πNσ\pi N \sigma Term and Quark Spin Content of the Nucleon

We report results of our calculation on the $\pi N\sigma$ term and quark spin content of the nucleon on the quenched $16^3 \times 24$ lattice at $\beta = 6.0$. The disconnected insertions which involve contributions from the sea quarks are calculated with the stochastic $Z_2$ noise algorithm. As a physical test of the algorithm, we show that the forward matrix elements of the vector and pseudoscalar currents for the disconnected insertions are indeed consistent with the known results of zero. We tried the Wuppertal smeared source and found it to be more noisy than the point source. With unrenormalized $m_q=4.42(17)$MeV, we find the $\pi N\sigma$ term to be $39.2\pm 5.2$ MeV. The strange quark condensate in the nucleon is large, i.e. $\langle N|\bar{s}s|N\rangle = 1.16 \pm 0.54$. For the quark spin content, we find $\Delta u =0.78\pm 0.07$, $\Delta d =-0.42\pm 0.07$, and $\Delta s = -0.13\pm 0.06$. The flavor-singlet axial charge $g_A^1 = \Delta \Sigma =0.22\pm 0.09$.Comment: contribution to Lattice '94; 3 page uuencoded ps fil

Toward an effective chiral model of high-temperature QCD

Journal ArticleIn an effort to expose the mechanism for chiral-symmetry restoration in high-temperature QCD, we use numerical simulations of lattice QCD with staggered fermions to obtain information about possible effective chiral models. We propose the strategy of comparing expressions built from expectation values of low-order polynomials of "macroscopic" meson fields, such as a "Mexican-hat statistic'' (rr2 σ) / (rr 2) (σ) - 1, computed locally in terms of the quark fields in lattice QCD and in terms of the meson fields in the effective model. We find that, at least at our chosen couplings, QCD behaves like a nonlinear a model with little change in the local effective potential across the phase transition. This conclusion supports the hypothesis that chiral-symmetry restoration occurs through random fluctuations in a fixed-length order parameter. Included in this work is a thorough test of symmetry breaking and restoration as manifested in the nonlocal staggered chiral fields

Strange Magnetic Moment of The Nucleon from Lattice QCD

We calculate the strange magnetic moment of the nucleon on a quenched $16^3 \times 24$ lattice at $\beta = 6.0$, and with Wilson fermions at $\kappa$ = 0.148, 0.152, and 0.154. The strange quark contribution from the disconnected insertion is estimated stochastically by employing the $Z_2$ noise method. Using an unbiased subtraction along with the help of charge conjugation and hermiticity, we reduce the error by a factor of 2 with negligible overhead. Our result is $G_{M}^{s} = -0.28\pm0.10 \mu_{N}$.Comment: Lattice 2000 (Hadronic Matrix Elements), 4 pages 2 fig

Branched-Chain Amino Acid Negatively Regulates KLF15 Expression via PI3K-AKT Pathway.

Recent studies have linked branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) with numerous metabolic diseases. However, the molecular basis of BCAA's roles in metabolic regulation remains to be established. KLF15 (Krüppel-like factor 15) is a transcription factor and master regulator of glycemic, lipid, and amino acids metabolism. In the present study, we found high concentrations of BCAA suppressed KLF15 expression while BCAA starvation induced KLF15 expression, suggesting KLF15 expression is negatively controlled by BCAA.Interestingly, BCAA starvation induced PI3K-AKT signaling. KLF15 induction by BCAA starvation was blocked by PI3K and AKT inhibitors, indicating the activation of PI3K-AKT signaling pathway mediated the KLF15 induction. BCAA regulated KLF15 expression at transcriptional level but not post-transcriptional level. However, BCAA starvation failed to increase the KLF15-promoter-driven luciferase expression, suggesting KLF15 promoter activity was not directly controlled by BCAA. Finally, fasting reduced BCAA abundance in mice and KLF15 expression was dramatically induced in muscle and white adipose tissue, but not in liver. Together, these data demonstrated BCAA negatively regulated KLF15 expression, suggesting a novel molecular mechanism underlying BCAA's multiple functions in metabolic regulation

Stochastic Estimation with Z2Z_2 Noise

We introduce a $Z_2$ noise for the stochastic estimation of matrix inversion and discuss its superiority over other noises including the Gaussian noise. This algorithm is applied to the calculation of quark loops in lattice quantum chromodynamics that involves diagonal and off-diagonal traces of the inverse matrix. We will point out its usefulness in its applications to estimating determinants, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors, as well as its limitations based on the structure of the inverse matrix.Comment: 6 pages, 1 postscript figure, UK/93-0

An Algorithm for Obtaining Reliable Priors for Constrained-Curve Fits

We introduce the ``Sequential Empirical Bayes Method'', an adaptive constrained-curve fitting procedure for extracting reliable priors. These are then used in standard augmented-chi-square fits on separate data. This better stabilizes fits to lattice QCD overlap-fermion data at very low quark mass where a priori values are not otherwise known. We illustrate the efficacy of the method with data from overlap fermions, on a quenched $16^3\times 28$ lattice with spatial size La=3.2 fm and pion mass as low as $\sim$ 180 MeV.Comment: Lattice2003(machine), 3 pages, 3 figure