Stochastic Gravity: Theory and Applications

Whereas semiclassical gravity is based on the semiclassical Einstein equation with sources given by the expectation value of the stress-energy tensor of quantum fields, stochastic semiclassical gravity is based on the Einstein-Langevin equation, which has in addition sources due to the noise kernel.In the first part, we describe the fundamentals of this new theory via two approaches: the axiomatic and the functional. In the second part, we describe three applications of stochastic gravity theory. First, we consider metric perturbations in a Minkowski spacetime: we compute the two-point correlation functions for the linearized Einstein tensor and for the metric perturbations. Second, we discuss structure formation from the stochastic gravity viewpoint. Third, we discuss the backreaction of Hawking radiation in the gravitational background of a quasi-static black hole.Comment: 75 pages, no figures, submitted to Living Reviews in Relativit

Stochastic Gravity: Theory and Applications

Whereas semiclassical gravity is based on the semiclassical Einstein equation with sources given by the expectation value of the stress-energy tensor of quantum fields, stochastic semiclassical gravity is based on the Einstein-Langevin equation, which has in addition sources due to the noise kernel. In the first part, we describe the fundamentals of this new theory via two approaches: the axiomatic and the functional. In the second part, we describe three applications of stochastic gravity theory. First, we consider metric perturbations in a Minkowski spacetime, compute the two-point correlation functions of these perturbations and prove that Minkowski spacetime is a stable solution of semiclassical gravity. Second, we discuss structure formation from the stochastic gravity viewpoint. Third, we discuss the backreaction of Hawking radiation in the gravitational background of a black hole and describe the metric fluctuations near the event horizon of an evaporating black holeComment: 100 pages, no figures; an update of the 2003 review in Living Reviews in Relativity gr-qc/0307032 ; it includes new sections on the Validity of Semiclassical Gravity, the Stability of Minkowski Spacetime, and the Metric Fluctuations of an Evaporating Black Hol

Abuse and Misuse of Psychometrics as a Threat to Vocational Psychology

Psychometrics—the science and technology of measuring psychological constructs—is a definitive feature of vocational psychology and career development. For a century, vocational psychology has produced and refined measures for research and practices in diverse industry sectors, including education, training, selection, and recruitment. We overview the philosophical foundations of post-positivism in contrast to an anti-psychometrics discourse emanating from critical scholarship so as to raise concerns that this critical commentary threatens the public’s understanding of psychometrics, their ethical use, and utility. It is time for psychology to advocate for its science and technology, and push back against the iconoclastic rhetoric of its protagonists in the struggle for knowledge/power

The impact of viral mutations on recognition by SARS-CoV-2 specific T cells.

We identify amino acid variants within dominant SARS-CoV-2 T cell epitopes by interrogating global sequence data. Several variants within nucleocapsid and ORF3a epitopes have arisen independently in multiple lineages and result in loss of recognition by epitope-specific T cells assessed by IFN-γ and cytotoxic killing assays. Complete loss of T cell responsiveness was seen due to Q213K in the A∗01:01-restricted CD8+ ORF3a epitope FTSDYYQLY207-215; due to P13L, P13S, and P13T in the B∗27:05-restricted CD8+ nucleocapsid epitope QRNAPRITF9-17; and due to T362I and P365S in the A∗03:01/A∗11:01-restricted CD8+ nucleocapsid epitope KTFPPTEPK361-369. CD8+ T cell lines unable to recognize variant epitopes have diverse T cell receptor repertoires. These data demonstrate the potential for T cell evasion and highlight the need for ongoing surveillance for variants capable of escaping T cell as well as humoral immunity.This work is supported by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC); Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences(CAMS) Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS), China; National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, and UK Researchand Innovation (UKRI)/NIHR through the UK Coro-navirus Immunology Consortium (UK-CIC). Sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 samples and collation of data wasundertaken by the COG-UK CONSORTIUM. COG-UK is supported by funding from the Medical ResearchCouncil (MRC) part of UK Research & Innovation (UKRI),the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR),and Genome Research Limited, operating as the Wellcome Sanger Institute. T.I.d.S. is supported by a Well-come Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellowship (110058/Z/15/Z). L.T. is supported by the Wellcome Trust(grant number 205228/Z/16/Z) and by theUniversity of Liverpool Centre for Excellence in Infectious DiseaseResearch (CEIDR). S.D. is funded by an NIHR GlobalResearch Professorship (NIHR300791). L.T. and S.C.M.are also supported by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Medical Countermeasures Initiative contract75F40120C00085 and the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) inEmerging and Zoonotic Infections (NIHR200907) at University of Liverpool inpartnership with Public HealthEngland (PHE), in collaboration with Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the University of Oxford.L.T. is based at the University of Liverpool. M.D.P. is funded by the NIHR Sheffield Biomedical ResearchCentre (BRC – IS-BRC-1215-20017). ISARIC4C is supported by the MRC (grant no MC_PC_19059). J.C.K.is a Wellcome Investigator (WT204969/Z/16/Z) and supported by NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centreand CIFMS. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or MRC

A second update on mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19

Matters Arising From: COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03767-x (2021)Data availability: Summary statistics generated by the COVID-19 HGI are available online, including per-ancestry summary statistics for African, admixed American, East Asian, European and South Asian ancestries (https://www.covid19hg.org/results/r7/). The analyses described here used the data release 7. If available, individual-level data can be requested directly from contributing studies, listed in Supplementary Table 1. We used publicly available data from GTEx (https://gtexportal.org/home/), the Neale laboratory (http://www.nealelab.is/uk-biobank/), the Finucane laboratory (https://www.finucanelab.org), the FinnGen Freeze 4 cohort (https://www.finngen.fi/en/access_results) and the eQTL catalogue release 3 (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/eqtl/).Code availability: The code for summary statistics lift-over, the projection PCA pipeline including precomputed loadings and meta-analyses (https://github.com/covid19-hg/); for heritability estimation (https://github.com/AndrewsLabUCSF/COVID19_heritability); for Mendelian randomization and genetic correlation (https://github.com/marcoralab/MRcovid); and subtype analyses (https://github.com/mjpirinen/covid19-hgi_subtypes) are available at GitHub.Reporting summary: Further information on research design is available in the Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article online at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06355-3#MOESM2 .Supplementary information is available online at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06355-3#Sec4 .Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. Investigating the role of host genetic factors in COVID-19 severity and susceptibility can inform our understanding of the underlying biological mechanisms that influence adverse outcomes and drug development1,2. Here we present a second updated genome-wide association study (GWAS) on COVID-19 severity and infection susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 from the COVID-19 Host Genetic Initiative (data release 7). We performed a meta-analysis of up to 219,692 cases and over 3 million controls, identifying 51 distinct genome-wide significant loci—adding 28 loci from the previous data release2. The increased number of candidate genes at the identified loci helped to map three major biological pathways that are involved in susceptibility and severity: viral entry, airway defence in mucus and type I interferon

From Mendel’s discovery on pea to today’s plant genetics and breeding

In 2015, we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the presentation of the seminal work of Gregor Johann Mendel. While Darwin’s theory of evolution was based on differential survival and differential reproductive success, Mendel’s theory of heredity relies on equality and stability throughout all stages of the life cycle. Darwin’s concepts were continuous variation and “soft” heredity; Mendel espoused discontinuous variation and “hard” heredity. Thus, the combination of Mendelian genetics with Darwin’s theory of natural selection was the process that resulted in the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology. Although biology, genetics, and genomics have been revolutionized in recent years, modern genetics will forever rely on simple principles founded on pea breeding using seven single gene characters. Purposeful use of mutants to study gene function is one of the essential tools of modern genetics. Today, over 100 plant species genomes have been sequenced. Mapping populations and their use in segregation of molecular markers and marker–trait association to map and isolate genes, were developed on the basis of Mendel's work. Genome-wide or genomic selection is a recent approach for the development of improved breeding lines. The analysis of complex traits has been enhanced by high-throughput phenotyping and developments in statistical and modeling methods for the analysis of phenotypic data. Introgression of novel alleles from landraces and wild relatives widens genetic diversity and improves traits; transgenic methodologies allow for the introduction of novel genes from diverse sources, and gene editing approaches offer possibilities to manipulate gene in a precise manner