Microscopics of Extremal Kerr from Spinning M5 Branes

We show that the spinning magnetic one-brane in minimal five-dimensional supergravity admits a decoupling limit that interpolates smoothly between a self-dual null orbifold of AdS_3 \times S^2 and the near-horizon limit of the extremal Kerr black hole times a circle. We use this interpolating solution to understand the field theory dual to spinning M5 branes as a deformation of the Discrete Light Cone Quantized (DLCQ) Maldacena-Stominger-Witten (MSW) CFT. In particular, the conformal weights of the operators dual to the deformation around AdS_3 \times S^2 are calculated. We present pieces of evidence showing that a CFT dual to the four-dimensional extremal Kerr can be obtained from the deformed MSW CFT.Comment: 5 page

Vibration serviceability of a GFRP railway crossing due to pedestrians and train excitation

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordData availability: Electronic format of the data collected in this research can be downloaded freely from the University of Warwick webpages wrap.warwick.ac.uk/136500Glass Fibre-Reinforced Polymers (GFRPs) are a popular option for pedestrian bridges over railway lines as they cause little disruption for installation or maintenance. However, as they are typically lighter and less stiff than traditional materials there is concern about their dynamic response due to human induced actions and train buffeting. Due to a lack of experimental information, further data is needed if such bridges are to be used on future lines, especially with higher speed limits. This paper presents an experimental investigation of the response of a 14.5 m GFRP truss bridge due to pedestrian loading and train induced vibrations. Vibration modes of interest were identified from impact hammer tests. The vibration responses to a range of human loading scenarios, as well as multiple train passes, were measured. The vibration levels remained low under all conditions, demonstrating that this particular type of GFRP bridge is suitable for railway crossings and that further optimisations may be available to designers while meeting vibration serviceability limits. However, consideration of the loadings suggests GFRP bridges may be more susceptible to higher pedestrian harmonics than traditional structures, and that vibrations from train buffeting are likely to be a design consideration for future bridges over high speed lines.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

An enhanced convolutional neural network model for answer selection

© 2017 International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2), published under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 License. Answer selection is an important task in question answering (QA) from the Web. To address the intrinsic difficulty in encoding sentences with semantic meanings, we introduce a general framework, i.e., Lexical Semantic Feature based Skip Convolution Neural Network (LSF-SCNN), with several optimization strategies. The intuitive idea is that the granular representations with more semantic features of sentences are deliberately designed and estimated to capture the similarity between question-answer pairwise sentences. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategies and our model outperforms the state-of-the-art ones by up to 3.5% on the metrics of MAP and MRR

A cautionary tale: the non-causal association between type 2 diabetes risk SNP, rs7756992, and levels of non-coding RNA, CDKAL1-v1

Journal ArticleCopyright © The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com.Aims/hypothesis: Intronic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the CDKAL1 gene are associated with risk of developing type 2 diabetes. A strong correlation between risk alleles and lower levels of the non-coding RNA, CDKAL1-v1, has recently been reported in whole blood extracted from Japanese individuals. We sought to replicate this association in two independent cohorts: one using whole blood from white UK-resident individuals, and one using a collection of human pancreatic islets, a more relevant tissue type to study with respect to the aetiology of diabetes. Methods: Levels of CDKAL1-v1 were measured by real-time PCR using RNA extracted from human whole blood (n = 70) and human pancreatic islets (n = 48). Expression with respect to genotype was then determined. Results: In a simple linear regression model, expression of CDKAL1-v1 was associated with the lead type 2 diabetes-associated SNP, rs7756992, in whole blood and islets. However, these associations were abolished or substantially reduced in multiple regression models taking into account rs9366357 genotype: a moderately linked SNP explaining a much larger amount of the variation in CDKAL1-v1 levels, but not strongly associated with risk of type 2 diabetes. Conclusions/interpretation: Contrary to previous findings, we provide evidence against a role for dysregulated expression of CDKAL1-v1 in mediating the association between intronic SNPs in CDKAL1 and susceptibility to type 2 diabetes. The results of this study illustrate how caution should be exercised when inferring causality from an association between disease-risk genotype and non-coding RNA expression.MRCNIH

A cautionary tale: the non-causal association between type 2 diabetes risk SNP, rs7756992, and levels of non-coding RNA, CDKAL1-v1

This is the final version of the article. Available from Springer Verlag via the DOI in this record.AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: Intronic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the CDKAL1 gene are associated with risk of developing type 2 diabetes. A strong correlation between risk alleles and lower levels of the non-coding RNA, CDKAL1-v1, has recently been reported in whole blood extracted from Japanese individuals. We sought to replicate this association in two independent cohorts: one using whole blood from white UK-resident individuals, and one using a collection of human pancreatic islets, a more relevant tissue type to study with respect to the aetiology of diabetes. METHODS: Levels of CDKAL1-v1 were measured by real-time PCR using RNA extracted from human whole blood (n = 70) and human pancreatic islets (n = 48). Expression with respect to genotype was then determined. RESULTS: In a simple linear regression model, expression of CDKAL1-v1 was associated with the lead type 2 diabetes-associated SNP, rs7756992, in whole blood and islets. However, these associations were abolished or substantially reduced in multiple regression models taking into account rs9366357 genotype: a moderately linked SNP explaining a much larger amount of the variation in CDKAL1-v1 levels, but not strongly associated with risk of type 2 diabetes. CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION: Contrary to previous findings, we provide evidence against a role for dysregulated expression of CDKAL1-v1 in mediating the association between intronic SNPs in CDKAL1 and susceptibility to type 2 diabetes. The results of this study illustrate how caution should be exercised when inferring causality from an association between disease-risk genotype and non-coding RNA expression.This paper presents independent research funded by the Medical Research Council (grant number MR/J006777/1) and supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Exeter Clinical Research Facility. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Medical Research Council, UK National Health Service, NIHR or the UK Department of Health

Modulation of cellular redox homeostasis by the endocannabinoid system

The endocannabinoid system (ECS) and reactive oxygen species (ROS) constitute two key cellular signalling systems that participate in the modulation of diverse cellular functions. Importantly, growing evidence suggests that cross-talk between these two prominent signalling systems acts to modulate functionality of the ECS as well as redox homeostasis in different cell types. Herein, we review and discuss evidence pertaining to ECS-induced regulation of ROS generating and scavenging mechanisms, as well as highlighting emerging work that supports redox modulation of ECS function. Functionally, the studies outlined reveal that interactions between the ECS and ROS signalling systems can be both stimulatory and inhibitory in nature, depending on cell stimulus, the source of ROS species and cell context. Importantly, such cross-talk may act to maintain cell function, whereas abnormalities in either system may propagate and undermine the stability of both systems, thereby contributing to various pathologies associated with their dysregulation

Molecular Diversity and Potential Anti-neuroinflammatory Activities of Cyathane Diterpenoids from the Basidiomycete Cyathus africanus

Ten new polyoxygenated cyathane diterpenoids, named neocyathins A-J (1-10), together with four known diterpenes (11-14), were isolated from the liquid culture of the medicinal basidiomycete fungus Cyathus africanus. The structures and configurations of these new compounds were elucidated through comprehensive spectroscopic analyses including 1D NMR, 2D NMR (HSQC, HMBC, NOESY) and HRESIMS, and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) data. Neuroinflammation is implicated in the pathogenesis of various neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimers' disease (AD). All isolated compounds were evaluated for the potential anti-neuroinflammatory activities in BV2 microglia cells. Several compounds showed differential effects on the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated and Aβ1-42-treated mouse microglia cell line BV-2. Molecular docking revealed that bioactive compounds (e.g., 11) could interact with iNOS protein other than COX-2 protein. Collectively, our results suggested that this class of cyathane diterpenoids might serve as important lead compounds for drug discovery against neuroinflammation in AD.published_or_final_versio

The Spectrum of Strings on Warped AdS_3 x S^3

String theory on NS-NS AdS_3 x S^3 admits an exactly marginal deformation which breaks the SL(2,R)_R x SL(2,R)_L isometry of AdS_3 down to SL(2,R)_R x U(1)_L. The holographic dual is an exotic and only partially understood type of two-dimensional CFT with a reduced unbroken global conformal symmetry group. In this paper we study the deformed theory on the string worldsheet. It is found to be related by a spectral flow which is nonlocal in spacetime to the undeformed worldsheet theory. An exact formula for the spectrum of massive strings is presented.Comment: 26 pages, no figure

Measurement delay associated with the Guardian RT continuous glucose monitoring system.

AIMS: Using compartment modelling, we assessed the time delay between blood glucose and sensor glucose measured by the Guardian RT continuous glucose monitoring system in young subjects with Type 1 diabetes (T1D). METHODS: Twelve children and adolescents with T1D treated by continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (male/female 7/5; age 13.1 +/- 4.2 years; body mass index 21.9 +/- 4.3 kg/m(2); mean +/- sd) were studied over 19 h in a Clinical Research Facility. Guardian RT was calibrated every 6 h and sensor glucose measured every 5 min. Reference blood glucose was measured every 15 min using a YSI 2300 STAT Plus Analyser. A population compartment model of sensor glucose-blood glucose kinetics was adopted to estimate the time delay, the calibration scale and the calibration shift. RESULTS: The population median of the time delay was 15.8 (interquartile range 15.2, 16.5) min, which was corroborated by correlation analysis between blood glucose and 15-min delayed sensor glucose. The delay has a relatively low intersubject variability, with 95% of individuals predicted to have delays between 10.4 and 24.3 min. Population medians (interquartile range) for the scale and shift are 0.800 (0.777, 0.823) (unitless) and 1.66 (1.47, 1.84) mmol/l, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: In young subjects with T1D, the total time delay associated with the Guardian RT system was approximately 15 min. This is twice that expected on physiological grounds, suggesting a 5- to 10-min delay because of data processing. Delays above 25 min are rarely to be observed

A general framework for learning prosodic-enhanced representation of rap lyrics

© 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. Learning and analyzing rap lyrics is a significant basis for many Web applications, such as music recommendation, automatic music categorization, and music information retrieval, due to the abundant source of digital music in the World Wide Web. Although numerous studies have explored the topic, knowledge in this field is far from satisfactory, because critical issues, such as prosodic information and its effective representation, as well as appropriate integration of various features, are usually ignored. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical attention variational a utoe ncoder framework (HAVAE), which simultaneously considers semantic and prosodic features for rap lyrics representation learning. Specifically, the representation of the prosodic features is encoded by phonetic transcriptions with a novel and effective strategy (i.e., rhyme2vec). Moreover, a feature aggregation strategy is proposed to appropriately integrate various features and generate prosodic-enhanced representation. A comprehensive empirical evaluation demonstrates that the proposed framework outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches under various metrics in different rap lyrics learning tasks