The generic character table of a Sylow pp-subgroup of a finite Chevalley group of type D4D_4

Let $U$ be a Sylow $p$-subgroup of the finite Chevalley group of type $D_4$ over the field of $q$ elements, where $q$ is a power of a prime $p$. We describe a construction of the generic character table of $U$

Range perception through apparent image speed in freely flying honeybees

When negotiating a narrow gap, honeybees tend to fly through the middle of the gap, balancing the distances to the boundary on either side. To investigate the basis of this "centering response,” bees were trained to fly through a tunnel on their way to a feeding site and back, while their flight trajectories were filmed from above. The wall on either side carried a visual pattern. When the patterns were stationary vertical gratings, bees tended to fly through the middle of the tunnel, i.e. along its longitudinal axis. However, when one of the gratings was in motion, bees flying in the same direction as the moving grating tended to fly closer to while bees flying in the opposite direction tended to fly closer to the stationary grating. This demonstrates, directly and unequivocally, that flying bees estimate the distances of surfaces in terms of the apparent motion of their images. A series of further experiments revealed that the distance to the gratings is gauged in terms of their apparent angular speeds, and that the visual system of the bee is capable of measuring angular speed largely independently of the spatial period, intensity profile, or contrast of the grating. Thus, the motion-sensitive mechanisms mediating range perception appear to be qualitatively different from those that mediate the well-known optomotor response in insects, or those involved in motion detection and ocular tracking in ma

Thinking beyond the hybrid:“actually-existing” cities “after neoliberalism” in Boyle <i>et al.</i>

In their article, ‘The spatialities of actually existing neoliberalism in Glasgow, 1977 to present’, Mark Boyle, Christopher McWilliams and Gareth Rice (2008) usefully problematise our current understanding of neoliberal urbanism. Our response is aimed at developing a sympathetic but critical approach to Boyle et al's understanding of neoliberal urbanism as illustrated by the Glasgow example. In particular, the counterposing by Boyle et al of a 'hybrid, mutant' model to a 'pure' model of neoliberalism for us misrepresents existing models of neoliberalism as a perfectly finished object rather than a roughly mottled process. That they do not identify any ‘pure’ model leads them to create a straw construct against which they can claim a more sophisticated, refined approach to the messiness of neoliberal urbanism. In contrast, we view neoliberalism as a contested and unstable response to accumulation crises at various scales of analysis

Cohort of Birth Modifies the Association between FTO Genotype and BMI

A substantial body of research has explored the relative roles of genetic and environmental factors on phenotype expression in humans. Recent research has also sought to identify gene-environment (or g-by-e) interactions, with mixed success. One potential reason for these mixed results may relate to the fact that genetic effects might be modified by changes in the environment over time. For example, the noted rise of obesity in the United States in the latter part of the 20th century might reflect an interaction between genetic variation and changing environmental conditions that together affect the penetrance of genetic influences. To evaluate this hypothesis, we use longitudinal data from the Framingham Heart Study collected over 30 y from a geographically relatively localized sample to test whether the well-documented association between the rs993609 variant of the FTO (fat mass and obesity associated) gene and body mass index (BMI) varies across birth cohorts, time period, and the lifecycle. Such cohort and period effects integrate many potential environmental factors, and this gene-by-environment analysis examines interactions with both time-varying contemporaneous and historical environmental influences. Using constrained linear age-period-cohort models that include family controls, we find that there is a robust relationship between birth cohort and the genotype-phenotype correlation between the FTO risk allele and BMI, with an observed inflection point for those born after 1942. These results suggest genetic influences on complex traits like obesity can vary over time, presumably because of global environmental changes that modify allelic penetrance

Pregnant women with bronchial asthma benefit from progressive muscle relaxation: A randomized, prospective, controlled trial

Background: Asthma is a serious medical problem in pregnancy and is often associated with stress, anger and poor quality of life. The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) on change in blood pressure, lung parameters, heart rate, anger and health-related quality of life in pregnant women with bronchial asthma. Methods: We treated a sample of 64 pregnant women with bronchial asthma from the local population in an 8-week randomized, prospective, controlled trial. Thirty-two were selected for PMR, and 32 received a placebo intervention. The systolic blood pressure, forced expiratory volume in the first second, peak expiratory flow and heart rate were tested, and the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory and Health Survey (SF-36) were employed. Results: According to the intend-to-treat principle, a significant reduction in systolic blood pressure and a significant increase in both forced expiratory volume in the first second and peak expiratory flow were observed after PMR. The heart rate showed a significant increase in the coefficient of variation, root mean square of successive differences and high frequency ranges, in addition to a significant reduction in low and middle frequency ranges. A significant reduction on three of five State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory scales, and a significant increase on seven of eight SF-36 scales were observed. Conclusions: PMR appears to be an effective method to improve blood pressure, lung parameters and heart rate, and to decrease anger levels, thus enhancing health-related quality of life in pregnant women with bronchial asthma. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel

Breakdown of the Mott insulator: Exact solution of an asymmetric Hubbard model

The breakdown of the Mott insulator is studied when the dissipative tunneling into the environment is introduced to the system. By exactly solving the one-dimensional asymmetric Hubbard model, we show how such a breakdown of the Mott insulator occurs. As the effect of the tunneling is increased, the Hubbard gap is monotonically decreased and finally disappears, resulting in the insulator-metal transition. We discuss the origin of this quantum phase transition in comparison with other non-Hermitian systems recently studied.Comment: 7 pages, revte

Interaction effects in non-Hermitian models of vortex physics

Vortex lines in superconductors in an external magnetic field slightly tilted from randomly-distributed parallel columnar defects can be modeled by a system of interacting bosons in a non-Hermitian vector potential and a random scalar potential. We develop a theory of the strongly-disordered non-Hermitian boson Hubbard model using the Hartree-Bogoliubov approximation and apply it to calculate the complex energy spectra, the vortex tilt angle and the tilt modulus of (1+1)-dimensional directed flux line systems. We construct the phase diagram associated with the flux-liquid to Bose-glass transition and find that, close to the phase boundary, the tilted flux liquid phase is characterized by a band of localized excitations, with two mobility edges in its low-energy spectrum.Comment: 19 pages, 19 figures, To appear in Phys. Rev.

Development of a thermostable, multivalent filovirus vaccine based on recombinant subunit proteins

Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is the most prominent example of filovirus disease but despite being characterized as a Category A Priority Pathogen by NIH/NIAID over a decade ago, it lacked public and private research resources due to the absence of a commercial market. Transmission from wild animals into the human population typically causes outbreaks of limited scale in endemic areas located in the forested regions of Central Africa and the Philippines (for Reston ebolavirus). In the past decade, a Zaire Ebolavirus (EBOV) outbreak causing more than 11,000 deaths in several West African countries started to reveal the true epidemic potential that filovirus infections can have when entering an urban setting in a highly mobile society. In addition a persistent outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has continued since August 2018 despite significant progress with the clinical development of several EBOV vaccine candidates (one of which recently gained regulatory approvals in Europe, the U.S. and several African countries) and the advanced testing of promising EBOV specific therapeutics. Despite this significant progress, additional research is needed in particular on understanding the mechanism of protection and defining immune correlates of protection for Ebola and other filoviruses do develop fast and efficacious strategies for outbreak control as the incidence of outbreaks and total case numbers has significantly increased over the last decadesPlease click Download on the upper right corner to see the full abstract

Vortex wandering in a forest of splayed columnar defects

We investigate the scaling properties of single flux lines in a random pinning landscape consisting of splayed columnar defects. Such correlated defects can be injected into Type II superconductors by inducing nuclear fission or via direct heavy ion irradiation. The result is often very efficient pinning of the vortices which gives, e.g., a strongly enhanced critical current. The wandering exponent \zeta and the free energy exponent \omega of a single flux line in such a disordered environment are obtained analytically from scaling arguments combined with extreme-value statistics. In contrast to the case of point disorder, where these exponents are universal, we find a dependence of the exponents on details in the probability distribution of the low lying energies of the columnar defects. The analytical results show excellent agreement with numerical transfer matrix calculations in two and three dimensions.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure