1,106 research outputs found
Re-examining LGBT Resources on College Counseling Center Websites: An Over-time and Cross-country Analysis
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students continue to perceive a hostile climate on college campuses. For students facing these challenges, the university college counseling center website (CCW) may serve as a critical resource. This study provides an updated content analysis of the prevalence of LGBT communication on CCWs. Results showed that there remains a lack of LGBT-specific information about services provided on US CCWs. Furthermore, over-time analyses of 2008 and 2013 data showed that there have been no significant increases in any LGBT communication, and CCWs from religious schools continue to provide significantly less LGBT-related communication than nonreligious institutions. Separate analyses of UK CCWs showed that these websites were more likely than US CCWs to make any mention of LGBT issues but less likely to note group counseling services, links to LGBT-specific pamphlets, and educational outreach services offered. Overall, given attractive features of online health information, as well as the extent that students value CCWs, institutions must pursue stronger efforts to promote LGBT-related web counseling information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR
More on Massive 3D Supergravity
Completing earlier work on three dimensional (3D) N=1 supergravity with
curvature-squared terms, we construct the general supergravity extension of
cosmological massive gravity theories. We expand about supersymmetric anti-de
Sitter vacua, finding the conditions for bulk unitarity and the critical points
in parameter space at which the spectrum changes. We discuss implications for
the dual conformal field theory.Comment: v1 : 53 pages, 1 figure; v2 : significantly shortened, 42 p., version
published in Class. Quant. Gra
Genome-wide analysis reveals PADI4 cooperates with Elk-1 to activate c-Fos expression in breast cancer cells.
Peptidylarginine deiminase IV (PADI4) catalyzes the conversion of positively charged arginine and methylarginine residues to neutrally charged citrulline, and this activity has been linked to the repression of a limited number of target genes. To broaden our knowledge of the regulatory potential of PADI4, we utilized chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with promoter tiling array (ChIP-chip) analysis to more comprehensively investigate the range of PADI4 target genes across the genome in MCF-7 breast cancer cells. Results showed that PADI4 is enriched in gene promoter regions near transcription start sites (TSSs); and, surprisingly, this pattern of binding is primarily associated with actively transcribed genes. Computational analysis found potential binding sites for Elk-1, a member of the ETS oncogene family, to be highly enriched around PADI4 binding sites; and coimmunoprecipitation analysis then confirmed that Elk-1 physically associates with PADI4. To better understand how PADI4 may facilitate gene transactivation, we then show that PADI4 interacts with Elk-1 at the c-Fos promoter and that, following Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) stimulation, PADI4 catalytic activity facilitates Elk-1 phosphorylation, histone H4 acetylation, and c-Fos transcriptional activation. These results define a novel role for PADI4 as a transcription factor co-activator
A spin-4 analog of 3D massive gravity
A 6th-order, but ghost-free, gauge-invariant action is found for a 4th-rank
symmetric tensor potential in a three-dimensional (3D) Minkowski spacetime. It
propagates two massive modes of spin 4 that are interchanged by parity, and is
thus a spin-4 analog of linearized "new massive gravity". Also found are
ghost-free spin-4 analogs of linearized "topologically massive gravity" and
"new topologically massive gravity", of 5th- and 8th-order respectively.Comment: 16 pages, v2 : version published in Class. Quant. Gra
Cosmological Perturbations in a Big Crunch/Big Bang Space-time
A prescription is developed for matching general relativistic perturbations
across singularities of the type encountered in the ekpyrotic and cyclic
scenarios i.e. a collision between orbifold planes. We show that there exists a
gauge in which the evolution of perturbations is locally identical to that in a
model space-time (compactified Milne mod Z_2) where the matching of modes
across the singularity can be treated using a prescription previously
introduced by two of us. Using this approach, we show that long wavelength,
scale-invariant, growing-mode perturbations in the incoming state pass through
the collision and become scale-invariant growing-mode perturbations in the
expanding hot big bang phase.Comment: 47 pages, 4 figure
Evaluating of HPV-DNA ISH as an adjunct to p16 testing in oropharyngeal cancer
© 2020 Jeffrey Chi. Aim: Current guidelines recommend p16 immunohistochemistry (IHC) for testing human papillomavirus (HPV) in oropharyngeal carcinoma (OPSCC). We evaluated the value of adding DNA in situ hybridization (ISH) to p16 IHC. Methods: Fifty patients with OPSCC were analyzed. Concordance between HPV-DNA ISH and p16 IHC was measured by Gwet\u27s agreement coefficient. Results: p16 IHC was positive in 35/48 (72.9%), negative in 8/48 (16.7%) patients. Wide spectrum DNA-ISH was positive in 9/23 (39%) and negative in 14/23 (60.9%) patients. High-risk 16/18 (HR) HPV DNA-ISH was positive in 11/23 (47.8%) and negative in 12 (52.2%) patients. The agreement between HPV DNA-ISH and p16 IHC is fair (Gwet\u27s AC1 = 0.318). Conclusion: The agreement between p16 IHC and HPV-DNA ISH was fair. However, ISH sensitivity was low. Our findings add to the current data that p16 IHC testing is reliable and may be enough as a stand-alone test for HPV detection in OPSCC. Current testing guidelines recommend p16 immunochemistry (IHC) for detecting human papillomavirus (HPV) in oropharyngeal cancer (OPSCC). We evaluated the value of adding HPV DNA in situ hybridization (ISH) to p16 IHC. Fifty patients with OPSCC were analyzed. p16 IHC was positive in 72.9% of patients and DNA-ISH was positive in 39% of patients when wide spectrum probe was used and positive in 47.8% of patients when high-risk probe was used. The agreement between the two tests was fair. However, DNA-ISH sensitivity was low. p16 IHC may be enough as a stand-alone test for detection of HPV in OPSCC
Inflationary solutions in the brane-world and their geometrical interpretation
We consider the cosmology of a pair of domain walls bounding a
five-dimensional bulk space-time with negative cosmological constant, in which
the distance between the branes is not fixed in time. Although there are strong
arguments to suggest that this distance should be stabilized in the present
epoch, no such constraints exist for the early universe and thus non-static
solutions might provide relevant inflationary scenarios. We find the general
solution for the standard ansatz where the bulk is foliated by planar-symmetric
hypersurfaces. We show that in all cases the bulk geometry is that of anti-de
Sitter (AdS_5). We then present a geometrical interpretation for the solutions
as embeddings of two de Sitter (dS_4) surfaces in AdS_5, which provide a simple
interpretation of the physical properties of the solutions. A notable feature
explained in the analysis is that two-way communication between branes
expanding away from one another is possible for a finite amount of time, after
which communication can proceed in one direction only. The geometrical picture
also shows that our class of solutions (and related solutions in the
literature) are not completely general, contrary to some claims. We then derive
the most general solution for two walls in AdS_5. This includes novel
cosmologies where the brane tensions are not constrained to have opposite
signs. The construction naturally generalizes to arbitrary FRW cosmologies on
the branes.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure
Constraining compactness and magnetic field geometry of X-ray pulsars from the statistics of their pulse profiles
The light curves observed from X-ray pulsars and magnetars reflect the
radiation emission pattern, the geometry of the magnetic field, and the neutron
star compactness. We study the statistics of X-ray pulse profiles in order to
constrain the neutron star compactness and the magnetic field geometry. We
collect the data for 124 X-ray pulsars, which are mainly in high-mass X-ray
binary systems, and classify their pulse profiles according to the number of
observed peaks seen during one spin period, dividing them into two classes,
single- and double-peaked. We find that the pulsars are distributed about
equally between both groups. We also compute the probabilities predicted by the
theoretical models of two antipodal point-like spots that emit radiation
according to the pencil-like emission patterns. These are then compared to the
observed fraction of pulsars in the two classes. Assuming a blackbody emission
pattern, it is possible to constrain the neutron star compactness if the
magnetic dipole has arbitrary inclinations to the pulsar rotational axis. More
realistic pencil-beam patterns predict that 79% of the pulsars are
double-peaked independently of their compactness. The theoretical predictions
can be made consistent with the data if the magnetic dipole inclination to the
rotational axis has an upper limit of 40+/-4 deg. We also discuss the effect of
limited sensitivity of the X-ray instruments to detect weak pulses, which
lowers the number of detected double-peaked profiles and makes the theoretical
predictions to be consistent with the data even if the magnetic dipole does
have random inclinations. This shows that the statistics of pulse profiles does
not allow us to constrain the neutron star compactness. In contrast to the
previous claims by Bulik et al. (2003), the data also do not require the
magnetic inclination to be confined in a narrow interval.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, Astronomy and Astrophysics, in pres
Final results of the EDELWEISS-II WIMP search using a 4-kg array of cryogenic germanium detectors with interleaved electrodes
The EDELWEISS-II collaboration has completed a direct search for WIMP dark
matter with an array of ten 400-g cryogenic germanium detectors in operation at
the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane. The combined use of thermal phonon
sensors and charge collection electrodes with an interleaved geometry enables
the efficient rejection of gamma-induced radioactivity as well as near-surface
interactions. A total effective exposure of 384 kg.d has been achieved, mostly
coming from fourteen months of continuous operation. Five nuclear recoil
candidates are observed above 20 keV, while the estimated background is 3.0
events. The result is interpreted in terms of limits on the cross-section of
spin-independent interactions of WIMPs and nucleons. A cross-section of
4.4x10^-8 pb is excluded at 90%CL for a WIMP mass of 85 GeV. New constraints
are also set on models where the WIMP-nucleon scattering is inelastic.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures; matches published versio
- …