NLO Corrections to Deeply-Virtual Compton Scattering

We have calculated the NLO corrections to the twist-2 part of the deeply-virtual Compton scattering amplitude. Our results for the transverse and antisymmetric parts agree with recent calculations by Ji and Osborne and by Belitsky and M\"uller. In addition we present NLO results for the longitudinal part of the amplitude.Comment: 8 pages, Latex. Error in polarised gluonic coefficient in Eq.(8) correcte

The disease modifying osteoarthritis drug diacerein is able to antagonize pro inflammatory state of chondrocytes under mild mechanical stimuli

SummaryObjectiveTo investigate the combination of mild mechanical stimuli and a disease modifying osteoarthritis drug (DMOAD) in inflammatory activated chondrocytes and to study the combination of drug and mechanical tension on the cellular level as a model for an integrated biophysical approach for osteoarthritis (OA) treatments.MethodsInterleukin-1beta (IL-1β) stimulated C28/I2 cells underwent mild mechanically treatment while cultured in the presence of the DMOAD diacerein. The pharmacological input of diacerein was evaluated by cell viability and cell proliferation measurements. Inflammation and treatment induced changes in key regulatory proteins and components of the extracellular matrix (ECM) were characterized by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR). The effects on metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) activity and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) concentration in cell supernatants of treated cells were investigated.ResultsC28/I2 cells demonstrated significant changes in expression of inflammatory and cartilage destructive proteins in response to IL-1β stimulation. The chondroprotective action of diacerein in mechanically stimulated cells was mediated by a decrease in interleukin-8 (IL-8), fibronectin-1 (FN-1), collagen type I (Col 1) and MMP-1 expression levels, respectively. Augmented expression of interleukin-6 receptor (IL-6R) and the fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs) by diacerein was not abolished by mechanical treatment. The observed effects were accompanied by a reduced cell proliferation rate, attenuated cell viability and extenuated MMP-1 activity.ConclusionDiacerein diversely regulates the expression of main regulatory proteins as well as components important to regenerate and set up ECM. Mechanical stimulation does not negatively influence the chondroprotective effect induced by diacerein treatment in immortalized human C28/I2 chondrocytes

Nuclear Shadowing and the Optics of Hadronic Fluctuations

A coordinate space description of shadowing in deep-inelastic lepton-nucleus scattering is presented. The picture in the laboratory frame is that of quark-gluon fluctuations of the high-energy virtual photon, propagating coherently over large light-cone distances in the nuclear medium. We discuss the detailed dependence of the coherence effects on the invariant mass of the fluctuation. We comment on the issue of possible saturation in the shadowing effects at very small Bjorken-$x$.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

On the analytical approximation to the GLAP evolution at small x and moderate Q^2

Comparing the numerically evaluated solution to the leading order GLAP equations with its analytical small-x approximation we have found that in the domain covered by a large fraction of the HERA data the analytic approximation has to be augmented by the formally non-leading term which has been usually neglected. The corrected formula fits the data much better and provides a natural explanation of some of the deviations from the $\sigma$ scaling observed in the HERA kinematical range.Comment: LaTeX, 13 pages including 6 figures, figure 5 replaced, to appear in Phys. Lett.

Universality for 2D Wedge Wetting

We study 2D wedge wetting using a continuum interfacial Hamiltonian model which is solved by transfer-matrix methods. For arbitrary binding potentials, we are able to exactly calculate the wedge free-energy and interface height distribution function and, thus, can completely classify all types of critical behaviour. We show that critical filling is characterized by strongly universal fluctuation dominated critical exponents, whilst complete filling is determined by the geometry rather than fluctuation effects. Related phenomena for interface depinning from defect lines in the bulk are also considered.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Gluon Polarization from QCD Sum Rules

The gluon polarization $\Delta G$ in a nucleon can be defined in a gauge invariant way as the integral over the Ioffe-time distribution of polarized gluons. We argue that for sufficiently regular polarized gluon distributions $\Delta G$ is dominated by contributions from small and moderate values of the Ioffe-time z < 10. As a consequence $\Delta G$ can be estimated with 20% accuracy from the first two even moments of the polarized gluon distribution, and its behavior at small values of Bjorken x or, equivalently, at large Ioffe-times z. We employ this idea and compute the first two moments of the polarized gluon distribution within the framework of QCD sum rules. Combined with the color coherence hypothesis we obtain an upper limit for $\Delta G \sim 2 \pm 0.5$ at a typical scale $\mu^2 \sim 1 GeV^2$.Comment: 12 pages, Latex, 2 figures include