One pion events by atmospheric neutrinos: A three flavor analysis

We study the one-pion events produced via neutral current (NC) and charged current (CC) interactions by the atmospheric neutrinos. We analyze the ratios of these events in the framework of oscillations between three neutrino flavors. The ratios of the CC events induced by $\nu_e$ to that of the NC events and a similar ratio defined with $\nu_\mu$ help us in distinguishing the different regions of the neutrino parameter space.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures (separate postscript files

Microorganisms causing wound infection and their antibiotic susceptibility pattern

Background: Pyogenic infection is one of major causes of morbidity and increasing medical expense. Multiple organisms can cause wound infection. Drug resistant bacteria are the most important therapeutic challenge.Methods: A prospective study was carried out from July 2021 to October 2021and pus samples were collected from suspected OPD and indoor patients with wound infection. The pus specimen after appropriate aerobic culture, the bacteria grown was identified by colony morphology, staining reaction and different standard biochemical tests. Modified Kirby Bauer disc diffusion method was used for the antimicrobial susceptibility testing.Results: Out of 140 pus samples from wound infection of suspected patients, 88 (62.9%) showed bacterial growth and most of them were from male patients, 66 (64.70%). Most of the isolates were isolated from in-patient (52, 59.1%). Staphylococcus aureus was the most prevalent pathogen (38.6%) followed by Klebsiella spp. (22.7%). Most of the S. aureus were MRSA (32.4%) and sensitive to vancomycin, linezolid and teicoplanin. Klebsiella spp. and other Gram-negative bacteria isolates were mostly sensitive to imipenem and they were highly resistant to co-trimoxazole, cephalosporins.Conclusions: The organisms mainly attributing for pyogenic wound infections are S. aureus, Klebsiella species. High level of drug resistance was seen for both Gram positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Continuous surveillance is necessary. As the microorganisms isolated were mostly resistant to different antibiotic classes, so effective surveillance and proper implementation of local antibiotic policy is needed.

Methodology for designing alternative ecosystem for restoring indigenous knowledge of smallholder communities in India

The Green Revolution led to the introduction of the modern high yielding varieties (HYVs) of seeds during the period 1960s-1970s. It also systematically replaced the approach of farmers collectively sharing and preserving indigenous best practices with transfer of knowledge regarding industrialised farming and increased productivity being routed through agricultural extension service agents. This “expert-driven” approach systemically created a dynamic that has led to the breakdown of social networks and community safety net structures that were earlier accessible to smallholders. This ongoing research study presents a methodology for designing an alternative ecosystem for restoring indigenous knowledge of smallholders in India, through a bottom-up model of community- based solutions that will provide them with more equitable as well as sustainable agricultural outcomes (Titzer, 2017). To demonstrate the merit of transitioning to such an alternative agricultural ecosystem for restoring indigenous knowledge we performed a multiple case study analysis on existing IEK systems. Systems thinking helped us gain a holistic understanding of the agricultural ecosystem in its current state, pinpoint the root causes of its dynamic behaviour and identify leveraging points in the system to make it more equitable for smallholders through the restoration of IEK

Seropositivity of hepatitis B viral infection among liver disorder patients, voluntary blood donors and hospital personnel

Background: HBV is highly infectious when compared with HIV even minute traces of infected blood as little as 0.0001 ml can transmit infection. Several of the routine therapeutic, diagnostic, prophylactic invasive procedures are capable of spreading HBV infection. Objectives of the study were to study the prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen in voluntary blood donors, health care workers (medical and paramedical personnel) and patients with liver disordersMethods: Present study was hospital based cross sectional study carried out among 75 subjects during a period of one year. These 75 subjects consisted of 25 patients with liver disorder, 25 health care workers and 25 voluntary blood donors. All of these were selected randomly. After obtaining informed consent, detailed history and examination was carried out. The blood samples were collected and sent for detection of HBsAg by ELISA. Data was entered and analyzed using proportions.Results: Maximum subjects 40 (53.3%) belonged to the age group of 21-30 years overall as well as among the voluntary blood donors i.e. 60%. Among voluntary blood donors, 96% were males. 60% belonged to urban areas. Among rural subjects, maximum (53.3%) were having liver disorders. Only 28% were illiterate. Liver disorder was more common among illiterates i.e. it was 76.2%. Overall only 24% were having high risk behavior and all of them were heterosexuals. 76% were not having any high risk behavior. Liver disorder was more common (66.7%) among heterosexual high risk behavior subjects compared to only 22.8% with no high risk behavior. Seropositivity was found highest among patients with liver disorder (64%) followed by among health care workers (12%). No one was seropositive among voluntary blood donors. Overall the seropositivity was 25.4%.Conclusions: Patients with liver disorders especially chronic hepatitis were mostly seropositive. Among health care workers, being a doctor was an important risk factor for acquiring hepatitis B infection. Hence all health care workers should be immunized for hepatitis B.

Field theory conjecture for loop-erased random walks

We give evidence that the functional renormalization group (FRG), developed to study disordered systems, may provide a field theoretic description for the loop-erased random walk (LERW), allowing to compute its fractal dimension in a systematic expansion in epsilon=4-d. Up to two loop, the FRG agrees with rigorous bounds, correctly reproduces the leading logarithmic corrections at the upper critical dimension d=4, and compares well with numerical studies. We obtain the universal subleading logarithmic correction in d=4, which can be used as a further test of the conjecture.Comment: 5 page

BioThings Explorer: a query engine for a federated knowledge graph of biomedical APIs

Knowledge graphs are an increasingly common data structure for representing biomedical information. These knowledge graphs can easily represent heterogeneous types of information, and many algorithms and tools exist for querying and analyzing graphs. Biomedical knowledge graphs have been used in a variety of applications, including drug repurposing, identification of drug targets, prediction of drug side effects, and clinical decision support. Typically, knowledge graphs are constructed by centralization and integration of data from multiple disparate sources. Here, we describe BioThings Explorer, an application that can query a virtual, federated knowledge graph derived from the aggregated information in a network of biomedical web services. BioThings Explorer leverages semantically precise annotations of the inputs and outputs for each resource, and automates the chaining of web service calls to execute multi-step graph queries. Because there is no large, centralized knowledge graph to maintain, BioThing Explorer is distributed as a lightweight application that dynamically retrieves information at query time. More information can be found at https://explorer.biothings.io, and code is available at https://github.com/biothings/biothings_explorer

Heterozygous De Novo UBTF Gain-of-Function Variant Is Associated with Neurodegeneration in Childhood.

Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) is transcribed from rDNA by RNA polymerase I (Pol I) to produce the 45S precursor of the 28S, 5.8S, and 18S rRNA components of the ribosome. Two transcription factors have been defined for Pol I in mammals, the selectivity factor SL1, and the upstream binding transcription factor (UBF), which interacts with the upstream control element to facilitate the assembly of the transcription initiation complex including SL1 and Pol I. In seven unrelated affected individuals, all suffering from developmental regression starting at 2.5-7 years, we identified a heterozygous variant, c.628G\u3eA in UBTF, encoding p.Glu210Lys in UBF, which occurred de novo in all cases. While the levels of UBF, Ser388 phosphorylated UBF, and other Pol I-related components (POLR1E, TAF1A, and TAF1C) remained unchanged in cells of an affected individual, the variant conferred gain of function to UBF, manifesting by markedly increased UBF binding to the rDNA promoter and to the 5\u27- external transcribed spacer. This was associated with significantly increased 18S expression, and enlarged nucleoli which were reduced in number per cell. The data link neurodegeneration in childhood with altered rDNA chromatin status and rRNA metabolism

Atmospheric neutrinos with three flavor mixing

We analyze the atmospheric neutrino data in the context of three flavor neutrino oscillations taking account of the matter effects in the earth. With the hierarchy among the vacuum mass eigenvalues $\mu_3^2 \gg \mu_2^2 \geq \mu_1^2$, the solution of the atmospheric neutrino problem depends on $\delta_{31}=\mu_3^2 - \mu_1^2$ and the $13$ and $23$ mixing angles $\phi$ and $\psi$. Whereas the sub-GeV atmospheric neutrino data imposes only a lower limit on $\delta_{31} > 10^{-3} eV^2$, the zenith angle dependent suppression observed in the multi-GeV data limits $\delta_{31}$ from above also. The allowed regions of the parameter space are strongly constrained by the multi-GeV data. Combined with our earlier solution to the solar neutrino problem which depends on $\delta_{21}= \mu_2^2-\mu_1^2$ and the $12$ and $13$ mixing angles $\omega$ and $\phi$, we have obtained the ranges of values of the five neutrino parameters which solve both the solar and the atmospheric neutrino problems simultaneously.Comment: 21 pages Revtex, 7 figures as 7 ps files, Zenith angle binned multi-Gev analysis redone with the Kamiokande detector efficiencies include

Three-flavor atmospheric neutrino anomaly

We investigate the indications of flavor oscillations that come from the anomalous flavor composition of the atmospheric neutrino flux observed in some underground experiments. We study the information coming from the neutrino-induced $\mu$-like and $e$-like events both in the sub-GeV energy range (Kamiokande, IMB, Fr{\'e}jus, and NUSEX experiments) and in the multi-GeV energy range (Kamiokande experiment). First we analyze all the data in the limits of pure $\nu_\mu\leftrightarrow\nu_\tau$ and $\nu_\mu\leftrightarrow\nu_e$ oscillations. We obtain that $\nu_\mu\leftrightarrow\nu_e$ oscillations provide a better fit, in particular to the multi-GeV data. Then we perform a three-flavor analysis in the hypothesis of dominance of one neutrino square mass difference, $m^2$, implying that the neutrino mixing is parametrized by two angles, $(\psi,\,\phi)\in[0,\,\pi/2]$. We explore the space $(m^2,\,\psi,\,\phi)$ exhaustively, and find the regions favored by the oscillation hypothesis. The results are displayed in a form suited to the comparison with other flavor oscillation searches at accelerator, reactor, and solar $\nu$ experiments. In the analysis, we pay particular attention to the earth matter effects, to the correlation of the uncertainties, and to the symmetry properties of the oscillation probability.Comment: 25 pages (RevTeX) + 12 figures, requires epsfig.sty. All the figures are bitmapped. Postscript figures with full resolution are available at ftp://ftp.sns.ias.edu/pub/lisi/atmpaper

Comparing and contrasting the νμ→ντ\nu_{\mu} \to \nu_{\tau} and νμ→νs\nu_{\mu} \to \nu_s solutions to the atmospheric neutrino problem with SuperKamiokande data

The $\nu_{\mu} \to \nu_{\tau}$ and $\nu_{\mu} \to \nu_s$ solutions to the atmospheric neutrino problem are compared with SuperKamiokande data. The differences between these solutions due to matter effects in the Earth are calculated for the ratio of $\mu$-like to $e$-like events and for up-down flux asymmetries. These quantities are chosen because they are relatively insensitive to theoretical uncertainties in the overall neutrino flux normalisation and detection cross-sections and efficiencies. A $\chi^2$ analysis using these quantities is performed yielding $3\sigma$ ranges which are approximately given by $(0.725 - 1.0, 4 \times 10^{-4} - 2 \times 10^{-2} eV^2)$ and $(0.74 - 1.0, 1 \times 10^{-3} - 2 \times 10^{-2} eV^2)$ for $(\sin^2 2\theta,\Delta m^2)$ for the $\nu_{\mu} \to \nu_{\tau}$ and $\nu_{\mu} \to \nu_s$ solutions, respectively. Values of $\Delta m^2$ smaller than about $2 \times 10^{-3}$ eV$^2$ are disfavoured for the $\nu_{\mu} \to \nu_s$ solution, suggesting that future long baseline experiments should see a positive signal if this scenario is the correct one.Comment: revtex, 22 pages, 12 figure