A Critique of Supernova Data Analysis in Cosmology

Observational astronomy has shown significant growth over the last decade and has made important contributions to cosmology. A major paradigm shift in cosmology was brought about by observations of Type Ia supernovae. The notion that the universe is accelerating has led to several theoretical challenges. Unfortunately, although high quality supernovae data-sets are being produced, their statistical analysis leaves much to be desired. Instead of using the data to directly test the model, several studies seem to concentrate on assuming the model to be correct and limiting themselves to estimating model parameters and internal errors. As shown here, the important purpose of testing a cosmological theory is thereby vitiated.Comment: v2: Revised, comments and references added; Published version [vailable at http://www.raa-journal.org/raa/index.php/raa/article/view/539

Modeling Repulsive Gravity with Creation

There is a growing interest in the cosmologists for theories with negative energy scalar fields and creation, in order to model a repulsive gravity. The classical steady state cosmology proposed by Bondi, Gold and Hoyle in 1948, was the first such theory which used a negative kinetic energy creation field to invoke creation of matter. We emphasize that creation plays very crucial role in cosmology and provides a natural explanation to the various explosive phenomena occurring in local (z<0.1) and extra galactic universe. We exemplify this point of view by considering the resurrected version of this theory - the quasi-steady state theory, which tries to relate creation events directly to the large scale dynamics of the universe and supplies more natural explanations of the observed phenomena. Although the theory predicts a decelerating universe at the present era, it explains successfully the recent SNe Ia observations (which require an accelerating universe in the standard cosmology), as we show in this paper by performing a Bayesian analysis of the data.Comment: The paper uses an old SNeIa dataset. With the new improved data, for example the updated gold sample (Riess et al, astro-ph/0611572), the fit improves considerably (\chi^2/DoF=197/180 and a probability of goodness-of-fit=18%

A Machian Model of Dark Energy

Einstein believed that Mach's principle should play a major role in finding a meaningful spacetime geometry, though it was discovered later that his field equations gave some solutions which were not Machian. It is shown, in this essay, that the kinematical $\Lambda$ models, which are invoked to solve the cosmological constant problem, are in fact consistent with Mach's ideas. One particular model in this category is described which results from the microstructure of spacetime and seems to explain the current observations successfully and also has some benefits over the conventional models. This forces one to think whether the Mach's ideas and the cosmological constant are interrelated in some way.Comment: Received an Honorable mention in the Essay Contest-2002 sponsored by the Gravity Research Foundation; A paragraph added on how the model can explain the CMB anisotropy observations; To appear in the Classical and Quantum Gravit

Cancer Patients Missing Pain Score Information:- Application with Imputation Techniques

Background: Methods for handling missing data in clinical research have been getting more attentions over last few years. Contemplation of missing data in any study is vital as they may lead to considerable biases and can have an impact on the power of the study. Objective: This manuscript is dedicated to present different techniques to handle missing observations obtained from repeatedly measured pain score data on palliative cancer. Methods: This problem caused by subjects drop out before completion of the study. The reason for dropout or withdrawal may be related to study (e.g., adverse event, death, unpleasant study procedures, lack of improvement) or unrelated to the study (e.g., moving away, unrelated disease). The dropout might be very common on studies on palliative cancer patients. The Palliative treatment is designed to relieve symptoms, and improve the quality of life and can be used at any stage of an illness if there are troubling symptoms, such as pain or sickness. Results: The mean(SD) of observed pain score was 3.638(3.156) whereas the imputed mean values were 3.615(2.980), 3.618(2.954), 3.577(2.892), 3.560(2.999) and 3.627(2.949) respectively for the imputation methods regression, predictive mean matching, propensity score, EM algorithm and MCMC methods for pain score values at visit3.&nbsp; Interpretation and Conclusion: The EM algorithm shows the least percentage change from observed values in both visits followed by predictive mean matching method and MCMC methods. The multiple imputation techniques have few advantages; the imputed values are drawsfrom a distribution, so they inherently contain some variation by introducing an additional form of error in the parameter estimates across the imputation &nbsp

B cell responses to a peptide epitope. X. Epitope selection in a primary response is thermodynamically regulated

We examine the etiological basis of hierarchical immunodominance of B cell epitopes on a multideterminant Ag. A model T-dependant immunogen, containing a single immunodominant B cell epitope, was used. The primary IgM response to this peptide included Abs directed against diverse determinants presented by the peptide. Interestingly, affinity of individual monomeric IgM Abs segregated around epitope recognized and was independent of their clonal origins. Furthermore, affinity of Abs directed against the immunodominant epitope were markedly higher than that of the alternate specificities. These studies suggested that the affinity of an epitope-specific primary response, and variations therein, may be determined by the chemical composition of epitope. This inference was supported by thermodynamic analyses of monomer IgM binding to Ag, which revealed that this interaction occurs at the expense of unfavorable entropy changes. Permissible binding required compensation by net enthalpic changes. Finally, the correlation between chemical composition of an epitope, the resultant affinity of the early primary humoral response, and its eventual influence on relative immunogenicity could be experimentally verified. This was achieved by examining the effect of various amino-terminal substitutions on immunogenicity of a, hitherto cryptic, amino-terminal determinant. Such experiments permitted delineation of a hierarchy of individual amino acid residues based on their influence; which correlated well with calculated Gibbs-free energy changes that individual residue side chains were expected to contribute in a binding interaction. Thus, maturation of a T-dependant humoral response is initiated by a step that is under thermodynamic control

Gravitational wave background in the quasi-steady state cosmology

This paper calculates the expected gravitational wave background (GWB) in the quasi-steady state cosmology (QSSC). The principal sources of gravitational waves in the QSSC are the mini-creation events (MCE). With suitable assumptions the GWB can be computed both numerically and with analytical methods. It is argued that the GWB in QSSC differs from that predicted for the standard cosmology and a future technology of detectors will be able to decide between the two predictions. We also derive a formula for the flux density of a typical extragalactic source of gravitational waves

Interpretations of the Accelerating Universe

It is generally argued that the present cosmological observations support the accelerating models of the universe, as driven by the cosmological constant or `dark energy'. We argue here that an alternative model of the universe is possible which explains the current observations of the universe. We demonstrate this with a reinterpretation of the magnitude-redshift relation for Type Ia supernovae, since this was the test that gave a spurt to the current trend in favour of the cosmological constant.Comment: 12 pages including 2 figures, minor revision, references added, a paragraph on the interpretation of the CMB anisotropy in the QSSC added in conclusion, general results unchanged. To appear in the October 2002 issue of the "Publications of the Astronmical Society of the Pacific

Analysis of genetic diversity among tropical and subtropical maize inbred lines using SSR markers

Genetic diversity of 24 tropical and subtropical elite maize lines was assessed at molecular level employ-ing 42 Simple Sequence Repeats. A total of 107 alleles with an average of 2.55 alleles per locus were detected. The Polymorphism Information Content (PIC) values of 42 SSR loci ranged from 0.08 (UMC1428) to 0.68 (UMC2189 and UMC2332) with the overall calculated PIC mean value of 0.44, whereas the Discrimination Rate (DR) value for SSR markers ranged from 0.09 (UMC2089) to 0.42 (UMC1311) with the average DR value of 0.26. Pair-wise genet-ic similarity (GS) values, calculated by Jaccard’s coefficients, ranged between 0.25 and 0.78 with a mean genetic similarity of 0.63, indicating the existence of adequate amount of genetic divergence among the genotypes selected for the study. The cluster dendrogram separated all the inbred lines into six main clusters with sub clusters based on genetic similarity. Factorial analysis also confirmed a nearly similar pattern for grouping these inbred lines as pre-sented by cluster dendrogram. In this study, SSR markers were found to be powerful tool for detection of genetic diversity in maize inbred lines. These findings could provide information for effective utilization of these materials for development of maize hybrids as well as for genetic improvement of inbred lines

Einstein energy associated with the Friedmann -Robertson -Walker metric

Following Einstein's definition of Lagrangian density and gravitational field energy density (Einstein, A., Ann. Phys. Lpz., 49, 806 (1916); Einstein, A., Phys. Z., 19, 115 (1918); Pauli, W., {\it Theory of Relativity}, B.I. Publications, Mumbai, 1963, Trans. by G. Field), Tolman derived a general formula for the total matter plus gravitational field energy ($P_0$) of an arbitrary system (Tolman, R.C., Phys. Rev., 35(8), 875 (1930); Tolman, R.C., {\it Relativity, Thermodynamics & Cosmology}, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1962)); Xulu, S.S., arXiv:hep-th/0308070 (2003)). For a static isolated system, in quasi-Cartesian coordinates, this formula leads to the well known result $P_0 = \int \sqrt{-g} (T_0^0 - T_1^1 -T_2^2 -T_3^3) ~d^3 x$, where $g$ is the determinant of the metric tensor and $T^a_b$ is the energy momentum tensor of the {\em matter}. Though in the literature, this is known as "Tolman Mass", it must be realized that this is essentially "Einstein Mass" because the underlying pseudo-tensor here is due to Einstein. In fact, Landau -Lifshitz obtained the same expression for the "inertial mass" of a static isolated system without using any pseudo-tensor at all and which points to physical significance and correctness of Einstein Mass (Landau, L.D., and Lifshitz, E.M., {\it The Classical Theory of Fields}, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 2th ed., 1962)! For the first time we apply this general formula to find an expression for $P_0$ for the Friedmann- Robertson -Walker (FRW) metric by using the same quasi-Cartesian basis. As we analyze this new result, physically, a spatially flat model having no cosmological constant is suggested. Eventually, it is seen that conservation of $P_0$ is honoured only in the a static limit.Comment: By mistake a marginally different earlier version was loaded, now the journal version is uploade