Superconducting Dome from Holography

We find a regime in which a strongly coupled striped superconductor features a superconducting dome. This regime is signified by i) a modulating chemical potential that averages to zero, and ii) a superconducting order parameter that has a scaling dimension larger than 3/2 but less than or equal to 3. We also find that in this regime, the order parameter exhibits a mild dependence on the modulation wavelength of the stripe.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Enhancement of Critical Temperature of a Striped Holographic Superconductor

We study the interplay between the stripe order and the superconducting order in a strongly coupled striped superconductor using gauge/gravity duality. In particular, we study the effects of inhomogeneity introduced by the stripe order on the superconducting transition temperature beyond the mean field level by including the effects of backreaction onto the spacetime geometry in the dual gravitational picture. We find that inhomogeneity \emph{enhances} the critical temperature relative to its value for the uniform system.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Strongly coupled striped superconductor with large modulation

A bstract Using gauge/gravity duality, we analytically calculate properties of a strongly coupled striped superconductor, with the charge density wave sourced by a modulated chemical potential, in the large modulation wavenumber Q limit. In the absence of a homogeneous term in the chemical potential, we show that the critical temperature scales as a negative power of Q for scaling dimensions \Delta \u3c \frac{3}{2} , whereas for \Delta \u3e \frac{3}{2} , there is no phase transition above a certain critical value of Q . The condensate is found to scale as a positive power of Q such that the gap is proportional to Q . We discuss how these results change if a homogeneous term is added to the chemical potential. We compare our analytic results with numerical calculations whenever the latter are available and find good agreement

Sensitivity of seedling growth to phosphorus supply in six tree species of the Australian Great Western Woodlands

Many Australian native plants from regions with ancient, highly weathered soils have specialised adaptations for acquiring phosphorus (P) and can exhibit negative effects of excess P supply on growth and survival. Despite this, fertiliser (including P) is routinely applied in post-mining and other restoration schemes. In this study we investigated the effect of a range of applied P on the growth and tissue P concentrations for six woody species from the Great Western Woodlands (GWW) of Western Australia, a region that it not only biodiverse, but that has experienced significant levels of mining related activities. Our data from a pot-based experiment show that all six species exhibited greater growth with increased P application up to 15 mg kg sand-1. However, at P concentrations in excess of 15 mg kg-1, dry mass accumulation did not increase further for three of the species tested. For the other three species, dry mass accumulation declined as the P concentration increased above 15 mg kg-1. For all of the study species, root and shoot P concentrations increased as the concentration of applied P increased. The internal shoot P concentration, at which dry matter accumulation either plateaued or started to decline, was in the range 1.95 to 3.2 mg P g-1 DM. This was approximately 2 to 4 times the concentration found in natural vegetation. These data suggest that in a restoration context, there is a potential risk that, excess P applcation may decrease plant growth rates for some species. Consequently, the addition of fertiliser to restored sites may have unpredictable impacts on the plant community by directly reducing the growth of some species while increasing the growth of others. We suggest that careful consideration should be given to designing appropriate fertiliser regimes for land restoration schemes in ancient P deplete landscapes to avoid the risk that fertiliser addition has the unwanted outcome of decreasing growth and survival of the target native species whilst increasing the abundance of unwanted weeds or aggressive pioneer species

Knowledge attitude and practice of pharmacovigilance among nursing professionals in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Dehradun, Uttarakhand

Background: Pharmacovigilance deals with identification, assessment and prevention and reporting of adverse drug reaction (ADR), play a pivotal role in ensuring safe use of drugs. However, in spite of having well established ADR reporting system in India and worldwide, the ADR underreporting is a big challenge till date. It is therefore very important to assess the level of awareness of Pharmacovigilance among healthcare professionals to identify the factors affecting ADRs reporting. The objective of the study was to evaluate knowledge, attitude and practice of pharmacovigilance among nursing professionals in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Dehradun, India.Methods: It was a cross sectional observational study conducted at HIMS over a period of 1 year. Nursing professionals who work in internal medicine, Surgery, PAC and intensive care unit (ICU) were included in this study. A self-administered questionnaire comprising of 15 items related to ADRs and Pharmacovigilance programme of India (PvPI) activity was provided to them and sufficient time to fill the questionnaire was given. The completely filled questionnaire was collected and data was analyzed using SPSS ver.20.0.Results: A total of 415 participants were included in the study. The mean age of the participant was 28.52 years. The number of female was more than male participants. Majority of participant (56%) couldn’t answer the meaning of pharmacovigilance. Only 25% participants were aware about ADR reporting process to ADR monitoring centre (AMC). Although majority of the participants understand the necessity of ADR reporting and aware about AMC centre and PvPI, but most of them showed unfamiliarity about ADR reporting form and previous experience of any kind of ADR. The most common reason for not reporting the ADR was difficulty in deciding the nature of adverse effects (AE) (44%) followed by lack of time (30%). Majority of participant (67%) denied any previous pharmacovigilance training and almost all (98%) have shown their interest in PvPI training.Conclusions: Nursing professionals in our hospital may lack adequate knowledge about ADR reporting and may need more education and training on the National Pharmacovigilance System and ADR reporting process

HIV-1 Nef induces a Rab11-dependent routing of endocytosed immune costimulatory proteins CD80 and CD86 to the Golgi

The Nef protein of HIV-1 removes the immune costimulatory proteins CD80 and CD86 from the cell surface by a unique clathrin- and dynamin-independent, actin-based endocytic pathway that deploys coupled activation of c-src and Rac. In this study, we show that, similar to major histocompatibility complex class I (MHCI), Nef subsequently reroutes CD80 and CD86 to the Golgi region. However, not only are CD80/CD86 internalized by a different mechanism from MHCI but also the vesicular pathway of Golgi delivery for CD80/CD86 is distinct from that employed for MHCI. While MHCI passes through early endosomal and sorting compartments marked by Rab5/early embryonic antigen 1 and ADP ribosylation factor 6, respectively, CD80 and CD86 enter endocytic vesicles that do not acquire conventional early endosomal markers but remain accessible to fluid probes. Rather than being delivered to preexisting Rab11-positive recycling compartments, these vesicles recruit Rab11 de novo. Rab11 activity is also necessary for the delivery of CD80/CD86 in these transitional vesicles to the Golgi region. These data reveal an unusual pathway of endocytic vesicular traffic to the Golgi and its recruitment in a viral immune evasion strategy

Wireless Sensor Networks for Developmental and Flight Instrumentation

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) based on the IEEE 802.15.4 Personal Area Network and ZigBee Pro 2007 standards are finding increasing use in home automation and smart energy markets providing a framework for interoperable software. The Wireless Connections in Space Project, funded by the NASA Engineering and Safety Center, is developing technology, metrics and requirements for next-generation spacecraft avionics incorporating wireless data transport. The team from Stennis Space Center and Mobitrum Corporation, working under a NASA SBIR grant, has developed techniques for embedding plug-and-play software into ZigBee WSN prototypes implementing the IEEE 1451 Transducer Electronic Datasheet (TEDS) standard. The TEDS provides meta-information regarding sensors such as serial number, calibration curve and operational status. Incorporation of TEDS into wireless sensors leads directly to building application level software that can recognize sensors at run-time, dynamically instantiating sensors as they are added or removed. The Ames Research Center team has been experimenting with this technology building demonstration prototypes for on-board health monitoring. Innovations in technology, software and process can lead to dramatic improvements for managing sensor systems applied to Developmental and Flight Instrumentation (DFI) aboard aerospace vehicles. A brief overview of the plug-and-play ZigBee WSN technology is presented along with specific targets for application within the aerospace DFI market. The software architecture for the sensor nodes incorporating the TEDS information is described along with the functions of the Network Capable Gateway processor which bridges 802.15.4 PAN to the TCP/IP network. Client application software connects to the Gateway and is used to display TEDS information and real-time sensor data values updated every few seconds, incorporating error detection and logging to help measure performance and reliability in relevant target environments. Test results from our prototype WSN running the Mobitrum software system are summarized and the implications to the scalability and reliability for DFI applications are discussed. Our demonstration system, incorporating sensors for life support system and structural health monitoring is described along with test results obtained by running the demonstration prototype in relevant environments such as the Wireless Habitat Testbed at Johnson Space Center in Houston. An operations concept for improved sensor process flow from design to flight test is outlined specific to the areas of Environmental Control and Life Support System performance characterization and structural health monitoring of human-rated spacecraft. This operations concept will be used to highlight the areas where WSN technology, particularly plug-and-play software based on IEEE 1451, can improve the current process, resulting in significant reductions in the technical effort, overall cost and schedule for providing DFI capability for future spacecraft. RELEASED

Differential Regulation of Two Arms of mTORC1 Pathway Fine-Tunes Global Protein Synthesis in Resting B Lymphocytes

Protein synthesis is tightly regulated by both gene-specific and global mechanisms to match the metabolic and proliferative demands of the cell. While the regulation of global protein synthesis in response to mitogen or stress signals is relatively well understood in multiple experimental systems, how different cell types fine-tune their basal protein synthesis rate is not known. In a previous study, we showed that resting B and T lymphocytes exhibit dramatic differences in their metabolic profile, with implications for their post-activation function. Here, we show that resting B cells, despite being quiescent, exhibit increased protein synthesis in vivo as well as ex vivo. The increased protein synthesis in B cells is driven by mTORC1, which exhibits an intermediate level of activation in these cells when compared with resting T cells and activated B cells. A comparative analysis of the transcriptome and translatome of these cells indicates that the genes encoding the MHC Class II molecules and their chaperone CD74 are highly translated in B cells. These data suggest that the translatome of B cells shows enrichment for genes associated with antigen processing and presentation. Even though the B cells exhibit higher mTORC1 levels, they prevent the translational activation of TOP mRNAs, which are mostly constituted by ribosomal proteins and other translation factors, by upregulating 4EBP1 levels. This mechanism may keep the protein synthesis machinery under check while enabling higher levels of translation in B cells