1,171 research outputs found
Historical configuration of habitat influences the effects of disturbance on mobile invertebrates
Copyright © 2005 Inter-Research.Mobile animals can be affected by disturbance because of changes to the structure of their habitat. Few studies, however, recognise the potential for the historical configuration of habitat (e.g. density prior to disturbance) to affect the way animals respond to the disturbance. Furthermore, there is a tendency for ecologists to study or manipulate only the most severe disturbances, but such events are less likely to be common. We tested the hypothesis that the density of Ecklonia radiata before disturbance affects the response of assemblages of mobile invertebrates to different severities of disturbance. Differences in the severity of disturbance caused changes in the structure of assemblages, but this response varied depending on the historical configuration of habitat. The magnitude by which assemblage structure differed between undisturbed and disturbed habitats was greater where habitats were historically sparse rather than dense. We emphasise the importance of assessing a range of severities of disturbance and demonstrate the importance of habitat configuration prior to the disturbance, particularly for animals with close association to their habitat.Paris J. Goodsell and Sean D. Connel
One-loop adjoint masses for branes at non-supersymmetric angles
This proceeding is based on arXiv:1105.0591 [hep-th] where we consider
breaking of supersymmetry in intersecting D-brane configurations by slight
deviation of the angles from their supersymmetric values. We compute the masses
generated by radiative corrections for the adjoint scalars on the brane
world-volumes. In the open string channel, the string two-point function
receives contributions only from the infrared limits of N~4 and N~2
supersymmetric configurations, via messengers and their Kaluza-Klein
excitations, and leads at leading order to tachyonic directions.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures. Contribution to the proceedings of the Corfu
Summer Institute 2011 School and Workshops on Elementary Particle Physics and
Gravity, September 4-18 2011 Corfu, Greec
Three Generations on the Quintic Quotient
A three-generation SU(5) GUT, that is 3x(10+5bar) and a single 5-5bar pair,
is constructed by compactification of the E_8 heterotic string. The base
manifold is the Z_5 x Z_5-quotient of the quintic, and the vector bundle is the
quotient of a positive monad. The group action on the monad and its
bundle-valued cohomology is discussed in detail, including topological
restrictions on the existence of equivariant structures. This model and a
single Z_5 quotient are the complete list of three generation quotients of
positive monads on the quintic.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX. v2: section on anomaly cancellation adde
Inter-Intra Molecular Dynamics as an Iterated Function System
The dynamics of units (molecules) with slowly relaxing internal states is
studied as an iterated function system (IFS) for the situation common in e.g.
biological systems where these units are subjected to frequent collisional
interactions. It is found that an increase in the collision frequency leads to
successive discrete states that can be analyzed as partial steps to form a
Cantor set. By considering the interactions among the units, a self-consistent
IFS is derived, which leads to the formation and stabilization of multiple such
discrete states. The relevance of the results to dynamical multiple states in
biomolecules in crowded conditions is discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. submitted to Europhysics Letter
The mRNA expression of SETD2 in human breast cancer: Correlation with clinico-athological parameters
BACKGROUND: SET domain containing protein 2 (SETD2) is a histone methyltransferase that is involved in transcriptional elongation. There is evidence that SETD2 interacts with p53 and selectively regulates its downstream genes. Therefore, it could be implicated in the process of carcinogenesis. Furthermore, this gene is located on the short arm of chromosome 3p and we previously demonstrated that the 3p21.31 region of chromosome 3 was associated with permanent growth arrest of breast cancer cells. This region includes closely related genes namely: MYL3, CCDC12, KIF9, KLHL18 and SETD2. Based on the biological function of these genes, SETD2 is the most likely gene to play a tumour suppressor role and explain our previous findings. Our objective was to determine, using quantitative PCR, whether the mRNA expression levels of SETD2 were consistent with a tumour suppressive function in breast cancer. This is the first study in the literature to examine the direct relationship between SETD2 and breast cancer. METHODS: A total of 153 samples were analysed. The levels of transcription of SETD2 were determined using quantitative PCR and normalized against (CK19). Transcript levels within breast cancer specimens were compared to normal background tissues and analyzed against conventional pathological parameters and clinical outcome over a 10 year follow-up period. RESULTS: The levels of SETD2 mRNA were significantly lower in malignant samples (p = 0.0345) and decreased with increasing tumour stage. SETD2 expression levels were significantly lower in samples from patients who developed metastasis, local recurrence, or died of breast cancer when compared to those who were disease free for > 10 years (p = 0.041). CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates a compelling trend for SETD2 transcription levels to be lower in cancerous tissues and in patients who developed progressive disease. These findings are consistent with a possible tumour suppressor function of this gene in breast cancer
Positronium Portal into Hidden Sector: A new Experiment to Search for Mirror Dark Matter
The understanding of the origin of dark matter has great importance for
cosmology and particle physics. Several interesting extensions of the standard
model dealing with solution of this problem motivate the concept of hidden
sectors consisting of SU(3)xSU(2)_LxU(1)_Y singlet fields. Among these models,
the mirror matter model is certainly one of the most interesting. The model
explains the origin of parity violation in weak interactions, it could also
explain the baryon asymmetry of the Universe and provide a natural ground for
the explanation of dark matter. The mirror matter could have a portal to our
world through photon-mirror photon mixing (epsilon). This mixing would lead to
orthopositronium (o-Ps) to mirror orthopositronium oscillations, the
experimental signature of which is the apparently invisible decay of o-Ps. In
this paper, we describe an experiment to search for the decay o-Ps -> invisible
in vacuum by using a pulsed slow positron beam and a massive 4pi BGO crystal
calorimeter. The developed high efficiency positron tagging system, the low
calorimeter energy threshold and high hermiticity allow the expected
sensitivity in mixing strength to be epsilon about 10^-9, which is more than
one order of magnitude below the current Big Bang Nucleosynthesis limit and in
a region of parameter space of great theoretical and phenomenological interest.
The vacuum experiment with such sensitivity is particularly timely in light of
the recent DAMA/LIBRA observations of the annual modulation signal consistent
with a mirror type dark matter interpretation.Comment: 40 pages, 29 Figures 2 Tables v2: Ref. added, Fig. 29 and some text
added to explain idea for backscattering e+ background suppression, corrected
typos v3: minor corrections: Eq 2.1 corrected (6 lines-> 5 lines), Eq.2.17:
two extra "-" signs remove
Supersymmetry in the shadow of photini
Additional neutral gauge fermions -- "photini" -- arise in string
compactifications as superpartners of U(1) gauge fields. Unlike their vector
counterparts, the photini can acquire weak-scale masses from soft SUSY breaking
and lead to observable signatures at the LHC through mass mixing with the bino.
In this work we investigate the collider consequences of adding photini to the
neutralino sector of the MSSM. Relatively large mixing of one or more photini
with the bino can lead to prompt decays of the lightest ordinary supersymmetric
particle; these extra cascades transfer most of the energy of SUSY decay chains
into Standard Model particles, diminishing the power of missing energy as an
experimental handle for signal discrimination. We demonstrate that the missing
energy in SUSY events with photini is reduced dramatically for supersymmetric
spectra with MSSM neutralinos near the weak scale, and study the effects on
limits set by the leading hadronic SUSY searches at ATLAS and CMS. We find that
in the presence of even one light photino the limits on squark masses from
hadronic searches can be reduced by 400 GeV, with comparable (though more
modest) reduction of gluino mass limits. We also consider potential discovery
channels such as dilepton and multilepton searches, which remain sensitive to
SUSY spectra with photini and can provide an unexpected route to the discovery
of supersymmetry. Although presented in the context of photini, our results
apply in general to theories in which additional light neutral fermions mix
with MSSM gauginos.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, references adde
Doubling up on supersymmetry in the Higgs sector
We explore the possibility that physics at the TeV scale possesses approximate N =2 supersymmetry, which is reduced to the N =1 minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM) at the electroweak scale. This doubling of supersymmetry modifies the Higgs sector of the theory, with consequences for the masses, mixings and couplings of the MSSM Higgs bosons, whose phenomenological consequences we explore in this paper. The mass of the lightest neutral Higgs boson h is independent of tan β at the tree level, and the decoupling limit is realized whatever the values of the heavy Higgs boson masses. Radiative corrections to the top quark and stop squarks dominate over those due to particles in N = 2 gauge multiplets. We assume that these radiative corrections fix mh ≃ 125 GeV, whatever the masses of the other neutral Higgs bosons H, A, a scenario that we term the h2MSSM. Since the H, A bosons decouple from the W and Z bosons in the h2MSSM at tree level, only the LHC constraints on H, A and H± couplings to fermions are applicable. These and the indirect constraints from LHC measurements of h couplings are consistent with mA ≳ 200 GeV for tan β ∈ (2, 8) in the h2MSSM
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