283 research outputs found
Detecting variable (V), diversity (D) and joining (J) gene segment recombination using a two-colour fluorescence system
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Diversity of immunoglobulins and the T cell antigen receptors is achieved via the recombination activating gene (RAG)-mediated rearrangement of variable (V), diversity (D) and joining (J) gene segments, and this underpins the efficient recognition of a seemingly limitless array of antigens. Analysis of V(D)J recombination activity is typically performed using extrachromosomal recombination substrates that are recovered from transfected cells and selected using bacterial transformation. We have developed a two-colour fluorescence-based system that simplifies detection of both deletion and inversion joining events mediated by RAG proteins.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This system employs two fluorescent reporter genes that differentially mark unrearranged substrates and those that have undergone RAG-mediated deletion or inversion events. The recombination products bear the hallmarks of true V(D)J recombination and activity can be detected using fluorescence microscopy or flow cytometry. Recombination events can be detected without the need for cytotoxic selection of recombination products and the system allows analysis of recombination activity using substrates integrated into the genome.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This system will be useful in the analysis and exploitation of the V(D)J recombination machinery and suggests that similar approaches could be used to replace expression of one gene with another during lymphocyte development.</p
High Energy Scattering and D-Pair Creation in Matrix String Theory
In this paper we use the matrix string approach to begin a study of high
energy scattering processes in M-theory. In particular we exhibit an
instanton-type configuration in 1+1 super-Yang-Mills theory that can be
interpreted as a non-perturbative description of a string interaction. This
solution is used to describe high energy processes with non-zero longitudinal
momentum exchange, in which an arbitrary number of eigenvalues get transferred
between the two scattering states. We describe a direct correspondence between
these semi-classical SYM configurations and the Gross-Mende saddle points. We
also study in detail the pair production of D-particles via a one-loop
calculation which in the 1+1D gauge theory language is described by the
(perturbative) transition between states with different electric flux. Finally,
we discuss a possible connection between these calculations in which D-particle
production gives important corrections to the Gross-Mende process.Comment: 44 pages, harvmac; minor reference and equation correction
Matrix Theory Interpretation of DLCQ String Worldsheets
We study the null compactification of type-IIA-string perturbation theory at
finite temperature. We prove a theorem about Riemann surfaces establishing that
the moduli spaces of infinite-momentum-frame superstring worldsheets are
identical to those of branched-cover instantons in the matrix-string model
conjectured to describe M-theory. This means that the identification of string
degrees of freedom in the matrix model proposed by Dijkgraaf, Verlinde and
Verlinde is correct and that its natural generalization produces the moduli
space of Riemann surfaces at all orders in the genus expansion.Comment: 9 pages LaTeX. Changes in style, typos correcte
Fuzzy Spheres in pp Wave Matrix String Theory
The behaviour of matrix string theory in the background of a type IIA pp wave
at small string coupling, g_s << 1, is determined by the combination M g_s
where M is a dimensionless parameter proportional to the strength of the
Ramond-Ramond background. For M g_s << 1, the matrix string theory is
conventional; only the degrees of freedom in the Cartan subalgebra contribute,
and the theory reduces to copies of the perturbative string. For M g_s >> 1,
the theory admits degenerate vacua representing fundamental strings blown up
into fuzzy spheres with nonzero lightcone momenta. We determine the spectrum of
small fluctuations around these vacua. Around such a vacuum all N-squared
degrees of freedom are excited with comparable energies. The spectrum of masses
has a spacing which is independent of the radius of the fuzzy sphere, in
agreement with expected behaviour of continuum giant gravitons. Furthermore,
for fuzzy spheres characterized by reducible representations of SU(2) and
vanishing Wilson lines, the boundary conditions on the field are characterized
by a set of continuous angles which shows that generically the blown up strings
do not ``close''.Comment: 45 pages REVTeX 4 and AMSLaTeX. 1 figure. v2: references added.
Figure redrawn using LaTe
The Color of Childhood: The Role of the Child/Human Binary in the Production of Anti-Black Racism
The binary between the figure of the child and the fully human being is invoked with regularity in analyses of race, yet its centrality to the conception of race has never been fully explored. For most commentators, the figure of the child operates as a metaphoric or rhetorical trope, a non-essential strategic tool in the perpetuation of White supremacy. As I show in the following, the child/human binary does not present a contingent or merely rhetorical construction but, rather, a central feature of racialization. Where Black peoples are situated as objects of violence it is often precisely because Blackness has been identified with childhood and childhood is historically identified as the archetypal site of naturalized violence and servitude. I proceed by offering a historical account of how Black peoples came to inherit the subordination and dehumanization of European childhood and how White youth were subsequently spared through their partial categorization as adults
Human-induced climate change compounded by socio-economic water stressors increased severity of drought in Syria, Iraq and Iran
D-instantons and Matrix Models
We discuss the Matrix Model aspect of configurations saturating a fixed
number of fermionic zero modes. This number is independent of the rank of the
gauge group and the instanton number. This will allow us to define a
large- limit of the embeddeding of D-instantons in the Matrix Model
and make contact with the leading term (the measure factor) of the supergravity
computations of D-instanton effects. We show that the connection between these
two approaches is done through the Abelian modes of the Matrix variables.Comment: harvmac (b), 26 pages. v5 : polished final version for publication.
Cosmetic changes onl
Constraints on a Massive Dirac Neutrino Model
We examine constraints on a simple neutrino model in which there are three
massless and three massive Dirac neutrinos and in which the left handed
neutrinos are linear combinations of doublet and singlet neutrinos. We examine
constraints from direct decays into heavy neutrinos, indirect effects on
electroweak parameters, and flavor changing processes. We combine these
constraints to examine the allowed mass range for the heavy neutrinos of each
of the three generations.Comment: latex, 29 pages, 7 figures (not included), MIT-CTP-221
The Eliza effect and its dangers: from demystification to gender critique
This essay provides a gender critique of the Eliza effect. It delineates the way in which the Eliza effect is operationalised in AI research even as it is ostensibly demystified, for example in the writings of Douglas Hofstadter and Joseph Weizenbaum. It then exposes the gendered assumptions embedded in the nomenclature used to name this misperception of the computer as having capabilities equivalent to the human. It traces the genealogy of that nomenclature back through Weizenbaum’s ELIZA, to George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. A close reading of the play is deployed in order to reveal the structural inequities of gender, class, and who or what gets to be human, that are both explored in the play and encoded in the operation and operationalisations of the Eliza effect. It concludes by attending to that operation and operationalisation in relation to today’s Virtual Personal Assistant’s, and makes a case for the importance of critique in order to expose the inequitable structures of power obscured and compounded by the Eliza effect – both its name, and that which it names
M(atrix) Theory: Matrix Quantum Mechanics as a Fundamental Theory
A self-contained review is given of the matrix model of M-theory. The
introductory part of the review is intended to be accessible to the general
reader. M-theory is an eleven-dimensional quantum theory of gravity which is
believed to underlie all superstring theories. This is the only candidate at
present for a theory of fundamental physics which reconciles gravity and
quantum field theory in a potentially realistic fashion. Evidence for the
existence of M-theory is still only circumstantial---no complete
background-independent formulation of the theory yet exists. Matrix theory was
first developed as a regularized theory of a supersymmetric quantum membrane.
More recently, the theory appeared in a different guise as the discrete
light-cone quantization of M-theory in flat space. These two approaches to
matrix theory are described in detail and compared. It is shown that matrix
theory is a well-defined quantum theory which reduces to a supersymmetric
theory of gravity at low energies. Although the fundamental degrees of freedom
of matrix theory are essentially pointlike, it is shown that higher-dimensional
fluctuating objects (branes) arise through the nonabelian structure of the
matrix degrees of freedom. The problem of formulating matrix theory in a
general space-time background is discussed, and the connections between matrix
theory and other related models are reviewed.Comment: 56 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX, revtex style; v2: references adde
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