E-Jurnal Universitas Tunas Husada Tasikmalaya
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Global symmetries and partial confinement
No full textIn gauge theories, spontaneous breaking of the centre symmetry provides a precise definition of deconfinement. In large-N gauge theories, evidence has emerged recently that between confined and deconfined phases a partially-deconfined phase can appear, in which only a subset of colours deconfine. In the partially-deconfined phase, the centre symmetry is spontaneously broken, raising the question of whether an order parameter exists that can distinguish completely- and partially-deconfined phases. We present two examples in gauge theories of global symmetries that are spontaneously broken in the confined phase and preserved in the deconfined phase, and we show that this symmetry is spontaneously broken in the partially-deconfined phase. As a result, in these theories the transition from complete to partial deconfinement is accompanied by the spontaneous breaking of a global symmetry. The two examples are CP symmetry in N = 1 super-Yang-Mills with a massive gluino and theta-angle θ = π, and chiral symmetry in a strongly-coupled lattice gauge theory. For N = 1 SYM we also present numerical evidence that the same phenomenon occurs at finite N ≥ 30. We thus conjecture that global symmetries may provide order parameters to distinguish completely and partially deconfined phases generically, including at finite N
A randomized controlled trial comparing changes in fitness with or without supervised exercise in patients initiated on enzalutamide and androgen deprivation therapy for non-metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer (EXTEND)
No full textAndrogen deprivation therapy (ADT) and androgen receptor signaling inhibitors (ARSI) are associated with deleterious physical effects, which exercise may mitigate; however, exercise has never been studied in patients initiating treatment with ADT and an ARSI. Our objective was to determine whether supervised exercise prior to and during initial therapy could mitigate adverse effects of ADT plus enzalutamide.We conducted a single center trial in patients with recurrent prostate cancer treated with ADT and enzalutamide. We randomized 26 patients to 16 weeks of supervised exercise (aerobic and resistance), starting 4 weeks before initiation of ADT and enzalutamide, or usual care. The primary endpoint was change in peak oxygen uptake (VOpeak) as a measure of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF). Secondary endpoints were functional capacity, maximal strength, body composition, patient-reported outcomes, safety, and feasibility. Analysis of covariance was used to compare outcomes for groups at Week 17 adjusted for baseline values.The usual care group (N = 13) showed declines from baseline to week 17 in both absolute CRF (-0.31 L/min, -10.9%; p < 0.01) and relative CRF (-3.2 mL/kg/min, -8.9%; p = 0.04); worse fatigue (p = 0.01); and worse quality of life (p = 0.01). At week 17, the exercise group (N = 13) demonstrated improved absolute CRF (between-group change +0.20 L/min, p = 0.05), leg strength (+48.6 kg, p < 0.01) and functional capacity (+21.0 m, p = 0.01) at week 17.This is the first randomized controlled trial demonstrating a clinically significant decline in CRF in patients initiating ADT and enzalutamide. We show the effectiveness of short-term supervised exercise to mitigate declines in absolute CRF, and improve maximal leg strength and functional capacity.NCT02256111
Identification, Occurrence, and Cytotoxicity of Haloanilines: A New Class of Aromatic Nitrogenous Disinfection Byproducts in Chloraminated and Chlorinated Drinking Water
No full textIdentifying disinfection byproducts (DBPs) with high health risk is an unresolved challenge. In this study, six members of a new class of aromatic nitrogenous DBPs─2-chloroaniline, 2-bromoaniline, 2,4-dichloroaniline, 2-chloro-4-bromoaniline, 4-chloro-3-nitroaniline, and 2-chloro-4-nitroaniline─are reported as DBPs in drinking water for the first time. Haloanilines completely degraded within 1 h in the presence of chlorine (1 mg/L), while about 20% remained in the presence of chloramine (1 mg/L) after 120 h. Haloanilines showed high stability in the absence of disinfectants, with <30% degradation at pH 5-9 over 120 h. Eight haloanilines were determined in chloraminated finished water and tap water at total concentrations of up to 443 ng/L. The most abundant was 2-bromoaniline, with a median concentration of 104 ng/L. The cytotoxicity of eight haloanilines and regulated trichloromethane and dichloroacetic acid (DCAA) was evaluated using Hep G2 cell assay. The ECvalues of eight haloanilines were 1-2 orders of magnitude lower than those of the regulated DBPs. The lowest toxic concentration of 2-chloro-4-nitroaniline was 1 μM, 500 times lower than that of DCAA. The formation and control of haloanilines in drinking water warrant further investigation
Flavanol Consumption in Healthy Men Preserves Integrity of Immunological-Endothelial Barrier Cell Functions: Nutri(epi)genomic Analysis
No full textScopeWhile cocoa flavanol (CF) consumption improves cardiovascular risk biomarkers, molecular mechanisms underlying their protective effects are not understood.ObjectiveTo investigate nutri(epi)genomic effects of CF and identify regulatory networks potential mediating vascular health benefits.Methods and ResultsTwenty healthy middle-aged men consume CF (bi-daily 450 mg) or control drinks for 1 month. Microarray analysis identifies 2235 differentially expressed genes (DEG) involved in processes regulating immune response, cell adhesion, or cytoskeleton organization. Distinct patterns of DEG correlate with CF-related changes in endothelial function, arterial stiffness, and blood pressure. DEG profile negatively correlates with expression profiles of cardiovascular disease patients. CF modulated DNA methylation profile of genes implicates in cell adhesion, actin cytoskeleton organization, or cell signaling. In silico docking analyses indicate that CF metabolites have the potential of binding to cell signaling proteins and transcription factors. Incubation of plasma obtained after CF consumption decrease monocyte to endothelial adhesion and dose-dependently increase nitric oxide-dependent chemotaxis of circulating angiogenic cells further validating the biological functions of CF metabolites.ConclusionIn healthy humans, CF consumption may mediate vascular protective effects by modulating gene expression and DNA methylation towards a cardiovascular protective effect, in agreement with clinical results, by preserving integrity of immunological-endothelial barrier functions
Signing at Scale: Learning to Co-Articulate Signs for Large-Scale Photo-Realistic Sign Language Production
No full textheute gibt es aber auch mehr angebote in der kultur oder woanders (trans: Today, however, there are also more offers in culture or elsewhere) HEUTE1 MEHR1 VERSCHIEDENES2 KULTUR1A VERSCHIEDENES1 wir konnen uns selber andern oder freude geben (trans: we can change ourselves or give joy) KORPER1 SELBST1A ODER6B FROH1 GEBEN1 a) b) d) c) Figure 1. Photo-Realistic Sign Language Production: Given a spoken language sentence from an unconstrained domain of discourse (a), an initial translation is conducted to a gloss sequence (b). FS-NET next produces a co-articulated continuous skeleton pose sequence from dictionary signs (c), which SIGNGAN generates into a photo-realistic sign language video in a given style (d). Abstract Sign languages are visual languages, with vocabularies as rich as their spoken language counterparts. However , current deep-learning based Sign Language Production (SLP) models produce under-articulated skeleton pose sequences from constrained vocabularies and this limits applicability. To be understandable and accepted by the deaf, an automatic SLP system must be able to generate co-articulated photo-realistic signing sequences for large domains of discourse. In this work, we tackle large-scale SLP by learning to co-articulate between dictionary signs, a method capable of producing smooth signing while scaling to unconstrained domains of discourse. To learn sign co-articulation, we propose a novel Frame Selection Network (FS-NET) that improves the temporal alignment of interpolated dictionary signs to continuous signing sequences. Additionally, we propose SIGNGAN, a pose-conditioned human synthesis model that produces photo-realistic sign language videos direct from skeleton pose. We propose a novel keypoint-based loss function which improves the quality of synthesized hand images. We evaluate our SLP model on the large-scale meineDGS (mDGS) corpus, conducting extensive user evaluation showing our FS-NET approach improves co-articulation of interpolated dictionary signs. Additionally, we show that SIGNGAN significantly outperforms all base-line methods for quantitative metrics, human perceptual studies and native deaf signer comprehension
Sparking Change: Evaluating the effectiveness of a multi-component intervention at encouraging more sustainable food behaviors
No full textFacilitating the adoption of more sustainable food behaviors is key in order to reduce pressure on nature and improve public health. Food businesses that interact directly with consumers are well placed to enable a positive change in food behaviors. The present study evaluates the effectiveness of a 9-week multi-component behavioral intervention implemented by a large UK food retailer. Three food behaviors were explored: meat consumption, food waste and scratch cooking. Evaluation methods comprise of surveys issued pre-intervention, at intervention-end and at delayed follow-up (3 months after intervention end), and focus groups where participants were divided according to life-stage (pre-family, family, retired). Results show the intervention mitigated individual barriers to change and had a positive impact on awareness, intention and behavior which lasted beyond intervention-end. Participants reported reducing their meat consumption and food waste and cooking more frequently from scratch. Findings indicate that the online community, ‘ask the expert’ videos and product samples were the most impactful intervention components, while recipes and cook-alongs were less effective. This study provides an effective and feasible intervention which could be implemented and scaled by food companies. While behavioral interventions offer a positive opportunity for companies to drive consumer behavior change, structural and cultural changes to the food environment will be needed to facilitate long-term change at scale
The impact of local fugitive particulate matter and emission inventories on air quality and health in dry and arid areas
No full textThe arid and semi-arid regions are facing a huge brunt of fugitive Particulate Matter (fPM) pollution, usually ascribed to the natural dust generated at the regional level (>100 km). In this study, the contribution of locally generated fPM to air pollution and it's environmental risk were assessed at a typical dry-arid area in the Middle East (i.e., State of Qatar, 200 × 200 km2 domain) with the use of different emission and dispersion models. Four modelling scenarios were constructed to reflect standard practices (e.g., regional emission models and the World Health Organization's (WHO) Environmental Burden of Disease (EBD) method) and higher resolution calculations with emission models that were developed in past field campaigns. Emphasis was given to the effect on the WHO methodology beyond the typical emission estimates and ambient concentration levels. Eventually, the use of higher spatial resolution population and concentration data revealed fPM hot spots yielding up to 11.0 times higher short-term excess mortalities (an average increase of 1.8 times) compared to the baseline WHO methodology, where the whole population was exposed to a single average concentration. A difference that could be attributed to the improvement of the emission estimations for barren lands and traffic. For example, the estimated PM10 emission fluxes from barren lands, within the main metropolitan area, using the improved emissions model ranged from 0.05 to 42.0 μg m−2 s−1, which is considerably higher than the emissions predicted using just the literature models (0.03 to 2.0 μg m−2 s−1). Overall, the barren lands emissions accounted for more than 90% of the fPM emissions during the study period. Consequently, this study is one of the first to quantify the significance of locally induced fPM and highlight the need for dedicated field studies and improved emissions estimation tools
Ground-state β-decay spectroscopy of 187 Ta
No full textBeta-decay spectroscopy of the 187 Ta ground state was performed at KISS. β-delayed γ-rays corresponding to the previously reported in-beam transitions were observed. The β-decay half-life of the 187 Ta ground state was determined to be 283(10) s by analyzing a time spectrum of β-γ coincidence events. The β-decay branching ratio and log(f t) values were evaluated for the first time. Based on the newly evaluated log(f t) values of > 6.0 and a decay scheme, spin-parity values of I π = 7/2 + originating from the odd-proton orbit π7/2[404] were assigned with high confidence, which is consistent with the systematics of neighboring odd-A nuclides
The Role of Destination Brand Image and Revisit Intention on Tourist Spending
No full textThere has been a substantial rise in the number of tourists in coastal cities in Asia and Europe. Yet very little is known about their tourism spending behavior, particularly how their perceived the importance of amenities in destination brand image and their influence on re-visit intention. This paper examines the relationship between amenities of tourist destination and their effect on tourist spending by examining (a) the mediating role of destination branding and (b) the moderating role of re-visit intention in the relationship between amenities and destination brand image. An online survey used to collect data from 150 Greek and 370 Chinese participants. Results show that destination brand image mediates the relationship between amenities of the destination and tourist spending. Moderated mediation reveals that the indirect paths (destination brand image) through which amenities exerts its effect on destination brand image is dependent on the value of tourist re-visit intention. Surprisingly, the model did not perform with Greek data. The role of destination brand image and tourist re-visit intention on tourist spending discussed together with future research directions.</p