Search for the lepton number violating process * * This work is supported in part by National Key R&D Program of China under Contracts Nos. 2023YFA1606000, 2023YFA1606704; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Contracts Nos. 12035009, 11635010, 11935015, 11935016, 11935018, 12025502, 12035013, 12061131003, 12192260, 12192261, 12192262, 12192263, 12192264, 12192265, 12221005, 12225509, 12235017, 12361141819; the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Large-Scale Scientific Facility Program; CAS under Contract No. YSBR-101; 100 Talents Program of CAS; The Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics (INPAC) and Shanghai Key Laboratory for Particle Physics and Cosmology; German Research Foundation DFG under Contract No. FOR5327; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Italy; Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation under Contracts Nos. 2021.0174, 2021.0299; Ministry of Development of Turkey under Contract No. DPT2006K-120470; National Research Foundation of Korea under Contract No. NRF-2022R1A2C1092335; National Science and Technology fund of Mongolia; National Science Research and Innovation Fund (NSRF) via the Program Management Unit for Human Resources & Institutional Development, Research and Innovation of Thailand under Contract No. B50G670107; Polish National Science Centre under Contract No. 2024/53/B/ST2/00975; Swedish Research Council under Contract No. 2019.04595; U. S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-FG02-05ER41374

Based on events collected with the BESIII detector, we search for the lepton number violating decay for the first time. The upper limit on the branching fraction of this decay is set to at the 90% confidence level with a frequentist method. This is the first search for decays with a lepton number change by two, offering valuable insights into the underlying physical processes

Exploring the use of machine learning to assess the respiratory function of preterm infants

Background: Preterm birth is associated with a number of pathologies that affect respiratory function. The identification of reduced lung function could aid with clinical diagnosis, earlier intervention and improved clinical outcomes for preterm infants. We explored the use of inter-breath intervals to predict the age at which healthy preterm infants’ lungs are functioning. This can provide the groundwork to build a clinical tool that can assess preterm lung function in clinical practice. Methods: Inter-breath intervals, measured through vital signs monitoring, were longitudinally recorded in healthy preterm infants with a post-menstrual age (PMA) < 37 weeks. Dataset 1, consisting of data from 32 infants, was analysed to compute 49 respiratory and statistical features. The relationship of these features with PMA was assessed through linear regression models. All features were used as inputs to train selected machine learning models to produce a predicted PMA. Mean Absolute Error (MAE) values were used to assess model accuracy. Machine learning models with higher levels of accuracy were selected for the next stage of analysis. Inter-breath interval data from dataset 2 were analysed, consisting of 66 infants across 161 recordings. 50 features were extracted and used as inputs to train the selected models to output a predicted PMA. The most accurate model was used for further analysis to assess whether performance is affected by sex (paired t-test), ventilation method (ANOVA), and post-natal age (linear regression). Results: 12 features from dataset 1 and 31 features from dataset 2 had a significant relationship with PMA (p < 0.05). The most accurate model was the bagged trees model trained on all 50 features, with a MAE of 1.30 weeks. Sex (p = 0.17), ventilation method (p = 0.79) and post-natal age (p = 0.99) did not affect model performance. Conclusion: Inter-breath interval data offers novel directions for assessing the respiratory function of preterm infants

Natriuretic peptides testing and survival prediction models for chronic heart failure: a systematic review of added prognostic value

Background: High natriuretic peptide levels are associated with a poor outcome in adults with chronic heart failure (CHF). However, the incremented prediction accuracy of multivariable prognostic models after adding B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and/or N-terminal proBNP (NT-proBNP) remains unclear. Methods: We carried out a systematic review narrative analysis of added-value studies of BNP and NT-proBNP in CHF prognostication. Primary clinical studies investigating prognostic model development or validation in adult participants with CHF were included. Any studies of individual factors’ association with patient outcomes, treatment efficacy, or those using patients with transplant/ventricular assist devices, ≥ 10% of patients with advanced HF, or significant comorbidities, HF secondary to congenital/reversible conditions, or ≥ 33% of patients with valvular HF were excluded. The databases MEDLINE, Embase, Science Citation Index, and Cochrane Prognosis Methods Group Database were searched from January 1990 to February 2024. Predictive performance was measured in terms of discrimination and calibration, the added value in terms of the c-statistic difference before and after adding BNP and/or NT-proBNP to a base model, and the risk reclassification, namely, net reclassification index (NRI) and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI). Risk of bias assessment used the Prediction model Risk Of Bias ASsessment Tool (PROBAST). Results: Fourteen added-value studies comprising a total of 50,949 individuals were included. Both BNP and NT-proBNP consistently improved mortality prediction performance, but studies only presented separately before and after c-statistics, without formally testing for statistically significant differences. Meta-analysis was impossible due to missing data on the change in predictive performance and data heterogeneity. All studies reported discrimination. Few reported calibration, NRI, and IDI. All studies except one were deemed to be at high risk of bias, whereas 50% showed high applicability to the review question, with only 14% scoring high for applicability concern, and the rest were unclear. Conclusions: Improving consistency in researching and reporting the added value of natriuretic peptide testing to predict mortality in chronic heart failure patients could facilitate summarizing and interpreting the results more meaningfully. Registration: This review is a refinement of the methods and a search update of the review of added-value biomarkers in HF prognosis (PROSPERO registration number: CRD42019086993)

Repeatability of Rapid Human Cardiac Phosphorus MRSI ( 31 P ‐ MRSI ) Using Concentric Ring Trajectory Readouts at 7 T

Purpose: PCr/ATP ratio is determined at 7 T typically using Fourier‐transform based magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging sequences (FT‐MRSI). These sequences require acquisition times longer than desirable for inclusion in cardiac clinical trials. Concentric ring trajectory (CRT‐MRSI) has been described as an accelerated alternative k‐space sampling method. In this work we aim to establish the inter‐ and intra‐session repeatability of three different CRT protocols and compare their voxel‐based PCr/ATP ratios to compartment‐based PCr/ATP values extracted with spectroscopy using a linear algebraic model (SLAM) method. Methods: Seven healthy volunteers were scanned twice on two different days. Each time a 6.5‐min 3D FT‐MRSI acquisition with 10 × 10 × 10 resolution was followed by a 2.5‐min CRT‐MRSI with matched resolution, a 1.5‐min CRT‐MRSI with matched resolution, and a 6.9‐min CRT‐MRSI with 12 × 12 × 12 resolution. Spectra from a mid‐septal voxel and the cardiac compartment were fitted with the OXSA toolbox. PCr/ATP ratio was quantified for inter‐ and intra‐session repeatability analysis. Results: Paired repeated measurements were not significantly different within subjects. Good inter‐ and intra‐session agreement was observed between FT‐MRSI and each CRT‐MRSI protocol. CRT‐MRSI protocols all had larger coefficients of repeatability (CoR) than FT‐MRSI. CRT‐SLAM‐based PCr/ATP values had lower CoR than voxel‐based data except for 2.5‐min CRT‐SLAM, and high‐resolution CRT‐SLAM had lower inter‐session CoR compared to FT‐MRSI (1.42 vs. 2.21). Conclusion: We established the repeatability of CRT‐MRSI‐based PCr/ATP values and showed higher SNR and lower CoR for CRT‐SLAM. Our findings allow shorter 31P MRS acquisition times and the use of more advanced energetics‐probing techniques in clinical studies

Glutamine Promotes Myogenesis in Myoblasts Through Glutaminolysis-Mediated Histone H3 Acetylation That Enhances Myogenin Transcription

Background/Objectives: Plasma glutamine levels in skeletal muscle change in response to exercise intensity and duration, both in physiological and pathological states. Glutamine contributes to muscle differentiation and regeneration; however, the mechanisms underlying this process remain unclear. This study investigated the role of glutamine glutaminolysis in myogenic differentiation, with a focus on epigenetic regulation of myogenin gene expression. Methods: C2C12 myoblasts were differentiated into myotubes using media containing various concentrations of glutamine, glutamate, or dimethyl 2-oxoglutarate (DM-α-KG), a cell-permeable analog of α-ketoglutarate. Results: Glutamine, glutamate, and DM-α-KG promoted C2C12 myoblast differentiation in a concentration-dependent manner, whereas the glutaminase inhibitor CB-839 suppressed differentiation. 4 mM glutamine increased myogenin mRNA expression by about 5-fold. CB-839 also inhibited glutamine-induced expression of myogenin but did not influence the effects of glutamate or DM-α-KG. Furthermore, glutamine increased histone H3 lysine 27 acetylation (H3K27ac) by about two-fold, whereas CB-839 (200 nM) and A-485 (10 µM), a CBP/p300 histone acetyltransferase inhibitor, reduced H3K27ac levels by about half. These results indicate that glutamine not only serves as a structural amino acid for muscle formation but also enhances myogenin transcription through epigenetic mechanisms. Conclusions: This report demonstrates glutaminolysis-dependent histone H3 acetylation, which induces myogenin transcription in myoblasts. These results, connecting glutamine supplementation during resistance training, may make it an effective strategy to accelerate muscle regeneration

BCL11B-related disease: a single phenotypic entity?

Craniosynostosis (CRS), the premature fusion of sutures between the skull bones, is characterised by a long “tail” of rare genetic diagnoses. This means that pathogenic variants in many genes are responsible for a minority of cases, and identifying these disease genes and delineating the associated phenotype is extremely important for patient diagnosis and for genetic counselling of families. One such gene is BCL11B. Heterozygous pathogenic variants in BCL11B have been described as causative for two Mendelian phenotypes, but until recently the gene remained only marginally associated with CRS. We have carried out a systematic review of literature, providing evidence that BCL11B-related disease (BRD) should be regarded as a single phenotypic entity. Furthermore, we describe four new patients, all of whom presented with CRS, thus expanding the phenotype of BRD and highlighting CRS as an important diagnostic clue

Mechanics of pressurized cellular sheets

Everyday experience shows that cellular sheets are stiffened by the presence of a pressurized gas: from bicycle inner tubes to bubble wrap, the presence of an internal pressure increases the stiffness of otherwise floppy structures. The same is true of plants, with turgor pressure (due to the presence of water) taking the place of gas pressure; indeed, in the absence of water, many plants wilt. However, the mechanical basis of this stiffening is somewhat opaque: simple attempts to rationalize it suggest that the stiffness should be independent of the pressure, at odds with everyday experience. Here, we study the mechanics of sheets that are a single-cell thick and show how a pressure-dependent bending stiffness may arise. Our model rationalizes observations of turgor-driven shrinkage in plant cells and also suggests that turgor is unlikely to provide significant structural support in many monolayer leaves, such as those found in mosses. However, for such systems, turgor does provide a way to control leaf shape, in accordance with observations of curling upon drying of moss leaves. Guided by our results, we also present a biomimetic actuator that uncurls upon pressurization

The uses of inventories in early modern France, from the Bureau de la Ville de Paris to Antoine Furetière’s Roman bourgeois

This essay eclectically traces the cultural significance of making and checking inventories in domestic, public, and bureaucratic contexts in early modern France. The analysis centres on the specific uses of inventories found in two interconnected spaces, the office and the library. A third space, the discursive space of a literary text (Antoine Furetière’s »Roman bourgeois«), problematises the inventorial practices found in the other two spaces. Furetière’s strategies of representation, foreshadowing those of Balzac, constantly recalibrate and tot up documentary forms of writing within and alongside literary forms