4,120 research outputs found
The Origin of Mass
The quark-lepton mass problem and the ideas of mass protection are reviewed.
The hierarchy problem and suggestions for its resolution, including Little
Higgs models, are discussed. The Multiple Point Principle is introduced and
used within the Standard Model to predict the top quark and Higgs particle
masses. Mass matrix ans\"{a}tze are considered; in particular we discuss the
lightest family mass generation model, in which all the quark mixing angles are
successfully expressed in terms of simple expressions involving quark mass
ratios. It is argued that an underlying chiral flavour symmetry is responsible
for the hierarchical texture of the fermion mass matrices. The phenomenology of
neutrino mass matrices is briefly discussed.Comment: 33 pages, 7 figures, to be published in the Proceedings of the XXXI
ITEP Winter School, Moscow, Russia, 18 - 26 February 200
Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells into Cells with Corneal Keratocyte Phenotype
Corneal transparency depends on a unique extracellular matrix secreted by stromal keratocytes, mesenchymal cells of neural crest lineage. Derivation of keratocytes from human embryonic stem (hES) cells could elucidate the keratocyte developmental pathway and open a potential for cell-based therapy for corneal blindness. This study seeks to identify conditions inducing differentiation of pluripotent hES cells to the keratocyte lineage. Neural differentiation of hES cell line WA01(H1) was induced by co-culture with mouse PA6 fibroblasts. After 6 days of co-culture, hES cells expressing cell-surface NGFR protein (CD271, p75NTR) were isolated by immunoaffinity adsorption, and cultured as a monolayer for one week. Keratocyte phenotype was induced by substratum-independent pellet culture in serum-free medium containing ascorbate. Gene expression, examined by quantitative RT-PCR, found hES cells co-cultured with PA6 cells for 6 days to upregulate expression of neural crest genes including NGFR, SNAI1, NTRK3, SOX9, and MSX1. Isolated NGFR-expressing cells were free of PA6 feeder cells. After expansion as a monolayer, mRNAs typifying adult stromal stem cells were detected, including BMI1, KIT, NES, NOTCH1, and SIX2. When these cells were cultured as substratum-free pellets keratocyte markers AQP1, B3GNT7, PTDGS, and ALDH3A1 were upregulated. mRNA for keratocan (KERA), a cornea-specific proteoglycan, was upregulated more than 10,000 fold. Culture medium from pellets contained high molecular weight keratocan modified with keratan sulfate, a unique molecular component of corneal stroma. These results show hES cells can be induced to differentiate into keratocytes in vitro. Pluripotent stem cells, therefore, may provide a renewable source of material for development of treatment of corneal stromal opacities. © 2013 Chan et al
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A prickly problem: developing a volunteer-friendly tool for monitoring populations of a terrestrial urban mammal, the West European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus)
Across Europe, hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) appear to be in decline in both urban and rural landscapes. Current methods used to monitor urban populations are, however, associated with several potential limitations. In this study, we conducted hedgehog footprint-tunnel surveys in 219 residential gardens across Reading, UK between May–September in 2013 and/or 2014; gardens were surveyed for five continuous days. Single-species occupancy models were used to investigate factors influencing hedgehog occupancy and two-species occupancy models were used to estimate a species interaction factor (SIF) between hedgehogs and (a) badgers (Meles meles), (b) foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and (c) dogs (Canis familiaris). The five-day survey protocol was associated with a false-absence error rate of 0.1–0.4%, indicating that it was a reliable method for determining hedgehog presence; conversely, 34.7% of householders were not able to correctly predict hedgehog presence or absence. Hedgehogs were widely distributed across Reading, but detected in only 32–40% of gardens. None of the within-garden or outside-garden factors investigated significantly affected hedgehog occupancy in the single-species models, but the two-species models indicated that badgers (SIF = 0.471 ± 0.188), but not foxes (SIF = 0.954 ± 0.048) or dogs (SIF = 0.780 ± 0.228), negatively affected the presence of hedgehogs in gardens, although not significantly. Overall, footprint-tunnels represent a viable field method for monitoring urban hedgehog populations, however, other approaches are required to identify factors that make gardens "hedgehog friendly"
Pathologies in Asymptotically Lifshitz Spacetimes
There has been significant interest in the last several years in studying
possible gravitational duals, known as Lifshitz spacetimes, to anisotropically
scaling field theories by adding matter to distort the asymptotics of an AdS
spacetime. We point out that putative ground state for the most heavily studied
example of such a spacetime, that with a flat spatial section, suffers from a
naked singularity and further point out this singularity is not resolvable by
any known stringy effect. We review the reasons one might worry that
asymptotically Lifshitz spacetimes are unstable and employ the initial data
problem to study the stability of such systems. Rather surprisingly this
question, and even the initial value problem itself, for these spacetimes turns
out to generically not be well-posed. A generic normalizable state will evolve
in such a way to violate Lifshitz asymptotics in finite time. Conversely,
enforcing the desired asymptotics at all times puts strong restrictions not
just on the metric and fields in the asymptotic region but in the deep interior
as well. Generically, even perturbations of the matter field of compact support
are not compatible with the desired asymptotics.Comment: 36 pages, 1 figure, v2: Enhanced discussion of singularity, including
relationship to Gubser's conjecture and singularity in RG flow solution, plus
minor clarification
Ages for exoplanet host stars
Age is an important characteristic of a planetary system, but also one that
is difficult to determine. Assuming that the host star and the planets are
formed at the same time, the challenge is to determine the stellar age.
Asteroseismology provides precise age determination, but in many cases the
required detailed pulsation observations are not available. Here we concentrate
on other techniques, which may have broader applicability but also serious
limitations. Further development of this area requires improvements in our
understanding of the evolution of stars and their age-dependent
characteristics, combined with observations that allow reliable calibration of
the various techniques.Comment: To appear in "Handbook of Exoplanets", eds. Deeg, H.J. & Belmonte,
J.A, Springer (2018
Scattering and duality in the 2 dimensional OSP(2|2) Gross Neveu and sigma models
We write the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz for the massive OSp(2|2) Gross Neveu
and sigma models. We find evidence that the GN S matrix proposed by Bassi and
Leclair [12] is the correct one. We determine features of the sigma model S
matrix, which seem highly unconventional; we conjecture in particular a
relation between this sigma model and the complex sine-Gordon model at a
particular value of the coupling. We uncover an intriguing duality between the
OSp(2|2) GN (resp. sigma) model on the one hand, and the SO(4) sigma (resp. GN
model) on the other, somewhat generalizing to the massive case recent results
on OSp(4|2). Finally, we write the TBA for the (SUSY version of the) flow into
the random bond Ising model proposed by Cabra et al. [39], and conclude that
their S matrix cannot be correct.Comment: 41 pages, 27 figures. v2: minor revisio
South China Sea hydrological changes and Pacific Walker Circulation variations over the last millennium
© Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2011. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Nature Communications 2 (2011): 293, doi:10.1038/ncomms1297.The relative importance of north–south migrations of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) versus El Niño-Southern Oscillation and its associated Pacific Walker Circulation (PWC) variability for past hydrological change in the western tropical Pacific is unclear. Here we show that north–south ITCZ migration was not the only mechanism of tropical Pacific hydrologic variability during the last millennium, and that PWC variability profoundly influenced tropical Pacific hydrology. We present hydrological reconstructions from Cattle Pond, Dongdao Island of the South China Sea, where multi-decadal rainfall and downcore grain size variations are correlated to the Southern Oscillation Index during the instrumental era. Our downcore grain size reconstructions indicate that this site received less precipitation during relatively warm periods, AD 1000–1400 and AD 1850–2000, compared with the cool period (AD 1400–1850). Including our new reconstructions in a synthesis of tropical Pacific records results in a spatial pattern of hydrologic variability that implicates the PWC.This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (40730107) and the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (973 Program) (No.2010CB428902). DWO acknowledges support from the US NSF
A model of decay
We suggest a parameterization of the matrix element for decay using kinematic variables convenient for experimental
analysis. The contributions of intermediate - and -states up
to spin 3 have been taken into account. The angular distributions for each
discussed hypothesis have been obtained and analysed using Monte-Carlo
simulation.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, 1 table; V2: text in some places improved and
acknowledgments adde
Field theories with anisotropic scaling in 2D, solitons and the microscopic entropy of asymptotically Lifshitz black holes
Field theories with anisotropic scaling in 1+1 dimensions are considered. It
is shown that the isomorphism between Lifshitz algebras with dynamical
exponents z and 1/z naturally leads to a duality between low and high
temperature regimes. Assuming the existence of gap in the spectrum, this
duality allows to obtain a precise formula for the asymptotic growth of the
number of states with a fixed energy which depends on z and the energy of the
ground state, and reduces to the Cardy formula for z=1. The holographic
realization of the duality can be naturally inferred from the fact that
Euclidean Lifshitz spaces in three dimensions with dynamical exponents and
characteristic lengths given by z, l, and 1/z, l/z, respectively, are
diffeomorphic. The semiclassical entropy of black holes with Lifshitz
asymptotics can then be recovered from the generalization of Cardy formula,
where the ground state corresponds to a soliton. An explicit example is
provided by the existence of a purely gravitational soliton solution for BHT
massive gravity, which precisely has the required energy that reproduces the
entropy of the analytic asymptotically Lifshitz black hole with z=3.
Remarkably, neither the asymptotic symmetries nor central charges were
explicitly used in order to obtain these results.Comment: 17 pages, no figures, references corrected and update
Behavioural syndrome in a solitary predator is independent of body size and growth rate.
Models explaining behavioural syndromes often focus on state-dependency, linking behavioural variation to individual differences in other phenotypic features. Empirical studies are, however, rare. Here, we tested for a size and growth-dependent stable behavioural syndrome in the juvenile-stages of a solitary apex predator (pike, Esox lucius), shown as repeatable foraging behaviour across risk. Pike swimming activity, latency to prey attack, number of successful and unsuccessful prey attacks was measured during the presence/absence of visual contact with a competitor or predator. Foraging behaviour across risks was considered an appropriate indicator of boldness in this solitary predator where a trade-off between foraging behaviour and threat avoidance has been reported. Support was found for a behavioural syndrome, where the rank order differences in the foraging behaviour between individuals were maintained across time and risk situation. However, individual behaviour was independent of body size and growth in conditions of high food availability, showing no evidence to support the state-dependent personality hypothesis. The importance of a combination of spatial and temporal environmental variation for generating growth differences is highlighted
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