On Exactly Marginal Deformations Dual to BB-Field Moduli of IIB Theory on SE5_5

The complex dimension of the space of exactly marginal deformations for quiver CFTs dual to IIB theory compactified on $Y^{p,q}$ is known to be generically three. Simple general formulas already exist for two of the exactly marginal directions in the space of couplings, one of which corresponds to the sum of the (inverse squared of) gauge couplings, and the other to the $\beta$-deformation. Here we identify the third exactly marginal direction, which is dual to the modulus $\int B_{2}$ on the gravity side. This identification leads to a relation between the field theory gauge couplings and the vacuum expectation value of the gravity modulus that we further support by a computation related to the chiral anomaly induced by added fractional branes. We also present a simple algorithm for finding similar exactly marginal directions in any CFT described by brane tiling, and demonstrate it for the quiver CFTs dual to IIB theory compactified on $L^{1,5,2}$ and the Suspended Pinch Point.Comment: 28 pages, JHEP style. v2: minor corrections, added references and acknowledgements. v3: a number of speculative comments regarding the application of the Konishi anomaly equation to our problem are removed. v4: the proposal in Eq. (2.4) added back as a conjectur

Transcriptome profile of early responsive genes in susceptible barley during Rhynchosporium secalis infection

Scald caused by Rhynchosporium secalis, is an economically important disease found worldwide. In order to profile genes and pathways responding to R. seclais infection, leaf transcriptomes before and after fungus inoculation in susceptible barley were compared using cDNA-AFLP technique. Transcriptional changes of 144 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were observed, of which 18 have no previously described function. Functional annotation of the transcripts revealed a wide range of pathways including cell wall fortification, cytoskeleton construction and metabolic processes at different time points. Furthermore, the results of RT-PCR analysis on candidate genes, ABC transporters and lycine-specific demethylase were consistent with the cDNA-AFLP data in their expression patterns. Taken together, our data suggest that susceptible barley reprograms metabolic and biological processes to initiate a suitable response R. secalis infection

Effect of vitamin D replacement on maternal and neonatal outcomes: a randomised controlled trial in pregnant women with hypovitaminosis D. A protocol

Introduction: The vitamin D recommended doses during pregnancy differ between societies. The WHO guidelines do not recommend routine prenatal supplementation, but they underscore the fact that women with the lowest levels may benefit most. The effects of routine supplementation during pregnancy on maternal and neonatal clinical outcomes have not been investigated in the Middle East, where hypovitaminosis D is prevalent. Our hypothesis is that in Middle Eastern pregnant women, a vitamin D dose of 3000?IU/day is required to reach a desirable maternal 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] level, and to positively impact infant bone mineral content (BMC).Methods and analysis: This is a multicentre blinded randomised controlled trial. Pregnant women presenting to the Obstetrics and Gynaecology clinics will be approached. Eligible women will be randomised to daily equivalent doses of cholecalciferol, 600?IU or 3000?IU, from 15 to 18?weeks gestation until delivery. Maternal 25(OH)D and chemistries will be assessed at study entry, during the third trimester and at delivery. Neonatal anthropometric variables and 25(OH)D level will be measured at birth, and bone and fat mass assessment by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scan at 1?month. A sample size of 280 pregnant women is needed to demonstrate a statistically significant difference in the proportion of women reaching a 25(OH)D level ?50?nmol/L at delivery, and a difference in infant BMC of 6 (10)g, for a 90% power and a 2.5% level of significance. The proportions of women achieving a target 25(OH)D level will be compared between the two arms, using ?2. An independent t test will be used to compare mean infant BMC between the two arms. The primary analysis is an intention-to-treat analysis of unadjusted results.Ethics and dissemination: The protocol has been approved by the Institutional Review Board at the American University of Beirut-Lebanon (IM.GEHF.22). The trial results will be published in peer-reviewed medical journals and presented at scientific conferences.Trial registration number: NCT02434380.<br/

Leptin fails to blunt the lipopolysaccharide-induced activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in rats

Copyright @ 2013 The authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.Obesity is a risk factor for sepsis morbidity and mortality, whereas the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis plays a protective role in the body's defence against sepsis. Sepsis induces a profound systemic immune response and cytokines serve as excellent markers for sepsis as they act as mediators of the immune response. Evidence suggests that the adipokine leptin may play a pathogenic role in sepsis. Mouse endotoxaemic models present with elevated leptin levels and exogenously added leptin increased mortality whereas human septic patients have elevated circulating levels of the soluble leptin receptor (Ob-Re). Evidence suggests that leptin can inhibit the regulation of the HPA axis. Thus, leptin may suppress the HPA axis, impairing its protective role in sepsis.We hypothesised that leptin would attenuate the HPA axis response to sepsis.We investigated the direct effects of an i.p. injection of 2 mg/kg leptin on the HPA axis response to intraperitoneally injected 25 μg/kg lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in the male Wistar rat. We found that LPS potently activated the HPA axis, as shown by significantly increased plasma stress hormones, ACTH and corticosterone, and increased plasma interleukin 1β (IL1β) levels, 2 h after administration. Pre-treatment with leptin, 2 h before LPS administration, did not influence the HPA axis response to LPS. In turn, LPS did not affect plasma leptin levels. Our findings suggest that leptin does not influence HPA function or IL1b secretion in a rat model of LPS-induced sepsis, and thus that leptin is unlikely to be involved in the acute-phase endocrine response to bacterial infection in rats.The section is funded by grants from the MRC, BBSRC, NIHR and an Integrative Mammalian Biology (IMB) Capacity Building Award, and by a FP7-HEALTH-2009-241592 EuroCHIP grant and is supported by the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre Funding Scheme. This work is supported by a BBSRC Doctoral Training-Strategic Skills Award grant (BB/F017340/1)

Constraints on chiral operators in N=2 SCFTs

Open Access, © The Authors. Article funded by SCOAP3. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( CC-BY 4.0 ), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited

Binding energies of van der Waals complexes at non-equilibrium geometries

© 2019 Elsevier B.V. In density functional theory (DFT), many methods have been developed to accurately capture the dispersion interactions in weakly-bound systems. The focus, however, has been mainly on complexes at equilibrium geometries. The purpose of this study is to assess the performance of the functional PW86 + PBE + XDM on van der Waals (vdW) complexes at non-equilibrium geometries. The well balanced S66x8 database published by Hobza\u27s group is used. This database includes 66 complexes at eight different separations ranging from 10% compression to 200% stretching with respect to the equilibrium geometries. The overall root mean square percent error (RMSPE) on this database using aug-cc-pVTZ is 14.58%

Atomic and molecular properties of nonclassical bioisosteric replacements of the carboxylic acid group

© 2020 Drug design is fraught with challenges as small differences in the structure of a drug molecule can significantly affect its biological activity. Bioisosteres are interchangeably used to adjust pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties without affecting the biological activity of the drug. While electrostatic potential maps (EPMs) are typically used to show the similarity in the \u27key and lock\u27 interactions between a drug and its receptor, they are limited to qualitative comparisons. Methodology & results: Using the quantum theory of atoms in molecules, quantitative similarities among nonclassical bioisosteres of carboxylic acid were evaluated. Conclusion: The similarity in the bioisosteric groups was captured with the average electron density tool which generated remarkably close average electron densities regardless of the capping group, the isodensity values or the protonation state of the molecule. The similarities among bioisosteres was less obvious using the EPM tool

Evaluating dispersion forces for optimization of van der Waals complexes using a non-empirical functional

© 2016 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. Modelling dispersion interactions with traditional density functional theory (DFT) is a challenge that has been extensively addressed in the past decade. The exchange-dipole moment (XDM), among others, is a non-empirical add-on dispersion correction model in DFT. The functional PW86+PBE+XDM for exchange, correlation and dispersion, respectively, compromises an accurate functional for thermochemistry and for van der Waals (vdW) complexes at equilibrium and non-equilibrium geometries. To use this functional in optimizing vdW complexes, rather than computing single point energies, it is necessary to evaluate accurate forces. The purpose of this paper is to validate that, along the potential energy surface, the distance at which the energy is minimum is commensurate with the distance at which the forces vanish to zero. This test was validated for 10 rare gas diatomic molecules using various integration grids and different convergence criteria. It was found that the use of either convergence criterion, 10-6 or 10-8, in Gaussian09, does not affect the accuracy of computed optimal distances and binding energies. An ultrafine grid needs to be used when computing accurate energies using generalized gradient approximation functionals. This article is part of the themed issue \u27Multiscale modelling at the physics-chemistry-biology interface\u27

Routes to drug design via bioisosterism of carboxyl and sulfonamide groups

© 2017 2017 Future Science Ltd. Aim: The similarity in the biological function of the bioisosteric pair, carboxyl and sulfonamide functional groups, is studied using the quantitative tool, average electron density of the bioisosteric moiety in drug molecules and the qualitative tool, electrostatic potential. Results/methodology: Five different capping groups (methyl, phenyl, chlorine, hydrogen and amine) were considered to investigate the effect of the environment on the properties of the bioisosteres. The molecules were considered in their neutral and anionic forms to account for the change in pH depending on the medium of the drug-receptor interactions. Conclusion: The new developed approach, average electron density, is not only advantageous as a qualitative descriptor, it is also more consistent compared with the conventionally accepted method, electrostatic potential, especially for the anions

Mapping spot blotch resistance genes in four barley populations

Bipolaris sorokiniana (teleomorph: Cochliobolus sativus) is the fungal pathogen responsible for spot blotch in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and occurs worldwide in warmer, humid growing conditions. Current Australian barley varieties are largely susceptible to this disease and attempts are being made to introduce sources of resistance from North America. In this study we have compared chromosomal locations of spot blotch resistance reactions in four North American two-rowed barley lines; the North Dakota lines ND11231-12 and ND11231-11 and the Canadian lines TR251 and WPG8412-9-2-1. Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT)-based PCR, expressed sequence tag (EST) and SSR markers have been mapped across four populations derived from crosses between susceptible parental lines and these four resistant parents to determine the location of resistance loci. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) conferring resistance to spot blotch in adult plants (APR) were detected on chromosomes 3HS and 7HS. In contrast, seedling resistance (SLR) was controlled solely by a locus on chromosome 7HS. The phenotypic variance explained by the APR QTL on 3HS was between 16 and 25% and the phenotypic variance explained by the 7HS APR QTL was between 8 and 42% across the four populations. The SLR QTL on 7HS explained between 52 to 64% of the phenotypic variance. An examination of the pedigrees of these resistance sources supports the common identity of resistance in these lines and indicates that only a limited number of major resistance loci are available in current two-rowed germplasm