Absence of gravitational contributions to the running Yang-Mills coupling

The question of a modification of the running gauge coupling of (non-) abelian gauge theories by an incorporation of the quantum gravity contribution has recently attracted considerable interest. In this letter we perform an involved diagrammatical calculation in the full Einstein-Yang-Mills system both in cut-off and dimensional regularization at one loop order. It is found that all gravitational quadratic divergencies cancel in cut-off regularization and are trivially absent in dimensional regularization so that there is no alteration to asymptotic freedom at high energies. The logarithmic divergencies give rise to an extended effective Einstein-Yang-Mills Lagrangian with a counterterm of dimension six. In the pure Yang-Mills sector this counterterm can be removed by a nonlinear field redefinition of the gauge potential, reproducing a classical result of Deser, Tsao and van Nieuwenhuizen obtained in the background field method with dimensional regularization.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, uses revtex and feynmf. v2: references adde

Renal Involvement in Systemic Sclerosis

Scleroderma renal crisis (SRC) is classical renal disease in systemic sclerosis (SSc). SRC is a relatively rare manifestation, approximately in 5% of patients. In terms of severity, manifestation in the form of SRC is the most common cause of acute organ failure. In SSc patients, SRC is defined as a new onset of accelerated arterial hypertension and rapidly progressive anuric or oliguric renal failure. SRC is primarily vascular injury with increased activity of the renin-angiotensin activity. These events lead to release or activation of cytokines and growth factors that result in the typical proliferative vascular lesions. Successful approach is routine use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors in the treatment of SRC (except prevention) and other advances in renal replacement therapy in SSc management. It is crucial to detect manifestations of SRC early and to manage appropriately in collaboration with intensive care medicine, cardiologists, and nephrologists. In contrast to SRC, clinical presentation of interstitial renal disease is poor, often without evidence of renal abnormality. Interestingly, other renal manifestations are glomerulonephritis and vasculitis. These manifestations are associated with overlapping mechanisms. The objective of this chapter is to focus on actual knowledge about the renal involvement in SSc and current treatment principles and possibilities

Top energy saver of the year : results of an energy saving competition in public buildings

Non-residential buildings in the European Union consume more than one third of the building sector's total. Many non-residential buildings are owned by municipalities. This paper reports about an energy saving competition that was carried out in 91 municipal buildings in eight EU member states in 2019. For each public building an energy team was formed. The energy teams' activities encompassed motivating changes in the energy use behaviour of employees and small investments. Two challenges added an element of gamification to the energy saving competition. To assess the success of the energy saving competition, an energy performance baseline was calculated using energy consumption data of each public building from previous years. Energy consumption in the competition year was monitored on a monthly base. After the competition the top energy savers from each country were determined by the percentage-based reduction of energy consumption compared to the baseline. On average, the buildings had an electricity and heat consumption in 2019 that was about 8 % and 7 %, respectively, lower than the baseline. As an additional data source for the evaluation, a survey among energy team members was conducted at the beginning and after the energy competition. Support from superiors, employee interest and motivation and behaviour change as assessed by energy team members show a positive, if weak or moderate, correlation with changes in electricity consumption, but not with changes in heat consumption

Analysis of mycobiomes to uncover biodiversity: a case study between soil fungi and orchid species in Sweden

Abstracts from the April 12-14, 2019 MASC Conferenc

Asymptotic freedom of Yang-Mills theory with gravity

We study the behaviour of Yang-Mills theory under the inclusion of gravity. In the weak- gravity limit, the running gauge coupling receives no contribution from the gravitational sector, if all symmetries are preserved. This holds true with and without cosmological constant. We also show that asymptotic freedom persists in general field-theory-based gravity scenarios including gravitational shielding as well as asymptotically safe gravity.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures; v2: explanations added to match published versio

Influence of Treatment With Tumor-Treating Fields on Health-Related Quality of Life of Patients With Newly Diagnosed Glioblastoma: A Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Clinical Trial

Importance Tumor-treating fields (TTFields) therapy improves both progression-free and overall survival in patients with glioblastoma. There is a need to assess the influence of TTFields on patients' health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Objective To examine the association of TTFields therapy with progression-free survival and HRQoL among patients with glioblastoma. Design, Setting, and Participants This secondary analysis of EF-14, a phase 3 randomized clinical trial, compares TTFields and temozolomide or temozolomide alone in 695 patients with glioblastoma after completion of radiochemotherapy. Patients with glioblastoma were randomized 2:1 to combined treatment with TTFields and temozolomide or temozolomide alone. The study was conducted from July 2009 until November 2014, and patients were followed up through December 2016. Interventions Temozolomide, 150 to 200 mg/m2/d, was given for 5 days during each 28-day cycle. TTFields were delivered continuously via 4 transducer arrays placed on the shaved scalp of patients and were connected to a portable medical device. Main Outcomes and Measures Primary study end point was progression-free survival; HRQoL was a predefined secondary end point, measured with questionnaires at baseline and every 3 months thereafter. Mean changes from baseline scores were evaluated, as well as scores over time. Deterioration-free survival and time to deterioration were assessed for each of 9 preselected scales and items. Results Of the 695 patients in the study, 639 (91.9%) completed the baseline HRQoL questionnaire. Of these patients, 437 (68.4%) were men; mean (SD) age, 54.8 (11.5) years. Health-related quality of life did not differ significantly between treatment arms except for itchy skin. Deterioration-free survival was significantly longer with TTFields for global health (4.8 vs 3.3 months; P < .01); physical (5.1 vs 3.7 months; P < .01) and emotional functioning (5.3 vs 3.9 months; P < .01); pain (5.6 vs 3.6 months; P < .01); and leg weakness (5.6 vs 3.9 months; P < .01), likely related to improved progression-free survival. Time to deterioration, reflecting the influence of treatment, did not differ significantly except for itchy skin (TTFields worse; 8.2 vs 14.4 months; P < .001) and pain (TTFields improved; 13.4 vs 12.1 months; P < .01). Role, social, and physical functioning were not affected by TTFields. Conclusions and Relevance The addition of TTFields to standard treatment with temozolomide for patients with glioblastoma results in improved survival without a negative influence on HRQoL except for more itchy skin, an expected consequence from the transducer arrays. Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00916409

EuroEXA - D2.6: Final ported application software

This document describes the ported software of the EuroEXA applications to the single CRDB testbed and it discusses the experiences extracted from porting and optimization activities that should be actively taken into account in future redesign and optimization. This document accompanies the ported application software, found in the EuroEXA private repository (https://github.com/euroexa). In particular, this document describes the status of the software for each of the EuroEXA applications, sketches the redesign and optimization strategy for each application, discusses issues and difficulties faced during the porting activities and the relative lesson learned. A few preliminary evaluation results have been presented, however the full evaluation will be discussed in deliverable 2.8

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis