5,702 research outputs found
Light therapy as a treatment for sexual dysfunctions -beyond a pilot study
Summary Aim. Seasonal trends were demonstrated in reproduction and sexual activity. Through the secretion of melatonin the pineal gland plays an important role, in the neuroendocrine control of sexual function and reproductive physiology. We hypothesized that inhibition of the pineal gland activity through a light treatment may favorably affect sexual function. Method. We recruited 24 subjects with a diagnosis of hypoactive sexual desire disorder and / or primary sexual arousal disorder. The subjects were randomly assigned to either active light treatment (ALT) or placebo light treatment (L-PBO). Participants were assessed during the first evaluation and after 2 weeks of treatment, using the Structured Clinical Interview for Sexual Disorders DSM-IV (SCID-S) and a self-administered rating scale of the level of sexual satisfaction (1 to 10). Repeated measures ANOVA were performed to compare the two groups of patients. Post-hoc analysis was performed by Holm-Sidak test for repeated comparisons. Results. At baseline the two groups were comparable. After 2 weeks the group treated with Light Therapy showed a significant improvement in sexual satisfaction, about 3 times higher than the group that received placebo, while no significant improvement was observed in the group L-PBO. Conclusions. Our results confirm a potentially beneficial effect of Light Therapy on primary sexual dysfunction. In the future, we propose to correlate clinical findings with testosterone levels pre / post treatment
The Darkside-50 Outer Detectors
DarkSide-50 is a dark matter detection experiment searching for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), in Gran Sasso National Laboratory. For experiments like DarkSide-50, neutrons are one of the primary backgrounds that can mimic WIMP signals. The experiment consists of three nested detectors: a liquid argon time projection chamber surrounded by two outer detectors. The outermost detector is a 10 m by 11 m cylindrical water Cherenkov detector with 80 PMTs, designed to provide shielding and muon vetoing. Inside the water Cherenkov detector is the 4 m diameter spherical boron-loaded liquid scintillator veto, with a cocktail of pseudocumene, trimethyl borate, and PPO wavelength shifter, designed to provide shielding, neutron vetoing, and in situ measurements of the TPC backgrounds. We present design and performance details of the DarkSide-50 outer detectors.71814th International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics (TAUP)Sep 07-11, 2015Torino, ITAL
The Darkside Awakens
The DarkSide program at LNGS aims to perform background-free WIMP searches using two phase liquid argon time projection chambers, with the ultimate goal of covering all parameters down to the so-called neutrino floor. One of the distinct features of the program is the use of underground argon with has a reduced content of the radioactive Ar-39 compared to atmospheric argon. The DarkSide Collaboration is currently operating the DarkSide-50 experiment, the first such WIMP detector using underground argon. Operations with underground argon indicate a suppression of Ar-39 by a factor (1.4 +/- 0.2) x 10(3) relative to atmospheric argon. The new results obtained with DarkSide-50 and the plans for the next steps of the DarkSide program, the 20 t fiducial mass DarkSide-20k detector and the 200 t fiducial Argo, are reviewed in this proceedings.71814th International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics (TAUP)Sep 07-11, 2015Torino, ITAL
New limits on heavy sterile neutrino mixing in -decay obtained with the Borexino detector
If heavy neutrinos with mass 2 are produced in the
Sun via the decay in a side
branch of pp-chain, they would undergo the observable decay into an electron, a
positron and a light neutrino . In the
present work Borexino data are used to set a bound on the existence of such
decays. We constrain the mixing of a heavy neutrino with mass 1.5 MeV 14 MeV to be
respectively. These are tighter limits on the mixing parameters than obtained
in previous experiments at nuclear reactors and accelerators.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
Novel techniques for alpha/beta pulse shape discrimination in Borexino
Borexino could efficiently distinguish between alpha and beta radiation in
its liquid scintillator by the characteristic time profile of their
scintillation pulse. This alpha/beta discrimination, first demonstrated at the
tonne scale in the Counting Test Facility prototype, was used throughout the
lifetime of the experiment between 2007 and 2021. With this method, alpha
events are identified and subtracted from the beta-like solar neutrino events.
This is particularly important in liquid scintillator as alpha scintillation is
quenched many-fold. In Borexino, the prominent Po-210 decay peak was a
background in the energy range of electrons scattered from Be-7 solar
neutrinos. Optimal alpha-beta discrimination was achieved with a "multi-layer
perceptron neural network", which its higher ability to leverage the timing
information of the scintillation photons detected by the photomultiplier tubes.
An event-by-event, high efficiency, stable, and uniform pulse shape
discrimination was essential in characterising the spatial distribution of
background in the detector. This benefited most Borexino measurements,
including solar neutrinos in the \pp chain and the first direct observation of
the CNO cycle in the Sun. This paper presents the key milestones in alpha/beta
discrimination in Borexino as a term of comparison for current and future large
liquid scintillator detectorsComment: 13 pages, 14 figure
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Spectroscopy of geo-neutrinos from 2056 days of Borexino data
We report an improved geo-neutrino measurement with Borexino from 2056 days
of data taking. The present exposure is
protonyr. Assuming a chondritic Th/U mass ratio of 3.9, we obtain geo-neutrino events. The null
observation of geo-neutrinos with Borexino alone has a probability of (5.9). A geo-neutrino signal from the mantle is
obtained at 98\% C.L. The radiogenic heat production for U and Th from the
present best-fit result is restricted to the range 23-36 TW, taking into
account the uncertainty on the distribution of heat producing elements inside
the Earth.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Borexino's search for low-energy neutrinos associated with gravitational wave events from GWTC-3 database
The search for neutrino events in correlation with gravitational wave (GW)
events for three observing runs (O1, O2 and O3) from 09/2015 to 03/2020 has
been performed using the Borexino data-set of the same period. We have searched
for signals of neutrino-electron scattering with visible energies above 250 keV
within a time window of 1000 s centered at the detection moment of a particular
GW event. The search was done with three visible energy thresholds of 0.25, 0.8
and 3.0 MeV.Two types of incoming neutrino spectra were considered: the
mono-energetic line and the spectrum expected from supernovae. The same spectra
were considered for electron antineutrinos detected through inverse beta-decay
(IBD) reaction. GW candidates originated by merging binaries of black holes
(BHBH), neutron stars (NSNS) and neutron star and black hole (NSBH) were
analysed separately. Additionally, the subset of most intensive BHBH mergers at
closer distances and with larger radiative mass than the rest was considered.
In total, follow-ups of 74 out of 93 gravitational waves reported in the GWTC-3
catalog were analyzed and no statistically significant excess over the
background was observed. As a result, the strongest upper limits on
GW-associated neutrino and antineutrino fluences for all flavors (\nu_e,
\nu_\mu, \nu_\tau) have been obtained in the (0.5 - 5.0) MeV neutrino energy
range.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure
Recent Borexino results and prospects for the near future
The Borexino experiment, located in the Gran Sasso National Laboratory, is an
organic liquid scintillator detector conceived for the real time spectroscopy
of low energy solar neutrinos. The data taking campaign phase I (2007 - 2010)
has allowed the first independent measurements of 7Be, 8B and pep fluxes as
well as the first measurement of anti-neutrinos from the earth. After a
purification of the scintillator, Borexino is now in phase II since 2011. We
review here the recent results achieved during 2013, concerning the seasonal
modulation in the 7Be signal, the study of cosmogenic backgrounds and the
updated measurement of geo-neutrinos. We also review the upcoming measurements
from phase II data (pp, pep, CNO) and the project SOX devoted to the study of
sterile neutrinos via the use of a 51Cr neutrino source and a 144Ce-144Pr
antineutrino source placed in close proximity of the active material.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures. To be published as proceedings of Rencontres de
Moriond EW 201
Patterns and Mechanisms of Ancestral Histone Protein Inheritance in Budding Yeast
Tracking of ancestral histone proteins over multiple generations of genome
replication in yeast reveals that old histones move along genes from 3′
toward 5′ over time, and that maternal histones move up to around 400 bp
during genomic replication
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Solar neutrino with Borexino: results and perspectives
Borexino is a unique detector able to perform measurement of solar neutrinos
fluxes in the energy region around 1 MeV or below due to its low level of
radioactive background. It was constructed at the LNGS underground laboratory
with a goal of solar Be neutrino flux measurement with 5\% precision. The
goal has been successfully achieved marking the end of the first stage of the
experiment. A number of other important measurements of solar neutrino fluxes
have been performed during the first stage. Recently the collaboration
conducted successful liquid scintillator repurification campaign aiming to
reduce main contaminants in the sub-MeV energy range. With the new levels of
radiopurity Borexino can improve existing and challenge a number of new
measurements including: improvement of the results on the Solar and terrestrial
neutrino fluxes measurements; measurement of pp and CNO solar neutrino fluxes;
search for non-standard interactions of neutrino; study of the neutrino
oscillations on the short baseline with an artificial neutrino source (search
for sterile neutrino) in context of SOX project.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure
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