304 research outputs found
Kaluza-Klein Structure Associated With Fat Brane
It is known that the imposition of orbifold boundary conditions on background
scalar field can give rise to a non-trivial vacuum expectation value (VEV)
along extra dimensions, which in turn generates fat branes and associated
unconventional Kaluza-Klein (KK) towers of fermions. We study the structure of
these KK towers in the limit of one large extra dimension and show that
normalizable (bound) states of massless and massive fermions can exist at both
orbifold fixed points. Closer look however indicates that orbifold boundary
conditions act to suppress at least half of bound KK modes, while periodic
boundary conditions tend to drive the high-lying modes to the conventional
structure. By investigating the scattering of fermions on branes, we
analytically compute masses and wavefunctions of KK spectra in the presence of
these boundary conditions up to one-loop level. Implication of KK-number
non-conservation couplings on the Coulomb potential is also examined.Comment: RevTex4, 29 pages, 7 ps figures, new references adde
Reaction, Levy Flights, and Quenched Disorder
We consider the A + A --> emptyset reaction, where the transport of the
particles is given by Levy flights in a quenched random potential. With a
common literature model of the disorder, the random potential can only increase
the rate of reaction. With a model of the disorder that obeys detailed balance,
however, the rate of reaction initially increases and then decreases as a
function of the disorder strength. The physical behavior obtained with this
second model is in accord with that for reactive turbulent flow, indicating
that Levy flight statistics can model aspects of turbulent fluid transport.Comment: 6 pages, 5 pages. Phys. Rev. E. 65 (2002) 011109--1-
Electroactive biofilms: new means for electrochemistry
This work demonstrates that electrochemical reactions can be catalysed by the natural biofilms that form on
electrode surfaces dipping into drinking water or compost. In drinking water, oxygen reduction was monitored with
stainless steel ultra-microelectrodes under constant potential electrolysis at )0.30 V/SCE for 13 days. 16 independent experiments were conducted in drinking water, either pure or with the addition of acetate or dextrose. In
most cases, the current increased and reached 1.5–9.5 times the initial current. The current increase was attributed to
biofilm forming on the electrode in a similar way to that has been observed in seawater. Epifluorescence microscopy
showed that the bacteria size and the biofilm morphology depended on the nutrients added, but no quantitative
correlation between biofilm morphology and current was established. In compost, the oxidation process was
investigated using a titanium based electrode under constant polarisation in the range 0.10–0.70 V/SCE. It was
demonstrated that the indigenous micro-organisms were responsible for the current increase observed after a few
days, up to 60 mA m)2. Adding 10 mM acetate to the compost amplified the current density to 145 mA m)2 at 0.50 V/SCE. The study suggests that many natural environments, other than marine sediments, waste waters and
seawaters that have been predominantly investigated until now, may be able to produce electrochemically active
biofilm
A secreted PD-L1 splice variant that covalently dimerizes and mediates immunosuppression
Targeting immune checkpoint pathways, such as programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1, also known as CD274 or B7-H1) or its receptor programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) has shown improved survival for patients with numerous types of cancers, not limited to lung cancer, melanoma, renal cell carcinoma, and Hodgkin lymphoma. PD-L1 is a co-inhibitory molecule whose expression on the surface of tumor cells is associated with worse prognosis in many tumors. Here we describe a splice variant (secPD-L1) that does not splice into the transmembrane domain, but instead produces a secreted form of PD-L1 that has a unique 18 amino acid tail containing a cysteine that allows it to homodimerize and more effectively inhibit lymphocyte function than monomeric soluble PD-L1. We show that recombinant secPD-L1 can dimerize and inhibit T-cell proliferation and IFN-gamma production in vitro. The secPD-L1 variant is expressed by malignant cells in vitro that also express high levels of full-length PD-L1. Transcriptomic analysis of gene expression across The Cancer Genome Atlas found the strongest association of secPD-L1 with full-length PD-L1, but also with subsets of immunologic genes, such as in myeloid-derived suppressor cells. Moreover, the splice variant is also expressed in normal tissues and within normal peripheral blood cells it is preferentially expressed in activated myeloid cells. This is the first report of a form of secreted PD-L1 that homodimerizes and is functionally active. SecPD-L1 may function as a paracrine negative immune regulator within the tumor, since secPD-L1 does not require a cell-to-cell interaction to mediate its inhibitory effect
Anisotropy studies around the galactic centre at EeV energies with the Auger Observatory
Data from the Pierre Auger Observatory are analyzed to search for
anisotropies near the direction of the Galactic Centre at EeV energies. The
exposure of the surface array in this part of the sky is already significantly
larger than that of the fore-runner experiments. Our results do not support
previous findings of localized excesses in the AGASA and SUGAR data. We set an
upper bound on a point-like flux of cosmic rays arriving from the Galactic
Centre which excludes several scenarios predicting sources of EeV neutrons from
Sagittarius . Also the events detected simultaneously by the surface and
fluorescence detectors (the `hybrid' data set), which have better pointing
accuracy but are less numerous than those of the surface array alone, do not
show any significant localized excess from this direction.Comment: Matches published versio
The B^- -> phi phi K^- decay rate with phi phi invariant mass below charm treshold
We investigate the decay mechanism in the B^- -> phi phi K^- decay with the
phi phi invariant mass below the charm threshold and in the neighborhood of the
eta_c invariant mass region. Our approach is based on the use of factorization
model and the knowledge of matrix elements of the weak currents. For the B
meson weak transition we apply form factor formalism, while for the light
mesons we use effective weak and strong Lagrangians. We find that the dominant
contributions to the branching ratio come from the eta, eta' and eta(1490) pole
terms of the penguin operators in the decay chains B^- -> eta (eta', eta(1490))
K^- -> phi phi K^-. Our prediction for the branching ratio is in agreement with
the Belle's result.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, 2 table
Customer emotions in service failure and recovery encounters
Emotions play a significant role in the workplace, and considerable attention has been given to the study of employee emotions. Customers also play a central function in organizations, but much less is known about customer emotions. This chapter reviews the growing literature on customer emotions in employee–customer interfaces with a focus on service failure and recovery encounters, where emotions are heightened. It highlights emerging themes and key findings, addresses the measurement, modeling, and management of customer emotions, and identifies future research streams. Attention is given to emotional contagion, relationships between affective and cognitive processes, customer anger, customer rage, and individual differences
Addressing climate change with behavioral science:A global intervention tournament in 63 countries
Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.</p
Addressing climate change with behavioral science:A global intervention tournament in 63 countries
Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.</p
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