2,165 research outputs found
Political Islam’s relation to capital and class
The last three decades have witnessed a relentless growth of Islamic movements, so that, today political Islam is an undeniable reality on the world scene. The events of September 11, 2001 and since have given it further prominence. From the Middle East to North Africa and South Asia, it has, in its various manifestations, become a major
player that needs to be analysed both politically and theoretically. The contradictory nature of political Islam means that such analyses must deal with it not only in relation to the interests of capital, but also in relation to the challenge it poses to socialist ideas
On the origin of extinction in the Coma cluster of galaxies
Visual extinction of distant clusters seen through the Coma cluster seem to suggest that dust may be present in the hot x ray emitting intracluster gas. However, the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) failed to detect any infrared emission from the cluster at the level expected from the extinction measurements. Researchers carried out a detailed analysis of the properties of intracluster dust in the context of a model which includes continuous injection of dust by the cluster galaxies, grain destruction by sputtering, and transient grain heating by the hot plasma. Computed infrared fluxes are in agreement with the upper limit obtained from the IRAS. The calculations, and the constraint implied by the IRAS observations, suggest that the intracluster dust must be significantly depleted compared to interstellar abundances. Researchers discuss possible explanations for the discrepancy between the observed visual extinction and the IRAS upper limit
Targeted delivery of anti-inflammatory therapy to rheumatoid tissue by fusion proteins containing an IL-4-linked synovial targeting peptide
We provide first-time evidence that the synovial endothelium-targeting peptide (SyETP) CKSTHDRLC successfully delivers conjugated IL-4 to human rheumatoid synovium transplanted into SCID mice. SyETP, previously isolated by in vivo phage display and shown to preferentially localize to synovial xenografts, was linked by recombinant technology to hIL-4 via an MMP-cleavable sequence. Both IL-4 and the MMP-cleavable sequence were shown to be functional. IL-4-SyETP augmented production of IL-1ra by synoviocytes stimulated with IL-1[beta] in a dose-dependent manner. In vivo imaging confirmed increased retention of SyETP-linked-IL-4 in synovial grafts which was enhanced by increasing number of copies (one to three) in the constructs. Strikingly, SyETP delivered bioactive IL-4 in vivo as demonstrated by increased pSTAT6 in synovial grafts. Thus, this study provides proof of concept for peptide-tissue-specific targeted immunotherapy in rheumatoid arthritis. This technology is potentially applicable to other biological therapies providing enhanced potency to inflammatory sites and reducing systemic toxicity
Submillimeter wavelength survey of the galactic plane from l = -5 deg to l = +62 deg: Structure and energetics of the inner disk
Results from a large scale survey of the first quadrant of the Milky Way galactic plane at wavelengths of 150, 250, and 300 microns with a 10x10 arcmin beam are presented. The emission detected in the survey arises from compact sources, most of which are identified with known peaks of 5 GHz and/or CO emission, and from an underlying diffuse background with a typical angular width of approximately 0.9 deg (FWHM) which accounts for most of the emission. A total of 80 prominent discrete sources were identified and characterized, of which about half were not previously reported at far infrared wavelengths. The total infrared luminosity within the solar circle is approximately 1 to 2x10 to the 10th power L sub 0, and is probably emitted by dust that resides in molecular clouds
Scaling law in the Standard Map critical function. Interpolating hamiltonian and frequency map analysis
We study the behaviour of the Standard map critical function in a
neighbourhood of a fixed resonance, that is the scaling law at the fixed
resonance. We prove that for the fundamental resonance the scaling law is
linear. We show numerical evidence that for the other resonances , , and and relatively prime, the scaling law follows a
power--law with exponent .Comment: AMS-LaTeX2e, 29 pages with 8 figures, submitted to Nonlinearit
Curvature of the universe and the dark energy potential
The flatness of an accelerating universe model (characterized by a dark
energy scalar field ) is mimicked from a curved model that is filled
with, apart from the cold dark matter component, a quintessencelike scalar
field . In this process, we characterize the original scalar potential
and the mimicked scalar potential associated to the scalar
fields and , respectively. The parameters of the original model are
fixed through the mimicked quantities that we relate to the present
astronomical data, such that the equation state parameter and the
dark energy density parameter .Comment: References 7 and 8 have been corrected: (7) Riess et al. 1998, AJ,
116, 1009 and (8) Perlmutter et al. 1999, ApJ, 517, 56
Ecological disturbance in tropical peatlands prior to marine Permian-Triassic mass extinction
The Permian-Triassic mass extinction is widely attributed to the global environmental changes caused by the eruption of the Siberian Traps. However, the precise temporal link between marine and terrestrial crises and volcanism is unclear. Here, we report anomalously high mercury (Hg) concentrations in terrestrial strata from southwestern China, synchronous with Hg anomalies in the marine Permian-Triassic type section. The terrestrial sediments also record increased abundance of fossil charcoal coincident with the onset of a negative carbon isotope excursion and the loss of tropical rainforest vegetation, both of which occurred immediately before the peak of Hg concentrations. The organic carbon isotope data show an ∼5‰–6‰ negative excursion in terrestrial organic matter (bulk organic, cuticles, and charcoal), reflecting change in atmospheric CO2 carbon-isotope composition coincident with enhanced wildfire indicated by increased charcoal. Hg spikes provide a correlative tool between terrestrial and marine records along with carbon isotope trends. These data demonstrate that ecological deterioration occurred in tropical peatlands prior to the main marine mass extinction
Spectra of random Hermitian matrices with a small-rank external source: supercritical and subcritical regimes
Random Hermitian matrices with a source term arise, for instance, in the
study of non-intersecting Brownian walkers \cite{Adler:2009a, Daems:2007} and
sample covariance matrices \cite{Baik:2005}.
We consider the case when the external source matrix has two
distinct real eigenvalues: with multiplicity and zero with multiplicity
. The source is small in the sense that is finite or , for . For a Gaussian potential, P\'ech\'e
\cite{Peche:2006} showed that for sufficiently small (the subcritical
regime) the external source has no leading-order effect on the eigenvalues,
while for sufficiently large (the supercritical regime) eigenvalues
exit the bulk of the spectrum and behave as the eigenvalues of
Gaussian unitary ensemble (GUE). We establish the universality of these results
for a general class of analytic potentials in the supercritical and subcritical
regimes.Comment: 41 pages, 4 figure
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