1,452 research outputs found
The gluon contribution to the polarized structure function
We compute the structure function for a gluon target in perturbative
QCD at order \as. We show that its first moment vanishes, as predicted by the
Burkhardt-Cottingham sum rule.Comment: 9 pages Latex, uses epsfig.sty, 1 eps figure include
Improved overall survival in dendritic cell vaccination-induced immunoreactive subgroup of advanced melanoma patients
BACKGROUND: We present our experience of therapeutic vaccination using dendritic cells (DC) pulsed with autologous tumor antigens in patients with advanced melanoma. METHODS: Twenty-one pretreated advanced melanoma patients were vaccinated with autologous DC pulsed with 100 μg/ml of autologous-tumor-lysate (ATL) or – homogenate (ATH) and 50 μg/ml of keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH). The first 8 patients were treated subcutaneously or intradermally with immature-DC (iDC) (range 4.5 – 82 × 10(6)) and the remaining 13 intradermally with in vitro matured DC (mDC) (range 1.2–26 × 10(6)). Subcutaneous interleukin-2 (3 × 10(6 )IU) was administered from days 3 to 7 of each treatment cycle. RESULTS: Three of the 8 iDC patients obtained stabilizations (SD), each of 6 months' duration. The 13 mDC patients showed 1 complete response (8 months), 1 partial response (3 months), 2 mixed responses (6 and 12 months) and 3 SD (9, 7+, and 3+ months). Overall responses (OR) were observed in 4/21 (19%) patients, or 4/13 (30.7%) considering mDC treatment only. 10/21 (47.6%) patients showed non progressive disease (NPD), with 7/13 (53.8%) cases of NPD for mDC-treated patients. No major toxicities were observed. The positive delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) test to ATL/ATH and/or KLH correlated with increased overall survival (OS). Median OS was 24 months (range 3 – 45) for the 10 DTH-positive (1 iDC and 9 mDC) and 5 months (range 3–14) for the 11 DTH-negative patients (P < 0.001). The in vitro evaluation of gamma IFN-secreting T-cells in 10 patients showed good correlation with both DTH (75%) and clinical outcome (70%). CONCLUSION: Vaccination using DC pulsed with ATL/ATH and KLH in advanced melanoma patients is well tolerated and can induce a clinical response, especially when mDC are used. Successful immunization, verified by positive DTH, leads to longer survival
Pulsar J0453+1559: A Double Neutron Star System with a Large Mass Asymmetry
To understand the nature of supernovae and neutron star (NS) formation, as
well as binary stellar evolution and their interactions, it is important to
probe the distribution of NS masses. Until now, all double NS (DNS) systems
have been measured to have a mass ratio close to unity (q 0.91). Here we
report the measurement of the individual masses of the 4.07-day binary pulsar
J0453+1559 from measurements of the rate of advance of periastron and Shapiro
delay: The mass of the pulsar is 1.559(5) and that of its companion
is 1.174(4) ; q = 0.75. If this companion is also a neutron star
(NS), as indicated by the orbital eccentricity of the system (e=0.11), then its
mass is the smallest precisely measured for any such object. The pulsar has a
spin period of 45.7 ms and a spin derivative of 1.8616(7) x; from these
we derive a characteristic age of ~ 4.1 x years and a magnetic field of
~ 2.9 x G,i.e, this pulsar was mildly recycled by accretion of matter
from the progenitor of the companion star. This suggests that it was formed
with (very approximately) its current mass. Thus NSs form with a wide range of
masses, which is important for understanding their formation in supernovae. It
is also important for the search for gravitational waves released during a
NS-NS merger: it is now evident that we should not assume all DNS systems are
symmetric
Characterizing the cardiovascular functions during atrial fibrillation through lumped-parameter modeling
Atrial fibrillation (AF), causing irregular and rapid heartbeats, is the most common
arrhythmia. Due to the widespread impact on the population and the disabling symptoms
related to rapid heart rate, AF is a subject of growing interest under several aspects:
statistical analyses on the heartbeat distributions, risk factors, impact on quality of life,
correlation with other cardiac pathologies. However, several key points on the
consequences induced by AF on the cardiovascular system are still not completely
understood. The proposed work aims at quantifying the impact of AF on the most relevant
cardiovascular parameters by means of a lumped-parameter modeling, paying particular
attention to the stochastic nature of the irregular heartbeats and the reduced contractility of
the heart. The global response leads to a rather impressive overall agreement with the
clinical state-of-the-art measures regarding AF: reduced cardiac output with correlated
arterial hypotension, as well as higher left atrial volume and pressure values are some of
the most representative outcomes emerging during AF. Moreover, new insights on
hemodynamic parameters such as cardiac flow rates, which are difficult to measure and
almost never offered in literature, are here provided
Pulsar J1411+2551: A Low Mass New Double Neutron Star System
In this work, we report the discovery and characterization of PSR J1411+2551,
a new binary pulsar discovered in the Arecibo 327 MHz Drift Pulsar Survey. Our
timing observations of the radio pulsar in the system span a period of about
2.5 years. This timing campaign allowed a precise measurement of its spin
period (62.4 ms) and its derivative (9.6 0.7) ; from these, we derive a characteristic age of Gyr and a
surface magnetic field strength of 2.5 G. These numbers
indicate that this pulsar was mildly recycled by accretion of matter from the
progenitor of the companion star. The system has an eccentric ()
2.61 day orbit. This eccentricity allows a highly significant measurement of
the rate of advance of periastron, . Assuming general relativity accurately models the
orbital motion, this implies a total system mass M = . The minimum companion mass is and the maximum
pulsar mass is . The large companion mass and the orbital
eccentricity suggest that PSR J1411+2551 is a double neutron star system; the
lightest known to date including the DNS merger GW 170817. Furthermore, the
relatively low orbital eccentricity and small proper motion limits suggest that
the second supernova had a relatively small associated kick; this and the low
system mass suggest that it was an ultra-stripped supernova.Comment: Accepted for publication in APJ letter
An Auditory Neural Correlate Suggests a Mechanism Underlying Holistic Pitch Perception
Current theories of auditory pitch perception propose that cochlear place (spectral) and activity timing pattern (temporal) information are somehow combined within the brain to produce holistic pitch percepts, yet the neural mechanisms for integrating these two kinds of information remain obscure. To examine this process in more detail, stimuli made up of three pure tones whose components are individually resolved by the peripheral auditory system, but that nonetheless elicit a holistic, “missing fundamental” pitch percept, were played to human listeners. A technique was used to separate neural timing activity related to individual components of the tone complexes from timing activity related to an emergent feature of the complex (the envelope), and the region of the tonotopic map where information could originate from was simultaneously restricted by masking noise. Pitch percepts were mirrored to a very high degree by a simple combination of component-related and envelope-related neural responses with similar timing that originate within higher-frequency regions of the tonotopic map where stimulus components interact. These results suggest a coding scheme for holistic pitches whereby limited regions of the tonotopic map (spectral places) carrying envelope- and component-related activity with similar timing patterns selectively provide a key source of neural pitch information. A similar mechanism of integration between local and emergent object properties may contribute to holistic percepts in a variety of sensory systems
- …