7,920 research outputs found
HiJAKing innate lymphoid cells?
The family of innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) consists of a heterogeneous group of cytokine-producing
cells that have features in common with adaptive T helper (Th) cells. Cytokines acting through
the Janus kinase (JAK)/signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) pathways are key
players in both Th and ILC biology. Observations in animal models, supported by evidence from
humans, have highlighted the importance of the downstream events evoked by the cytokines that
signal through the common IL-2 γ-chain receptor. Similarly, it is reasonable to assume that therapeutic targeting of this signaling cascade will also modulate ILC effector function in disease. Since a
major limitation of gene knockout studies in mice is the complete loss of ILC populations, including
NK cells, we believe that an attractive, alternative, strategy would be to study the role of cytokine
signaling in the regulation of ILC function by pharmacological manipulation of these pathways
instead. Here, we discuss the potential of JAK inhibitors as a drug class to elucidate mechanisms
underlying ILC biology and to inform the design of new therapeutic strategies for inflammatory
and autoimmune disorders
Massive Higher Spin States in String Theory and the Principle of Equivalence
In this paper we study three point functions of the Type II superstring
involving one graviton and two massive states, focusing in particular on the
spin-7/2 fermions at the first mass level. Defining a gravitational quadrupole
``h-factor'', we find that the non-minimal interactions of string states in
general are parametrized by , in contrast to the preferred field theory
value of h=1 (for tree-level unitarity). This difference arises from the fact
that consistent gravitational interactions of strings are related to the
presence of a complete tower of massive states, not present in the ordinary
field theory case.Comment: 14 pages, plain Te
Spectator Effects in Inclusive Decays of Beauty Hadrons
We evaluate the matrix elements of the four-quark operators which contribute
to the lifetimes of -mesons and the -baryon. We find that the
spectator effects are not responsible for the discrepancy between the
theoretical prediction and experimental measurement of the ratio of lifetimes
.Comment: LATTICE98. 3 pages, no figure
Curvature perturbations from dimensional decoupling
The scalar modes of the geometry induced by dimensional decoupling are
investigated. In the context of the low energy string effective action,
solutions can be found where the spatial part of the background geometry is the
direct product of two maximally symmetric Euclidean manifolds whose related
scale factors evolve at a dual rate so that the expanding dimensions first
accelerate and then decelerate while the internal dimensions always contract.
After introducing the perturbative treatment of the inhomogeneities, a class of
five-dimensional geometries is discussed in detail. Quasi-normal modes of the
system are derived and the numerical solution for the evolution of the metric
inhomogeneities shows that the fluctuations of the internal dimensions provide
a term that can be interpreted, in analogy with the well-known four-dimensional
situation, as a non-adiabatic pressure density variation. Implications of this
result are discussed with particular attention to string cosmological
scenarios.Comment: 25 pages, 3 figure
Time-dependent gravitating solitons in five dimensional warped space-times
Time-dependent soliton solutions are explicitly derived in a five-dimensional
theory endowed with one (warped) extra-dimension. Some of the obtained
geometries, everywhere well defined and technically regular, smoothly
interpolate between two five-dimensional anti-de Sitter space-times for fixed
value of the conformal time coordinate. Time dependent solutions containing
both topological and non-topological sectors are also obtained. Supplementary
degrees of freedom can be also included and, in this case, the resulting
multi-soliton solutions may describe time-dependent kink-antikink systems.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figure
Susceptibility of the QCD vacuum to CP-odd electromagnetic background fields
We investigate two flavor QCD in presence of CP-odd electromagnetic
background fields and determine, by means of lattice QCD simulations, the
induced effective theta term to the first order in the scalar product of E and
B. We employ a rooted staggered discretization and study lattice spacings down
to 0.1 fm and Goldstone pion masses around 480 MeV. In order to deal with a
positive measure, we consider purely imaginary electric fields and real
magnetic fields, then exploiting analytic continuation. Our results are
relevant to a description of the effective pseudoscalar QED-QCD interactions.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. New data and references added. Matches
the published versio
Subjective probabilities: psychological theories and economic applications
Abbigail J. Chiodo, Massimo Guidolin, Michael T. Owyang, and Makoto Shimoji> Real-life decisionmakers are often forced to estimate the likelihood of uncertain future events. Usually, economists assume that these agents behave in a fully rational manner, employing statistical rules to assess probabilities, and that they maximize expected utility. Psychological studies, however, have shown that people do not tend to behave as rational models would predict. The authors review three rules of thumb taken from the psychology literature that people rely on when assessing the likelihood of uncertain events. The authors construct a simple model of belief formation that incorporates these rules and then present one formal and three illustrative applications showing how these psychological phenomena cause deviations from anticipated economic outcomes.Economic conditions ; Prediction (Psychology)
Subjective probabilities: psychological evidence and economic applications
Real-life decision makers are often forced to estimate the likelihood of uncertain future events. Usually, economists assume that agents behave as though they are fully rational, employing statistical rules to assess probabilities, and that they maximize expected utility. Psychological studies, however, have shown that people tend not to adhere to these rationality postulates. We review three rules of thumb taken from the psychology literature that people have been shown to rely on when assessing the likelihood of uncertain events. We construct a simple model of belief formation that incorporates these rules and present one formal and two illustrative applications in which these psychological phenomena cause deviations from anticipated economic outcomes.Economic conditions ; Prediction (Psychology)
Armchair graphene nanoribbons: PT-symmetry breaking and exceptional points without dissipation
We consider a single layer graphene nanoribbon with armchair edges in a
longitudinally constant external potential and point out that its transport
properties can be described by means of an effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian.
We show that this system has some features typical of dissipative systems,
namely the presence of exceptional points and of PT-symmetry breaking, although
it is not dissipative.Comment: 5 pages, 2 eps figure
Confining properties of QCD at finite temperature and density
A disorder parameter detecting dual superconductivty of the vacuum is used as
a probe to characterize the confining properties of the phase diagram of two
color QCD at finite temperature and density. We obtain evidence for the
disappearing of dual superconductivity (deconfinement) induced by a finite
density of baryonic matter, as well as for a coincidence of this phenomenon
with the restoration of chiral symmetry both at zero and finite density. The
saturation transition induced by Pauli blocking is studied as well, and a
general warning is given about the possible effects that this unphysical
transition could have on the study of the QCD phase diagram at strong values of
the gauge coupling.Comment: 13 pages, 23 figure
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