319 research outputs found
Immuno-physiological adaptations confer wax moth Galleria mellonella resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis
The Greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella, is a pest of beehives and is gaining a reputation as an important organism for modelling host-pathogen interactions. A G. mellonella population was selected for enhanced resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which is a widely-used entomopathogenic biological pesticide. Resistance and defence mechanisms were investigated in this insect line, and compared with a non-selected (suspectible) line. We also investigated the possible cost of those survival strategies. In the uninfected state, resistant insects exhibited enhanced basal expression of genes related to regeneration and amelioration of Bt toxin activity in the midgut. In addition, these insects also exhibited elevated activity of genes linked to inflammation/stress management, and fat body immune defences. Following oral infection with Bt, several of these genes wwere more highly expressed in resistant insect than in the susceptible line. Gene expression analysis reveals a pattern of resistance mechanisms targeted to anatomical sites predominantly attacked by Bt. The resistant insect concentrates its response towards tissue repair. Unlike the susceptible insects, Bt infection significantly reduced the diversity and richness (abundance) of the gut microbiota in the resistant insects. These observations suggest that the resistant line not only has a more intact midgut but is secreting antimicrobial factors into the gut lumen which not only mitigate Bt activity but also affect the viability of other gut bacteria. Remarkably the resistant line employs these multifactorial adaptations for resistance to Bt without any detectable negative trade-off, since the insects also exhibited higher fecundity
On walls of marginal stability in N=2 string theories
We study the properties of walls of marginal stability for BPS decays in a
class of N=2 theories. These theories arise in N=2 string compactifications
obtained as freely acting orbifolds of N=4 theories, such theories include the
STU model and the FHSV model. The cross sections of these walls for a generic
decay in the axion-dilaton plane reduce to lines or circles. From the
continuity properties of walls of marginal stability we show that central
charges of BPS states do not vanish in the interior of the moduli space. Given
a charge vector of a BPS state corresponding to a large black hole in these
theories, we show that all walls of marginal stability intersect at the same
point in the lower half of the axion-dilaton plane. We isolate a class of
decays whose walls of marginal stability always lie in a region bounded by
walls formed by decays to small black holes. This enables us to isolate a
region in moduli space for which no decays occur within this class. We then
study entropy enigma decays for such models and show that for generic values of
the moduli, that is when moduli are of order one compared to the charges,
entropy enigma decays do not occur in these models.Comment: 40 pages, 2 figure
Exclusive Queueing Process with Discrete Time
In a recent study [C Arita, Phys. Rev. E 80, 051119 (2009)], an extension of
the M/M/1 queueing process with the excluded-volume effect as in the totally
asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP) was introduced. In this paper, we
consider its discrete-time version. The update scheme we take is the parallel
one. A stationary-state solution is obtained in a slightly arranged matrix
product form of the discrete-time open TASEP with the parallel update. We find
the phase diagram for the existence of the stationary state. The critical line
which separates the parameter space into the regions with and without the
stationary state can be written in terms of the stationary current of the open
TASEP. We calculate the average length of the system and the average number of
particles
Novel transcriptional signatures for sputum-independent diagnostics of tuberculosis in children
Immunogenetics and cellular immunology of bacterial infectious disease
Anisotropic flow of charged hadrons, pions and (anti-)protons measured at high transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
The elliptic, , triangular, , and quadrangular, , azimuthal
anisotropic flow coefficients are measured for unidentified charged particles,
pions and (anti-)protons in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
with the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Results obtained with the
event plane and four-particle cumulant methods are reported for the
pseudo-rapidity range at different collision centralities and as a
function of transverse momentum, , out to GeV/.
The observed non-zero elliptic and triangular flow depends only weakly on
transverse momentum for GeV/. The small dependence
of the difference between elliptic flow results obtained from the event plane
and four-particle cumulant methods suggests a common origin of flow
fluctuations up to GeV/. The magnitude of the (anti-)proton
elliptic and triangular flow is larger than that of pions out to at least
GeV/ indicating that the particle type dependence persists out
to high .Comment: 16 pages, 5 captioned figures, authors from page 11, published
version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/186
Centrality dependence of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
The inclusive transverse momentum () distributions of primary
charged particles are measured in the pseudo-rapidity range as a
function of event centrality in Pb-Pb collisions at
TeV with ALICE at the LHC. The data are presented in the range
GeV/ for nine centrality intervals from 70-80% to 0-5%.
The Pb-Pb spectra are presented in terms of the nuclear modification factor
using a pp reference spectrum measured at the same collision
energy. We observe that the suppression of high- particles strongly
depends on event centrality. In central collisions (0-5%) the yield is most
suppressed with at -7 GeV/. Above
GeV/, there is a significant rise in the nuclear modification
factor, which reaches for GeV/. In
peripheral collisions (70-80%), the suppression is weaker with almost independently of . The measured nuclear
modification factors are compared to other measurements and model calculations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 captioned figures, 2 tables, authors from page 12,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/284
Measurement of charm production at central rapidity in proton-proton collisions at TeV
The -differential production cross sections of the prompt (B
feed-down subtracted) charmed mesons D, D, and D in the rapidity
range , and for transverse momentum GeV/, were
measured in proton-proton collisions at TeV with the ALICE
detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis exploited the hadronic
decays DK, DK, DD, and their charge conjugates, and was performed on a
nb event sample collected in 2011 with a
minimum-bias trigger. The total charm production cross section at TeV and at 7 TeV was evaluated by extrapolating to the full phase space
the -differential production cross sections at TeV
and our previous measurements at TeV. The results were compared
to existing measurements and to perturbative-QCD calculations. The fraction of
cdbar D mesons produced in a vector state was also determined.Comment: 20 pages, 5 captioned figures, 4 tables, authors from page 15,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/307
Particle-yield modification in jet-like azimuthal di-hadron correlations in Pb-Pb collisions at = 2.76 TeV
The yield of charged particles associated with high- trigger
particles ( GeV/) is measured with the ALICE detector in
Pb-Pb collisions at = 2.76 TeV relative to proton-proton
collisions at the same energy. The conditional per-trigger yields are extracted
from the narrow jet-like correlation peaks in azimuthal di-hadron correlations.
In the 5% most central collisions, we observe that the yield of associated
charged particles with transverse momenta GeV/ on the
away-side drops to about 60% of that observed in pp collisions, while on the
near-side a moderate enhancement of 20-30% is found.Comment: 15 pages, 2 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 10,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/350
K-hindered decay of a six-quasiparticle isomer in Hf176
The structure and decay properties of high-K isomers in Hf176 have been studied using beam sweeping techniques and the Gammasphere multidetector array. A new ΔK=8 decay branch, from a Kπ=22⊃-, six-quasiparticle, isomeric (t1/2=43μs) state at 4864 keV to the 20⊃- state of a Kπ=14⊃- band, has been identified. The reduced hindrance factor per degree of K forbiddenness for this decay is measured to be unusually low (fν=3.2), which suggests K mixing in the states involved. The deduced interaction matrix elements are discussed within the context of relevant K-mixing scenarios. The 3266-keV state, previously interpreted as a Kπ=16⊃+ intrinsic state, is reassigned as the Jπ=16⊃+ member of the band based on the Kπ=15⊃+ state at 3080 keV. The systematics of fν values as a function of the degree of forbiddenness is discussed in light of this change
Systematic Review of Medicine-Related Problems in Adult Patients with Atrial Fibrillation on Direct Oral Anticoagulants
New oral anticoagulant agents continue to emerge on the market and their safety requires assessment to provide evidence of their suitability for clinical use. There-fore, we searched standard databases to summarize the English language literature on medicine-related problems (MRPs) of direct oral anticoagulants DOACs (dabigtran, rivaroxban, apixban, and edoxban) in the treatment of adults with atri-al fibrillation. Electronic databases including Medline, Embase, International Pharmaceutical Abstract (IPA), Scopus, CINAHL, the Web of Science and Cochrane were searched from 2008 through 2016 for original articles. Studies pub-lished in English reporting MRPs of DOACs in adult patients with AF were in-cluded. Seventeen studies were identified using standardized protocols, and two reviewers serially abstracted data from each article. Most articles were inconclusive on major safety end points including major bleeding. Data on major safety end points were combined with efficacy. Most studies inconsistently reported adverse drug reactions and not adverse events or medication error, and no definitions were consistent across studies. Some harmful drug effects were not assessed in studies and may have been overlooked. Little evidence is provided on MRPs of DOACs in patients with AF and, therefore, further studies are needed to establish the safety of DOACs in real-life clinical practice
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