85 research outputs found
Therapeutic efficacy of pulmonary live tuberculosis vaccines against established asthma by subverting local immune environment
Background: Substantial recent advances in the comprehension of the molecular and cellular mechanisms behind asthma have evidenced the importance of the lung immune environment for disease outcome, making modulation of local immune responses an attractive therapeutic target against this pathology. Live attenuated mycobacteria, such as the tuberculosis vaccine BCG, have been classically linked with a type 1 response, and proposed as possible modulators of the type 2 response usually associated with asthma.
Methods: In this study we used different acute and chronic murine models of asthma to investigate the therapeutic efficacy of intranasal delivery of the live tuberculosis vaccines BCG and MTBVAC by regulating the lung immune environment associated with airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR).
Findings: Intranasal administration of BCG, or the novel tuberculosis vaccine candidate MTBVAC, abrogated AHR-associated hallmarks, including eosinophilia and lung remodeling. This correlated with the re-polarization of allergen-induced M2 macrophages towards an M1 phenotype, as well as with the induction of a strong allergen-specific Th1 response. Importantly, vaccine treatment was effective in a scenario of established chronic asthma where a strong eosinophil infiltration was already present prior to immunization. We finally compared the nebulization efficiency of clinical formulations of MTBVAC and BCG using a standard commercial nebulizer for potential aerosol application.
Interpretation: Our results demonstrate that pulmonary live tuberculosis vaccines efficiently revert established asthma in mice. These data support the further exploration of this approach as potential therapy against asthma
Renormalization Group Study of the soliton mass on the (lambda Phi^4)_{1+1} lattice model
We compute, on the model on the lattice, the soliton
mass by means of two very different numerical methods. First, we make use of a
``creation operator'' formalism, measuring the decay of a certain correlation
function. On the other hand we measure the shift of the vacuum energy between
the symmetric and the antiperiodic systems. The obtained results are fully
compatible.
We compute the continuum limit of the mass from the perturbative
Renormalization Group equations. Special attention is paid to ensure that we
are working on the scaling region, where physical quantities remain unchanged
along any Renormalization Group Trajectory. We compare the continuum value of
the soliton mass with its perturbative value up to one loop calculation. Both
quantities show a quite satisfactory agreement. The first is slightly bigger
than the perturbative one; this may be due to the contributions of higher order
corrections.Comment: 19 pages, preprint DFTUZ/93/0
Evaluation of synthesis conditions for plastic scintillation foils used to measure alpha- and beta-emitting radionuclides
Plastic scintillation foils of polystyrene and polycarbonate with a thickness between 45 and 200 μm, have been produced using the solvent evaporation method. PSfoils presented a reproducible thickness (10-20%). PSfoils were characterized by the measurement of 36Cl or 241Am. For 36Cl spectrum is located at medium energies since not all energy is deposited in the scintillator and not all betas interact with the foils. For 241Am the efficiency values are very high and spectrum is a sharp peak located at high energies. 222Rn absorption (LD and K) and desorption capacities of the PSfoils have been also evaluated
High performance LATP thin film electrolytes for all-solid-state microbattery applications
The NASICON superionic solid electrolyte Li1+xAlxTi2-x(PO4)3 (LATP) with 0.3 = x = 0.5 remains one of the most promising solid electrolytes thanks to its good ionic conductivity and outstanding stability in ambient air. Despite the intensive research for bulk systems, there are only very few studies of LATP in a thin film form (thickness < 1 µm) and its implementation in all-solid-state batteries and microbatteries. The following study fills this gap by exploring the properties of high performance LATP thin films fabricated by large-area Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD). The as-deposited thin films exhibit an ionic conductivity of around 0.5 µS cm-1 at room temperature (comparable to the state-of-the-art of LiPON) which increases to a remarkably high value of 0.1 mS cm-1 after an additional annealing at 800 °C. A possible cause for this significant enhancement in ionic conductivity by two orders of magnitude is the formation of a glassy, intergranular phase. The performance of both as-deposited and annealed LATP films makes them suitable as solid electrolytes, which opens the path to a new family of stable and high performance all-solid-state thin film batteries. This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry
APE Results of Hadron Masses in Full QCD Simulations
We present numerical results obtained in full QCD with 2 flavors of Wilson
fermions. We discuss the relation between the phase of Polyakov loops and the
{\bf sea} quarks boundary conditions. We report preliminary results about the
HMC autocorrelation of the hadronic masses, on a lattice
volume, at with .Comment: 3 pages, compressed ps-file (uufiles), Contribution to Lattice 9
Is trivial the antiferromagnetic RP(2) model in four dimensions?
We study the antiferromagnetic RP(2) model in four dimensions. We find a
second order transition with two order parameters, one ferromagnetic and the
other antiferromagnetic. The antiferromagnetic sector has mean-field critical
exponents and a renormalized coupling which goes to zero in the continuum
limit. The exponents of the ferromagnetic channel are not the mean-field ones,
but the difference can be interpreted as logarithmic corrections. We perform a
detailed analysis of these corrections and conclude the triviality of the
continuum limit of this model.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX2
Simulating spin systems on IANUS, an FPGA-based computer
We describe the hardwired implementation of algorithms for Monte Carlo
simulations of a large class of spin models. We have implemented these
algorithms as VHDL codes and we have mapped them onto a dedicated processor
based on a large FPGA device. The measured performance on one such processor is
comparable to O(100) carefully programmed high-end PCs: it turns out to be even
better for some selected spin models. We describe here codes that we are
currently executing on the IANUS massively parallel FPGA-based system.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures; submitted to Computer Physics Communication
Antiferromagnetic 4-d O(4) Model
We study the phase diagram of the four dimensional O(4) model with first
(beta1) and second (beta2) neighbor couplings, specially in the beta2 < 0
region, where we find a line of transitions which seems to be second order. We
also compute the critical exponents on this line at the point beta1 =0 (F4
lattice) by Finite Size Scaling techniques up to a lattice size of 24, being
these exponents different from the Mean Field ones.Comment: 26 pages LaTeX2e, 7 figures. The possibility of logarithmic
corrections has been considered, new figures and tables added. Accepted for
publication in Physical Review
Critical properties of Ising model on Sierpinski fractals. A finite size scaling analysis approach
The present paper focuses on the order-disorder transition of an Ising model
on a self-similar lattice. We present a detailed numerical study, based on the
Monte Carlo method in conjunction with the finite size scaling method, of the
critical properties of the Ising model on some two dimensional deterministic
fractal lattices with different Hausdorff dimensions. Those with finite
ramification order do not display ordered phases at any finite temperature,
whereas the lattices with infinite connectivity show genuine critical behavior.
In particular we considered two Sierpinski carpets constructed using different
generators and characterized by Hausdorff dimensions d_H=log 8/log 3 = 1.8927..
and d_H=log 12/log 4 = 1.7924.., respectively.
The data show in a clear way the existence of an order-disorder transition at
finite temperature in both Sierpinski carpets.
By performing several Monte Carlo simulations at different temperatures and
on lattices of increasing size in conjunction with a finite size scaling
analysis, we were able to determine numerically the critical exponents in each
case and to provide an estimate of their errors.
Finally we considered the hyperscaling relation and found indications that it
holds, if one assumes that the relevant dimension in this case is the Hausdorff
dimension of the lattice.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures; a new section has been added with results for a
second fractal; there are other minor change
Polyakov loops and finite-size effects of hadron masses in full lattice QCD
Polyakov type loops are responsible for the difference between quenched and unquenched finite size effects on the QCD mass spectrum. With a numerical simulation, using appropriate sea quark spatial boundary conditions, we show that we can align the phases of spatial Polyakov loops in a predelined direction. Starting from these results, we propose a procedure to minimize fluctuations due to these effects in meson propagators
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