Neutrino Masses, Mixing, and Oscillations

The Review summarizes much of particle physics and cosmology. Using data from previous editions, plus 2,873 new measurements from 758 papers, we list, evaluate, and average measured properties of gauge bosons and the recently discovered Higgs boson, leptons, quarks, mesons, and baryons. We summarize searches for hypothetical particles such as supersymmetric particles, heavy bosons, axions, dark photons, etc. Particle properties and search limits are listed in Summary Tables. We give numerous tables, figures, formulae, and reviews of topics such as Higgs Boson Physics, Supersymmetry, Grand Unified Theories, Neutrino Mixing, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Cosmology, Particle Detectors, Colliders, Probability and Statistics. Among the 118 reviews are many that are new or heavily revised, including a new review on Neutrinos in Cosmology. Starting with this edition, the Review is divided into two volumes. Volume 1 includes the Summary Tables and all review articles. Volume 2 consists of the Particle Listings. Review articles that were previously part of the Listings are now included in volume 1. The complete Review (both volumes) is published online on the website of the Particle Data Group (http://pdg.lbl.gov) and in a journal. Volume 1 is available in print as the PDG Book. A Particle Physics Booklet with the Summary Tables and essential tables, figures, and equations from selected review articles is also available. The 2018 edition of the Review of Particle Physics should be cited as: M. Tanabashi (Particle Data Group), Phys. Rev. D 98, 030001 (2018)

Clinical Priority Setting and Decision-Making in Sweden : A Cross-sectional Survey Among Physicians

Background: Priority setting in healthcare that aims to achieve a fair and efficient allocation of limited resources is a worldwide challenge. Sweden has developed a sophisticated approach. Still, there is a need for a more detailed insight on how measures permeate clinical life. This study aimed to assess physicians views regarding (1) impact of scarce resources on patient care, (2) clinical decision-making, and (3) the ethical platform and national guidelines for healthcare by the National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW). Methods: An online cross-sectional questionnaire was sent to two groups in Sweden, 2016 and 2017. Group 1 represented 331 physicians from different departments at one University hospital and group 2 consisted of 923 members of the Society of Cardiology. Results: Overall, a 26% (328/1254) response rate was achieved, 49% in group 1 (162/331), 18% in group 2 (166/923). Scarcity of resources was perceived by 59% more often than at least once per month, whilst 60% felt less than well-prepared to address this issue. Guidelines in general had a lot of influence and 19% perceived them as limiting decision-making. 86% professed to be mostly independent in decision-making. 36% knew the ethical platform well and very well and 64% NBHWs national guidelines. 57% expressed a wish for further knowledge and training regarding the ethical platform and 51% for support in applying NBHWs national guidelines. Conclusion: There was a need for more support to deal with scarcity of resources and for increased knowledge about the ethical platform and NBHWs national guidelines. Independence in clinical decision-making was perceived as high and guidelines in general as important. Priority setting as one potential pathway to fair and transparent decision-making should be highlighted more in Swedish clinical settings, with special emphasis on the ethical platform

Dianionic amidinates at silicon and germanium centers: Four-, six- and eight-membered rings

Segmueller T, Schlueter PA, Drees M, et al. Dianionic amidinates at silicon and germanium centers: Four-, six- and eight-membered rings. In: Journal of Organometallic Chemistry. JOURNAL OF ORGANOMETALLIC CHEMISTRY. Vol 692. ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA; 2007: 2789-2799.At variance to an earlier finding, the reaction of Me2SiCl2 with Li[(Me)N-C(Ph)-NH] (1a), in the presence of a base, gives a six-membered ring molecule mu-[(Ph)(MeN)C-N][-SiMe2-N-C(Ph) N(Ph)-SiMe2-] (s3a), whereas with Li[(PrN)-Pr-i-C(Ph)-NH] (1b), a four-mernbered ring molecule mu-[(PrN)-Pr-i(Ph)C-N](2)(SiMe2)(2) (s4b) was formed. In contrast, with Li[(BuN)-Bu-t-C(Ph)-NH] (1c), no such reaction occurred. Obviously, a delicate influence of steric effects has to be taken into account. In fact, the latter amidinate reacts with GeCl2 to form an eight-membered ring molecule [(BuN)-Bu-t-C(Ph)-N-Ge](4) (5c) without adding an additional base. The compounds are fully characterized and their structures determined by X-ray diffraction. DFT calculations confirm the dependence on steric influences. The relative energies of ground and transition states give a rationalization the ease of transformations of the various rings via pathways with penta- and hexacoordinate silicon centers, which in turn relates to the experimental results on penta- and hexacoordinate silicon amidinates and their fluctional behavior in solution. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Continuous T cell receptor signals maintain a functional regulatory t cell pool

Regulatory T (Treg) cells maintain immune homeostasis and prevent inflammatory and autoimmune responses. During development, thymocytes bearing a moderately self-reactive T cell receptor (TCR) can be selected to become Treg cells. Several observations suggest that also in the periphery mature Treg cells continuously receive self-reactive TCR signals. However, the importance of this inherent autoreactivity for Treg cell biology remains poorly defined. To address this open question, we genetically ablated the TCR of mature Treg cells in vivo. These experiments revealed that TCR-induced Treg lineage-defining Foxp3 expression and gene hypomethylation were uncoupled from TCR input in mature Treg cells. However, Treg cell homeostasis, cell-type-specific gene expression and suppressive function critically depend on continuous triggering of their TCR

Integration of biological networks and gene expression data using Cytoscape

Cytoscape is a free software package for visualizing, modeling and analyzing molecular and genetic interaction networks. This protocol explains how to use Cytoscape to analyze the results of mRNA expression profiling, and other functional genomics and proteomics experiments, in the context of an interaction network obtained for genes of interest. Five major steps are described: (i) obtaining a gene or protein network, (ii) displaying the network using layout algorithms, (iii) integrating with gene expression and other functional attributes, (iv) identifying putative complexes and functional modules and (v) identifying enriched Gene Ontology annotations in the network. These steps provide a broad sample of the types of analyses performed by Cytoscape