Precision study of B^* B\pi coupling for the static heavy-light meson

We compute the B^*B\pi coupling \hat{g}_{\infty} for static heavy-light meson using all-to-all propagators. It is shown that low-mode averaging with 100 low-lying eigenmodes indeed improves the signal for the 2-point and 3-point functions for heavy-light meson significantly. Our study suggests that the all-to-all propagator will be a very efficient method for high precision computation of the B^*B\pi coupling especially in unquenched QCD where the number of configurations is limited.Comment: 30 pages, 25 figures, typos correcte

Throughfall at an abandoned skid trail in a tropical rain forest in Peninsular Malaysia

Knowledge of throughfall at abandoned skid trails in tropical forests is extremely scarce. Thus, throughfall was measured using 120 storage rain gauges set on a skid trail left abandoned 41 years after forest harvesting in the Bukit Tarek Experimental Watershed (BTEW) in Peninsular Malaysia. All trees of ≥ 1 m height in the plot were identified to the species level, and their diameter at breast height (DBH) and height were measured. Vegetation along the skid trail comprises trees with smaller DBH (0.2-31.0 cm, with a mean of 2.0 cm) and shorter height (1.0-20.0 m, with a mean of 2.8 m) than those in the regenerated secondary forests of BTEW. The diversity (i.e. 43 families, 131 species) at the skid trail was similar to that in an old tropical forest at BTEW. The ratio of throughfall to gross rainfall (Th/Rg) for 84 rain events ranged from 27.4% to 204.7% with a mean and standard deviation of 98.1% and 33.2%, respectively. We found that a considerable amount of rainwater dropped under bertam (i.e. Eugeissona tristis) and rattan (i.e. Daemonorops callicarpa, Calamus insignis) vegetation. The Th/Rg ratio weakly correlated with canopy openness. The mean Th/Rg ratio is the largest mean ratio ever reported for forests in Malaysia

Prednisone and azathioprine in patients with inflammatory cardiomyopathy: systematic review and meta-analysis

Aims: Chronic non-viral myocarditis, also called inflammatory cardiomyopathy, can be treated with immune suppression on tops of optimal medical therapy (OMT) for heart failure, using a combination of prednisolone and azathioprine (IPA). However, there has been inconsistency in the effects of immunosuppression treatment. This meta-analysis is the first to evaluate all available data of the effect of this treatment on left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and the combined clinical endpoint of cardiovascular mortality and/or heart transplantation-free survival. Methods and results: All trials with using IPA vs. OMT in this syndrome were searched using OVID Medline and ClinicalTrials. gov, following the PRISMA guidelines. Missing data were retrieved after contacting the corresponding authors. All data was reviewed and analysed using and standard meta-analysis methods. A random effect model was used to pool the effect sizes. A total of four trials (three randomised controlled trials and one propensity-matched retrospective registry) including 369 patients were identified. IPA on top of OMT did not improve LVEF [mean difference 9.9% (95% confidence interval -1.8, 21.7)] with significant heterogeneity. When we limited our pooled estimate to the published studies only, significant LVEF improvement by IPA was observed [14% (1.4, 26.6)]. No cardiovascular mortality benefit was observed with the intervention [risk ratio 0.34 (0.08, 1.51)]. Conclusions: At the moment, there is insufficient evidence supporting functional and prognostic benefits of IPA added to OMT in virus negative inflammatory positive cardiomyopathy. Further adequate-powered well-designed prospective RCTs should be warranted to explore the potential effects of adding immunosuppressive therapy to OMT

Laboratory study on heterogeneous decomposition of methyl chloroform on various standard aluminosilica clay minerals as a potential tropospheric sink

International audienceMethyl chloroform (1,1,1-trichloroethane, CH3CCl3) was found to decompose heterogeneously on seven types of standard clay minerals (23 materials) in dry air at 313 K in the laboratory. All reactions proceeded through the elimination of HCl; CH3CCl3 was converted quantitatively to CH2=CCl2. The activities of the clay minerals were compared via their pseudo-first-order reaction rate constants (k1). A positive correlation was observed between the k1 value and the specific surface area (S) of clay minerals, where the S value was determined by means of the general Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) equation. The k1 value was anti-correlated with the value of n, which was a parameter of the general BET equation and related to the average pore size of the clay minerals, and correlated with the water content that can be removed easily from the clay minerals. The reaction required no special pretreatment of clay minerals, such as heating at high temperatures; hence, the reaction can be expected to occur in the environment. Photoillumination by wavelengths present in the troposphere did not accelerate the decomposition of CH3CCl3, but it induced heterogeneous photodecomposition of CH2=CCl2. The temperature dependence of k1, the adsorption equilibrium coefficient of CH3CCl3 and CH2=CCl2, and the surface reaction rate constant of CH3CCl3 were determined for an illite sample. The k1 value increased with increasing temperature. The amount of CH3CCl3 adsorbed on the illite during the reaction was proportional to the partial pressure of CH3CCl3. The reaction was sensitive to relative humidity and the k1 value decreased with increasing relative humidity. However, the reaction was found to proceed at a relative humidity of 22% at 313 K, although the k1 value was about one-twentieth of the value in non-humidified air. The conditions required for the reaction may be present in major desert regions of the world. A simple estimation indicates that the possible heterogeneous decomposition of CH3CCl3 on the ground surface in arid regions is worth taking into consideration when inferring the tropospheric lifetime of CH3CCl3 and global OH concentration from the global budget concentration of CH3CCl3

The Error and Repair Catastrophes: A Two-Dimensional Phase Diagram in the Quasispecies Model

This paper develops a two gene, single fitness peak model for determining the equilibrium distribution of genotypes in a unicellular population which is capable of genetic damage repair. The first gene, denoted by $\sigma_{via}$, yields a viable organism with first order growth rate constant $k > 1$ if it is equal to some target ``master'' sequence $\sigma_{via, 0}$. The second gene, denoted by $\sigma_{rep}$, yields an organism capable of genetic repair if it is equal to some target ``master'' sequence $\sigma_{rep, 0}$. This model is analytically solvable in the limit of infinite sequence length, and gives an equilibrium distribution which depends on \mu \equiv L\eps , the product of sequence length and per base pair replication error probability, and \eps_r , the probability of repair failure per base pair. The equilibrium distribution is shown to exist in one of three possible ``phases.'' In the first phase, the population is localized about the viability and repairing master sequences. As \eps_r exceeds the fraction of deleterious mutations, the population undergoes a ``repair'' catastrophe, in which the equilibrium distribution is still localized about the viability master sequence, but is spread ergodically over the sequence subspace defined by the repair gene. Below the repair catastrophe, the distribution undergoes the error catastrophe when $\mu$ exceeds \ln k/\eps_r , while above the repair catastrophe, the distribution undergoes the error catastrophe when $\mu$ exceeds $\ln k/f_{del}$, where $f_{del}$ denotes the fraction of deleterious mutations.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to Physical Review