Search for Lepton-Flavor-Violating tau Decays into a Lepton and an f0(980) Meson

We search for lepton-flavor-violating tau decays into a lepton (electron or muon) and an f0(980) meson using 671 fb-1 of data collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e+e- collider. No events are observed and we set the following 90% C.L. upper limits on the branching fraction products: B(tau- -> e-f0(980))*B(f0(980)->pi+pi-) mu-f0(980))*B(f0(980) -> pi+pi-)<3.4x10^-8. This is the first search performed for these modes.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Search for Lepton-Flavor-Violating and Lepton-Number-Violating tau to lhh' Decay Modes

We search for lepton-flavor-violating and lepton-number-violating tau decays into a lepton (l = electron or muon) and two charged mesons (h, h' = pion or Kaon) using 854 fb^{-1} of data collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e^+e^- collider. We obtain 90% confidence level upper limits on the tau to lhh' branching fractions in the range (2.0-8.4)*10^{-8}. These results improve upon our previously published upper limits by factors of about 1.8 on average.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Search for Lepton Flavor Violating tau- Decays Including with a K0s Meson

We have searched for the lepton flavor violating decays \tau^-\to \ell^-\ks ($\ell = e {or} \mu$), using a data sample of 281 fb$^{-1}$ collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB $e^+e^-$ asymmetric-energy collider. No evidence for a signal was found in either of the decay modes, and we set the following upper limits for the branching fractions: {\cal{B}}(\tau^-\to e^-\ks) < 5.6\times 10^{-8} and {\cal{B}}(\tau^-\to \mu^-\ks) < 4.9\times 10^{-8} at the 90% confidence level. These results improve the previously published limits set by the CLEO collaboration by factors of 16 and 19, respectively.Comment: 9 pages, 3figures, submitted to Phys.Lett.

Search for Lepton Flavor Violating tau Decays into Three Leptons

We search for lepton-flavor-violating tau decays into three leptons (electron or muon) using 535 fb-1 of data collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e+e- collider. No evidence for these decays is observed, and we set 90% confidence level upper limits on the branching fractions of (2.0-4.1)x10^-8. These results improve upon our previously published upper limits by factors of 4.9 to 10.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Search for Lepton-Flavor-Violating tau Decays into a Lepton and a Vector Meson

We search for lepton-flavor-violating tau-> ell V^0 decays, where ell is an electron or muon and V^0 is one of the vector mesons rho^0, phi, omega, K*0 and K*0-bar. We use 854 fb^{-1} of data collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e^+e^- collider. No evidence for a signal is found in any decay mode, and we obtain 90% confidence level upper limits on the individual branching fractions in the range (1.2-8.4)*10^{-8}.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Hypoxic Pulmonary Vasoconstriction in Humans:Tale or Myth

Hypoxic Pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV) describes the physiological adaptive process of lungs to preserves systemic oxygenation. It has clinical implications in the development of pulmonary hypertension which impacts on outcomes of patients undergoing cardiothoracic surgery. This review examines both acute and chronic hypoxic vasoconstriction focusing on the distinct clinical implications and highlights the role of calcium and mitochondria in acute versus the role of reactive oxygen species and Rho GTPases in chronic HPV. Furthermore it identifies gaps of knowledge and need for further research in humans to clearly define this phenomenon and the underlying mechanism