Space processing of chalcogenide glass

A program was conducted to develop the technique of space processing for chalcogenide glass, and to define the process and equipment necessary. In the course of this program, successful long term levitation of objects in a 1-g environment was achieved. Glass beads 4 mm diameter were containerless melted and fused together

Rotating Neutron Stars in a Chiral SU(3) Model

We study the properties of rotating neutron stars within a generalized chiral SU(3)-flavor model. The influence of the rotation on the inner structure and the hyperon matter content of the star is discussed. We calculate the Kepler frequency and moments of inertia of the neutron star sequences. An estimate for the braking index of the associated pulsars is given.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

Note on SLE and logarithmic CFT

It is discussed how stochastic evolutions may be linked to logarithmic conformal field theory. This introduces an extension of the stochastic Loewner evolutions. Based on the existence of a logarithmic null vector in an indecomposable highest-weight module of the Virasoro algebra, the representation theory of the logarithmic conformal field theory is related to entities conserved in mean under the stochastic process.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, v2: version to be publishe

Estimating novel potential drug targets of Plasmodium falciparum by analysing the metabolic network of knock-out strains in silico

Malaria is one of the world’s most common and serious diseases causing death of about 3 million people each year. Its most severe occurrence is caused by the protozoan Plasmodium falciparum. Biomedical research could enable treating the disease by effectively and specifically targeting essential enzymes of this parasite. However, the parasite has developed resistance to existing drugsmaking it indispensable to discover new drugs. We have established a simple computational tool which analyses the topology of the metabolic network of P. falciparum to identify essential enzymes as possible drug targets.Weinvestigated the essentiality of a reaction in the metabolic network by deleting (knocking-out) such a reaction in silico. The algorithmselected neighbouring compounds of the investigated reaction that had to be produced by alternative biochemical pathways. Using breadth first searches, we tested qualitatively if these products could be generated by reactions that serve as potential deviations of the metabolic flux. With this we identified 70 essential reactions. Our results were compared with a comprehensive list of 38 targets of approved malaria drugs. When combining our approach with an in silico analysis performed recently [Yeh, I., Hanekamp, T., Tsoka, S., Karp, P.D., Altman, R.B., 2004. Computational analysis of Plasmodium falciparum metabolism: organizing genomic information to facilitate drug discovery. Genome Res. 14, 917–924] we could improve the precision of the prediction results. Finally we present a refined list of 22 new potential candidate targets for P. falciparum, half of which have reasonable evidence to be valid targets against micro-organisms and cancer

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, BODY MOVEMENT, SPACE, AND MOTION DATA: MUSIC AS AN EMERGENT MULTIMODAL CHOREOGRAPHY

www.humantechnology.jyu.f

Conformal loop ensembles and the stress-energy tensor

We give a construction of the stress-energy tensor of conformal field theory (CFT) as a local "object" in conformal loop ensembles CLE_\kappa, for all values of \kappa in the dilute regime 8/3 < \kappa <= 4 (corresponding to the central charges 0 < c <= 1, and including all CFT minimal models). We provide a quick introduction to CLE, a mathematical theory for random loops in simply connected domains with properties of conformal invariance, developed by Sheffield and Werner (2006). We consider its extension to more general regions of definition, and make various hypotheses that are needed for our construction and expected to hold for CLE in the dilute regime. Using this, we identify the stress-energy tensor in the context of CLE. This is done by deriving its associated conformal Ward identities for single insertions in CLE probability functions, along with the appropriate boundary conditions on simply connected domains; its properties under conformal maps, involving the Schwarzian derivative; and its one-point average in terms of the "relative partition function." Part of the construction is in the same spirit as, but widely generalizes, that found in the context of SLE_{8/3} by the author, Riva and Cardy (2006), which only dealt with the case of zero central charge in simply connected hyperbolic regions. We do not use the explicit construction of the CLE probability measure, but only its defining and expected general properties.Comment: 49 pages, 3 figures. This is a concatenated, reduced and simplified version of arXiv:0903.0372 and (especially) arXiv:0908.151

Hybrid Stars in an SU(3) Parity Doublet Model

We apply an extended version of the SU(3) parity model, containing quark degrees of freedom, to study neutron stars. The model successfully reproduces the main thermodynamic features of QCD which allows us to describe the composition of dense matter. Chiral symmetry restoration is realized inside the star and the chiral partners of the baryons appear, their masses becoming degenerate. Furthermore, quark degrees of freedom appear in a transition to a deconfined state. Performing an investigation of the macroscopic properties of neutron stars, we show that observational constraints, like mass and thermal evolution, are satisfied and new predictions can be made

Light Propagation in Inhomogeneous Universes. IV. Strong Lensing and Environmental Effects

We study the gravitational lensing of high-redshift sources in a LCDM universe. We have performed a series of ray-tracing experiments, and selected a subsample of cases of strong lensing (multiple images, arcs, and Einstein rings). For each case, we identify a massive galaxy that is primarily responsible for lensing, and studied how the various density inhomogeneities along the line of sight (other galaxies, background matter) affect the properties of the image. The matter located near the lensing galaxy, and physically associated with it, has a small effect. The background matter increases the magnification by a few percents at most, while nearby galaxies can increase it by up to about 10 percent. The effect on the image separation is even smaller. The only significant effect results from the random alignment of physically unassociated galaxies, which can increase the magnification by factors of several, create additional images, and turn arcs into rings. We conclude that the effect of environment on strong lensing in negligible in general, and might be important only in rare cases. We show that our conclusion does not depend on the radial density profile of the galaxies responsible for lensing.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures (one in color). Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Minor typos correcte

An in silico Approach to Detect Efficient Malaria Drug Targets to Combat the Malaria Resistance Problem

Resistance to malaria drugs is a major challenging problem in most parts of the world especially in the African continent where about ninety per cent of malaria cases occur. As a response to this alarming problem, the World Health Organisation (W.H.O) recommends that all countries experiencing resistance to conventional monotherapies, such as chloroquine, amodiaquine or sulfadoxine–pyrimethamine, should use combination therapies [1]. Therefore there is a need to discover new drug targets that are able to target the malarial parasite at distinct pathways for an efficient malaria drug. In this paper, we presented a machine-learning tool which is able to identify novel drug targets from the metabolic network of Plasmodium falciparum. With our tool we identified among others 19 drug targets confirmed from literature which we analyzed further with a sophisticated gene expression analysis tool. Our data was clustered using common distance similarity measurements and hierarchical clustering to propose a profound combination of drug targets. Our result suggests that two or more enzymatic reactions from the list of our drug targets which span across about ten pathways (Table 2) could be combined to target at distinct time points in the parasite's intraerythrocytic developmental cycle to detect efficient malaria drug target combination