Neutrino masses, cosmological bound and four zero Yukawa textures

Four zero neutrino Yukawa textures in a specified weak basis, combined with $\mu\tau$ symmetry and type-I seesaw, yield a highly constrained and predictive scheme. Two alternately viable $3\times3$ light neutrino Majorana mass matrices $m_{\nu A}/m_{\nu B}$ result with inverted/normal mass ordering. Neutrino masses, Majorana in character and predicted within definite ranges with laboratory and cosmological inputs, will have their sum probed cosmologically. The rate for $0\nu\beta\beta$ decay, though generally below the reach of planned experiments, could approach it in some parameter region. Departure from $\mu\tau$ symmetry due to RG evolution from a high scale and consequent CP violation, with a Jarlskog invariant whose magnitude could almost reach $6\times 10^{-3}$, are explored.Comment: Published versio

Water poverty in the northeastern hill region (India): potential alleviation through multiple-use water systems: cross-learnings from Nepal Hills

Water poverty index / Construction / Multiple use / Water storage / Farming systems / Villages / Social aspects / Drip irrigation / India / Nepal / Nagaland / Mon district / Lampong Sheanghah

Debris cover and surface melt at a temperate maritime alpine glacier: Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand

Melt rates on glaciers are strongly influenced by the presence of supraglacial debris, which can either enhance or reduce ablation relative to bare ice. Most recently, Franz Josef Glacier has entered into a phase of strong retreat and downwasting, with the increasing emergence of debris on the surface in the ablation zone. Previously at Franz Josef Glacier, melt has only been measured on bare ice. During February 2012, a network of 11 ablation stakes was drilled into locations of varying supraglacial debris thickness on the lower glacier. Mean ablation rates over 9 days varied over the range 1.2–10.1 cm d−1, and were closely related to debris thickness. Concomitant observations of air temperature allowed the application of a degree-day approach to the calculation of melt rates, with air temperature providing a strong indicator of melt. Degree-day factors (d f) varied over the range 1.1–8.1 mm d−1 °C−1 (mean of 4.4 mm d−1 °C−1), comparable with rates reported in other studies. Mapping of the current debris cover revealed 0.7 km2 of the 4.9 km2 ablation zone surface was debris-covered, with thicknesses ranging 1–50 cm. Based on measured debris thicknesses and d f, ablation on debris-covered areas of the glacier is reduced by a total of 41% which equates to a 6% reduction in melt overall across the entire ablation zone. This study highlights the usefulness of a short-term survey to gather representative ablation data, consistent with numerous overseas ablation studies on debris-covered glaciers

Multi-scale modeling study of the source contributions to near-surface ozone and sulfur oxides levels over California during the ARCTAS-CARB period

Chronic high surface ozone (O3) levels and the increasing sulfur oxides (SOx = SO2+SO4) ambient concentrations over South Coast (SC) and other areas of California (CA) are affected by both local emissions and long-range transport. In this paper, multi-scale tracer, full-chemistry and adjoint simulations using the STEM atmospheric chemistry model are conducted to assess the contribution of local emission sourcesto SC O3 and to evaluate the impacts of transported sulfur and local emissions on the SC sulfur budgetduring the ARCTAS-CARB experiment period in 2008. Sensitivity simulations quantify contributions of biogenic and fire emissions to SC O3 levels. California biogenic and fire emissions contribute 3–4 ppb to near-surface O3 over SC, with larger contributions to other regions in CA. During a long-range transport event from Asia starting from 22 June, high SOx levels (up to ~0.7 ppb of SO2 and ~1.3 ppb of SO4) is observed above ~6 km, but they did not affect CA surface air quality. The elevated SOx observed at 1–4 km is estimated to enhance surface SOx over SC by ~0.25 ppb (upper limit) on ~24 June. The near-surface SOx levels over SC during the flight week are attributed mostly to local emissions. Two anthropogenic SOx emission inventories (EIs) from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are compared and applied in 60 km and 12 km chemical transport simulations, and the results are compared withobservations. The CARB EI shows improvements over the National Emission Inventory (NEI) by EPA, but generally underestimates surface SC SOx by about a factor of two. Adjoint sensitivity analysis indicated that SO2 levels at 00:00 UTC (17:00 local time) at six SC surface sites were influenced by previous day maritime emissions over the ocean, the terrestrial emissions over nearby urban areas, and by transported SO2 from the north through both terrestrial and maritime areas. Overall maritime emissions contribute 10–70% of SO2 and 20–60% fine SO4 on-shore and over the most terrestrial areas, with contributions decreasing with in-land distance from the coast. Maritime emissions also modify the photochemical environment, shifting O3 production over coastal SC to more VOC-limited conditions. These suggest an important role for shipping emission controls in reducing fine particle and O3concentrations in SC

Multi-scale modeling study of the source contributions to near-surface ozone and sulfur oxides levels over California during the ARCTAS-CARB period

Chronic high surface ozone (O_3) levels and the increasing sulfur oxides (SO_x = SO_2 + SO_4) ambient concentrations over South Coast (SC) and other areas of California (CA) are affected by both local emissions and long-range transport. In this paper, multi-scale tracer, full-chemistry and adjoint simulations using the STEM atmospheric chemistry model are conducted to assess the contribution of local emission sourcesto SC O_3 and to evaluate the impacts of transported sulfur and local emissions on the SC sulfur budgetduring the ARCTAS-CARB experiment period in 2008. Sensitivity simulations quantify contributions of biogenic and fire emissions to SC O_3 levels. California biogenic and fire emissions contribute 3–4 ppb to near-surface O_3 over SC, with larger contributions to other regions in CA. During a long-range transport event from Asia starting from 22 June, high SO_x levels (up to ~0.7 ppb of SO_2 and ~1.3 ppb of SO_4) is observed above ~6 km, but they did not affect CA surface air quality. The elevated SO_x observed at 1–4 km is estimated to enhance surface SO_x over SC by ~0.25 ppb (upper limit) on ~24 June. The near-surface SO_x levels over SC during the flight week are attributed mostly to local emissions. Two anthropogenic SO_x emission inventories (EIs) from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are compared and applied in 60 km and 12 km chemical transport simulations, and the results are compared withobservations. The CARB EI shows improvements over the National Emission Inventory (NEI) by EPA, but generally underestimates surface SC SO_x by about a factor of two. Adjoint sensitivity analysis indicated that SO_2 levels at 00:00 UTC (17:00 local time) at six SC surface sites were influenced by previous day maritime emissions over the ocean, the terrestrial emissions over nearby urban areas, and by transported SO_2 from the north through both terrestrial and maritime areas. Overall maritime emissions contribute 10–70% of SO2 and 20–60% fine SO_4 on-shore and over the most terrestrial areas, with contributions decreasing with in-land distance from the coast. Maritime emissions also modify the photochemical environment, shifting O_3 production over coastal SC to more VOC-limited conditions. These suggest an important role for shipping emission controls in reducing fine particle and O_3 concentrations in SC

Health and lifestyle of Nepalese migrants in the UK

Background: The health status and lifestyle of migrants is often poorer than that of the general population of their host countries. The Nepalese represent a relatively small, but growing, immigrant community in the UK, about whom very little is known in term of public health. Therefore, our study examined the health and lifestyle of Nepalese migrants in the UK. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of Nepalese migrants in UK was conducted in early 2007 using a postal, self-administered questionnaire in England and Scotland (n = 312), and telephone interviews in Wales (n = 15). The total response rate was 68% (327 out of 480). Data were analyzed to establish whether there are associations between socio-economic and lifestyle factors. A multivariate binary logistic regression was applied to find out independent effect of personal factors on health status. Results: The majority of respondents was male (75%), aged between 30 and 45 (66%), married or had a civil partner (83%), had university education (47%) and an annual family income (69%) ranging from £5,035 to £33,300. More than one third (39%) of the respondents have lived in the UK for 1 to 5 years and approximately half (46%) were longer-term residents. Most (95%) were registered with a family doctor, but only 38% with a dentist. A low proportion (14%) of respondents smoked but more than half (61%) consumed alcohol. More than half (57%) did not do regular exercises and nearly one fourth (23%) of respondents rated their health as poor. Self reported 'good' health status of the respondents was independently associated with immigration status and doing regular exercise Conclusion: The self reported health status and lifestyle, health seeking behaviour of Nepalese people who are residing in UK appears to be good. However, the overall regular exercise and dentist registration was rather poor. Health promotion, especially aimed at Nepalese migrants could help encourage them to exercise regularly and assist them to register with a dentist

Towards Minimal S4 Lepton Flavor Model

We study lepton flavor models with the $S_4$ flavor symmetry. We construct simple models with smaller numbers of flavon fields and free parameters, such that we have predictions among lepton masses and mixing angles. The model with a $S_4$ triplet flavon is not realistic, but we can construct realistic models with two triplet flavons, or one triplet and one doublet flavons.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, references are adde

Tri-Bimaximal Lepton Mixing and Leptogenesis

In models with flavour symmetries added to the gauge group of the Standard Model the CP-violating asymmetry necessary for leptogenesis may be related with low-energy parameters. A particular case of interest is when the flavour symmetry produces exact Tri-Bimaximal lepton mixing leading to a vanishing CP-violating asymmetry. In this paper we present a model-independent discussion that confirms this always occurs for unflavoured leptogenesis in type I see-saw scenarios, noting however that Tri-Bimaximal mixing does not imply a vanishing asymmetry in general scenarios where there is interplay between type I and other see-saws. We also consider a specific model where the exact Tri-Bimaximal mixing is lifted by corrections that can be parametrised by a small number of degrees of freedom and analyse in detail the existing link between low and high-energy parameters - focusing on how the deviations from Tri-Bimaximal are connected to the parameters governing leptogenesis.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures; version 2: references added, minor correction

Suppression of AP1 Transcription Factor Function in Keratinocyte Suppresses Differentiation

Our previous study shows that inhibiting activator protein one (AP1) transcription factor function in murine epidermis, using dominant-negative c-jun (TAM67), increases cell proliferation and delays differentiation. To understand the mechanism of action, we compare TAM67 impact in mouse epidermis and in cultured normal human keratinocytes. We show that TAM67 localizes in the nucleus where it forms TAM67 homodimers that competitively interact with AP1 transcription factor DNA binding sites to reduce endogenous jun and fos factor binding. Involucrin is a marker of keratinocyte differentiation that is expressed in the suprabasal epidermis and this expression requires AP1 factor interaction at the AP1-5 site in the promoter. TAM67 interacts competitively at this site to reduce involucrin expression. TAM67 also reduces endogenous c-jun, junB and junD mRNA and protein level. Studies with c-jun promoter suggest that this is due to reduced transcription of the c-jun gene. We propose that TAM67 suppresses keratinocyte differentiation by interfering with endogenous AP1 factor binding to regulator elements in differentiation-associated target genes, and by reducing endogenous c-jun factor expression

Strong coupling, discrete symmetry and flavour

We show how two principles - strong coupling and discrete symmetry - can work together to generate the flavour structure of the Standard Model. We propose that in the UV the full theory has a discrete flavour symmetry, typically only associated with tribimaximal mixing in the neutrino sector. Hierarchies in the particle masses and mixing matrices then emerge from multiple strongly coupled sectors that break this symmetry. This allows for a realistic flavour structure, even in models built around an underlying grand unified theory. We use two different techniques to understand the strongly coupled physics: confinement in N=1 supersymmetry and the AdS/CFT correspondence. Both approaches yield equivalent results and can be represented in a clear, graphical way where the flavour symmetry is realised geometrically.Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures, updated references and figure