2,233 research outputs found
Gravitational time advancement and its possible detection
The gravitational time advancement is a natural but a consequence of curve
space-time geometry. In the present work the expressions of gravitational time
advancement have been obtained for geodesic motions. The situation when the
distance of signal travel is small in comparison to the distance of closest
approach has also been considered. The possibility of experimental detection of
time advancement effect has been explored.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, a part of the work has been changed in the
revised versio
Metabolic effects of PCSK9 inhibition with Evolocumab in subjects with elevated Lp(a)
Background: Epidemiological studies substantiated that subjects with elevated lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] have a markedly increased cardiovascular risk. Inhibition of proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) lowers both LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) as well as Lp(a), albeit modestly. Effects of PCSK9 inhibition on circulating metabolites such as lipoprotein subclasses, amino acids and fatty acids remain to be characterized. Methods: We performed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomics on plasma samples derived from 30 individuals with elevated Lp(a) (> 150 mg/dL). The 30 participants were randomly assigned into two groups, placebo (N = 14) and evolocumab (N = 16). We assessed the effect of 16 weeks of evolocumab 420 mg Q4W treatment on circulating metabolites by running lognormal regression analyses, and compared this to placebo. Subsequently, we assessed the interrelationship between Lp(a) and 14 lipoprotein subclasses in response to treatment with evolocumab, by running multilevel multivariate regression analyses. Results: On average, evolocumab treatment for 16 weeks resulted in a 17% (95% credible interval: 8 to 26%, P < 0.001) reduction of circulating Lp(a), coupled with substantial reduction of VLDL, IDL and LDL particles as well as their lipid contents. Interestingly, increasing concentrations of baseline Lp(a) were associated with larger reduction in triglyceride-rich VLDL particles after evolocumab treatment. Conclusions: Inhibition of PCSK9 with evolocumab markedly reduced VLDL particle concentrations in addition to lowering LDL-C. The extent of reduction in VLDL particles depended on the baseline level of Lp(a). Our findings suggest a marked effect of evolocumab on VLDL metabolism in subjects with elevated Lp(a). Trial registration: Clinical trial registration information is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov on April 14, 2016 with the registration number NCT02729025.</p
Comparative Production of Bio-Oil from In Situ Catalytic Upgrading of Fast Pyrolysis of Lignocellulosic Biomass
Catalytic upgrading of fast pyrolysis bio-oil from two different types of lignocellulosic biomass was conducted using an H-ZSM-5 catalyst at different temperatures. A fixed-bed pyrolysis reactor has been used to perform in situ catalytic pyrolysis experiments at temperatures of 673, 773, and 873 K, where the catalyst (H-ZSM-5) has been mixed with wood chips or lignin, and the pyrolysis and upgrading processes have been performed simultaneously. The fractionation method has been employed to determine the chemical composition of bio-oil samples after catalytic pyrolysis experiments by gas chromatography with mass spectroscopy (GCMS). Other characterization techniques, e.g., water content, viscosity, elemental analysis, pH, and bomb calorimetry have been used, and the obtained results have been compared with the non-catalytic pyrolysis method. The highest bio-oil yield has been reported for bio-oil obtained from softwood at 873 K for both non-catalytic and catalytic bio-oil samples. The results indicate that the main effect of H-ZSM-5 has been observed on the amount of water and oxygen for all bio-oil samples at three different temperatures, where a significant reduction has been achieved compared to non-catalytic bio-oil samples. In addition, a significant viscosity reduction has been reported compared to non-catalytic bio-oil samples, and less viscous bio-oil samples have been produced by catalytic pyrolysis. Furthermore, the obtained results show that the heating values have been increased for upgraded bio-oil samples compared to non-catalytic bio-oil samples. The GCMS analysis of the catalytic bio-oil samples (H-ZSM-5) indicates that toluene and methanol have shown very similar behavior in extracting bio-oil samples in contrast to non-catalytic experiments. However, methanol performed better for extracting chemicals at a higher temperature
Photonic realization of the relativistic Kronig-Penney model and relativistic Tamm surface states
Photonic analogues of the relativistic Kronig-Penney model and of
relativistic surface Tamm states are proposed for light propagation in fibre
Bragg gratings (FBGs) with phase defects. A periodic sequence of phase slips in
the FBG realizes the relativistic Kronig-Penney model, the band structure of
which being mapped into the spectral response of the FBG. For the semi-infinite
FBG Tamm surface states can appear and can be visualized as narrow resonance
peaks in the transmission spectrum of the grating
Characterization of the 4-canonical birationality of algebraic threefolds
In this article we present a 3-dimensional analogue of a well-known theorem
of E. Bombieri (in 1973) which characterizes the bi-canonical birationality of
surfaces of general type. Let be a projective minimal 3-fold of general
type with -factorial terminal singularities and the geometric genus
. We show that the 4-canonical map is {\it not}
birational onto its image if and only if is birationally fibred by a family
of irreducible curves of geometric genus 2 with
where is a general irreducible member in .Comment: 25 pages, to appear in Mathematische Zeitschrif
Theoretical study of the two-proton halo candidate Ne including contributions from resonant continuum and pairing correlations
With the relativistic Coulomb wave function boundary condition, the energies,
widths and wave functions of the single proton resonant orbitals for Ne
are studied by the analytical continuation of the coupling constant (ACCC)
approach within the framework of the relativistic mean field (RMF) theory.
Pairing correlations and contributions from the single-particle resonant
orbitals in the continuum are taken into consideration by the resonant
Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) approach, in which constant pairing strength is
used. It can be seen that the fully self-consistent calculations with NL3 and
NLSH effective interactions mostly agree with the latest experimental
measurements, such as binding energies, matter radii, charge radii and
densities. The energy of 2s orbital is slightly higher than that
of orbital, and the occupation probability of the
2s orbital is about 20%, which are in accordance with the
shell model calculation and three-body model estimation
Bulk Versus Edge in the Quantum Hall Effect
The manifestation of the bulk quantum Hall effect on edge is the chiral
anomaly. The chiral anomaly {\it is} the underlying principle of the ``edge
approach'' of quantum Hall effect. In that approach, \sxy should not be taken
as the conductance derived from the space-local current-current correlation
function of the pure one-dimensional edge problem.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 1 postscript figur
Improved full one-loop corrections to A^0 -> \sf_1 \sf_2 and \sf_2 -> \sf_1 A^0
We calculate the full electroweak one-loop corrections to the decay of the
CP-odd Higgs boson A^0 into scalar fermions in the minimal supersymmetric
extension of the Standard Model. For this purpose many parameters of the MSSM
have to be properly renormalized in the on-shell renormalization scheme. We
have also included the SUSY-QCD corrections. For the decay into bottom squarks
and tau sleptons, especially for large \tan\b, the corrections can be very
large making the perturbation expansion unreliable. We solve this problem by an
appropriate definition of the tree-level coupling in terms of running fermion
masses and running trilinear couplings A_f. We also discuss the decay of heavy
scalar fermions into light scalar fermions and A^0. We find that the
corrections can be sizeable and therefore cannot be neglected.Comment: 42 pages, 20 figures (23 eps-files
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