The next generation of space-borne gravitational wave detectors may detect gravitational waves from extreme mass-ratio inspirals with primordial black holes. To produce primordial black holes which contribute a non-negligible abundance of dark matter and are consistent with the observations, a large enhancement in the primordial curvature power spectrum is needed. For a single field slow-roll inflation, the enhancement requires a very flat potential for the inflaton, and this will increase the number of e-folds. To avoid the problem, an ultra-slow-roll inflation at the near inflection point is required. We elaborate the conditions to successfully produce primordial black hole dark matter from single field inflation and propose a toy model with polynomial potential to realize the big enhancement of the curvature power spectrum at small scales while maintaining the consistency with the observations at large scales. The power spectrum for the second order gravitational waves generated by the large density perturbations at small scales is consistent with the current pulsar timing array observations.

The epithelial and epidermal innate cytokines IL-25, IL-33, and thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) play pivotal roles in the initiation of allergic inflammation in asthma and atopic dermatitis. However, the mechanism by which the expression of these innate cytokines is regulated remains unclear. Intelectin (ITLN) is expressed in airway epithelial cells and promotes allergic airway inflammation. We hypothesized that ITLN is required for allergen-induced IL-25, IL-33 and TSLP expression. In two asthma models, Itln knockdown reduced allergen-induced increases in Il-25, Il-33, and Tslp and development of type 2 response, eosinophilic inflammation, mucus overproduction, and airway hyperresponsiveness. Itln knockdown also inhibited house dust mite (HDM)-induced early upregulation of Il-25, Il-33, and Tslp in a model solely inducing airway sensitization. Using human airway epithelial cells, we demonstrated that HDM-induced increases in ITLN led to phosphorylation of EGFR and ERK which were required for induction of IL-25, IL-33, and TSLP expression. In two atopic dermatitis models, Itln knockdown suppressed expression of Il-33, Tslp and Th2 cytokines and eosinophilic inflammation. In humans, ITLN1 expression was significantly increased in asthmatic airways and in lesional skin of atopic dermatitis. We conclude that intelectin contributes to allergen-induced Il-25, Il-33 and Tslp expression in asthma and atopic dermatitis.Users may view, print, copy, and download text and data-mine the content in such documents, for the purposes of academic research, subject always to the full Conditions of use

Observations indicate that large-scale anomalies exist in the fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background. In these anomalies, the hemispherical power amplitude asymmetry has a correlation length comparable to that of the observable universe. We propose that a topological defect created by spontaneous breaking of the U(1) symmetry prior to inflation generated an initial phase variation, δθ, across the observable region of the universe. The amplitude of this phase fluctuation is protected by topology if the defect is inside the horizon, and is frozen by causality if the defect exits the horizon. After inflation, the phase-corresponding boson field started to oscillate, when the Hubble rate decreased to a level comparable to the mass of the boson field. The energy density of the newly created boson particles varied across the observable universe. The bosons subsequently decayed into radiation prior to the BBN epoch, and the resulting fluctuations in the energy density produced the observed power asymmetry. This scenario predicts a scale-dependent modulation amplitude power asymmetry and in addition, as topological defects created by phase transitions are a very general phenomenon, the observed hemispherical asymmetry may be seen as an evidence for the cosmological inflation.