The Goldberger-Treiman Discrepancy

The Golberger- Treiman discrepancy is related to the asymptotic behaviour of the pionic form factor of the nucleon obtained from baryonic QCD sum rules. The result is .015<=Delta_{GT}<=.022Comment: References updated and minor correction

Estimating Seroprevalence of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 among Different Middle East and North African Male Populations Residing in Qatar

HSV-1 epidemiology in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains poorly understood. Our study aimed to measure HSV-1 antibody prevalence (seroprevalence) and its age-distribution among select MENA populations residing in Qatar. Sera were collected from male blood donors attending Hamad Medical Corporation 2013-2015. A total of 2,077 sera were tested for anti-HSV-1 antibodies using HerpeSelect® 1 ELISA IgG kits (Focus Diagnostics, USA). Robust Poisson regression was conducted to estimate adjusted infection prevalence ratios. Country-specific HSV-1 seroprevalence was estimated for 10 national populations: 97.5% among Egyptians, 92.6% among Yemenis, 90.7% among Sudanese, 88.5% among Syrians, 86.5% among Jordanians, 82.3% among Qataris, 81.4% among Iranians, 81.4% among Lebanese, 80.5% among Palestinians, and 77.0% among Pakistanis. Age-specific HSV-1 seroprevalence was estimated for Egypt, the Fertile Crescent (Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria), and Qatar. Seroprevalence increased with age among Fertile Crescent and Qatari nationals. Seroprevalence increased from 70.0% among those aged ≤24 years up to 98.0% among those aged ≥55 years among Fertile Crescent nationals. Seroprevalence was consistently above 90% for all ages among Egyptians. HSV-1 seroprevalence is high in MENA, though with some variation across countries. The seroprevalence appears to have declined among current young age cohorts compared to its levels a few decades ago

Up and down quark masses from Finite Energy QCD sum rules to five loops

The up and down quark masses are determined from an optimized QCD Finite Energy Sum Rule (FESR) involving the correlator of axial-vector divergences, to five loop order in Perturbative QCD (PQCD), and including leading non-perturbative QCD and higher order quark mass corrections. This FESR is designed to reduce considerably the systematic uncertainties arising from the (unmeasured) hadronic resonance sector, which in this framework contributes less than 3-4% to the quark mass. This is achieved by introducing an integration kernel in the form of a second degree polynomial, restricted to vanish at the peak of the two lowest lying resonances. The driving hadronic contribution is then the pion pole, with parameters well known from experiment. The determination is done in the framework of Contour Improved Perturbation Theory (CIPT), which exhibits a very good convergence, leading to a remarkably stable result in the unusually wide window $s_0 = 1.0 - 4.0 {GeV}^2$, where $s_0$ is the radius of the integration contour in the complex energy (squared) plane. The results are: $m_u(Q= 2 {GeV}) = 2.9 \pm 0.2$ MeV, $m_d(Q= 2 {GeV}) = 5.3 \pm 0.4$ MeV, and $(m_u + m_d)/2 = 4.1 \pm 0.2$ Mev (at a scale Q=2 GeV).Comment: Additional references to lattice QCD results have been adde

Experimental Study of a Beta Stirling Thermal Machine Type Functioning in Receiver and Engine Modes

In this paper we studied a beta type Stirling machine. At first, we present the adopted theoretical quasi-stationary model. Then, we pass to the physical and geometrical presentation of this machine. The Latter was experimented according to two configurations: motor configuration and receiver configuration. For the first configuration, in order to improve the performances of the machine, we proceeded to the insulation of the machine hot room to reduce losses by radiation. For the second configuration, the machine is experimented as a heat pump and refrigerator. Comparisons between the theoretical and experimental results are also presented. We finally validated the results obtained by the model with experiments

Strange quark condensate from QCD sum rules to five loops

It is argued that it is valid to use QCD sum rules to determine the scalar and pseudoscalar two-point functions at zero momentum, which in turn determine the ratio of the strange to non-strange quark condensates $R_{su} = \frac{}{}$ with ($q=u,d$). This is done in the framework of a new set of QCD Finite Energy Sum Rules (FESR) that involve as integration kernel a second degree polynomial, tuned to reduce considerably the systematic uncertainties in the hadronic spectral functions. As a result, the parameters limiting the precision of this determination are $\Lambda_{QCD}$, and to a major extent the strange quark mass. From the positivity of $R_{su}$ there follows an upper bound on the latter: $\bar{m_{s}} (2 {GeV}) \leq 121 (105) {MeV}$, for $\Lambda_{QCD} = 330 (420) {MeV} .$Comment: Minor changes to Sections 2 and

On the Spin content of the Nucleon

A QCD sum rule calculation of Balistky and Ji on the spin content of the nucleon is done with a different approach to the evaluation of the bilocal contributions and to the extraction of the nucleon pole residues. The result obtained is much more numerically stable which puts their conclusion that about half of the nucleon spin is carried by gluons on firmer ground.Comment: 7 pages, two (eps) figure, minor corrections and one figure adde

Endoglin potentiates nitric oxide synthesis to enhance definitive hematopoiesis.

During embryonic development, hematopoietic cells develop by a process of endothelial-to hematopoietic transition of a specialized population of endothelial cells. These hemogenic endothelium (HE) cells in turn develop from a primitive population of FLK1(+) mesodermal cells. Endoglin (ENG) is an accessory TGF-β receptor that is enriched on the surface of endothelial and hematopoietic stem cells and is also required for the normal development of hemogenic precursors. However, the functional role of ENG during the transition of FLK1(+) mesoderm to hematopoietic cells is ill defined. To address this we used a murine embryonic stem cell model that has been shown to mirror the temporal emergence of these cells in the embryo. We noted that FLK1(+) mesodermal cells expressing ENG generated fewer blast colony-forming cells but had increased hemogenic potential when compared with ENG non-expressing cells. TIE2(+)/CD117(+) HE cells expressing ENG also showed increased hemogenic potential compared with non-expressing cells. To evaluate whether high ENG expression accelerates hematopoiesis, we generated an inducible ENG expressing ES cell line and forced expression in FLK1(+) mesodermal or TIE2(+)/CD117(+) HE cells. High ENG expression at both stages accelerated the emergence of CD45(+) definitive hematopoietic cells. High ENG expression was associated with increased pSMAD2/eNOS expression and NO synthesis in hemogenic precursors. Inhibition of eNOS blunted the ENG induced increase in definitive hematopoiesis. Taken together, these data show that ENG potentiates the emergence of definitive hematopoietic cells by modulating TGF-β/pSMAD2 signalling and increasing eNOS/NO synthesis.The authors thank Dr Zúñiga-Pflücker (University of Toronto) for the ENG-/- and +/- murine ES cells. This work was supported by grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, Australian Research Council and the Dr Tom Bee Stem Cell Research Fund to JEP, Cancer Research UK to VK and GL and the BBSRC, Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, The Leukaemia and Lymphoma Society, Cancer Research UK, and core support grants by the Wellcome Trust to the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and Wellcome Trust - MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute to BG.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the Company of Biologists via http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/​bio.01149

Targeting the CBM complex causes Treg cells to prime tumours for immune checkpoint therapy.

Solid tumours are infiltrated by effector T cells with the potential to control or reject them, as well as by regulatory T (Treg) cells that restrict the function of effector T cells and thereby promote tumour growth1. The anti-tumour activity of effector T cells can be therapeutically unleashed, and is now being exploited for the treatment of some forms of human cancer. However, weak tumour-associated inflammatory responses and the immune-suppressive function of Treg cells remain major hurdles to broader effectiveness of tumour immunotherapy2. Here we show that, after disruption of the CARMA1-BCL10-MALT1 (CBM) signalosome complex, most tumour-infiltrating Treg cells produce IFNγ, resulting in stunted tumour growth. Notably, genetic deletion of both or even just one allele of CARMA1 (also known as Card11) in only a fraction of Treg cells-which avoided systemic autoimmunity-was sufficient to produce this anti-tumour effect, showing that it is not the mere loss of suppressive function but the gain of effector activity by Treg cells that initiates tumour control. The production of IFNγ by Treg cells was accompanied by activation of macrophages and upregulation of class I molecules of the major histocompatibility complex on tumour cells. However, tumour cells also upregulated the expression of PD-L1, which indicates activation of adaptive immune resistance3. Consequently, blockade of PD-1 together with CARMA1 deletion caused rejection of tumours that otherwise do not respond to anti-PD-1 monotherapy. This effect was reproduced by pharmacological inhibition of the CBM protein MALT1. Our results demonstrate that partial disruption of the CBM complex and induction of IFNγ secretion in the preferentially self-reactive Treg cell pool does not cause systemic autoimmunity but is sufficient to prime the tumour environment for successful immune checkpoint therapy

Two photon decay of the pseudoscalars, the chiral symmetry breaking corrections

The extrapolation of the decay amplitudes of the pseudoscalar mesons into two photons from the soft meson limit where it is obtained from the axial-anomaly to the mass shell involves the contribution of the 0^ - continuum. These chiral symmetry breaking corrections turn out to be large. The effects of these corrections on the calculated pi ^0 decay rate, on the values of the singlet-octet mixing angle and on the ratios f_8 / f_pi and f_0 / f_pi are discussed. The implications for the transition form factors gamma gamma* --> pseudoscalars are also evaluated and confronted with the available experimental data.Comment: Computational errors straightened and study of the implications on the form factors of the transitions gamma gamma* --> pseudoscalars adde

DEEPMIR: A DEEP neural network for differential detection of cerebral Microbleeds and IRon deposits in MRI

Lobar cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) and localized non-hemorrhage iron deposits in the basal ganglia have been associated with brain aging, vascular disease and neurodegenerative disorders. Particularly, CMBs are small lesions and require multiple neuroimaging modalities for accurate detection. Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) derived from in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is necessary to differentiate between iron content and mineralization. We set out to develop a deep learning-based segmentation method suitable for segmenting both CMBs and iron deposits. We included a convenience sample of 24 participants from the MESA cohort and used T2-weighted images, susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI), and QSM to segment the two types of lesions. We developed a protocol for simultaneous manual annotation of CMBs and non-hemorrhage iron deposits in the basal ganglia. This manual annotation was then used to train a deep convolution neural network (CNN). Specifically, we adapted the U-Net model with a higher number of resolution layers to be able to detect small lesions such as CMBs from standard resolution MRI. We tested different combinations of the three modalities to determine the most informative data sources for the detection tasks. In the detection of CMBs using single class and multiclass models, we achieved an average sensitivity and precision of between 0.84-0.88 and 0.40-0.59, respectively. The same framework detected non-hemorrhage iron deposits with an average sensitivity and precision of about 0.75-0.81 and 0.62-0.75, respectively. Our results showed that deep learning could automate the detection of small vessel disease lesions and including multimodal MR data (particularly QSM) can improve the detection of CMB and non-hemorrhage iron deposits with sensitivity and precision that is compatible with use in large-scale research studies