Examination of a Biopsychosocial Model for the Relationship between Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Chronic Pain

High rates of comorbidity have been reported between PTSD and musculoskeletal pain (e.g., Asmundson & Hadjistavropolous, 2006; Asmundson et al., 1998). Comorbid PTSD and chronic pain have been associated with elevated levels of affective distress, greater perceptions of pain, interference in daily activities, and high rates of disability (Otis et al., 2003; Sherman et al., 2000). Overall, comorbid conditions of PTSD and chronic pain are associated with large personal costs for the individual and economic costs for society. The triple vulnerability model was originally proposed to account for anxiety symptoms in general, and it was later applied to the specific development of PTSD (Barlow, 2000; Barlow, 2002; Keane & Barlow, 2002). Otis and colleagues (2003) further proposed that the triple vulnerability model may account for the relationship between PTSD and chronic pain. According to the triple vulnerability model, individuals must present with a generalized biological, generalized psychological, and a specific psychological vulnerability for either of these conditions to develop (Keane & Barlow, 2002; Otis et al., 2003). In the current study, aspects of the triple vulnerability model were examined within the following groups of women: women who have PTSD without chronic pain (n = 11), women who have musculoskeletal pain without PTSD (n = 10), women with both PTSD and musculoskeletal pain (n = 10), and women without PTSD and chronic pain (n = 15). Cortisol reactivity and anxious mood were assessed before and after the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST). Participants also completed questionnaires to assess for other potential indicators of the triple vulnerability model. Results indicate that: 1) the roles of generalized biological, generalized psychological, and specific psychological vulnerabilities toward developing PTSD were supported; 2) limited findings supported the potential role of these vulnerabilities toward developing chronic pain; however, results of these measures were not similar to that of PTSD (e.g., family history of chronic pain); 3) it is not thought that PTSD and chronic pain are associated with the same vulnerabilities; 4) having a diagnosis of PTSD and chronic pain was associated with an increase in symptoms across many measures utilized in the current study

Fine-tuning implications for complementary dark matter and LHC SUSY searches

The requirement that SUSY should solve the hierarchy problem without undue fine-tuning imposes severe constraints on the new supersymmetric states. With the MSSM spectrum and soft SUSY breaking originating from universal scalar and gaugino masses at the Grand Unification scale, we show that the low-fine-tuned regions fall into two classes that will require complementary collider and dark matter searches to explore in the near future. The first class has relatively light gluinos or squarks which should be found by the LHC in its first run. We identify the multijet plus E_T^miss signal as the optimal channel and determine the discovery potential in the first run. The second class has heavier gluinos and squarks but the LSP has a significant Higgsino component and should be seen by the next generation of direct dark matter detection experiments. The combined information from the 7 TeV LHC run and the next generation of direct detection experiments can test almost all of the CMSSM parameter space consistent with dark matter and EW constraints, corresponding to a fine-tuning not worse than 1:100. To cover the complete low-fine-tuned region by SUSY searches at the LHC will require running at the full 14 TeV CM energy; in addition it may be tested indirectly by Higgs searches covering the mass range below 120 GeV.Comment: References added. Version accepted for publication in JHE

Energy Conversion Alternatives Study (ECAS), General Electric Phase 1. Volume 3: Energy conversion subsystems and components. Part 3: Gasification, process fuels, and balance of plant

Results are presented of an investigation of gasification and clean fuels from coal. Factors discussed include: coal and coal transportation costs; clean liquid and gas fuel process efficiencies and costs; and cost, performance, and environmental intrusion elements of the integrated low-Btu coal gasification system. Cost estimates for the balance-of-plant requirements associated with advanced energy conversion systems utilizing coal or coal-derived fuels are included

Tuning supersymmetric models at the LHC: A comparative analysis at two-loop level

We provide a comparative study of the fine tuning amount (Delta) at the two-loop leading log level in supersymmetric models commonly used in SUSY searches at the LHC. These are the constrained MSSM (CMSSM), non-universal Higgs masses models (NUHM1, NUHM2), non-universal gaugino masses model (NUGM) and GUT related gaugino masses models (NUGMd). Two definitions of the fine tuning are used, the first (Delta_{max}) measures maximal fine-tuning wrt individual parameters while the second (Delta_q) adds their contribution in "quadrature". As a direct result of two theoretical constraints (the EW minimum conditions), fine tuning (Delta_q) emerges as a suppressing factor (effective prior) of the averaged likelihood (under the priors), under the integral of the global probability of measuring the data (Bayesian evidence p(D)). For each model, there is little difference between Delta_q, Delta_{max} in the region allowed by the data, with similar behaviour as functions of the Higgs, gluino, stop mass or SUSY scale (m_{susy}=(m_{\tilde t_1} m_{\tilde t_2})^{1/2}) or dark matter and g-2 constraints. The analysis has the advantage that by replacing any of these mass scales or constraints by their latest bounds one easily infers for each model the value of Delta_q, Delta_{max} or vice versa. For all models, minimal fine tuning is achieved for M_{higgs} near 115 GeV with a Delta_q\approx Delta_{max}\approx 10 to 100 depending on the model, and in the CMSSM this is actually a global minimum. Due to a strong ($\approx$ exponential) dependence of Delta on M_{higgs}, for a Higgs mass near 125 GeV, the above values of Delta_q\approx Delta_{max} increase to between 500 and 1000. Possible corrections to these values are briefly discussed.Comment: 23 pages, 46 figures; references added; some clarifications (section 2

The fine-tuning of the generalised NMSSM

We determine the degree of fine-tuning needed in a generalised version of the NMSSM that follows from an underlying Z4 or Z8 R-symmetry. We find that it is significantly less than is found in the MSSM or NMSSM and extends the range of Higgs mass that have acceptable fine-tuning. Remarkably the minimal fine-tuning is achieved for Higgs masses of around 130 GeV.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure