Constraints on Supersymmetric Theories from μ→e,γ\mu\to e,\gamma

In the absence of any additional assumption it is natural to conjecture that sizeable flavour-mixing mass entries, $\Delta m^2$, may appear in the mass matrices of the scalars of the MSSM, i.e. $\Delta m^2\sim O(m^2)$. This flavour violation can still be reconciled with the experiment if the gaugino mass, $M_{1/2}$, is large enough, leading to a {\em gaugino dominance} framework (i.e. $M_{1/2}^2\gg m^2$), which permits a remarkably model--independent analysis. We study this possibility focussing our attention on the $\mu\rightarrow e,\gamma$ decay. In this way we obtain very strong and general constraints, in particular \frac{M_{1/2}^2}{\Delta m}\simgt 34\ {\rm TeV}. On the other hand, we show that our analysis and results remain valid for values of $m^2$ much larger than $\Delta m^2$, namely for \frac{\Delta m^2}{m^2}\simgt \frac{m^2} {10\ {\rm TeV^2}}, thus extending enormously their scope of application. Finally, we discuss the implications for superstring scenarios.Comment: 12 pages, Latex, 5 figures as uuencoded compressed postscript files, uses psfig.st

Long-term consequences of the misuse of ivermectin data

Ivermectin is an oral anti-infective medicine that is integral to neglected tropical disease programmes. It is safe and effective for the treatment and control of lymphatic filariasis, scabies, and onchocerciasis, sometimes as part of a mass drug administration, as recognised in the WHO road map for neglected tropical diseases 2021–30. The WHO essential medicines list provides recommendations for minimum medicine needs for a basic health-care system, which includes ivermectin as an anthelmintic, antifilarial, and antiectoparasitic treatment. There has been a groundswell of opinion across several countries that ivermectin might be useful in reducing the symptoms of and mortality due to COVID-19, with many citing meta-analyses that infer positive effects; however, these conclusions appear to be unreliable

Ibero-American Consensus on Low- and No-Calorie Sweeteners: Safety, Nutritional Aspects and Benefits in Food and Beverages

International scientific experts in food, nutrition, dietetics, endocrinology, physical activity, paediatrics, nursing, toxicology and public health met in Lisbon on 2-4 July 2017 to develop a Consensus on the use of low- and no-calorie sweeteners (LNCS) as substitutes for sugars and other caloric sweeteners. LNCS are food additives that are broadly used as sugar substitutes to sweeten foods and beverages with the addition of fewer or no calories. They are also used in medicines, health-care products, such as toothpaste, and food supplements. The goal of this Consensus was to provide a useful, evidence-based, point of reference to assist in efforts to reduce free sugars consumption in line with current international public health recommendations. Participating experts in the Lisbon Consensus analysed and evaluated the evidence in relation to the role of LNCS in food safety, their regulation and the nutritional and dietary aspects of their use in foods and beverages. The conclusions of this Consensus were: (1) LNCS are some of the most extensively evaluated dietary constituents, and their safety has been reviewed and confirmed by regulatory bodies globally including the World Health Organisation, the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority; (2) Consumer education, which is based on the most robust scientific evidence and regulatory processes, on the use of products containing LNCS should be strengthened in a comprehensive and objective way; (3) The use of LNCS in weight reduction programmes that involve replacing caloric sweeteners with LNCS in the context of structured diet plans may favour sustainable weight reduction. Furthermore, their use in diabetes management programmes may contribute to a better glycaemic control in patients, albeit with modest results. LNCS also provide dental health benefits when used in place of free sugars; (4) It is proposed that foods and beverages with LNCS could be included in dietary guidelines as alternative options to products sweetened with free sugars; (5) Continued education of health professionals is required, since they are a key source of information on issues related to food and health for both the general population and patients. With this in mind, the publication of position statements and consensus documents in the academic literature are extremely desirable

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Understanding the potential impact of different drug properties on SARS-CoV-2 transmission and disease burden : a modelling analysis

Q1Q1Background The unprecedented public health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has motivated a rapid search for potential therapeutics, with some key successes. However, the potential impact of different treatments, and consequently research and procurement priorities, have not been clear. Methods and Findings develop a mathematical model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, COVID-19 disease and clinical care to explore the potential public-health impact of a range of different potential therapeutics, under a range of different scenarios varying: i) healthcare capacity, ii) epidemic trajectories; and iii) drug efficacy in the absence of supportive care. In each case, the outcome of interest was the number of COVID-19 deaths averted in scenarios with the therapeutic compared to scenarios without. We find the impact of drugs like dexamethasone (which are delivered to the most critically-ill in hospital and whose therapeutic benefit is expected to depend on the availability of supportive care such as oxygen and mechanical ventilation) is likely to be limited in settings where healthcare capacity is lowest or where uncontrolled epidemics result in hospitals being overwhelmed. As such, it may avert 22% of deaths in highincome countries but only 8% in low-income countries (assuming R=1.35). Therapeutics for different patient populations (those not in hospital, early in the course of infection) and types of benefit (reducing disease severity or infectiousness, preventing hospitalisation) could have much greater benefits, particularly in resource-poor settings facing large epidemics. Conclusions There is a global asymmetry in who is likely to benefit from advances in the treatment of COVID-19 to date, which have been focussed on hospitalised-patients and predicated on an assumption of adequate access to supportive care. Therapeutics that can feasibly be delivered to those earlier in the course of infection that reduce the need for healthcare or reduce infectiousness could have significant impact, and research into their efficacy and means of delivery should be a priorityRevista Internacional - Indexad

Local and Landscape Factors Determining Occurrence of Phyllostomid Bats in Tropical Secondary Forests

Neotropical forests are being increasingly replaced by a mosaic of patches of different successional stages, agricultural fields and pasture lands. Consequently, the identification of factors shaping the performance of taxa in anthropogenic landscapes is gaining importance, especially for taxa playing critical roles in ecosystem functioning. As phyllostomid bats provide important ecological services through seed dispersal, pollination and control of animal populations, in this study we assessed the relationships between phyllostomid occurrence and the variation in local and landscape level habitat attributes caused by disturbance. We mist-netted phyllostomids in 12 sites representing 4 successional stages of a tropical dry forest (initial, early, intermediate and late). We also quantitatively characterized the habitat attributes at the local (vegetation structure complexity) and the landscape level (forest cover, area and diversity of patches). Two focal scales were considered for landscape characterization: 500 and 1000 m. During 142 sampling nights, we captured 606 individuals representing 15 species and 4 broad guilds. Variation in phyllostomid assemblages, ensembles and populations was associated with variation in local and landscape habitat attributes, and this association was scale-dependent. Specifically, we found a marked guild-specific response, where the abundance of nectarivores tended to be negatively associated with the mean area of dry forest patches, while the abundance of frugivores was positively associated with the percentage of riparian forest. These results are explained by the prevalence of chiropterophilic species in the dry forest and of chiropterochorous species in the riparian forest. Our results indicate that different vegetation classes, as well as a multi-spatial scale approach must be considered for evaluating bat response to variation in landscape attributes. Moreover, for the long-term conservation of phyllostomids in anthropogenic landscapes, we must realize that the management of the habitat at the landscape level is as important as the conservation of particular forest fragments

Spectropolarimetric investigation of magnetohydrodynamic wave modes in the photosphere: First results from PHI on board Solar Orbiter

This is an Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Context. In November 2021, Solar Orbiter started its nominal mission phase. The remote-sensing instruments on board the spacecraft acquired scientific data during three observing windows surrounding the perihelion of the first orbit of this phase. Aims. The aim of the analysis is the detection of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave modes in an active region by exploiting the capabilities of spectropolarimetric measurements. Mthods. The High Resolution Telescope (HRT) of the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (SO/PHI) on board the Solar Orbiter acquired a high-cadence data set of an active region. This is studied in the paper. B-ω and phase-difference analyses are applied on line-of-sight velocity and circular polarization maps and other averaged quantities. Results. We find that several MHD modes at different frequencies are excited in all analysed structures. The leading sunspot shows a linear dependence of the phase lag on the angle between the magnetic field and the line of sight of the observer in its penumbra. The magnetic pore exhibits global resonances at several frequencies, which are also excited by different wave modes. Conclusions. The SO/PHI measurements clearly confirm the presence of magnetic and velocity oscillations that are compatible with one or more MHD wave modes in pores and a sunspot. Improvements in modelling are still necessary to interpret the relation between the fluctuations of different diagnostics. © The Authors 2023.Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA, operated by ESA. We are grateful to the ESA SOC and MOC teams for their support. The German contribution to SO/PHI is funded by the BMWi through DLR and by MPG central funds. The Spanish contribution is funded by AEI/MCIN/10.13039/501100011033/ (RTI2018-096886-C5, PID2021-125325OB-C5, PCI2022-135009-2) and ERDF “A way of making Europe”; “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” awards to IAA-CSIC (SEV-2017-0709, CEX2021-001131-S); and a Ramón y Cajal fellowship awarded to DOS. The French contribution is funded by CNES. The authors wish to acknowledge scientific discussions with the Waves in the Lower Solar Atmosphere (WaLSA; https://WaLSA.team) team, which has been supported by the Research Council of Norway (project no. 262622), The Royal Society (award no. Hooke18b/SCTM), and the International Space Science Institute (ISSI Team 502).Peer reviewe

Wavefront error of PHI/HRT on Solar Orbiter at various heliocentric distances

This is an Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Aims. We use wavefront sensing to characterise the image quality of the High Resolution Telescope (HRT) of the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (SO/PHI) data products during the second remote sensing window of the Solar Orbiter (SO) nominal mission phase. Our ultimate aims are to reconstruct the HRT data by deconvolving with the HRT point spread function (PSF) and to correct for the effects of optical aberrations on the data. Methods. We use a pair of focused–defocused images to compute the wavefront error and derive the PSF of HRT by means of a phase diversity (PD) analysis. Results. The wavefront error of HRT depends on the orbital distance of SO to the Sun. At distances > 0.5 au, the wavefront error is small, and stems dominantly from the inherent optical properties of HRT. At distances < 0.5 au, the thermo-optical effect of the Heat Rejection Entrance Window (HREW) becomes noticeable. We develop an interpolation scheme for the wavefront error that depends on the thermal variation of the HREW with the distance of SO to the Sun. We also introduce a new level of image reconstruction, termed ‘aberration correction’, which is designed to reduce the noise caused by image deconvolution while removing the aberrations caused by the HREW. Conclusions. The computed PSF via phase diversity significantly reduces the degradation caused by the HREW in the near-perihelion HRT data. In addition, the aberration correction increases the noise by a factor of only 1.45 compared to the factor of 3 increase that results from the usual PD reconstructions. © The Authors 2023.Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA, operated by ESA. We are grateful to the ESA SOC and MOC teams for their support. The German contribution to SO/PHI is funded by the BMWi through DLR and by MPG central funds. The Spanish contribution is funded by FEDER/AEI/MCIU (RTI2018-096886-C5), a “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award to IAA-CSIC (SEV-2017-0709), and a Ramón y Cajal fellowship awarded to DOS. The French contribution is funded by CNES.With funding from the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" accreditation (CEX2021-001131-S).Peer reviewe

CIBERER : Spanish national network for research on rare diseases: A highly productive collaborative initiative

Altres ajuts: Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII); Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.CIBER (Center for Biomedical Network Research; Centro de Investigación Biomédica En Red) is a public national consortium created in 2006 under the umbrella of the Spanish National Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII). This innovative research structure comprises 11 different specific areas dedicated to the main public health priorities in the National Health System. CIBERER, the thematic area of CIBER focused on rare diseases (RDs) currently consists of 75 research groups belonging to universities, research centers, and hospitals of the entire country. CIBERER's mission is to be a center prioritizing and favoring collaboration and cooperation between biomedical and clinical research groups, with special emphasis on the aspects of genetic, molecular, biochemical, and cellular research of RDs. This research is the basis for providing new tools for the diagnosis and therapy of low-prevalence diseases, in line with the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) objectives, thus favoring translational research between the scientific environment of the laboratory and the clinical setting of health centers. In this article, we intend to review CIBERER's 15-year journey and summarize the main results obtained in terms of internationalization, scientific production, contributions toward the discovery of new therapies and novel genes associated to diseases, cooperation with patients' associations and many other topics related to RD research

Remdesivir and three other drugs for hospitalised patients with COVID-19: final results of the WHO Solidarity randomised trial and updated meta-analyses.

BACKGROUND World Health Organization expert groups recommended mortality trials of four repurposed antiviral drugs - remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir, and interferon beta-1a - in patients hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). METHODS We randomly assigned inpatients with Covid-19 equally between one of the trial drug regimens that was locally available and open control (up to five options, four active and the local standard of care). The intention-to-treat primary analyses examined in-hospital mortality in the four pairwise comparisons of each trial drug and its control (drug available but patient assigned to the same care without that drug). Rate ratios for death were calculated with stratification according to age and status regarding mechanical ventilation at trial entry. RESULTS At 405 hospitals in 30 countries, 11,330 adults underwent randomization; 2750 were assigned to receive remdesivir, 954 to hydroxychloroquine, 1411 to lopinavir (without interferon), 2063 to interferon (including 651 to interferon plus lopinavir), and 4088 to no trial drug. Adherence was 94 to 96% midway through treatment, with 2 to 6% crossover. In total, 1253 deaths were reported (median day of death, day 8; interquartile range, 4 to 14). The Kaplan-Meier 28-day mortality was 11.8% (39.0% if the patient was already receiving ventilation at randomization and 9.5% otherwise). Death occurred in 301 of 2743 patients receiving remdesivir and in 303 of 2708 receiving its control (rate ratio, 0.95; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.81 to 1.11; P = 0.50), in 104 of 947 patients receiving hydroxychloroquine and in 84 of 906 receiving its control (rate ratio, 1.19; 95% CI, 0.89 to 1.59; P = 0.23), in 148 of 1399 patients receiving lopinavir and in 146 of 1372 receiving its control (rate ratio, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.79 to 1.25; P = 0.97), and in 243 of 2050 patients receiving interferon and in 216 of 2050 receiving its control (rate ratio, 1.16; 95% CI, 0.96 to 1.39; P = 0.11). No drug definitely reduced mortality, overall or in any subgroup, or reduced initiation of ventilation or hospitalization duration. CONCLUSIONS These remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir, and interferon regimens had little or no effect on hospitalized patients with Covid-19, as indicated by overall mortality, initiation of ventilation, and duration of hospital stay. (Funded by the World Health Organization; ISRCTN Registry number, ISRCTN83971151; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04315948.)