Natural killer cells and innate lymphoid cells but not NKT cells are mature in their cytokine production at birth.

Early life is a time of increased susceptibility to infectious diseases and development of allergy. Innate lymphocytes are crucial components of the initiation and regulation of immune responses at mucosal surfaces, but functional differences in innate lymphocytes early in life are not fully described. We aimed to characterise the abundance and function of different innate lymphocyte cell populations in cord blood in comparison to that of adults. Blood was collected from adult donors and umbilical vessels at birth. Multicolour flow cytometry panels were used to identify and characterise lymphocyte populations and their capacity to produce hallmark cytokines. Lymphocytes were more abundant in cord blood compared to adults, however, mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells and Natural Killer T (NKT)-like cells, were far less abundant. The capacity of NKT-like cells to produce cytokines and their expression of the cytotoxic granule protein granzyme B and the marker of terminal differentiation CD57 were much lower in cord blood than in adults. In contrast, Natural Killer (NK) cells were as abundant in cord blood as in adults, they could produce IFNγ, and their expression of granzyme B was not significantly different to that of adult NK cells, although CD57 expression was lower. All innate lymphoid cell (ILC) subsets were more abundant in cord blood, and ILC1 and ILC2 were capable of production of IFNγ and IL-13, respectively. In conclusion, different innate lymphoid cells differ in both abundance and function in peripheral blood at birth and with important implications for immunity in early life

Measurement of the Absolute Differential Cross Section for np Elastic Scattering at 194 MeV

A tagged medium-energy neutron beam has been used in a precise measurement of the absolute differential cross section for np back-scattering. The results resolve significant discrepancies within the np database concerning the angular dependence in this regime. The experiment has determined the absolute normalization with 1.5% uncertainty, suitable to verify constraints of supposedly comparable precision that arise from the rest of the database in partial wave analyses. The analysis procedures, especially those associated with evaluation of systematic errors in the experiment, are described in detail so that systematic uncertainties may be included in a reasonable way in subsequent partial wave analysis fits incorporating the present results.Comment: 22 pages, 21 figures, submitted for publication in Physical Review

Finite Generation of Canonical Ring by Analytic Method

In the 80th birthday conference for Professor LU Qikeng in June 2006 I gave a talk on the analytic approach to the finite generation of the canonical ring for a compact complex algebraic manifold of general type. This article is my contribution to the proceedings of that conference from my talk. In this article I give an overview of the analytic proof and focus on explaining how the analytic method handles the problem of infinite number of interminable blow-ups in the intuitive approach to prove the finite generation of the canonical ring. The proceedings of the LU Qikeng conference will appear as Issue No. 4 of Volume 51 of Science in China Series A: Mathematics (www.springer.com/math/applications/journal/11425)

Exceptional del Pezzo hypersurfaces

We compute global log canonical thresholds of a large class of quasismooth well-formed del Pezzo weighted hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{P}(a_{1},a_{2},a_{3},a_{4})$. As a corollary we obtain the existence of orbifold K\"ahler--Einstein metrics on many of them, and classify exceptional and weakly exceptional quasismooth well-formed del Pezzo weighted hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{P}(a_{1},a_{2},a_{3},a_{4})$.Comment: 149 pages, one reference adde

Measurement of the Absolute np Scattering Differential Cross Section at 194 MeV

We describe a double-scattering experiment with a novel tagged neutron beam to measure differential cross sections for np back-scattering to better than 2% absolute precision. The measurement focuses on angles and energies where the cross section magnitude and angle-dependence constrain the charged pion-nucleon coupling constant, but existing data show serious discrepancies among themselves and with energy-dependent partial wave analyses (PWA). The present results are in good accord with the PWA, but deviate systematically from other recent measurements.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Bergman kernel and complex singularity exponent

We give a precise estimate of the Bergman kernel for the model domain defined by $\Omega_F=\{(z,w)\in \mathbb{C}^{n+1}:{\rm Im}w-|F(z)|^2>0\},$ where $F=(f_1,...,f_m)$ is a holomorphic map from $\mathbb{C}^n$ to $\mathbb{C}^m$, in terms of the complex singularity exponent of $F$.Comment: to appear in Science in China, a special issue dedicated to Professor Zhong Tongde's 80th birthda

Measurement of the Differential and Total Cross Sections of the ᵧd→KºɅ(p) Reaction Within the Resonance Region

We report the first measurement of differential and total cross sections for the γd →K0 Λ(p)reaction, using data from the CLAS detector at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. Data collected during two separate experimental runs were studied with photon-energy coverage 0.8-3.6 GeV and 0.5-2.6 GeV, respectively. The two measurements are consistent giving confidence in the method and determination of systematic uncertainties. The cross sections are compared with predictions from the KAON-MAID theoretical model (without kaon exchange), which deviate from the data at higher W and at forward kaon angles. These data, along with previously published cross sections for K+Λ photoproduction, provide essential constraints on the nucleon resonance spectrum. A first partial wave analysis was performed that describes the data without the introduction of new resonances