Limitation of Trypanosoma brucei parasitaemia results from a combination of density-dependent parasite differentiation and parasite killing by the host immune response

In the bloodstream of its mammalian host, the "slender" form of Trypanosoma brucei replicates extracellularly, producing a parasitaemia. At high density, the level of parasitaemia is limited at a sublethal level by differentiation to the non-replicative "stumpy" form and by the host immune response. Here, we derive continuous time equations to model the time-course, cell types and level of trypanosome parasitaemia, and compare the best fits with experimental data. The best fits that were obtained favour a model in which both density-dependent trypanosome differentiation and host immune response have a role in limiting the increase of parasites, much poorer fits being obtained when differentiation and immune response are considered independently of one another. Best fits also favour a model in which the slender-to-stumpy differentiation progresses in a manner that is essentially independent of the cell cycle. Finally, these models also make the prediction that the density-dependent trypanosome differentiation mechanism can give rise to oscillations in parasitaemia level. These oscillations are independent of the immune system and are not due to antigenic variation

Error threshold in simple landscapes

We consider the quasispecies description of a population evolving in both the "master sequence" landscape (where a single sequence is evolutionarily preferred over all others) and the REM landscape (where the fitness of different sequences is an independent, identically distributed, random variable). We show that, in both cases, the error threshold is analogous to a first order thermodynamical transition, where the overlap between the average genotype and the optimal one drops discontinuously to zero.Comment: 10 pages and 2 figures, Plain LaTe

New Mechanism of Flavor Symmetry Breaking from Supersymmetric Strong Dynamics

We present a class of supersymmetric models in which flavor symmetries are broken dynamically, by a set of composite flavon fields. The strong dynamics that is responsible for confinement in the flavor sector also drives flavor symmetry breaking vacuum expectation values, as a consequence of a quantum-deformed moduli space. Yukawa couplings result as a power series in the ratio of the confinement to Planck scale, and the fermion mass hierarchy depends on the differing number of preons in different flavor symmetry-breaking operators. We present viable non-Abelian and Abelian flavor models that incorporate this mechanism.Comment: 24 pp. LaTe

Next-to-leading Corrections to the Higgs Boson Transverse Momentum Spectrum in Gluon Fusion

We present a fully analytic calculation of the Higgs boson transverse momentum and rapidity distributions, for nonzero Higgs $p_\perp$, at next-to-leading order in the infinite-top-mass approximation. We separate the cross section into a part that contains the dominant soft, virtual, collinear, and small-$p_\perp$-enhanced contributions, and the remainder, which is organized by the contributions due to different parton helicities. We use this cross section to investigate analytically the small-$p_\perp$ limit and compare with the expectation from the resummation of large logarithms of the type $\ln{m_H/p_\perp}$. We also compute numerically the cross section at moderate $p_\perp$ where a fixed-order calculation is reliable. We find a $K$-factor that varies from $\approx1.6-1.8$, and a reduction in the scale dependence, as compared to leading order. Our analysis suggests that the contribution of current parton distributions to the total uncertainty on this cross section at the LHC is probably less than that due to uncalculated higher orders.Comment: 40 pages, 10 figures, JHEP style (minor changes, added reference

The 1964 Iowa corn yield test

The results of the Iowa Corn Yield Test are published as an aid to Iowa farmers in selecting corn hybrids adapted to their farms. This is the forty-fifth consecutive year for the Iowa Corn Yield Test since its beginning in 1920 and the fifth consecutive year in which a picker-sheller has been used to harvest a majority of the test fields. Two-year averages are presented in tables 1-6 for both high and normal plant populations for each district. This is the second year of the district arrangement shown in fig. 1 and the second year in which all hybrids are compared at both high and normal plant populations at each location. The presentation of data on the hybrids tested does not imply approval or endorsement by the authors or by the agencies sponsoring or conducting the test

The effects of stimulus parameters on auditory evoked potentials of Carassius auratus

Whole-brain responses to sound are easily measured through auditory evoked potentials (AEP), but it is unclear how differences in experimental parameters affect these responses. The effect of varying parameters is especially unclear in fish studies, the majority of which use simple sound types and then extrapolate to natural conditions. The current study investigated AEPs in goldfish (Carassius auratus) using sounds of different durations (5, 10, and 20 ms) and frequencies (200, 500, 600 and 700 Hz) to test stimulus effects on latency and thresholds. We quantified differences in latency and threshold in comparison to a 10-ms test tone, a duration often used in AEP fish studies. Both response latency and threshold were significantly affected by stimulus duration, with latency patterning suggesting that AEP fires coincident with a decrease in stimulus strength. Response latency was also significantly affected by presentation frequency. These results show that stimulus type has important effects on AEP measures of hearing and call for clearer standards across different measures of AEP. Duration effects also suggest that AEP measures represent summed responses of duration-detecting neural circuit, but more effort is needed to understand the neural drivers of this commonly used technique

The Standing Wave Phenomenon in Radio Telescopes; Frequency Modulation of the WSRT Primary Beam

Inadequacies in the knowledge of the primary beam response of current interferometric arrays often form a limitation to the image fidelity. We hope to overcome these limitations by constructing a frequency-resolved, full-polarization empirical model for the primary beam of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT). Holographic observations, sampling angular scales between about 5 arcmin and 11 degrees, were obtained of a bright compact source (3C147). These permitted measurement of voltage response patterns for seven of the fourteen telescopes in the array and allowed calculation of the mean cross-correlated power beam. Good sampling of the main-lobe, near-in, and far-side-lobes out to a radius of more than 5 degrees was obtained. A robust empirical beam model was detemined in all polarization products and at frequencies between 1322 and 1457 MHz with 1 MHz resolution. Substantial departures from axi-symmetry are apparent in the main-lobe as well as systematic differences between the polarization properties. Surprisingly, many beam properties are modulated at the 5 to 10% level with changing frequency. These include: (1) the main beam area, (2) the side-lobe to main-lobe power ratio, and (3) the effective telescope aperture. These semi-sinusoidsal modulations have a basic period of about 17 MHz, consistent with the natural 'standing wave' period of a 8.75 m focal distance. The deduced frequency modulations of the beam pattern were verified in an independent long duration observation using compact continuum sources at very large off-axis distances. Application of our frequency-resolved beam model should enable higher dynamic range and improved image fidelity for interferometric observations in complex fields. (abridged)Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, Accepted for publication in A&A, figures compressed to low resolution; high-resolution version available at: http://www.astro.rug.nl/~popping/wsrtbeam.pd

Quantum Oscillator on \DC P^n in a constant magnetic field

We construct the quantum oscillator interacting with a constant magnetic field on complex projective spaces \DC P^N, as well as on their non-compact counterparts, i. e. the $N-$dimensional Lobachewski spaces ${\cal L}_N$. We find the spectrum of this system and the complete basis of wavefunctions. Surprisingly, the inclusion of a magnetic field does not yield any qualitative change in the energy spectrum. For $N>1$ the magnetic field does not break the superintegrability of the system, whereas for N=1 it preserves the exact solvability of the system. We extend this results to the cones constructed over \DC P^N and ${\cal L}_N$, and perform the (Kustaanheimo-Stiefel) transformation of these systems to the three-dimensional Coulomb-like systems.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur