectra of the H-alpha profile, H-alpha equivalent
widths, and radial velocities measured from Si II 6347, 6371. Time-series
analysis reveals no obvious cyclic behavior that proceeds through multiple
observing seasons, although we found a suspected 40 day period in two,
non-consecutive observing seasons. Some correlations are found between
photometric and radial velocity data sets, and suggest radial pulsations at two
epochs. No correlation is found between the variability of the H-alpha profiles
and that of the radial velocities or the photometry. Lucy (1976) found evidence
that Deneb was a long period single-lined spectroscopic binary star, but our
data set shows no evidence for radial velocity variations caused by a binary
companion.Comment: 49 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in the
Astronomical Journa
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