Identification of a novel locus on 2q for autosomal dominant high-grade myopia.

PURPOSE. Myopia, or nearsightedness, is a visual disorder of high and growing prevalence in the United States and in other countries. Pathologic high myopia, or myopia of ≤-6.00 D, predisposes individuals to retinal detachment, macular degeneration, cataracts, and glaucoma. Autosomal dominant (AD) nonsyndromic high-grade myopia has been mapped to loci on 18p11.31, 12q21-q23, 17q21-q23, and 7q36. This is the report of significant linkage to a novel locus on the long arm of chromosome 2 in a large, multigenerational family with AD high-grade myopia. METHODS. The family contains 31 participating members (14 affected). The average spherical refractive error for affected individuals was -14.46 D (range, -7.25 to -27.00). Before a genome screening was undertaken, linkage to intragenic or flanking markers for the myopic genetic syndromes of Stickler syndrome types I, II, and III; Marfan syndrome; and juvenile glaucoma were ruled out. In addition, no linkage was found to the known AD high-grade myopia loci listed above. A full genome screen of the family was performed with 382 microsatellite markers with an average intermarker distance of 10 cM. SimWalk2 software was used for multipoint linkage analysis based on an AD model with a penetrance of 90% and a disease allele frequency of 0.01. RESULTS. Fine-point mapping with an additional nine custommade and five commercial markers yielded a maximum two-point lod score of 5.67 at marker D2S2348. Results of multipoint analysis indicate that the 1-unit support intervals for this new locus spans approximately 9.1 cM from (238.7 to 247.8 cM) on the chromosome 2 genetic map at q37.1. CONCLUSIONS. A novel locus for AD high-grade myopia has been determined, providing further evidence of genetic heterogeneity for this disorder

Re-identification of objects from aerial photos with hybrid siamese neural networks

In this paper, we consider the task of re-identifying the same object in different photos taken from separate positions and angles during aerial reconnaissance, which is a crucial task for the maintenance and surveillance of critical large-scale infrastructure. To effectively hybridize deep neural networks with available domain expertise for a given scenario, we propose a customized pipeline, wherein a domain-dependent object detector is trained to extract the assets (i.e., sub-components) present on the objects, and a siamese neural network learns to re-identify the objects, exploiting both visual features (i.e., the image crops corresponding to the assets) and the graphs describing the relations among their constituting assets. We describe a real-world application concerning the re-identification of electric poles in the Italian energy grid, showing our pipeline to significantly outperform siamese networks trained from visual information alone. We also provide a series of ablation studies of our framework to underline the effect of including topological asset information in the pipeline, learnable positional embeddings in the graphs, and the effect of different types of graph neural networks on the final accuracy

Solvent-Free Synthesis of Quaternary Oxazolidine-2-thione β3-Amino Ester Analogs

A solvent-free organocatalyzed intermolecular cyclization reaction starting from β-substituted γ-hydroxy-α,β-unsaturated esters and aryl isothiocyanates proceeds via an aza-Michael addition to provide previously unknown quaternary oxazolidine-2-thione β3 amino ester analogs. A panel of diversely-substituted esters was investigated, including β,γ-disubstituted examples which provided the target molecules with very high cis diastereoselectivity

Measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry in low-mass bottom-quark pairs produced in proton-antiproton collisions

We report a measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry, A(FB), in b (b) over bar pairs produced in proton-antiproton collisions and identified by muons from semileptonic b-hadron decays. The event sample is collected at a center-of-mass energy of root s = 1.96 TeV with the CDF II detector and corresponds to 6.9 fb(-1) of integrated luminosity. We obtain an integrated asymmetry of A(FB)(b (b) over bar) = (1.2 +/- 0.7)% at the particle level for b-quark pairs with invariant mass, m(b (b) over bar), down to 40 GeV/c(2) and measure the dependence of A(FB)(b (b) over bar) on m(b (b) over bar). The results are compatible with expectations from the standard model.Peer reviewe

Search for a low-mass neutral Higgs boson with suppressed couplings to fermions using events with multiphoton final states

A search for a Higgs boson with suppressed couplings to fermions, h(f), assumed to be the neutral, lower-mass partner of the Higgs boson discovered at the Large Hadron Collider, is reported. Such a Higgs boson could exist in extensions of the standard model with two Higgs doublets, and could be produced via p (p) over bar -> H(+/-)h(f) -> W*h(f)h(f) -> 4 gamma + X where H (+/-) is a charged Higgs boson. This analysis uses all events withat least three photons in the final state from proton-antiproton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.2 fb(-1). No evidence of a signal is observed in the data. Values of Higgs-boson masses between 10 and 100 GeV/c(2) are excluded at 95% Bayesian credibility.Peer reviewe

Measurement of the single top quark production cross section and vertical bar V-tb vertical bar in 1.96 TeV p(p)over-bar collisions with missing transverse energy and jets and final CDF combination

An updated measurement of the single top quark production cross section is presented using the full data set collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF), corresponding to 9.5 fb(-1) of integrated luminosity from proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV center-of-mass energy. The events selected contain an imbalance in the total transverse momentum, jets identified as containing b quarks, and no identified leptons. The sum of the s- and t-channel single top quark cross sections is measured to be 3.53(-1.16)(+1.25) pb and a lower limit on the magnitude of the top-to-bottom quark coupling, vertical bar V-tb vertical bar of 0.63, is obtained at the 95% credibility level. These measurements are combined with previously reported CDF results obtained from events with an imbalance in total transverse momentum, jets identified as originating from b quarks, and one identified lepton. The combined cross section is measured to be 3.02(-0.48)(+0.49) pb and a lower limit on vertical bar V-tb vertical bar of 0.84 is obtained at the 95% credibility level.Peer reviewe

High energy photon-neutrino elastic scattering

The one-loop helicity amplitudes for the elastic scattering process $\gamma\nu\to\gamma\nu$ in the Standard Model are computed at high center of mass energies. A general decomposition of the amplitudes is utilized to investigate the validity of some of the key features of our results. In the center of mass, where $\sqrt{s} = 2\omega$, the cross section grows roughly as $\omega^6$ to near the threshold for $W$-boson production, $\sqrt{s} = m_W$. Although suppressed at low energies, we find that the elastic cross section exceeds the cross section for $\gamma\nu\to\gamma\gamma\nu$ when $\sqrt{s}>13$ GeV. We demonstrate that the scattered photons are circularly polarized and the net value of the polarization is non-zero. Astrophysical implications of high energy photon-neutrino scattering are discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, RevTeX

Synthesis of cyclobutane-fused oxazolidine-2-thione derivatives

An expedient, solvent-free, mild base catalyzed intermolecular cyclization reaction has been developed to enable the one-pot synthesis of fourteen examples of cyclobutane-fused oxazolidine-2-thiones in good to high yields. Bicyclic structures of this type have not previously been described in the literature; they have a cis ring junction with both rings deviating slightly from planarity

Measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry of top-quark and antiquark pairs using the full CDF Run II data set

We measure the forward-backward asymmetry of the production of top-quark and antiquark pairs in proton-antiproton collisions at center-of-mass energy root s = 1.96 TeV using the full data set collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) in Tevatron Run II corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.1 fb(-1). The asymmetry is characterized by the rapidity difference between top quarks and antiquarks (Delta y) and measured in the final state with two charged leptons (electrons and muons). The inclusive asymmetry, corrected to the entire phase space at parton level, is measured to be A(FB)(t (t) over bar) = 0.12 +/- 0.13, consistent with the expectations from the standard model (SM) and previous CDF results in the final state with a single charged lepton. The combination of the CDF measurements of the inclusive A(FB)(t (t) over bar) in both final states yields A(FB)(t (t) over bar) 0.160 +/- 0.045, which is consistent with the SM predictions. We also measure the differential asymmetry as a function of Delta y. A linear fit to A(FB)(t (t) over bar) (vertical bar Delta y vertical bar),assuming zero asymmetry at Delta y = 0, yields a slope of alpha = 0.14 +/- 0.15, consistent with the SM prediction and the previous CDF determination in the final state with a single charged lepton. The combined slope of A(FB)(t (t) over bar) (vertical bar Delta y vertical bar) the two final states is alpha = 0.227 +/- 0.057, which is 2.0 sigma larger than the SM prediction.Peer reviewe

Measurement of vector boson plus D*(2010)(+) meson production in (p)over-barp collisions at root s=1.96 TeV

A measurement of vector boson (V) production in conjunction with a D*(2010)(+) meson is presented. Using a data sample corresponding to 9.7 fb(-1) of proton-antiproton collisions at center-of-mass energy root s = 1.96 TeV produced by the Fermilab Tevatron, we reconstruct V + D*+ samples with the CDF II detector. The D*+ is fully reconstructed in the D*(2010)(+) -> D-0 (-> K-pi(+))pi(+) decay mode. This technique is sensitive to the associated production of vector boson plus charm or bottom mesons. We measure the ratio of production cross sections sigma(W + D*) = sigma(W) = [1.75 +/- 0.13(stat) +/- 0.09(stat)]% and sigma(Z + D*)/sigma(Z) = [1.5 +/- 0.4(stat) +/- 0.2(stat)]% and perform a differential measurement of d sigma(W + D*)/dp(T)(D*). Event properties are utilized to determine the fraction of V + D*(2010)(+) events originating from different production processes. The results are in agreement with the predictions obtained with the PYTHIA program, limiting possible contribution from non-standard-model physics processes.Peer reviewe