820 research outputs found
Preeclampsia is associated with compromized maternal synthesis of long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids leading to offspring deficiency
Obesity and excessive lipolysis are implicated in preeclampsia (PE). Intrauterine growth restriction is associated with low maternal body mass index and decreased lipolysis. Our aim was to assess how maternal and offspring fatty acid metabolism is altered in mothers in the third trimester of pregnancy with PE (n=62) or intrauterine growth restriction (n=23) compared with healthy pregnancies (n=164). Markers of lipid metabolism and erythrocyte fatty acid concentrations were measured. Maternal adipose tissue fatty acid composition and mRNA expression of adipose tissue fatty acidâmetabolizing enzymes and placental fatty acid transporters were compared. Mothers with PE had higher plasma triglyceride (21%, P<0.001) and nonesterified fatty acid (50%, P<0.001) concentrations than controls. Concentrations of major nâ6 and nâ3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in erythrocytes were 23% to 60% lower (all P<0.005) in PE and intrauterine growth restriction mothers and offspring compared with controls. Subcutaneous adipose tissue Îâ5 and Îâ6 desaturase and very long-chain fatty acid elongase mRNA expression was lower in PE than controls (respectively, mean [SD] control 3.38 [2.96] versus PE 1.83 [1.91], P=0.030; 3.33 [2.25] versus 1.03 [0.96], P<0.001; 0.40 [0.81] versus 0.00 [0.00], P=0.038 expression relative to control gene [square root]). Low maternal and fetal long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid concentrations in PE may be the result of decreased maternal synthesis
Formal change impact analyses for emulated control software
Processor emulators are a software tool for allowing legacy computer programs to be executed on a modern processor. In the past emulators have been used in trivial applications such as maintenance of video games. Now, however, processor emulation is being applied to safety-critical control systems, including military avionics. These applications demand utmost guarantees of correctness, but no verification techniques exist for proving that an emulated system preserves the original systemâs functional and timing properties. Here we show how this can be done by combining concepts previously used for reasoning about real-time program compilation, coupled with an understanding of the new and old software architectures. In particular, we show how both the old and new systems can be given a common semantics, thus allowing their behaviours to be compared directly
Nonlocal Equation of State in Anisotropic Static Fluid Spheres in General Relativity
We show that it is possible to obtain credible static anisotropic spherically
symmetric matter configurations starting from known density profiles and
satisfying a nonlocal equation of state. These particular types of equation of
state describe, at a given point, the components of the corresponding
energy-momentum tensor not only as a function at that point, but as a
functional throughout the enclosed configuration. To establish the physical
plausibility of the proposed family of solutions satisfying nonlocal equation
of state, we study the constraints imposed by the junction and energy
conditions on these bounded matter distributions.
We also show that it is possible to obtain physically plausible static
anisotropic spherically symmetric matter configurations, having nonlocal
equations of state\textit{,}concerning the particular cases where the radial
pressure vanishes and, other where the tangential pressures vanishes. The later
very particular type of relativistic sphere with vanishing tangential stresses
is inspired by some of the models proposed to describe extremely magnetized
neutron stars (magnetars) during the transverse quantum collapse.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure, minor changes in the text, references added, two
new solutions studie
Modelling non-dust fluids in cosmology
Currently, most of the numerical simulations of structure formation use
Newtonian gravity. When modelling pressureless dark matter, or `dust', this
approach gives the correct results for scales much smaller than the
cosmological horizon, but for scenarios in which the fluid has pressure this is
no longer the case. In this article, we present the correspondence of
perturbations in Newtonian and cosmological perturbation theory, showing exact
mathematical equivalence for pressureless matter, and giving the relativistic
corrections for matter with pressure. As an example, we study the case of
scalar field dark matter which features non-zero pressure perturbations. We
discuss some problems which may arise when evolving the perturbations in this
model with Newtonian numerical simulations and with CMB Boltzmann codes.Comment: 5 pages; v2: typos corrected and refs added, submitted version; v3:
version to appear in JCA
Oscillations During Inflation and the Cosmological Density Perturbations
Adiabatic (curvature) perturbations are produced during a period of
cosmological inflation that is driven by a single scalar field, the inflaton.
On particle physics grounds -- though -- it is natural to expect that this
scalar field is coupled to other scalar degrees of freedom. This gives rise to
oscillations between the perturbation of the inflaton field and the
perturbations of the other scalar degrees of freedom, similar to the phenomenon
of neutrino oscillations. Since the degree of the mixing is governed by the
squared mass matrix of the scalar fields, the oscillations can occur even if
the energy density of the extra scalar fields is much smaller than the energy
density of the inflaton field. The probability of oscillation is resonantly
amplified when perturbations cross the horizon and the perturbations in the
inflaton field may disappear at horizon crossing giving rise to perturbations
in scalar fields other than the inflaton. Adiabatic and isocurvature
perturbations are inevitably correlated at the end of inflation and we provide
a simple expression for the cross-correlation in terms of the slow-roll
parameters.Comment: 23 pages, uses LaTeX, added few reference
WKB approximation for inflationary cosmological perturbations
A new method for predicting inflationary cosmological perturbations, based on
the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) approximation, is presented. A general
expression for the WKB scalar and tensor power spectra is derived. The main
advantage of the new scheme of approximation is that it is valid even if the
slow-roll conditions are violated. The method is applied to power-law
inflation, which allows a comparison with an exact result. It is demonstrated
that the WKB approximation predicts the spectral indices exactly and the
amplitude with an error lower than 10%, even in regimes far from
scale-invariance. The new method of approximation is also applied to a
situation where the slow-roll conditions hold. It is shown that the result
obtained bears close resemblance with the standard slow-roll calculation.
Finally, some possible improvements are briefly mentioned.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, RevTeX; minor changes, reference added (v2);
typos corrected (v3
Inflation, cold dark matter, and the central density problem
A problem with high central densities in dark halos has arisen in the context
of LCDM cosmologies with scale-invariant initial power spectra. Although n=1 is
often justified by appealing to the inflation scenario, inflationary models
with mild deviations from scale-invariance are not uncommon and models with
significant running of the spectral index are plausible. Even mild deviations
from scale-invariance can be important because halo collapse times and
densities depend on the relative amount of small-scale power. We choose several
popular models of inflation and work out the ramifications for galaxy central
densities. For each model, we calculate its COBE-normalized power spectrum and
deduce the implied halo densities using a semi-analytic method calibrated
against N-body simulations. We compare our predictions to a sample of dark
matter-dominated galaxies using a non-parametric measure of the density. While
standard n=1, LCDM halos are overdense by a factor of 6, several of our example
inflation+CDM models predict halo densities well within the range preferred by
observations. We also show how the presence of massive (0.5 eV) neutrinos may
help to alleviate the central density problem even with n=1. We conclude that
galaxy central densities may not be as problematic for the CDM paradigm as is
sometimes assumed: rather than telling us something about the nature of the
dark matter, galaxy rotation curves may be telling us something about inflation
and/or neutrinos. An important test of this idea will be an eventual consensus
on the value of sigma_8, the rms overdensity on the scale 8 h^-1 Mpc. Our
successful models have values of sigma_8 approximately 0.75, which is within
the range of recent determinations. Finally, models with n>1 (or sigma_8 > 1)
are highly disfavored.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures. Minor changes made to reflect referee's
Comments, error in Eq. (18) corrected, references updated and corrected,
conclusions unchanged. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D,
scheduled for 15 August 200
Large-scale pharmacogenomic study of sulfonylureas and the QT, JT and QRS intervals: CHARGE Pharmacogenomics Working Group
Sulfonylureas, a commonly used class of medication used to treat type 2 diabetes, have been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Their effects on QT interval duration and related electrocardiographic phenotypes are potential mechanisms for this adverse effect. In 11 ethnically diverse cohorts that included 71â857 European, African-American and Hispanic/Latino ancestry individuals with repeated measures of medication use and electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements, we conducted a pharmacogenomic genome-wide association study of sulfonylurea use and three ECG phenotypes: QT, JT and QRS intervals. In ancestry-specific meta-analyses, eight novel pharmacogenomic loci met the threshold for genome-wide significance (P<5 Ă 10â8), and a pharmacokinetic variant in CYP2C9 (rs1057910) that has been associated with sulfonylurea-related treatment effects and other adverse drug reactions in previous studies was replicated. Additional research is needed to replicate the novel findings and to understand their biological basis
Cosmological parameter estimation and the inflationary cosmology
We consider approaches to cosmological parameter estimation in the
inflationary cosmology, focussing on the required accuracy of the initial power
spectra. Parametrizing the spectra, for example by power-laws, is well suited
to testing the inflationary paradigm but will only correctly estimate
cosmological parameters if the parametrization is sufficiently accurate, and we
investigate conditions under which this is achieved both for present data and
for upcoming satellite data. If inflation is favoured, reliable estimation of
its physical parameters requires an alternative approach adopting its detailed
predictions. For slow-roll inflation, we investigate the accuracy of the
predicted spectra at first and second order in the slow-roll expansion
(presenting the complete second-order corrections for the tensors for the first
time). We find that within the presently-allowed parameter space, there are
regions where it will be necessary to include second-order corrections to reach
the accuracy requirements of MAP and Planck satellite data. We end by proposing
a data analysis pipeline appropriate for testing inflation and for cosmological
parameter estimation from high-precision data.Comment: 15 pages RevTeX file with figures incorporated. Slow-roll inflation
module for use with the CAMB program can be found at
http://astronomy.cpes.susx.ac.uk/~sleach/inflation/ This version corrects a
typo in the definition of z_S (after Eq.1) and supersedes the journal versio
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