Interview with Sylvester James Gates, Jr.

Born on December 15, 1950, in Tampa, Florida, Sylvester James Gates, Jr. moved frequently at an early age while his father served in the U.S. Army. When the family settled in Parramore, a historical neighborhood for Orlando residents of African descent, Gates first attended the Hannibal Square Elementary School, then Jones High School in Orlando, where he graduated as valedictorian in 1969. With the encouragement of his father, Gates studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning his B.S. degrees in mathematics and physics (1973), as well as his Ph.D. in physics (1977). An accomplished academic, Dr. Gates has had a distinguished professional career, serving as a junior fellow at Harvard University, research follow at the California Institute of Technology, assistant professor of applied mathematics at MIT, and professor of physics at the University of Maryland. In 1998, when he was named the John S. Toll Professor of Physics, Gates became the first African American physicist to hold an endowed chair at a major research university in the United States. As an American theoretical physicist, Gates is known for his work on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory. He has written or co-authored over 200 research papers and articles. His Superspace: One Thousand and One Lessons in Supersymmetry (1984) is the first comprehensive title on supersymmetry and a standard textbook. He has received numerous honors and awards, including being the first recipient of the American Physical Society’s Edward A. Bouchet Award. In 2009, Gates was named a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. In addition to his research, Gates is known for advocating the importance of education and being able to easily explain complex physics theories to a non-physics audience. He is a strong advocate for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Dr. Gates the National Medal of Science for his contributions to science and research. Dr. Gates is currently the Ford Foundation Professor of Physics at Brown University. On Thursday, April 12, 2018, he visited Rollins College and gave a public presentation in the SunTrust Auditorium titled “Why Am I a Theoretical Physicist?” During the session, Professor Gate explored the arc of his career and life’s trajectory in physics while reflecting on his family connection in Central Florida

On the nature of monozygotic twin concordance and discordance for autistic trait severity: A quantitative analysis

The characterizing features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are continuously distributed in nature; however, prior twin studies have not systematically incorporated this knowledge into estimations of concordance and discordance. We conducted a quantitative analysis of twin-twin similarity for autistic trait severity in three existing data sets involving 366 pairs of uniformly-phenotyped monozygotic (MZ) twins with and without ASD. Probandwise concordance for ASD was 96%; however, MZ trait correlations differed markedly for pairs with ASD trait burden below versus above the threshold for clinical diagnosis, with

Glucose-mediated de novo lipogenesis in photoreceptors drives early diabetic retinopathy

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is an increasingly frequent cause of blindness across populations; however, the events that initiate pathophysiology of DR remain elusive. Strong preclinical and clinical evidence suggests that abnormalities in retinal lipid metabolism caused by diabetes may account for the origin of this disease. A major arm of lipid metabolism, de novo biosynthesis, is driven by elevation in available glucose, a common thread binding all forms of vision loss in diabetes. Therefore, we hypothesized that aberrant retinal lipid biogenesis is an important promoter of early DR. In murine models, we observed elevations of diabetes-associated retinal de novo lipogenesis ∼70% over control levels. This shift was primarily because of activation of fatty acid synthase (FAS), a rate-limiting enzyme in the biogenic pathway. Activation of FAS was driven by canonical glucose-mediated disinhibition of acetyl-CoA carboxylase, a major upstream regulatory enzyme. Mutant mice expressing gain-of-function FAS demonstrated increased vulnerability to DR, whereas those with FAS deletion in rod photoreceptors maintained preserved visual responses upon induction of diabetes. Excess retinal de novo lipogenesis—either because of diabetes or because of FAS gain of function—was associated with modestly increased levels of palmitate-containing phosphatidylcholine species in synaptic membranes, a finding with as yet uncertain significance. These findings implicate glucose-dependent increases in photoreceptor de novo lipogenesis in the early pathogenesis of DR, although the mechanism of deleterious action of this pathway remains unclear

The Sylvester equation and the elliptic Korteweg-de Vries system

The elliptic potential Korteweg-de Vries lattice system is a multi-component extension of the lattice potential Korteweg-de Vries equation, whose soliton solutions are associated with an elliptic Cauchy kernel (i.e., a Cauchy kernel on the torus). In this paper we generalize the class of solutions by allowing the spectral parameter to be a full matrix obeying a matrix version of the equation of the elliptic curve, and for the Cauchy matrix to be a solution of a Sylvester type matrix equation subject to this matrix elliptic curve equation. The construction involves solving the matrix elliptic curve equation by using Toeplitz matrix techniques, and analysing the solution of the Sylvester equation in terms of Jordan normal forms. Furthermore, we consider the continuum limit system associated with the elliptic potential Korteweg-de Vries system, and analyse the dynamics of the soliton solutions, which reveals some new features of the elliptic system in comparison to the non-elliptic case

beta-estradiol attenuates the anti-HIV-1 efficacy of Stavudine (D4T) in primary PBL

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Female hormones are known to play an important role in predisposition for many infectious diseases. Recent work suggests there are gender effects in HIV/AIDS progression. Here we ask whether the sex steroid hormone β-estradiol affects the replication of HIV-1 or the efficacy of a common anti-retroviral drug, Stavudine (D4T).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Human PBL were infected with HIV-1 in the presence or absence of combinations of sex steroid hormones and the anti-retroviral drug, D4T. After seven days in culture, viral supernatants were assayed for HIV-1 p24 protein. β-estradiol resulted in a modest inhibition of HIV-1 replication of ~26%. However, 2 nM β-estradiol increased the amount of HIV-1 replication in the presence of 50 nM D4T from a baseline of 33% (+/- SE = 5.4) to 74% (+/- SE = 5.4) of control virus levels in the absence of drug. Both results were statistically highly significant (p < 0.001). β-estradiol did not increase the replication of a D4T-resistant strain of HIV in the presence of D4T. The effects were unlikely to be due to general cell inhibition or toxicity because these concentrations of drug and hormone cause no cytotoxicity in PBL as measured by trypan blue exclusion.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>β-estradiol inhibited both HIV-1 replication in primary human PBL and the antiretroviral efficacy of D4T in PBL cultures. To optimize antiretroviral drug therapy, it may be necessary to monitor patient hormonal status.</p

A high-strength polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel membrane crosslinked by sulfosuccinic acid for strontium removal via filtration

This study considered the removal of strontium (Sr2+) from contaminated water using a filtration membrane that exhibits good mechanical strength, high adsorption capacity, and the ability to be regenerated and reused. Polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel membranes were prepared by crosslinking with sulfosuccinic acid in different ratios (2.5, 5, 10 and 20 mol% relative to the PVA monomer), named as PSA2.5, PSA5, PSA10 and PSA20. All PSA membranes showed good Sr2+ adsorption over a wide pH range (pH 2–12), and maintained rapid removal kinetics (> 95% Sr2+ recovered from 5 ppm Sr2+ within 4 h). Furthermore, the Sr2+ adsorption capacities of PSA2.5, PSA5, PSA10 and PSA20 were 27.6, 45.8, 56.3, and 55.3 mg/g, respectively, based on the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. From the four PSA membranes, PSA5 was selected for further filtration studies due to its favorable mechanical and adsorption properties. When filtering 5 ppm Sr2+ and 250 ppm Ca2+, corresponding to the Ca2+ concentration in the wastewater at the Fukushima nuclear plant, 87% Sr2+ was removed using the PSA5 membrane following multiple cycles of regeneration and reuse. Moreover, the tensile strength of the PSA5 membrane remained high (> 100 MPa) following five consecutive uses

AKARI's infrared view on nearby stars : Using AKARI Infrared Camera All-Sky Survey, 2MASS, and Hipparcos catalog

--Results-- We found that the (B-V) v.s. (V-S9W) color-color diagram is useful to identify the stars with infrared excess emerged from circumstellar envelopes/disks. Be stars with infrared excess are well separated from other types of stars in this diagram. Whereas (J-L18W) v.s. (S9W-L18W) diagram is a powerful tool to classify several object-types. Carbon-rich asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars and OH/IR stars form distinct sequences in this color-color diagram. Young stellar objects (YSOs), pre-main sequence (PMS) stars, post-AGB stars and planetary nebulae (PNe) have largest mid-infrared color-excess, and can be identified in infrared catalog. Finally, we plot L18W v.s. (S9W-L18W) color-magnitude diagram, using the AKARI data together with Hipparcos parallaxes. This diagram can be used to identify low-mass YSOs, as well as AGB stars. We found that this diagram is comparable to the [24] vs ([8.0]-[24]) diagram of Large Magellanic Cloud sources using the Spitzer Space Telescope data. Our understanding of Galactic objects will be used to interpret color-magnitude diagram of stellar populations in nearby galaxies which Spitzer Space Telescope has observed. --Conclusions-- Our study of the AKARI color-color and color-magnitude will be used to explore properties of unknown objects in future. In addition, our analysis highlights a future key project to understand stellar evolution with circumstellar envelope, once the forthcoming astronometrical data with GAIA are available.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in A&A. High resolution version is available at: http://www.ir.isas.jaxa.jp/%7Eyita/allsky20100302.pdf (26Mb