1,776 research outputs found
Selective expression of a VHIV subfamily of immunoglobulin genes in human CD5+ B lymphocytes from cord blood.
Human B lymphocytes expressing the CD5 surface antigen (CD5+ B cells) constitute a subset capable of producing polyspecific antibodies recognizing a variety of self antigens. The repertoire of antibodies produced by CD5+ and CD5- B cells is different. However, it is not yet established whether this distribution is reflected in different immunoglobulin variable region gene (IgV) use. Rearrangement of heavy chain IgV (IgVH) genes represents one of the first identifiable stages in the maturation of B cells, and occurs in a developmentally ordered fashion. The repertoire of IgVH gene expression is highly restricted during fetal life but diversifies progressively after birth. A high frequency of VH gene use from the relatively small VHIV gene family has previously been demonstrated in human fetal liver B cells. In the present study, 102 B cell lines established by Epstein-Barr Virus-transformation of separated CD5+ and CD5- cord blood B cells, were examined for the frequency of IgV expression using monoclonal antibodies to cross-reactive idiotypes (CRI). The results demonstrate a relatively high frequency of VHIV gene use (30%) in B cells from cord blood. Furthermore, two mutually exclusive CRI associated with distinct subgroups of the VHIV family are segregated in their association with either subset of B cells. One CRI is exclusively expressed in lines established from CD5+ B cells while the other is associated with lines established from CD5- B cells
Euler-Heisenberg lagrangians and asymptotic analysis in 1+1 QED, part 1: Two-loop
We continue an effort to obtain information on the QED perturbation series at
high loop orders, and particularly on the issue of large cancellations inside
gauge invariant classes of graphs, using the example of the l - loop N - photon
amplitudes in the limit of large photons numbers and low photon energies. As
was previously shown, high-order information on these amplitudes can be
obtained from a nonperturbative formula, due to Affleck et al., for the
imaginary part of the QED effective lagrangian in a constant field. The
procedure uses Borel analysis and leads, under some plausible assumptions, to a
number of nontrivial predictions already at the three-loop level. Their direct
verification would require a calculation of this `Euler-Heisenberg lagrangian'
at three-loops, which seems presently out of reach. Motivated by previous work
by Dunne and Krasnansky on Euler-Heisenberg lagrangians in various dimensions,
in the present work we initiate a new line of attack on this problem by
deriving and proving the analogous predictions in the simpler setting of 1+1
dimensional QED. In the first part of this series, we obtain a generalization
of the formula of Affleck et al. to this case, and show that, for both Scalar
and Spinor QED, it correctly predicts the leading asymptotic behaviour of the
weak field expansion coefficients of the two loop Euler-Heisenberg lagrangians.Comment: 28 pages, 1 figures, final published version (minor modifications,
refs. added
Dynamical mass generation in quantum field theory : some methods with application to the Gross-Neveu model and Yang-Mills theory
We introduce some techniques to investigate dynamical mass generation. The
Gross-Neveu model (GN) is used as a toy model, because the GN mass gap is
exactly known, making it possible to check reliability of the various methods.
Very accurate results are obtained. Also application to SU(N) Yang-Mills (YM)
is discussed.Comment: 8 LaTeX2e pages, uses Kluwer class file crckbked.cls. Kluwer package
included. To appear in: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on
"Confinement, Topology, and other Non-Perturbative Aspects of QCD", Stara
Lesna, Slovakia, 21-27 jan 200
The electric dipole response of Se above 4 MeV
The dipole response of Se in the energy range 4 to 9 MeV has been
analyzed using a polarized photon scattering
technique, performed at the High Intensity -Ray Source facility, to
complement previous work performed using unpolarized photons. The results of
this work offer both an enhanced sensitivity scan of the dipole response and an
unambiguous determination of the parities of the observed J=1 states. The
dipole response is found to be dominated by excitations, and can
reasonably be attributed to a pygmy dipole resonance. Evidence is presented to
suggest that a significant amount of directly unobserved excitation strength is
present in the region, due to unobserved branching transitions in the decays of
resonantly excited states. The dipole response of the region is underestimated
when considering only ground state decay branches. We investigate the electric
dipole response theoretically, performing calculations in a 3D cartesian-basis
time-dependent Skyrme-Hartree-Fock framework.Comment: 20 pages, 18 figures, to be submitted to PR
MINLO: Multi-scale improved NLO
In the present work we consider the assignment of the factorization and
renormalization scales in hadron collider processes with associated jet
production, at next-to-leading order (NLO) in perturbation theory. We propose a
simple, definite prescription to this end, including Sudakov form factors to
consistently account for the distinct kinematic scales occuring in such
collisions. The scheme yields results that are accurate at NLO and, for a large
class of observables, it resums to all orders the large logarithms that arise
from kinematic configurations involving disparate scales. In practical terms
the method is most simply understood as an NLO extension of the matrix element
reweighting procedure employed in tree level matrix element-parton shower
merging algorithms. By way of a proof-of-concept, we apply the method to Higgs
and Z boson production in association with up to two jets.Comment: 27 pages, 17 figure
Systematic study of the SO(10) symmetry breaking vacua in the matrix model for type IIB superstrings
We study the properties of the space-time that emerges dynamically from the
matrix model for type IIB superstrings in ten dimensions. We calculate the free
energy and the extent of space-time using the Gaussian expansion method up to
the third order. Unlike previous works, we study the SO(d) symmetric vacua with
all possible values of d within the range , and observe clear
indication of plateaus in the parameter space of the Gaussian action, which is
crucial for the results to be reliable. The obtained results indeed exhibit
systematic dependence on d, which turns out to be surprisingly similar to what
was observed recently in an analogous work on the six-dimensional version of
the model. In particular, we find the following properties: i) the extent in
the shrunken directions is given by a constant, which does not depend on d; ii)
the ten-dimensional volume of the Euclidean space-time is given by a constant,
which does not depend on d except for d = 2; iii) The free energy takes the
minimum value at d = 3. Intuitive understanding of these results is given by
using the low-energy effective theory and some Monte Carlo results.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figures; minor corrections, reference added. arXiv admin
note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1007.088
The challenges of communicating research evidence in practice: perspectives from UK health visitors and practice nurses
<p>Background: Health practitioners play a pivotal role in providing patients with up-to-date evidence and health information. Evidence-based practice and patient-centred care are transforming the delivery of healthcare in the UK. Health practitioners are increasingly balancing the need to provide evidence-based information against that of facilitating patient choice, which may not always concur with the evidence base. There is limited research exploring how health practitioners working in the UK, and particularly those more autonomous practitioners such as health visitors and practice nurses working in community practice settings, negotiate this challenge. This research provides a descriptive account of how health visitors and practice nurses negotiate the challenges of communicating health information and research evidence in practice.</p>
<p>Methods: A total of eighteen in-depth telephone interviews were conducted in the UK between September 2008 and May 2009. The participants comprised nine health visitors and nine practice nurses, recruited via adverts on a nursing website, posters at a practitioner conference and through recommendation. Thematic analysis, with a focus on constant comparative method, was used to analyse the data.</p>
<p>Results: The data were grouped into three main themes: communicating evidence to the critically-minded patient; confidence in communicating evidence; and maintaining the integrity of the patient-practitioner relationship. These findings highlight some of the daily challenges that health visitors and practice nurses face with regard to the complex and dynamic nature of evidence and the changing attitudes and expectations of patients. The findings also highlight the tensions that exist between differing philosophies of evidence-based practice and patient-centred care, which can make communicating about evidence a daunting task.</p>
<p>Conclusions: If health practitioners are to be effective at communicating research evidence, we suggest that more research and resources need to be focused on contextual factors, such as how research evidence is negotiated, appraised and communicated within the dynamic patient-practitioner relationship.</p>
Complex circular subsidence structures in tephra deposited on large blocks of ice: Varða tuff cone, Öræfajökull, Iceland
Several broadly circular structures up to 16 m in diameter, into which higher strata have sagged and locally collapsed, are present in a tephra outcrop on southwest Öræfajökull, southern Iceland. The tephra was sourced in a nearby basaltic tuff cone at Varða. The structures have not previously been described in tuff cones, and they probably formed by the melting out of large buried blocks of ice emplaced during a preceding jökulhlaup that may have been triggered by a subglacial eruption within the Öræfajökull ice cap. They are named ice-melt subsidence structures, and they are analogous to kettle holes that are commonly found in proglacial sandurs and some lahars sourced in ice-clad volcanoes. The internal structure is better exposed in the Varða examples because of an absence of fluvial infilling and reworking, and erosion of the outcrop to reveal the deeper geometry. The ice-melt subsidence structures at Varða are a proxy for buried ice. They are the only known evidence for a subglacial eruption and associated jökulhlaup that created the ice blocks. The recognition of such structures elsewhere will be useful in reconstructing more complete regional volcanic histories as well as for identifying ice-proximal settings during palaeoenvironmental investigations
Three-loop HTL gluon thermodynamics at intermediate coupling
We calculate the thermodynamic functions of pure-glue QCD to three-loop order
using the hard-thermal-loop perturbation theory (HTLpt) reorganization of
finite temperature quantum field theory. We show that at three-loop order
hard-thermal-loop perturbation theory is compatible with lattice results for
the pressure, energy density, and entropy down to temperatures .
Our results suggest that HTLpt provides a systematic framework that can used to
calculate static and dynamic quantities for temperatures relevant at LHC.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figs. 2nd version: improved discussion and fixing typos.
Published in JHE
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