3,749 research outputs found
Generic master equations for quasi-normal frequencies
Generic master equations governing the highly-damped quasi-normal frequencies
[QNFs] of one-horizon, two-horizon, and even three-horizon spacetimes can be
obtained through either semi-analytic or monodromy techniques. While many
technical details differ, both between the semi-analytic and monodromy
approaches, and quite often among various authors seeking to apply the
monodromy technique, there is nevertheless widespread agreement regarding the
the general form of the QNF master equations. Within this class of generic
master equations we can establish some rather general results, relating the
existence of "families" of QNFs of the form omega_{a,n} = (offset)_a + i n
(gap) to the question of whether or not certain ratios of parameters are
rational or irrational.Comment: 23 pages; V2: Minor additions, typos fixed. Matches published versio
Analytical study on holographic superconductors in external magnetic field
We investigate the holographic superconductors immersed in an external
magnetic field by using the analytical approach. We obtain the spatially
dependent condensate solutions in the presence of the magnetism and find
analytically that the upper critical magnetic field satisfies the relation
given in the Ginzburg-Landau theory. We observe analytically the reminiscent of
the Meissner effect where the magnetic field expels the condensate. Extending
to the D-dimensional Gauss-Bonnet AdS black holes, we examine the influence
given by the Gauss-Bonnet coupling on the condensation. Different from the
positive coupling, we find that the negative Gauss-Bonnet coupling enhances the
condensation when the external magnetism is not strong enough.Comment: revised version, to appear in JHE
Prognostic value of lymph node ratio and extramural vascular invasion on survival for patients undergoing curative colon cancer resection
There was no study funding. We are grateful to Tony Rafferty (Tailored Information for the People of Scotland, TIPs) for providing survival data.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Dust-free quasars in the early Universe
The most distant quasars known, at redshifts z=6, generally have properties
indistinguishable from those of lower-redshift quasars in the rest-frame
ultraviolet/optical and X-ray bands. This puzzling result suggests that these
distant quasars are evolved objects even though the Universe was only seven per
cent of its current age at these redshifts. Recently one z=6 quasar was shown
not to have any detectable emission from hot dust, but it was unclear whether
that indicated different hot-dust properties at high redshift or if it is
simply an outlier. Here we report the discovery of a second quasar without
hot-dust emission in a sample of 21 z=6 quasars. Such apparently hot-dust-free
quasars have no counterparts at low redshift. Moreover, we demonstrate that the
hot-dust abundance in the 21 quasars builds up in tandem with the growth of the
central black hole, whereas at low redshift it is almost independent of the
black hole mass. Thus z=6 quasars are indeed at an early evolutionary stage,
with rapid mass accretion and dust formation. The two hot-dust-free quasars are
likely to be first-generation quasars born in dust-free environments and are
too young to have formed a detectable amount of hot dust around them.Comment: To be published in Nature on the 18 March 2010
Lipid-soluble Vitamins A, D, and E in HIV-Infected Pregnant women in Tanzania.
There is limited published research examining lipid-soluble vitamins in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected pregnant women, particularly in resource-limited settings. This is an observational analysis of 1078 HIV-infected pregnant women enrolled in a trial of vitamin supplementation in Tanzania. Baseline data on sociodemographic and anthropometric characteristics, clinical signs and symptoms, and laboratory parameters were used to identify correlates of low plasma vitamin A (<0.7 micromol/l), vitamin D (<80 nmol/l) and vitamin E (<9.7 micromol/l) status. Binomial regression was used to estimate risk ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Approximately 35, 39 and 51% of the women had low levels of vitamins A, D and E, respectively. Severe anemia (hemoglobin <85 g/l; P<0.01), plasma vitamin E (P=0.02), selenium (P=0.01) and vitamin D (P=0.02) concentrations were significant correlates of low vitamin A status in multivariate models. Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR) was independently related to low vitamin A status in a nonlinear manner (P=0.01). The correlates of low vitamin D status were CD8 cell count (P=0.01), high ESR (ESR >81 mm/h; P<0.01), gestational age at enrollment (nonlinear; P=0.03) and plasma vitamins A (P=0.02) and E (P=0.01). For low vitamin E status, the correlates were money spent on food per household per day (P<0.01), plasma vitamin A concentration (nonlinear; P<0.01) and a gestational age <16 weeks at enrollment (P<0.01). Low concentrations of lipid-soluble vitamins are widely prevalent among HIV-infected women in Tanzania and are correlated with other nutritional insufficiencies. Identifying HIV-infected persons at greater risk of poor nutritional status and infections may help inform design and implementation of appropriate interventions
Influenza nucleoprotein delivered with aluminium salts protects mice from an influenza virus that expresses an altered nucleoprotein sequence
Influenza virus poses a difficult challenge for protective immunity. This virus is adept at altering its surface proteins, the proteins that are the targets of neutralizing antibody. Consequently, each year a new vaccine must be developed to combat the current recirculating strains. A universal influenza vaccine that primes specific memory cells that recognise conserved parts of the virus could prove to be effective against both annual influenza variants and newly emergent potentially pandemic strains. Such a vaccine will have to contain a safe and effective adjuvant that can be used in individuals of all ages. We examine protection from viral challenge in mice vaccinated with the nucleoprotein from the PR8 strain of influenza A, a protein that is highly conserved across viral subtypes. Vaccination with nucleoprotein delivered with a universally used and safe adjuvant, composed of insoluble aluminium salts, provides protection against viruses that either express the same or an altered version of nucleoprotein. This protection correlated with the presence of nucleoprotein specific CD8 T cells in the lungs of infected animals at early time points after infection. In contrast, immunization with NP delivered with alum and the detoxified LPS adjuvant, monophosphoryl lipid A, provided some protection to the homologous viral strain but no protection against infection by influenza expressing a variant nucleoprotein. Together, these data point towards a vaccine solution for all influenza A subtypes
Predicting Phenotypic Diversity and the Underlying Quantitative Molecular Transitions
During development, signaling networks control the formation of multicellular patterns. To what extent quantitative fluctuations in these complex networks may affect multicellular phenotype remains unclear. Here, we describe a computational approach to predict and analyze the phenotypic diversity that is accessible to a developmental signaling network. Applying this framework to vulval development in C. elegans, we demonstrate that quantitative changes in the regulatory network can render ~500 multicellular phenotypes. This phenotypic capacity is an order-of-magnitude below the theoretical upper limit for this system but yet is large enough to demonstrate that the system is not restricted to a select few outcomes. Using metrics to gauge the robustness of these phenotypes to parameter perturbations, we identify a select subset of novel phenotypes that are the most promising for experimental validation. In addition, our model calculations provide a layout of these phenotypes in network parameter space. Analyzing this landscape of multicellular phenotypes yielded two significant insights. First, we show that experimentally well-established mutant phenotypes may be rendered using non-canonical network perturbations. Second, we show that the predicted multicellular patterns include not only those observed in C. elegans, but also those occurring exclusively in other species of the Caenorhabditis genus. This result demonstrates that quantitative diversification of a common regulatory network is indeed demonstrably sufficient to generate the phenotypic differences observed across three major species within the Caenorhabditis genus. Using our computational framework, we systematically identify the quantitative changes that may have occurred in the regulatory network during the evolution of these species. Our model predictions show that significant phenotypic diversity may be sampled through quantitative variations in the regulatory network without overhauling the core network architecture. Furthermore, by comparing the predicted landscape of phenotypes to multicellular patterns that have been experimentally observed across multiple species, we systematically trace the quantitative regulatory changes that may have occurred during the evolution of the Caenorhabditis genus
An effective theory for jet propagation in dense QCD matter: jet broadening and medium-induced bremsstrahlung
Two effects, jet broadening and gluon bremsstrahlung induced by the
propagation of a highly energetic quark in dense QCD matter, are reconsidered
from effective theory point of view. We modify the standard Soft Collinear
Effective Theory (SCET) Lagrangian to include Glauber modes, which are needed
to implement the interactions between the medium and the collinear fields. We
derive the Feynman rules for this Lagrangian and show that it is invariant
under soft and collinear gauge transformations. We find that the newly
constructed theory SCET recovers exactly the general result for the
transverse momentum broadening of jets. In the limit where the radiated gluons
are significantly less energetic than the parent quark, we obtain a jet
energy-loss kernel identical to the one discussed in the reaction operator
approach to parton propagation in matter. In the framework of SCET we
present results for the fully-differential bremsstrahlung spectrum for both the
incoherent and the Landau-Pomeranchunk-Migdal suppressed regimes beyond the
soft-gluon approximation. Gauge invariance of the physics results is
demonstrated explicitly by performing the calculations in both the light-cone
and covariant gauges. We also show how the process-dependent
medium-induced radiative corrections factorize from the jet production cross
section on the example of the quark jets considered here.Comment: 52 pages, 15 pdf figures, as published in JHE
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