Dynamical instability in a relativistic cylindrical shell composed of counter rotating particles

We give a perturbative analysis for an infinitesimally thin cylindrical shell composed of counter rotating collisionless particles, originally devised by Apostolatos and Thorne. They found a static solution of the shell and concluded by C-energy argument that it is stable. Recently, the present authors and Ida reanalyzed this system by evaluating the C-energy on the future null infinity and found that the system has an instability, though it was not shown how the system is unstable. In this paper, it is shown in the framework of the linear perturbation theory that, if the constituent particles move slowly, the static shell is unstable in the sense that the perturbation of its circumferential radius oscillates with exponentially growing amplitude, whereas if the speed of the constituent particle exceeds a critical value, the shell just expands or contracts exponentially with time.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure

What Kinds of Volunteers become more motivated by Community Currency?

Local communities in Japan are struggling to increase the number of participants in volunteer activities in order to revitalize local life. To maintain the enthusiasm of active volunteers and entice new volunteers, a new type of reward to increase motivation is needed. Accordingly, community currencies (hereafter, CCs) have been introduced as a reward in an attempt to provide such a source of motivation. In particular, local residents have been expected to participate in volunteer work more frequently in return for receiving CCs; however, there is no evidence yet as to whether CCs arouse their motivation to do volunteer work. In this study, we investigated whether CCs play a role in raising local residents’ motivation to do volunteer work. Our conclusion is that even some people with a no-reward orientation are likely to have their motivation raised by CCs, rather than diminished. This result shows that their perception towards CCs and cash is dramatically different though CCs have the same monetary value as cash

Naked singularity resolution in cylindrical collapse

In this paper, we study the gravitational collapse of null dust in the cylindrically symmetric spacetime. The naked singularity necessarily forms at the symmetry axis. We consider the situation in which null dust is emitted again from the naked singularity formed by the collapsed null dust and investigate the back-reaction by this emission for the naked singularity. We show a very peculiar but physically important case in which the same amount of null dust as that of the collapsed one is emitted from the naked singularity as soon as the ingoing null dust hits the symmetry axis and forms the naked singularity. In this case, although this naked singularity satisfies the strong curvature condition by Kr\'{o}lak (limiting focusing condition), geodesics which hit the singularity can be extended uniquely across the singularity. Therefore we may say that the collapsing null dust passes through the singularity formed by itself and then leaves for infinity. Finally the singularity completely disappears and the flat spacetime remains.Comment: 17 pages, no figur

Relativistic Gravitational Collapse of a Cylindrical Shell of Dust

The gravitational collapse of a thick cylindrical shell of dust matter is investigated. It is found that a spacetime singularity forms on the symmetry axis and that it is necessarily naked, i.e., observable in principle. We propose a physically reasonable boundary condition at this naked singularity to construct the solution including its causal future. This boundary condition enables us to construct the unique continuation of spacetime beyond the naked singularity and ensures that the dust shell passes through the naked singularity. When the cylindrical shell leaves its symmetry axis away, the naked singularity disappears, and regularity is recovered. We construct numerical solutions with this feature. This result implies that the gravity produced by a thick cylindrical shell of dust is too weak to bind the shell even if it engenders the formation of a curvature singularity which is so strong as to satisfy the limiting focusing condition. For this reason, this naked singularity is very weak in the extended spacetime; the metric tensor is $C^{1-}$ even at the naked singularity, and the extended spacetime is complete for almost all geodesics. This feature is also seen for singular hypersurfaces. Such an extended spacetime can be regarded as phenomenological in the sense that it is valid if the relevant microphysics length scale is sufficiently small compared to the scale of interest.Comment: 32 pages, 6 figure

Fungal effector SIB1 of Colletotrichum orbiculare has unique structural features and can suppress plant immunity in Nicotiana benthamiana

Fungal plant pathogens secrete virulence-related proteins, called effectors, to establish host infection, however, the details are not fully understood yet. Functional screening of effector candidates using Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression assay in Nicotiana benthamiana identified two virulence-related effectors, named SIB1 and SIB2 (Suppression of Immunity in N. benthamiana), of an anthracnose fungus Colletotrichum orbiculare, which infects both cucurbits and N. benthamiana. The Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression of SIB1 or SIB2 increased the susceptibility of N. benthamiana to C. orbiculare, which suggested these effectors can suppress immune responses in N. benthamiana. The presence of SIB1 and SIB2 homologs was found to be limited to the genus Colletotrichum. SIB1 suppressed both (i) the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) triggered by two different pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), chitin and flg22, and (ii) the cell death response triggered by the Phytophthora infestans INF1 elicitin in N. benthamiana. We determined the NMR-based structure of SIB1 to obtain its structural insights. The three-dimensional structure of SIB1 comprises five β-strands, each containing three disulfide bonds. The overall conformation was found to be a cylindrical shape, such as the well-known antiparallel β-barrel structure. However, the β-strands were found to display a unique topology, one pair of these β-strands formed a parallel β-sheet. These results suggest that the effector SIB1 present in Colletotrichum fungi has unique structural features and can suppress PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI) in N. benthamiana

Increased oxidative stress precedes the onset of high-fat diet-induced insulin resistance and obesity

金沢大学医薬保健研究域医学系Insulin resistance is a key pathophysiological feature of metabolic syndrome. However, the initial events triggering the development of insulin resistance and its causal relations with dysregulation of glucose and fatty acids metabolism remain unclear. We investigated biological pathways that have the potential to induce insulin resistance in mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD). We demonstrate that the pathways for reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and oxidative stress are coordinately up-regulated in both the liver and adipose tissue of mice fed an HFD before the onset of insulin resistance through discrete mechanism. In the liver, an HFD up-regulated genes involved in sterol regulatory element binding protein 1c-related fatty acid synthesis and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α-related fatty acid oxidation. In the adipose tissue, however, the HFD down-regulated genes involved in fatty acid synthesis and up-regulated nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase complex. Furthermore, increased ROS production preceded the elevation of tumor necrosis factor-α and free fatty acids in the plasma and liver. The ROS may be an initial key event triggering HFD-induced insulin resistance. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Occurrence of NADH-specific and NADH/NADPH-bispecific cytochrome £5 reductases in the ascidians, Styela plicata and Ciona intestinalis

P(論文)departmental bulletin pape

Metformin Prevents and Reverses Inflammation in a Non-Diabetic Mouse Model of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis

Background: Optimal treatment for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) has not yet been established, particularly for individuals without diabetes. We examined the effects of metformin, commonly used to treat patients with type 2 diabetes, on liver pathology in a non-diabetic NASH mouse model. Methodology/Principal Findings: Eight-week-old C57BL/6 mice were fed a methionine- and choline-deficient plus high fat (MCD+HF) diet with or without 0.1% metformin for 8 weeks. Co-administration of metformin significantly decreased fasting plasma glucose levels, but did not affect glucose tolerance or peripheral insulin sensitivity. Metformin ameliorated MCD+HF diet-induced hepatic steatosis, inflammation, and fibrosis. Furthermore, metformin significantly reversed hepatic steatosis and inflammation when administered after the development of experimental NASH. Conclusions/Significance: These histological changes were accompanied by reduced hepatic triglyceride content, suppressed hepatic stellate cell activation, and the downregulation of genes involved in fatty acid metabolism, inflammation, and fibrogenesis. Metformin prevented and reversed steatosis and inflammation of NASH in an experimental non-diabetic model without affecting peripheral insulin resistance. © 2012 Kita et al