Bound states and resonances in the scalar sector of the MSSM

The trilinear couplings of squarks and sleptons to the Higgs bosons can give rise to a spectrum of bound states with exotic quantum numbers, for example, those of a leptoquark.Comment: 8 pages, 2 eps figures, latex, epsf; published version (minor changes in wording and referencing

Outlook for detection of GW inspirals by GRB-triggered searches in the Advanced detector era

Short, hard gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to originate from the coalescence of two neutron stars (NSs) or a NS and a black hole (BH). If this scenario is correct, then short GRBs will be accompanied by the emission of strong gravitational waves (GWs), detectable by GW observatories such as LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and LIGO-India. As compared with blind, all-sky, all-time GW searches, externally triggered searches for GW counterparts to short GRBs have the advantages of both significantly reduced detection threshold due to known time and sky location and enhanced GW amplitude because of face-on orientation. Based on the distribution of signal-to-noise ratios in candidate compact binary coalescence events in the most recent joint LIGO-Virgo data, our analytic estimates, and our Monte Carlo simulations, we find an effective sensitive volume for GRB-triggered searches that is about 2 times greater than for an all-sky, all-time search. For NS-NS systems, a jet angle of 20 degrees, a gamma-ray satellite field of view of 10% of the sky, and priors with generally precessing spin, this doubles the number of NS-NS short-GRB and NS-BH short-GRB associations, to ~3-4% of all detections of NS-NSs and NS-BHs. We also investigate the power of tests for statistical excesses in lists of subthreshold events, and show that these are unlikely to reveal a subthreshold population until finding GW associations to short GRBs is already routine. Finally, we provide useful formulas for calculating the prior distribution of GW amplitudes from a compact binary coalescence, for a given GW detector network and given sky location.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, published in PRD; this version includes changes in final copyedited articl

A single cell approach to tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in solid and hematopoietic malignancies

This work is focused on human T and B cell immunology in solid and hematopoietic malignancies. Human immunology has been suffering from insufficiencies to experimentally resolve the virtually unlimited richness of phenotypes and functional states within humans. To at least partially overcome technical limitations, this work presents methodologies for high-dimensional high-throughput determination of lymphocyte differentiation and specificities at the single cell level. The methodologies were applied to rectal cancer and multiple myeloma, which are prime examples for the prognostic impact of tumor-infiltrating T cells or in which the immune system (B cell compartment in multiple myeloma) is part of the malignancy. The included publications present the identification of characteristic-phenotype rectal cancer-infiltrating T cells and, with help of individually created TCR-recombinant reporter cell lines, define the spatial distribution of T cell target antigens within the colo-rectum. In multiple myeloma, the developed methodologies lead to the identification of a novel-phenotype non-plasma cell B lineage subset that is polyclonally expanded in active disease. Furthermore, the phenotypic range of malignant B lineage clones in multiple myeloma was not restricted to plasma cells but included rare normal-phenotype (memory) B cells. This work is novel and of high impact for the (human) immunology field as it i) provides the technical basis to study human lymphocyte biology at the single cell level in high-dimensional space, which is relevant beyond the presented studies on regulatory T cells, rectal cancer, and multiple myeloma. ii) determines accessibility of rectal cancer-infiltrating T cells in peripheral blood. iii) determines the spatial distribution of target antigens of rectal cancer-infiltrating T cells. iv) defines the phenotypic range of multiple myeloma at the single cell level providing a potential rationale for the therapeutic effect of CD19-targeting therapies in a presumably CD19- disease. v) determines the default differentiation pathway of the CD45RA- regulatory T cell subset during in vitro expansion, which is relevant for the design and adoptive transfer of functionally defined cell products

Positive Margins And Other Factors Associated With Survival In Early Stage Oral Cavity Squamous Cell Cancer: Prognostic Impact And Quality Measure

Objective: The aim of this work was to determine the prognostic impact of positive margins in early oral cavity squamous cell cancer and evaluate the utility of positive margin incidence as a surgical quality measure. Study design and setting: Retrospective analysis of the National Cancer Data Base Subjects and methods: Patients with oral cavity squamous cell cancer diagnosed between 1998 and 2011 who were treated with surgical resection were sampled. Univariate and multivariate analyses of overall survival and incidence of positive margins were performed. Results: A total of 6,830 patients were included in the survival analysis. Overall survival at 5-years was 69.7%. On multivariate analysis, neck dissection (HR 0.79, 95% CI 0.76-0.94) and treatment at academic/research institutions (HR 0.88, 95% CI 1.01-0.99) were associated with improved survival, while positive margins (HR 1.27, 95% CI 1.08-1.49), insurance through Medicare (HR 1.45, 95% CI 1.25-1.69) or Medicaid (HR 1.96, 95% CI 1.60-2.39), and adjuvant radiotherapy (HR 1.31, 95% CI 1.16-1.49), or adjuvant chemotherapy (HR 1.34, 95% CI 1.03-1.75) were associated with compromised survival. A total of 20,602 early oral cancer patients were identified for analysis of factors associated with positive margins. Margin status was reported in 94.8% of cases, and positive margins occurred in 7.5% of those cases. Incidence of positive margins by institution varied from 0% to 43.8%, with median incidence of 7.1%. Positive margins were associated with clinical factors including stage II disease (OR 1.75; 95% CI 1.55-1.98), intermediate grade (OR 1.20; 95% CI 1.04-1.37), high grade (OR 1.68; 95% CI 1.39-2.03), and floor of mouth (OR 1.78; 95% CI 1.52-2.08), buccal mucosa (OR 2.06 95% CI 1.59-2.68), and retromolar locations (OR 2.40, 95% CI 1.85-3.11). Positive margins were also associated with treatment at non-academic cancer centers (OR 1.23; 95% CI 1.04-1.44) and institutions with low oral cancer case volume (OR 1.45; 95% CI 1.23-1.69). Conclusion: Positive margins portend a poor prognosis in early oral squamous cell cancer. The incidence of positive margins is associated with clinicopathologic factors as well as treatment and institution factors and can serve as an effective surgical quality measure for early oral cavity squamous cell cancer

Random projections for Bayesian regression

This article deals with random projections applied as a data reduction technique for Bayesian regression analysis. We show sufficient conditions under which the entire $d$-dimensional distribution is approximately preserved under random projections by reducing the number of data points from $n$ to $k\in O(\operatorname{poly}(d/\varepsilon))$ in the case $n\gg d$. Under mild assumptions, we prove that evaluating a Gaussian likelihood function based on the projected data instead of the original data yields a $(1+O(\varepsilon))$-approximation in terms of the $\ell_2$ Wasserstein distance. Our main result shows that the posterior distribution of Bayesian linear regression is approximated up to a small error depending on only an $\varepsilon$-fraction of its defining parameters. This holds when using arbitrary Gaussian priors or the degenerate case of uniform distributions over $\mathbb{R}^d$ for $\beta$. Our empirical evaluations involve different simulated settings of Bayesian linear regression. Our experiments underline that the proposed method is able to recover the regression model up to small error while considerably reducing the total running time