Cascade of Gregory-Laflamme Transitions and U(1) Breakdown in Super Yang-Mills

In this paper we consider black p-branes on square torus. We find an indication of a cascade of Gregory-Laflamme transitions between black p-brane and (p-1)-brane. Through AdS/CFT correspondence, these transitions are related to the breakdown of the U(1) symmetry in super Yang-Mills on torus. We argue a relationship between the cascade and recent Monte-Carlo data.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX, v2: comments and references added, v3: minor changes and a reference adde

Improved results for N=(2,2) super Yang-Mills theory using supersymmetric discrete light-cone quantization

We consider the (1+1)-dimensional ${\cal N}=(2,2)$ super Yang--Mills theory which is obtained by dimensionally reducing ${\cal N}=1$ super Yang--Mills theory in four dimension to two dimensions. We do our calculations in the large-$N_c$ approximation using Supersymmetric Discrete Light Cone Quantization. The objective is to calculate quantities that might be investigated by researchers using other numerical methods. We present a precision study of the low-mass spectrum and the stress-energy correlator $$. We find that the mass gap of this theory closes as the numerical resolution goes to infinity and that the correlator in the intermediate $r$ region behaves like $r^{-4.75}$.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figure

Rings and rigidity transitions in network glasses

Three elastic phases of covalent networks, (I) floppy, (II) isostatically rigid and (III) stressed-rigid have now been identified in glasses at specific degrees of cross-linking (or chemical composition) both in theory and experiments. Here we use size-increasing cluster combinatorics and constraint counting algorithms to study analytically possible consequences of self-organization. In the presence of small rings that can be locally I, II or III, we obtain two transitions instead of the previously reported single percolative transition at the mean coordination number $\bar r=2.4$, one from a floppy to an isostatic rigid phase, and a second one from an isostatic to a stressed rigid phase. The width of the intermediate phase $~ \bar r$ and the order of the phase transitions depend on the nature of medium range order (relative ring fractions). We compare the results to the Group IV chalcogenides, such as Ge-Se and Si-Se, for which evidence of an intermediate phase has been obtained, and for which estimates of ring fractions can be made from structures of high T crystalline phases.Comment: 29 pages, revtex, 7 eps figure

Deconfining Phase Transition as a Matrix Model of Renormalized Polyakov Loops

We discuss how to extract renormalized from bare Polyakov loops in SU(N) lattice gauge theories at nonzero temperature in four spacetime dimensions. Single loops in an irreducible representation are multiplicatively renormalized without mixing, through a renormalization constant which depends upon both representation and temperature. The values of renormalized loops in the four lowest representations of SU(3) were measured numerically on small, coarse lattices. We find that in magnitude, condensates for the sextet and octet loops are approximately the square of the triplet loop. This agrees with a large $N$ expansion, where factorization implies that the expectation values of loops in adjoint and higher representations are just powers of fundamental and anti-fundamental loops. For three colors, numerically the corrections to the large $N$ relations are greatest for the sextet loop, $\leq 25$; these represent corrections of $\sim 1/N$ for N=3. The values of the renormalized triplet loop can be described by an SU(3) matrix model, with an effective action dominated by the triplet loop. In several ways, the deconfining phase transition for N=3 appears to be like that in the $N=\infty$ matrix model of Gross and Witten.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures; v2, 27 pages, 12 figures, extended discussion for clarity, results unchange

At the edge of intonation: the interplay of utterance-final F0 movements and voiceless fricative sounds

The paper is concerned with the 'edge of intonation' in a twofold sense. It focuses on utterance-final F0 movements and crosses the traditional segment-prosody divide by investigating the interplay of F0 and voiceless fricatives in speech production. An experiment was performed for German with four types of voiceless fricatives: /f/, /s/, /ʃ/ and /x/. They were elicited with scripted dialogues in the contexts of terminal falling statement and high rising question intonations. Acoustic analyses show that fricatives concluding the high rising question intonations had higher mean centres of gravity (CoGs), larger CoG ranges and higher noise energy levels than fricatives concluding the terminal falling statement intonations. The different spectral-energy patterns are suitable to induce percepts of a high 'aperiodic pitch' at the end of the questions and of a low 'aperiodic pitch' at the end of the statements. The results are discussed with regard to the possible existence of 'segmental intonation' and its implication for F0 truncation and the segment-prosody dichotomy, in which segments are the alleged troublemakers for the production and perception of intonation

NOx control in coal combustion by combining biomass co-firing, oxygen enrichment and SNCR

There has been renewed interest in evaluating NOx emission control by selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) combined with biomass co-firing to meet impending enforcement of NOx emission limits for power generation plant. Oxygen enrichment for the concentration of CO 2 in the flue gas has been observed in this work to have benefits for NOx emission control. This paper presents new information on the effect of combining biomass co-firing with SNCR under various oxygen enriched and air-staging conditions performed in the 20 kW combustion facility. Biomass has a higher tendency to generate CO and produced better reductions in NO x emission with and without using SNCR. NO reduction of around 80% were attained using SNCR for 15% and 50% blending ratios of biomasses at 21% overall O2 concentration for unstaged combustion. Whereas, a range of 40-80% NO reductions were attained for coal (Russian Coal) and 15% co-fired biomasses with 3.1-5.5% overall O2 concentration at 22-31% levels of flame staging. Moreover, it was found that better NOx removal efficiency was attained for higher NOx emission baselines under both oxygen enriched and normal firing conditions. However, SNCR NOx control for both coal or coal-biomass blends was observed to produce higher NOx reductions during O2 enrichment, believed to be due to the self-sustained NOx reduction reactions. Hence, NOx control by SNCR, oxygen enriched co-firing in power station boilers would result in lower NOx emissions and higher CO2 concentration for efficient scrubbing with better carbon burnouts. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Measuring the metric: a parametrized post-Friedmanian approach to the cosmic dark energy problem

We argue for a ``parametrized post-Friedmanian'' approach to linear cosmology, where the history of expansion and perturbation growth is measured without assuming that the Einstein Field Equations hold. As an illustration, a model-independent analysis of 92 type Ia supernovae demonstrates that the curve giving the expansion history has the wrong shape to be explained without some form of dark energy or modified gravity. We discuss how upcoming lensing, galaxy clustering, cosmic microwave background and Lyman alpha forest observations can be combined to pursue this program, which generalizes the quest for a dark energy equation of state, and forecast the accuracy that the proposed SNAP satellite can attain.Comment: Replaced to match accepted PRD version. References and another example added, section III omitted since superceded by astro-ph/0207047. 11 PRD pages, 7 figs. Color figs and links at http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/gravity.html or from [email protected]

DPHL: A DIA Pan-human Protein Mass Spectrometry Library for Robust Biomarker Discovery

To address the increasing need for detecting and validating protein biomarkers in clinical specimens, mass spectrometry (MS)-based targeted proteomic techniques, including the selected reaction monitoring (SRM), parallel reaction monitoring (PRM), and massively parallel data-independent acquisition (DIA), have been developed. For optimal performance, they require the fragment ion spectra of targeted peptides as prior knowledge. In this report, we describe a MS pipeline and spectral resource to support targeted proteomics studies for human tissue samples. To build the spectral resource, we integrated common open-source MS computational tools to assemble a freely accessible computational workflow based on Docker. We then applied the workflow to generate DPHL, a comprehensive DIA pan-human library, from 1096 data-dependent acquisition (DDA) MS raw files for 16 types of cancer samples. This extensive spectral resource was then applied to a proteomic study of 17 prostate cancer (PCa) patients. Thereafter, PRM validation was applied to a larger study of 57 PCa patients and the differential expression of three proteins in prostate tumor was validated. As a second application, the DPHL spectral resource was applied to a study consisting of plasma samples from 19 diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients and 18 healthy control subjects. Differentially expressed proteins between DLBCL patients and healthy control subjects were detected by DIA-MS and confirmed by PRM. These data demonstrate that the DPHL supports DIA and PRM MS pipelines for robust protein biomarker discovery. DPHL is freely accessible at https://www.iprox.org/page/project.html?id=IPX0001400000

Loss-of-function mutations in UDP-Glucose 6-Dehydrogenase cause recessive developmental epileptic encephalopathy

Developmental epileptic encephalopathies are devastating disorders characterized by intractable epileptic seizures and developmental delay. Here, we report an allelic series of germline recessive mutations in UGDH in 36 cases from 25 families presenting with epileptic encephalopathy with developmental delay and hypotonia. UGDH encodes an oxidoreductase that converts UDP-glucose to UDP-glucuronic acid, a key component of specific proteoglycans and glycolipids. Consistent with being loss-of-function alleles, we show using patients’ primary fibroblasts and biochemical assays, that these mutations either impair UGDH stability, oligomerization, or enzymatic activity. In vitro, patient-derived cerebral organoids are smaller with a reduced number of proliferating neuronal progenitors while mutant ugdh zebrafish do not phenocopy the human disease. Our study defines UGDH as a key player for the production of extracellular matrix components that are essential for human brain development. Based on the incidence of variants observed, UGDH mutations are likely to be a frequent cause of recessive epileptic encephalopathy