Instanton on toric singularities and black hole countings

We compute the instanton partition function for ${\cal N}=4$ U(N) gauge theories living on toric varieties, mainly of type $\R^4/\Gamma_{p,q}$ including $A_{p-1}$ or O_{\PP_1}(-p) surfaces. The results provide microscopic formulas for the partition functions of black holes made out of D4-D2-D0 bound states wrapping four-dimensional toric varieties inside a Calabi-Yau. The partition function gets contributions from regular and fractional instantons. Regular instantons are described in terms of symmetric products of the four-dimensional variety. Fractional instantons are built out of elementary self-dual connections with no moduli carrying non-trivial fluxes along the exceptional cycles of the variety. The fractional instanton contribution agrees with recent results based on 2d SYM analysis. The partition function, in the large charge limit, reproduces the supergravity macroscopic formulae for the D4-D2-D0 black hole entropy.Comment: 29 pages, 3 fig Section 5 is improved by the inclusion of a detailed comparison between the instanton partition function and the D4-D2-D0 black hole entropy formula coming from supergravit

A Note on q-Deformed Two-Dimensional Yang-Mills and Open Topological Strings

In this note we make a test of the open topological string version of the OSV conjecture, proposed in hep-th/0504054, in the toric Calabi-Yau manifold $X= O(-3)\to\mathbf{P}^2$ with background D4-branes wrapped on Lagrangian submanifolds. The D-brane partition function reduces to an expectation value of some inserted operators of a q-deformed Yang-Mills theory living on a chain of $\mathbf{P}^1$'s in the base $\mathbf{P}^2$ of $X$. At large $N$ this partition function can be written as a sum over squares of chiral blocks, which are related to the open topological string amplitudes in the local $\mathbf{P}^2$ geometry with branes at both the outer and inner edges of the toric diagram. This is in agreement with the conjecture.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Goal attainment scaling as a measure of treatment success after physiotherapy for chronic low back pain

Objectives. In some chronic conditions, patient-specific tools with individualized items have proved to be more sensitive outcome instruments than fixed-item tools; their use has not yet been investigated in chronic low back pain (cLBP). Methods. Eleven males and 21 females [mean age 44.0 (12.3) years] with cLBP, undergoing a spine-stabilization physiotherapy programme, completed the Roland Morris (RM) Disability Scale and a 0-10 pain scale pre- and post-therapy. Post-therapy, goal attainment scaling (GAS) scores were calculated regarding achievement of 2-6 priority GAS goals established pre-therapy; global outcome of therapy was assessed on a 5-point Likert scale. Results. Approximately one-fifth of the individualized goals were not covered by items of the RM. Of the 121 individualized goals, 41 (34%) were achieved at the expected level, 42 (35%) were exceeded and 38 (31%) were not reached. GAS scores correlated with change scores for pain (r = 0.61, P < 0.0001) and RM (r = 0.49, P = 0.006). Sixty-five per cent of the patients had a successful outcome according to GAS (i.e. a score ≥50); 55%, according to global outcome (therapy helped/helped a lot); 39%, according to the RM score change (score decrease ≥30%); and 44%, according to the pain score change (score decrease ≥30%). Conclusions. GAS demonstrates the achievement of important goals undetected by fixed-item measures and is a valid and sensitive outcome measure for assessing the success of rehabilitation in patients with cLB

Impact of changing US cigarette smoking patterns on incident cancer: Risks of 20 smoking-related cancers among the women and men of the NIH-AARP cohort

Background: Historically, US women started smoking at a later age than men and had lower relative risks for smoking-related cancers. However, more recent birth cohorts of women and men have similar smoking histories and have now reached the high-risk age for cancer. The impact of these changes on cancer incidence has not been systematically examined. Methods: Relative risks (RR), 95% confidence intervals (CI) and attributable fractions were calculated for cigarette smoking and incidence of 20 smoking-related cancers in 186 057 women and 266 074 men of the National Institutes of Health-AARP cohort, aged 50 to 71 years in 1995 and followed for 11 years. Results: In the cohort, which included participants born between 1924 and 1945, most women and men started smoking as teenagers. RRs for current vs never smoking were similar in women and men for the following cancers: lung squamous-cell (RR women: 121.4, 95% CI: 57.3–257.4; RR men:114.6, 95% CI: 61.2–214.4), lung adenocarcinoma (RR women: 11.7, 95% CI: 9.8–14.0; RR men: 15.6, 95% CI: 12.5–19.6), laryngeal (RR women: 37.0, 95% CI: 14.9–92.3; RR men: 13.8, 95% CI: 9.3–20.2), oral cavity-pharyngeal (RR women:4.4, 95% CI: 3.3–6.0; RR men: 3.8, 95% CI: 3.0–4.7), oesophageal squamous cell (RR women: 7.3, 95% CI: 3.5–15.5; RR men: 6.2, 95% CI: 2.8–13.7), bladder (RR women: 4.7, 95% CI: 3.7–5.8; RR men: 4.0, 95% CI: 3.5–4.5), colon (RR women: 1.3, 95% CI: 1.2–1.5; RR men: 1.3, 95% CI: 1.1–1.4), and at other sites, with similar attributable fractions. Conclusions: RRs for current smoking and incidence of many smoking-related cancers are now similar in US women and men, likely reflecting converging smoking patterns

mockrobiota: a Public Resource for Microbiome Bioinformatics Benchmarking.

Mock communities are an important tool for validating, optimizing, and comparing bioinformatics methods for microbial community analysis. We present mockrobiota, a public resource for sharing, validating, and documenting mock community data resources, available at http://caporaso-lab.github.io/mockrobiota/. The materials contained in mockrobiota include data set and sample metadata, expected composition data (taxonomy or gene annotations or reference sequences for mock community members), and links to raw data (e.g., raw sequence data) for each mock community data set. mockrobiota does not supply physical sample materials directly, but the data set metadata included for each mock community indicate whether physical sample materials are available. At the time of this writing, mockrobiota contains 11 mock community data sets with known species compositions, including bacterial, archaeal, and eukaryotic mock communities, analyzed by high-throughput marker gene sequencing. IMPORTANCE The availability of standard and public mock community data will facilitate ongoing method optimizations, comparisons across studies that share source data, and greater transparency and access and eliminate redundancy. These are also valuable resources for bioinformatics teaching and training. This dynamic resource is intended to expand and evolve to meet the changing needs of the omics community

Ultrasound assessment of transversus abdominis muscle contraction ratio during abdominal hollowing: a useful tool to distinguish between patients with chronic low back pain and healthy controls?

Spine stabilisation exercises, in which patients are taught to preferentially activate the transversus abdominus (TrA) during "abdominal hollowing” (AH), are a popular treatment for chronic low back pain (cLBP). The present study investigated whether performance during AH differed between cLBP patients and controls to an extent that would render it useful diagnostic tool. 50patients with cLBP (46.3±12.5years) and 50healthy controls (43.6±12.7years) participated in this case-control study. They performed AH in hook-lying. Using M-mode ultrasound, thicknesses of TrA, and obliquus internus and externus were determined at rest and during 5s AH (5measures each body side). The TrA contraction-ratio (TrA-CR) (TrA contracted/rest) and the ability to sustain the contraction [standard deviation (SD) of TrA thickness during the stable phase of the hold] were investigated. There were no significant group differences for the absolute muscle thicknesses at rest or during AH, or for the SD of TrA thickness. There was a small but significant difference between the groups for TrA-CR: cLBP 1.35±0.14, controls 1.44±0.24 (p<0.05). However, Receiver Operator Characteristics (ROC) analysis revealed a poor and non-significant ability of TrA-CR to discriminate between cLBP patients and controls on an individual basis (ROC area under the curve, 0.60 [95% CI 0.495; 0.695], p=0.08). In the patient group, TrA-CR showed a low but significant correlation with Roland Morris score (Spearman Rho=0.328; p=0.02). In conclusion, the difference in group mean values for TrA-CR was small and of uncertain clinical relevance. Moreover, TrA-CR showed a poor ability to discriminate between control and cLBP subjects on an individual basis. We conclude that the TrA-CR during abdominal hollowing does not distinguish well between patients with chronic low back pain and healthy control

Causality and the speed of sound

A usual causal requirement on a viable theory of matter is that the speed of sound be at most the speed of light. In view of various recent papers querying this limit, the question is revisited here. We point to various issues confronting theories that violate the usual constraint.Comment: v2: additional discussion on models that appear to have superluminal signal speeds; version to appear in GR