When information does not suffice: young people living with HIV and communication about ART adherence in the clinic.

Despite mounting evidence recommending disclosure of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status to young people with perinatally acquired HIV as a central motivating factor for adherence to antiretroviral therapy, many young people continue to experience disclosure as a partial event, rather than a process. Drawing from two longitudinal, interview-based qualitative studies with young people living with HIV (aged 10-24) in five different countries in low and high income settings, we present data regarding disclosure and information about HIV in the clinic. The article highlights the limits of discussions framing disclosure and patient literacy, and young people's reluctance to voice their adherence difficulties in the context of their relationships with clinical care teams. We suggest that a clinician-initiated, explicit acknowledgment of the social and practical hurdles of daily adherence for young people would aid a more transparent conversation and encourage young people to disclose missed doses and other problems they may be facing with their treatment. This may help to reduce health harms and poor adherence in the longer-term

Pole structure of the Hamiltonian ζ\zeta-function for a singular potential

We study the pole structure of the $\zeta$-function associated to the Hamiltonian $H$ of a quantum mechanical particle living in the half-line $\mathbf{R}^+$, subject to the singular potential $g x^{-2}+x^2$. We show that $H$ admits nontrivial self-adjoint extensions (SAE) in a given range of values of the parameter $g$. The $\zeta$-functions of these operators present poles which depend on $g$ and, in general, do not coincide with half an integer (they can even be irrational). The corresponding residues depend on the SAE considered.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, RevTeX. References added. Version to appear in Jour. Phys. A: Math. Ge

Heat kernel of non-minimal gauge field kinetic operators on Moyal plane

We generalize the Endo formula originally developed for the computation of the heat kernel asymptotic expansion for non-minimal operators in commutative gauge theories to the noncommutative case. In this way, the first three non-zero heat trace coefficients of the non-minimal U(N) gauge field kinetic operator on the Moyal plane taken in an arbitrary background are calculated. We show that the non-planar part of the heat trace asymptotics is determined by U(1) sector of the gauge model. The non-planar or mixed heat kernel coefficients are shown to be gauge-fixing dependent in any dimension of space-time. In the case of the degenerate deformation parameter the lowest mixed coefficients in the heat expansion produce non-local gauge-fixing dependent singularities of the one-loop effective action that destroy the renormalizability of the U(N) model at one-loop level. The twisted-gauge transformation approach is discussed.Comment: 21 pages, misprints correcte

Abelian Duality

We show that on three-dimensional Riemannian manifolds without boundaries and with trivial first real de Rham cohomology group (and in no other dimensions) scalar field theory and Maxwell theory are equivalent: the ratio of the partition functions is given by the Ray-Singer torsion of the manifold. On the level of interaction with external currents, the equivalence persists provided there is a fixed relation between the charges and the currents.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, no figures, a reference added, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Detailed balance in Horava-Lifshitz gravity

We study Horava-Lifshitz gravity in the presence of a scalar field. When the detailed balance condition is implemented, a new term in the gravitational sector is added in order to maintain ultraviolet stability. The four-dimensional theory is of a scalar-tensor type with a positive cosmological constant and gravity is nonminimally coupled with the scalar and its gradient terms. The scalar field has a double-well potential and, if required to play the role of the inflation, can produce a scale-invariant spectrum. The total action is rather complicated and there is no analog of the Einstein frame where Lorentz invariance is recovered in the infrared. For these reasons it may be necessary to abandon detailed balance. We comment on open problems and future directions in anisotropic critical models of gravity.Comment: 10 pages. v2: discussion expanded and improved, section on generalizations added, typos corrected, references added, conclusions unchange

Structural revelations of photosynthesis' membrane protein complexes

Photosynthetic organisms appeared early in evolution and their photosynthetic apparatus has evolved along. The first bacteria carried out only anoxygenic photosynthesis catalyzed by one type of reaction center, type I or II, which somehow came together in cyanobacteria, and evolved into photosystems I and II. This was an evolutionary step that enabled cyanobacteria to carry out oxygenic photosynthesis. The photosystems have the unique capacity to perform and fix energy in a process where water splitting and oxygen evolution takes place, providing planet Earth with an essential molecule for development of life, i.e. Oxygen. Throughout evolution, primordial organisms became more complex upon colonizing diverse environments resulting into the current day sophisticated systems. Nevertheless, the photosystems have preserved their vital mechanisms of sunlight conversion with PSI at almost 100% efficiency, and PSII’s unique water splitting property. Important about photosynthesis systems are the high-energy conversion efficiency and oxygen evolution besides hydrogen generation by some organisms like cyanobacteria. These features are precious global demands for efficient sun utilizing devices, environmental concerns and current economics of alternative energy source to fossil fuel depletion. The diversity of the photosynthesis proteins due to evolution upon adaptation and exploitability is intriguing for researchers from all fields of science to understand aspects of structural diversity, function and dynamics. This work is highly complementary and has been carried out in multidisciplinary collaborations to get more impact for understanding the photosynthesis systems that evolved early or later. The results of which can be integrated into applied technology.

Strong ellipticity and spectral properties of chiral bag boundary conditions

We prove strong ellipticity of chiral bag boundary conditions on even dimensional manifolds. From a knowledge of the heat kernel in an infinite cylinder, some basic properties of the zeta function are analyzed on cylindrical product manifolds of arbitrary even dimension.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, References adde

Free and self-interacting scalar fields in the presence of conical singularities

Free and self-interacting scalar fields in the presence of conical singularities are analized in some detail. The role of such a kind of singularities on free and vacuum energy and also on the one-loop effective action is pointed out using $\zeta$-function regularization and heat-kernel techniques.Comment: 20 Pages, RevTex, UTF30

Diagrams for heat kernel expansions

A diagramatic heat kernel expansion technique is presented. The method is especially well suited to the small-derivative expansion of the heat kernel, but it can also be used to reproduce the results obtained by the approach known as covariant perturbation theory. The new technique gives an expansion for the heat kernel at coincident points. It can also be used to obtain the derivative of the heat kernel and this is useful for evaluating the expectation values of the stress-energy tensor.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, ReVTe

Gauge Invariance, Finite Temperature and Parity Anomaly in D=3

The effective gauge field actions generated by charged fermions in $QED_3$ and $QCD_3$ can be made invariant under both small and large gauge transformations at any temperature by suitable regularization of the Dirac operator determinant, at the price of parity anomalies. We resolve the paradox that the perturbative expansion is not invariant, as manifested by the temperature dependence of the induced Chern-Simons term, by showing that large (unlike small) transformations and hence their Ward identities, are not perturbative order-preserving. Our results are illustrated through concrete examples of field configurations.Comment: 4 pages, RevTe