Snowmass Benchmark Points and Three-Loop Running

We present the full three-loop beta-functions for the MSSM generalised to include additional matter multiplets in 5, 10 representations of SU(5). We analyse in detail the effect of three-loop running on the sparticle spectrum for the MSSM Snowmass Benchmark Points. We also consider the effect on these spectra of additional matter multiplets (the semi-perturbative unification scenario).Comment: 28 pages, TeX, 4 figures, 10 tables. Uses Harvmac and eps

Birth defects associated with paternal firefighting in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study

Background: Few studies have evaluated birth defects among children of firefighters. We investigated associations between birth defects and paternal work as a firefighter compared to work in non-firefighting and police officer occupations. Methods: We analyzed 1997–2011 data from the multi-site case-control National Birth Defects Prevention Study. Cases included fetuses or infants with major structural birth defects and controls included a random sample of live-born infants without major birth defects. Mothers of infants self-reported information about parents' occupations held during pregnancy. We investigated associations between paternal firefighting and birth defect groups using logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Referent groups included families reporting fathers working non-firefighting and police officer jobs. Results: Occupational groups included 227 firefighters, 36,285 non-firefighters, and 433 police officers. Twenty-nine birth defects were analyzed. In adjusted analyses, fathers of children with total anomalous pulmonary venous return (TAPVR; OR = 3.1; 95% CI = 1.1–8.7), cleft palate (OR = 1.8; 95% CI = 1.0–3.3), cleft lip (OR = 2.2; 95% CI = 1.2–4.2), and transverse limb deficiency (OR = 2.2; 95% CI = 1.1–4.7) were more likely than fathers of controls to be firefighters, versus non-firefighters. In police-referent analyses, fathers of children with cleft palate were 2.4 times more likely to be firefighters than fathers of controls (95% CI = 1.1–5.4). Conclusions: Paternal firefighting may be associated with an elevated risk of birth defects in offspring. Additional studies are warranted to replicate these findings. Further research may contribute to a greater understanding of the reproductive health of firefighters and their families for guiding workplace practices

Synthesis, antileishmanial activity and QSAR studies of 2-chloro- N -arylacetamides

ABSTRACT We describe herein the synthesis and evaluation of the antileishmanial activity against promastigote forms of Leishmania amazonensis and cytotoxicity to murine macrophages of a series of 2-chloro-N-arylacetamide derivatives. All compounds were active, except one (compound 3). Compound 5 presented the most promising results, showing good antileishmanial activity (CI50=5.39±0.67 µM) and moderate selectivity (SI=6.36), indicating that further development of this class is worthwhile. Preliminary QSAR studies, although not predictive, furnished some insights on the importance of electronic character of aryl substituent to biological activity, as well as an indirect influence of hydrophobicity on activity

Psychology and aggression

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68264/2/10.1177_002200275900300301.pd

The parent?infant dyad and the construction of the subjective self

Developmental psychology and psychopathology has in the past been more concerned with the quality of self-representation than with the development of the subjective agency which underpins our experience of feeling, thought and action, a key function of mentalisation. This review begins by contrasting a Cartesian view of pre-wired introspective subjectivity with a constructionist model based on the assumption of an innate contingency detector which orients the infant towards aspects of the social world that react congruently and in a specifically cued informative manner that expresses and facilitates the assimilation of cultural knowledge. Research on the neural mechanisms associated with mentalisation and social influences on its development are reviewed. It is suggested that the infant focuses on the attachment figure as a source of reliable information about the world. The construction of the sense of a subjective self is then an aspect of acquiring knowledge about the world through the caregiver's pedagogical communicative displays which in this context focuses on the child's thoughts and feelings. We argue that a number of possible mechanisms, including complementary activation of attachment and mentalisation, the disruptive effect of maltreatment on parent-child communication, the biobehavioural overlap of cues for learning and cues for attachment, may have a role in ensuring that the quality of relationship with the caregiver influences the development of the child's experience of thoughts and feelings

Observation of inverse Compton emission from a long γ-ray burst.

Long-duration γ-ray bursts (GRBs) originate from ultra-relativistic jets launched from the collapsing cores of dying massive stars. They are characterized by an initial phase of bright and highly variable radiation in the kiloelectronvolt-to-megaelectronvolt band, which is probably produced within the jet and lasts from milliseconds to minutes, known as the prompt emission1,2. Subsequently, the interaction of the jet with the surrounding medium generates shock waves that are responsible for the afterglow emission, which lasts from days to months and occurs over a broad energy range from the radio to the gigaelectronvolt bands1-6. The afterglow emission is generally well explained as synchrotron radiation emitted by electrons accelerated by the external shock7-9. Recently, intense long-lasting emission between 0.2 and 1 teraelectronvolts was observed from GRB 190114C10,11. Here we report multi-frequency observations of GRB 190114C, and study the evolution in time of the GRB emission across 17 orders of magnitude in energy, from 5 × 10-6 to 1012 electronvolts. We find that the broadband spectral energy distribution is double-peaked, with the teraelectronvolt emission constituting a distinct spectral component with power comparable to the synchrotron component. This component is associated with the afterglow and is satisfactorily explained by inverse Compton up-scattering of synchrotron photons by high-energy electrons. We find that the conditions required to account for the observed teraelectronvolt component are typical for GRBs, supporting the possibility that inverse Compton emission is commonly produced in GRBs