443 research outputs found
Ginsburg-Landau Expansion in a non-Fermi Superconductor
We study the Ginsburg-Landau expansion for the non-Fermi model proposed by
Anderson. We analyze the deviations of the main properties of a non-Fermi
superconductor from the isotropic s-wave bidimensiona superconductor.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Physica
Cryptanalysis of an MPEG-Video Encryption Scheme Based on Secret Huffman Tables
This paper studies the security of a recently-proposed MPEG-video encryption
scheme based on secret Huffman tables. Our cryptanalysis shows that: 1) the key
space of the encryption scheme is not sufficiently large against
divide-and-conquer (DAC) attack and known-plaintext attack; 2) it is possible
to decrypt a cipher-video with a partially-known key, thus dramatically
reducing the complexity of the DAC brute-force attack in some cases; 3) its
security against the chosen-plaintext attack is very weak. Some experimental
results are included to support the cryptanalytic results with a brief discuss
on how to improve this MPEG-video encryption scheme.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Drag force in SYM plasma with B field from AdS/CFT
We investigate drag force in a thermal plasma of N=4 super Yang-Mills theory
via both fundamental and Dirichlet strings under the influence of non-zero NSNS
-field background. In the description of AdS/CFT correspondence the endpoint
of these strings correspondes to an external monopole or quark moving with a
constant electromagnetic field. We demonstrate how the configuration of string
tail as well as the drag force obtains corrections in this background.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, more discussion and reference adde
Thrombospondin 1 is a key mediator of transforming growth factor β-mediated cell contractility in systemic sclerosis via a mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MEK)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)-dependent mechanism
BACKGROUND: The mechanism underlying the ability of fibroblasts to contract a collagen gel matrix is largely unknown. Fibroblasts from scarred (lesional) areas of patients with the fibrotic disease scleroderma show enhanced ability to contract collagen relative to healthy fibroblasts. Thrombospondin 1 (TSP1), an activator of latent transforming growth factor (TGF)β, is overexpressed by scleroderma fibroblasts. In this report we investigate whether activation of latent TGFβ by TSP1 plays a key role in matrix contraction by normal and scleroderma fibroblasts. METHODS: We use the fibroblast populated collagen lattices (FPCL) model of matrix contraction to show that interfering with TSP1/TGFβ binding and knockdown of TSP1 expression suppressed the contractile ability of normal and scleroderma fibroblasts basally and in response to TGFβ. Previously, we have shown that ras/mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MEK)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) mediates matrix contraction basally and in response to TGFβ. RESULTS: During mechanical stimulation in the FPCL system, using a multistation tensioning-culture force monitor (mst-CFM), TSP1 expression and p-ERK activation in fibroblasts are enhanced. Inhibiting TSP1 activity reduced the elevated activation of MEK/ERK and expression of key fibrogenic proteins. TSP1 also blocked platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)-induced contractile activity and MEK/ERK activation. CONCLUSIONS: TSP1 is a key mediator of matrix contraction of normal and systemic sclerosis fibroblasts, via MEK/ERK
Non-relativistic CFT and Semi-classical Strings
We study different features of 3D non-relativistic CFT using gravity
description. As the corresponding gravity solution can be embedded into the
type IIB string theory, we study semi-classical closed/open strings in this
background. In particular we consider folded rotating and circular pulsating
closed strings where we find the anomalous dimension of the dual operators as a
function of their quantum numbers. We also consider moving open strings in this
background which can be used to compute the drag force. In particular we find
that for slowly moving particles, the energy is lost exponentially and the
characteristic time is given in terms of the temperature, while for fast moving
particles the energy loss goes as inverse of the time and the characteristic
time is independent of the temperature.Comment: 20 pages, Latex file; V2: typos corrected, ref. adde
Scanning the Parameter Space of Holographic Superconductors
We study various physical quantities associated with holographic s-wave
superconductors as functions of the scaling dimensions of the dual condensates.
A bulk scalar field with negative mass squared , satisfying the
Breitenlohner-Freedman stability bound and the unitarity bound, and allowed to
vary in unit intervals, were considered. We observe that all the physical
quantities investigated are sensitive to the scaling dimensions of the dual
condensates. For all the , the characteristic lengths diverge at the
critical temperature in agreement with the Ginzburg-Landau theory. The
Ginzburg-Landau parameter, obtained from these length scales indicates that the
holographic superconductors can be type I or type II depending on the charge
and the scaling dimensions of the dual condensates. For a fixed charge, there
exists a critical scaling dimension, above which a holographic superconductor
is type I, below which it becomes a type II.Comment: 24 pages 47 figure
A Lifshitz Black Hole in Four Dimensional R^2 Gravity
We consider a higher derivative gravity theory in four dimensions with a
negative cosmological constant and show that vacuum solutions of both Lifshitz
type and Schr\"{o}dinger type with arbitrary dynamical exponent z exist in this
system. Then we find an analytic black hole solution which asymptotes to the
vacuum Lifshitz solution with z=3/2 at a specific value of the coupling
constant. We analyze the thermodynamic behavior of this black hole and find
that the black hole has zero entropy while non-zero temperature, which is very
similar to the case of BTZ black holes in new massive gravity at a specific
coupling. In addition, we find that the three dimensional Lifshitz black hole
recently found by E. Ayon-Beato et al. has a negative entropy and mass when the
Newton constant is taken to be positive.Comment: 11 pages, no figure; v2, a minor error correcte
Branes at Quantum Criticality
In this paper we propose new non-relativistic p+1 dimensional theory. This
theory is defined in such a way that the potential term obeys the principle of
detailed balance where the generating action corresponds to p-brane action.
This condition ensures that the norm of the vacuum wave functional of p+1
dimensional theory is equal to the partition function of p-brane theory.Comment: 17 pages, references added, typos fixed,v2. minor change
Difference in distribution functions:A new diffusion weighted imaging metric for estimating white matter integrity
Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) is a widely recognized neuroimaging technique to evaluate the microstructure of brain white matter. The objective of this study is to establish an improved automated DWI marker for estimating white matter integrity and investigating ageing related cognitive decline. The concept of Wasserstein distance was introduced to help establish a new measure: difference in distribution functions (DDF), which captures the difference of reshaping one's mean diffusivity (MD) distribution to a reference MD distribution. This new DWI measure was developed using a population-based cohort (n=19,369) from the UK Biobank. Validation was conducted using the data drawn from two independent cohorts: the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study, a community-dwelling sample (n=402), and the Renji Cerebral Small Vessel Disease Cohort Study (RCCS), which consisted of cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) patients (n=171) and cognitively normal controls (NC) (n=43). DDF was associated with age across all three samples and better explained the variance of changes than other established DWI measures, such as fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity and peak width of skeletonized mean diffusivity (PSMD). Significant correlations between DDF and cognition were found in the UK Biobank cohort and the MAS cohort. Binary logistic analysis and receiver operator characteristic curve analysis of RCCS demonstrated that DDF had higher sensitivity in distinguishing CSVD patients from NC than the other DWI measures. To demonstrate the flexibility of DDF, we calculated regional DDF which also showed significant correlation with age and cognition. DDF can be used as a marker for monitoring the white matter microstructural changes and ageing related cognitive decline in the elderly
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