Effects of wheat and oat-based whole grain foods on serum lipoprotein size and distribution in overweight middle aged people : a randomised controlled trial

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Efficacy of daratumumab combination regimen in patients with multiple myeloma : A combined analysis of phase III randomized controlled trials

Open Access via the Jis Wiley AgreementPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Pressure and Motion of Dry Sand -- Translation of Hagen's Paper from 1852

In a remarkable paper from 1852, Gotthilf Heinrich Ludwig Hagen measured and explained two fundamental aspects of granular matter: The first effect is the saturation of pressure with depth in a static granular system confined by silo walls -- generally known as the Janssen effect. The second part of his paper describes the dynamics observed during the flow out of the container -- today often called the Beverloo law -- and forms the foundation of the hourglass theory. The following is a translation of the original German paper from 1852.Comment: 4 pages, accepted for publication in Granular Matter, original article (German) can be found under http://www.phy.duke.edu/~msperl/Janssen

Force distributions in a triangular lattice of rigid bars

We study the uniformly weighted ensemble of force balanced configurations on a triangular network of nontensile contact forces. For periodic boundary conditions corresponding to isotropic compressive stress, we find that the probability distribution for single-contact forces decays faster than exponentially. This super-exponential decay persists in lattices diluted to the rigidity percolation threshold. On the other hand, for anisotropic imposed stresses, a broader tail emerges in the force distribution, becoming a pure exponential in the limit of infinite lattice size and infinitely strong anisotropy.Comment: 11 pages, 17 figures Minor text revisions; added references and acknowledgmen

Multiple circulating cytokines are coelevated in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Inflammatory biomarkers, including cytokines, are associated with COPD, but the association of particular circulating cytokines with systemic pathology remains equivocal. To investigate this, we developed a protein microarray system to detect multiple cytokines in small volumes of serum. Fourteen cytokines were measured in serum from never-smokers, ex-smokers, current smokers, and COPD patients (GOLD stages 1–3). Certain individual circulating cytokines (particularly TNFa and IL-1b) were significantly elevated in concentration in the serum of particular COPD patients (and some current/ex-smokers without COPD) and may serve as markers of particularly significant systemic inflammation. However, numerous circulating cytokines were raised such that their combined, but not individual, elevation was significantly associated with severity of disease, and these may be further indicators of, and contributors to, the systemic inflammatory manifestations of COPD. The coelevation of numerous circulating cytokines in COPD is consistent with the insidious development, chronic nature, and systemic comorbidities of the disease

Parity Effect and Charge Binding Transition in Submicron Josephson Junction Arrays

We reconsider the issue of Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition into an insulating state in the Coulomb-dominated Josephson junction arrays. We show that previously predicted picture of the Cooper-pair BKT transtion at T = T_2 is valid only under the condition that T_2 is considerably below the parity-effect temperature (which is usually almost 10 times below the value of superconductive transition temperature), and even in this case it is not a rigorous phase transition but only a crossover, whereas the real phase transition takes place at T_1 = T_2/4. Our theory is in agreement with available experimental data on Coulomb-dominated Josephson arrays and also sheds some light on the origin of unusual reentrant temperature dependence of resistivity in the array with nearly-criticial ratio of Coulomb to Josephson energies.Comment: 4 pages, Revtex, to be published in JETP Letters, April 9