On the Diophantine properties of lambda-expansions

For $\lambda \in (1/2, 1)$ and $\alpha$, we consider sets of numbers $x$ such that for infinitely many $n$, $x$ is $2^{-\alpha n}$-close to some $\sum_{i=1}^n \omega_i \lambda^i$, where $\omega_i \in \{0,1\}$. These sets are in Falconer's intersection classes for Hausdorff dimension $s$ for some $s$ such that $- \frac{1}{\alpha} \frac{\log \lambda}{\log 2} \leq s \leq \frac{1}{\alpha}$. We show that for almost all $\lambda \in (1/2, 2/3)$, the upper bound of $s$ is optimal, but for a countable infinity of values of $\lambda$ the lower bound is the best possible result.Comment: 21 page

pH dependence of sorption of Cd2+, Zn2+, Cu2+ and Cr3+ on crude water and sodium chloride extracts of Moringa stenopetala and Moringa oleifera,/i>

The ability of crude water and sodium chloride extracts of partially defatted powder of Moringa stenopetala (MS) and Moringa oleifera (MO) to remove heavy metals (Cd2+, Zn2+, Cu2+ and Cr3+) fromsingle ion solution was investigated. At initial metal concentration of about 4 ppm, the extracts showed complete sorption for Cd2+, Zn2+ and Cr3+ ions at pH above 7.8, 4.0 and 4.0, respectively, at a dose of 1.0 ml of sorbent in 9.50 ml of metal solution. Cu2+ sorption increases slightly with pH to about 60% for MS at pH 6 and then becomes constant up to pH 8 when sorption rises to completion. Preliminarycharacterization of the actual powder by proton nuclear magnetic resonance showed clear presence of amide (-CO-N-H), benzenoid (Ar-H), saturated alkyl and unsaturated fragments in both MS and MO. The mass spectrum showed the presence of amino (R-NH2) fragments. The remarkable heavy metal sorption ability of M. stenopetala and M. oleifera could thus be attributable to, among other mechanisms,coordination or complex formation between the metal cations and pH dependent oxygen and nitrogen anionic sites of the Moringa proteins

Partisan Profiles in Presidential Policies: an Extension of Presidential Preferences for Inflation versus Unemployment

In a recent article, Zaleski does not find any clear difference between the political preferences of Republican and Democratic administrations with respect to the choice between unemployment and inflation. This paper provides empirical support for the opposite conclusion in a generalization of Zaleski's approach allowing for instrument costs

The distribution of satellites around massive galaxies at 1<z<3 in ZFOURGE/CANDELS: dependence on star formation activity

We study the statistical distribution of satellites around star-forming and quiescent central galaxies at 1<z<3 using imaging from the FourStar Galaxy Evolution Survey (ZFOURGE) and the Cosmic Assembly Near-IR Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS). The deep near-IR data select satellites down to $\log(M/M_\odot)>9$ at z<3. The radial satellite distribution around centrals is consistent with a projected NFW profile. Massive quiescent centrals, $\log(M/M_\odot)>10.78$, have $\sim$2 times the number of satellites compared to star-forming centrals with a significance of 2.7$\sigma$ even after accounting for differences in the centrals' stellar-mass distributions. We find no statistical difference in the satellite distributions of intermediate-mass quiescent and star-forming centrals, $10.48<\log(M/M_\odot)<10.78$. Comparing to the Guo2011 semi-analytic model, the excess number of satellites indicates that quiescent centrals have halo masses 0.3 dex larger than star-forming centrals, even when the stellar-mass distributions are fixed. We use a simple toy model that relates halo mass and quenching, which roughly reproduces the observed quenched fractions and the differences in halo mass between star-forming and quenched galaxies only if galaxies have a quenching probability that increases with halo mass from $\sim$0 for $\log(M_h/M_\odot)\sim$11 to $\sim$1 for $\log(M_h/M_\odot)\sim$13.5. A single halo-mass quenching threshold is unable to reproduce the quiescent fraction and satellite distribution of centrals. Therefore, while halo quenching may be an important mechanism, it is unlikely to be the only factor driving quenching. It remains unclear why a high fraction of centrals remain star-forming even in relatively massive halos.Comment: 19 pages, 17 figures, accepted by ApJ. Information on ZFOURGE can be found at http://zfourge.tamu.ed

A Redetermination of the Hubble Constant with the Hubble Space Telescope from a Differential Distance Ladder

We report observations of 240 Cepheid variables obtained with the Near Infrared Camera (NICMOS) through the F160W filter on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The Cepheids are distributed across six recent hosts of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) and the "maser galaxy" NGC 4258, allowing us to directly calibrate the peak luminosities of the SNe Ia from the precise, geometric distance measurements provided by the masers. New features of our measurement include the use of the same instrument for all Cepheid measurements across the distance ladder and homogeneity of the Cepheid periods and metallicities thus necessitating only a differential measurement of Cepheid fluxes and reducing the largest systematic uncertainties in the determination of the fiducial SN Ia luminosity. The NICMOS measurements reduce differential extinction in the host galaxies by a factor of 5 over past optical data. Combined with an expanded of 240 SNe Ia at z<0.1 which define their magnitude-redshift relation, we find H_0=74.2 +/-3.6, a 4.8% uncertainty including both statistical and systematic errors. We show that the factor of 2.2 improvement in the precision of H_0 is a significant aid to the determination of the equation-of-state of dark energy, w = P/(rho c^2). Combined with the WMAP 5-year measurement of Omega_M h^2, we find w= -1.12 +/- 0.12 independent of high-redshift SNe Ia or baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO). This result is also consistent with analyses based on the combination of high-z SNe Ia and BAO. The constraints on w(z) now with high-z SNe Ia and BAO are consistent with a cosmological constant and improved by a factor of 3 from the refinement in H_0 alone. We show future improvements in H_0 are likely and will further contribute to multi-technique studies of dark energy.Comment: 60 pages, 15 figures Accepted for Publication, ApJ. This is the second of two papers reporting results from a program to determine the Hubble constant to 5% precision from a refurbished distance ladder based on extensive use of differential measurement

Comprehensive molecular characterization of adenoid cystic carcinoma reveals tumor suppressors as novel drivers and prognostic biomarkers

© 2023 The Authors. The Journal of Pathology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) is a MYB-driven head and neck malignancy with high rates of local recurrence and distant metastasis and poor long-term survival. New effective targeted therapies and clinically useful biomarkers for patient stratification are needed to improve ACC patient survival. Here, we present an integrated copy number and transcriptomic analysis of ACC to identify novel driver genes and prognostic biomarkers. A total of 598 ACCs were studied. Clinical follow-up was available from 366 patients, the largest cohort analyzed to date. Copy number losses of 1p36 (70/492; 14%) and of the tumor suppressor gene PARK2 (6q26) (85/343; 25%) were prognostic biomarkers; patients with concurrent losses (n = 20) had significantly shorter overall survival (OS) than those with one or no deletions (p < 0.0001). Deletion of 1p36 independently predicted short OS in multivariate analysis (p = 0.02). Two pro-apoptotic genes, TP73 and KIF1B, were identified as putative 1p36 tumor suppressor genes whose reduced expression was associated with poor survival and increased resistance to apoptosis. PARK2 expression was markedly reduced in tumors with 6q deletions, and PARK2 knockdown increased spherogenesis and decreased apoptosis, indicating that PARK2 is a tumor suppressor in ACC. Moreover, analysis of the global gene expression pattern in 30 ACCs revealed a transcriptomic signature associated with short OS, multiple copy number alterations including 1p36 deletions, and reduced expression of TP73. Taken together, the results indicate that TP73 and PARK2 are novel putative tumor suppressor genes and potential prognostic biomarkers in ACC. Our studies provide new important insights into the pathogenesis of ACC. The results have important implications for biomarker-driven stratification of patients in clinical trials. © 2023 The Authors. The Journal of Pathology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Epsilon Indi Ba, Bb: a detailed study of the nearest known brown dwarfs

The discovery of epsilon Indi Ba, Bb, a binary brown dwarf system very close to the Sun, makes possible a concerted campaign to characterise the physical parameters of two T dwarfs. Recent observations suggest substellar atmospheric and evolutionary models may be inconsistent with observations, but there have been few conclusive tests to date. We therefore aim to characterise these benchmark brown dwarfs to place constraints on such models. We have obtained high angular resolution optical, near-infrared, and thermal-infrared imaging and medium-resolution (up to R~5000) spectroscopy of epsilon Indi Ba, Bb with the ESO VLT and present VRIzJHKL'M' broad-band photometry and 0.63--5.1 micron spectroscopy of the individual components. Furthermore, we use deep AO-imaging to place upper limits on the (model-dependent) mass of any further system members. We derive luminosities of log L/L_sun = -4.699+/-0.017 and -5.232+/-0.020 for epsilon Indi Ba, Bb, respectively, and using the dynamical system mass and COND03 evolutionary models predict a system age of 3.7--4.3 Gyr, in excess of previous estimates and recent predictions from observations of these brown dwarfs. Moreover, the effective temperatures of 1352--1385 K and 976--1011 K predicted from the COND03 evolutionary models, for epsilon Indi Ba and Bb respectively, are in disagreement with those derived from the comparison of our data with the BT-Settl atmospheric models where we find effective temperatures of 1300--1340 K and 880--940 K, for epsilon Indi Ba and Bb respectively, with surface gravities of log g=5.25 and 5.50. Finally, we show that spectroscopically determined effective temperatures and surface gravities for ultra-cool dwarfs can lead to underestimated masses even where precise luminosity constraints are available.Comment: 27 pages, 30 figures, 9 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Predictive factors of developing diabetes mellitus in women with gestational diabetes.

BACKGROUND: To investigate which factors during gestational diabetes pregnancies correlate with the risk of developing impaired glucose tolerance or diabetes 1 year postpartum and to compare this risk in women with gestational diabetes and women with a normal oral glucose tolerance test during pregnancy. METHODS: Of 315 women with gestational diabetes, defined as a 2-hr blood glucose value of at least 9.0 mmol/l at a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test, who delivered in Lund 1991-99, 229 (73%) performed a new test 1 year postpartum. We compared maternal and fetal factors during pregnancy with the test value at follow up. A control group of 153 women with a 2-hr test value below 7.8 mmol/l during pregnancy were invited to a new test 1 year postpartum and 60 (39%) accepted. RESULTS: At 1 year follow up, 31% of the women with gestational diabetes but only one of the 60 controls showed pathologic glucose tolerance and one had developed diabetes. The following factors in women with gestational diabetes were identified as predicting impaired glucose tolerance or diabetes at 1 year follow up: maternal age over 40 and--in a multiple regression analysis, independent of each other--a high 2-hr value at oral glucose tolerance test during pregnancy and insulin treatment during pregnancy. CONCLUSION: The risk of developing manifest diabetes after gestational diabetes may be high enough to justify a general screening or diagnostic procedure in all pregnant women to identify women with gestational diabetes and a postpartum follow up program for them. This study did not identify any particular factor during pregnancy with enough precision to predict a later progression to diabetes