650 research outputs found
Perturbative Matching of the staggered four-fermion operators for e'/e
Using staggered fermions, we calculate the perturbative corrections to the
bilinear and four-fermion operators that are used in the numerical study of
weak matrix elements for . We present results for one-loop
matching coefficients between continuum operators, calculated in the Naive
Dimensional Regularization (NDR) scheme, and gauge invariant staggered fermion
operators. These results, combined with existing results for penguin diagrams,
provide the complete one-loop renormalization of the staggered four-fermion
operators.Comment: 36 pages. will appear in physical review
Perturbative matching of staggered four-fermion operators with hypercubic fat links
We calculate the one-loop matching coefficients between continuum and lattice
four-fermion operators for lattice operators constructed using staggered
fermions and improved by the use of fattened links. In particular, we consider
hypercubic fat links and SU(3) projected Fat-7 links, and their mean-field
improved versions. We calculate only current-current diagrams, so that our
results apply for operators whose flavor structure does not allow
``eye-diagrams''. We present general formulae, based on two independent
approaches, and give numerical results for the cases in which the operators
have the taste (staggered flavor) of the pseudo-Goldstone pion. We find that
the one-loop corrections are reduced down to the 10-20% level, resolving the
problem of large perturbative corrections for staggered fermion calculations of
matrix elements.Comment: 37 pages, no figure, 20 table
Renal pericytes: regulators of medullary blood flow
Regulation of medullary blood flow (MBF) is essential in maintaining normal kidney function. Blood flow to the medulla is supplied by the descending vasa recta (DVR), which arise from the efferent arterioles of juxtamedullary glomeruli. DVR are composed of a continuous endothelium, intercalated with smooth muscle-like cells called pericytes. Pericytes have been shown to alter the diameter of isolated and in situ DVR in response to vasoactive stimuli that are transmitted via a network of autocrine and paracrine signalling pathways. Vasoactive stimuli can be released by neighbouring tubular epithelial, endothelial, red blood cells and neuronal cells in response to changes in NaCl transport and oxygen tension. The experimentally described sensitivity of pericytes to these stimuli strongly suggests their leading role in the phenomenon of MBF autoregulation. Because the debate on autoregulation of MBF fervently continues, we discuss the evidence favouring a physiological role for pericytes in the regulation of MBF and describe their potential role in tubulo-vascular cross-talk in this region of the kidney. Our review also considers current methods used to explore pericyte activity and function in the renal medulla
Quenched hadron spectroscopy with improved staggered quark action
We investigate light hadron spectroscopy with an improved quenched staggered
quark action. We compare the results obtained with an improved gauge plus an
improved quark action, an improved gauge plus standard quark action, and the
standard gauge plus standard quark action. Most of the improvement in the
spectroscopy results is due to the improved gauge sector. However, the improved
quark action substantially reduces violations of Lorentz invariance, as
evidenced by the meson dispersion relations.Comment: New references adde
One-loop matching coefficients for improved staggered bilinears
We calculate one-loop matching factors for bilinear operators composed of
improved staggered fermions. We compare the results for different improvement
schemes used in the recent literature, all of which involve the use of smeared
links. These schemes aim to reduce, though not completely eliminate, O(a^2)
discretization errors. We find that all these improvement schemes substantially
reduce the size of matching factors compared to unimproved staggered fermions.
The resulting corrections are comparable to, or smaller than, those found with
Wilson and domain-wall fermions. In the best case (``Fat-7'' and mean-field
improved HYP links) the corrections are 10 % or smaller at 1/a = 2 GeV.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure (misleading sentence in sec. II removed; version
to appear in Physical Review D
Baryon masses and nucleon sigma terms in manifestly Lorentz-invariant baryon chiral perturbation theory
We discuss the masses of the ground state baryon octet and the nucleon sigma
terms in the framework of manifestly Lorentz-invariant baryon chiral
perturbation theory. In order to obtain a consistent power counting for
renormalized diagrams the extended on-mass-shell renormalization scheme is
applied.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys.
A Single-Arm, Proof-Of-Concept Trial of Lopimune (Lopinavir/Ritonavir) as a Treatment for HPV-Related Pre-Invasive Cervical Disease
BACKGROUND:
Cervical cancer is the most common female malignancy in the developing nations and the third most common cancer in women globally. An effective, inexpensive and self-applied topical treatment would be an ideal solution for treatment of screen-detected, pre-invasive cervical disease in low resource settings.
METHODS:
Between 01/03/2013 and 01/08/2013, women attending Kenyatta National Hospital's Family Planning and Gynaecology Outpatients clinics were tested for HIV, HPV (Cervista®) and liquid based cervical cytology (LBC -ThinPrep®). HIV negative women diagnosed as high-risk HPV positive with high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) were examined by colposcopy and given a 2 week course of 1 capsule of Lopimune (CIPLA) twice daily, to be self-applied as a vaginal pessary. Colposcopy, HPV testing and LBC were repeated at 4 and 12 weeks post-start of treatment with a final punch biopsy at 3 months for histology. Primary outcome measures were acceptability of treatment with efficacy as a secondary consideration.
RESULTS:
A total of 23 women with HSIL were treated with Lopimune during which time no adverse reactions were reported. A maximum concentration of 10 ng/ml of lopinavir was detected in patient plasma 1 week after starting treatment. HPV was no longer detected in 12/23 (52.2%, 95%CI: 30.6-73.2%). Post-treatment cytology at 12 weeks on women with HSIL, showed 14/22 (63.6%, 95%CI: 40.6-82.8%) had no dysplasia and 4/22 (18.2%, 95%CI: 9.9-65.1%) were now low grade demonstrating a combined positive response in 81.8% of women of which 77.8% was confirmed by histology. These data are supported by colposcopic images, which show regression of cervical lesions.
CONCLUSIONS:
These results demonstrate the potential of Lopimune as a self-applied therapy for HPV infection and related cervical lesions. Since there were no serious adverse events or detectable post-treatment morbidity, this study indicates that further trials are clearly justified to define optimal regimes and the overall benefit of this therapy.
TRIAL REGISTRATION:
ISRCTN Registry 48776874
Dynamical Fermions with Fat Links
We present and test a new method for simulating dynamical fermions with fat
links. Our construction is based on the introduction of auxiliary but dynamical
gauge fields and works with any fermionic action and can be combined with any
fermionic updating. In our simulation we use an over-relaxation step which
makes it effective. For four flavors of staggered fermions first results
indicate that flavor symmetry at a lattice spacing a~0.2 fm is restored to a
few percent. With the standard action this amount of flavor symmetry
restoration is achieved at a~0.07 fm. We estimate that the overall
computational cost is reduced by at least a factor 10.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, detailed description of over-relaxation and
references added, figures with more statistic
Meson screening masses from lattice QCD with two light and the strange quark
We present results for screening masses of mesons built from light and
strange quarks in the temperature range of approximately between 140 MeV to 800
MeV. The lattice computations were performed with 2+1 dynamical light and
strange flavors of improved (p4) staggered fermions along a line of constant
physics defined by a pion mass of about 220 MeV and a kaon mass of 500 MeV. The
lattices had temporal extents Nt = 4, 6 and 8 and aspect ratios of Ns / Nt \geq
4. At least up to a temperature of 140 MeV the pseudo-scalar screening mass
remains almost equal to the corresponding zero temperature pseudo-scalar (pole)
mass. At temperatures around 3Tc (Tc being the transition temperature) the
continuum extrapolated pseudo-scalar screening mass approaches very close to
the free continuum result of 2 \pi T from below. On the other hand, at high
temperatures the vector screening mass turns out to be larger than the free
continuum value of 2 \pi T. The pseudo-scalar and the vector screening masses
do not become degenerate even for a temperature as high as 4Tc. Using these
mesonic spatial correlation functions we have also investigated the restoration
of chiral symmetry and the effective restoration of the axial symmetry. We have
found that the vector and the axial-vector screening correlators become
degenerate, indicating chiral symmetry restoration, at a temperature which is
consistent with the QCD transition temperature obtained in previous studies. On
the other hand, the pseudo-scalar and the scalar screening correlators become
degenerate only at temperatures larger than 1.3Tc, indicating that the
effective restoration of the axial symmetry takes place at a temperature larger
than the QCD transition temperature.Comment: Published versio
Dispersive analysis of K_{L mu3} and K_{L e3} scalar and vector form factors using KTeV data
Using the published KTeV samples of K_L --> pi^{\pm} e^{\mp} nu and K_L -->
pi^{\pm} mu^{\mp} nu decays [1], we perform a reanalysis of the scalar and
vector form factors based on the dispersive parameterization [2,3]. We obtain
phase space integrals I^e_K = 0.15446 \pm 0.00025 and I^{mu}_K = 0.10219 \pm
0.00025. For the scalar form factor parameterization, the only free parameter
is the normalized form factor value at the Callan-Treiman point (C); our best
fit results in ln C = 0.1915 \pm 0.0122. We also study the sensitivity of C to
different parametrizations of the vector form factor. The results for the phase
space integrals and C are then used to make tests of the Standard Model.
Finally, we compare our results with lattice QCD calculations of F_K/F_pi and
f_+(0).Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, to be published in PR
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