49 research outputs found
R-parity violation in SU(5)
We show that judiciously chosen R-parity violating terms in the minimal
renormalizable supersymmetric SU(5) are able to correct all the
phenomenologically wrong mass relations between down quarks and charged
leptons. The model can accommodate neutrino masses as well. One of the most
striking consequences is a large mixing between the electron and the Higgsino.
We show that this can still be in accord with data in some regions of the
parameter space and possibly falsified in future experiments.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figure. Revised version. To appear in JHE
A New Era in the Quest for Dark Matter
There is a growing sense of `crisis' in the dark matter community, due to the
absence of evidence for the most popular candidates such as weakly interacting
massive particles, axions, and sterile neutrinos, despite the enormous effort
that has gone into searching for these particles. Here, we discuss what we have
learned about the nature of dark matter from past experiments, and the
implications for planned dark matter searches in the next decade. We argue that
diversifying the experimental effort, incorporating astronomical surveys and
gravitational wave observations, is our best hope to make progress on the dark
matter problem.Comment: Published in Nature, online on 04 Oct 2018. 13 pages, 1 figur
ERBB2 in Cat Mammary Neoplasias Disclosed a Positive Correlation between RNA and Protein Low Expression Levels: A Model for erbB-2 Negative Human Breast Cancer
Human ERBB2 is a proto-oncogene that codes for the erbB-2 epithelial growth factor receptor. In human breast cancer (HBC), erbB-2 protein overexpression has been repeatedly correlated with poor prognosis. In more recent works, underexpression of this gene has been described in HBC. Moreover, it is also recognised that oncogenes that are commonly amplified or deleted encompass point mutations, and some of these are associated with HBC. In cat mammary lesions (CMLs), the overexpression of ERBB2 (27%–59.6%) has also been described, mostly at the protein level and although cat mammary neoplasias are considered to be a natural model of HBC, molecular information is still scarce. In the present work, a cat ERBB2 fragment, comprising exons 10 to 15 (ERBB2_10–15) was achieved for the first time. Allelic variants and genomic haplotype analyses were also performed, and differences between normal and CML populations were observed. Three amino acid changes, corresponding to 3 non-synonymous genomic sequence variants that were only detected in CMLs, were proposed to damage the 3D structure of the protein. We analysed the cat ERBB2 gene at the DNA (copy number determination), mRNA (expression levels assessment) and protein levels (in extra- and intra protein domains) in CML samples and correlated the last two evaluations with clinicopathological features. We found a positive correlation between the expression levels of the ERBB2 RNA and erbB-2 protein, corresponding to the intracellular region. Additionally, we detected a positive correlation between higher mRNA expression and better clinical outcome. Our results suggest that the ERBB2 gene is post-transcriptionally regulated and that proteins with truncations and single point mutations are present in cat mammary neoplastic lesions. We would like to emphasise that the recurrent occurrence of low erbB-2 expression levels in cat mammary tumours, suggests the cat mammary neoplasias as a valuable model for erbB-2 negative HBC.POCI/CVT/62940/2004 and by the PhD grants (SFRH/BD/23406/2005 and SFRH/BD/31754/2006, of the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) from Portugal
A4 Flavor Models in Split Seesaw Mechanism
A seesaw mechanism in an extra-dimension, known as the split seesaw
mechanism, provides a natural way to realize a splitting mass spectrum of
right-handed neutrinos. It leads to one keV sterile neutrino as a dark matter
candidate and two heavy right-handed neutrinos being responsible for
leptogenesis to explain the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe. We study
models based on flavor symmetry in the context of the split seesaw
mechanism. It is pointed out that most of known flavor models with three
right-handed neutrinos being triplet suffer from a degeneracy problem for
the bulk mass terms, which disturbs the split mechanism for right-handed
neutrino mass spectrum. Then we construct a new flavor model to work in
the split seesaw mechanism. In the model, the experimentally observed neutrino
masses and mixing angles can be realized from both type I+II seesaw
contributions. The model predicts the symmetry in the neutrino mass
matrix at the leading order, resulting in the vanishing and
maximal . The flavor symmetry is broken via the flavon
vacuum alignment which can be obtained from the orbifold compactification. The
model can be consistent with all data of neutrino oscillation experiments,
cosmological discussions of dark matter abundance, leptogenesis, and recent
astrophysical data.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure, version to appear in JHE
Combined aliskiren and L-arginine treatment has antihypertensive effects and prevents vascular endothelial dysfunction in a model of renovascular hypertension
Phytoplankton assemblages in a reservoir cascade of a large tropical - subtropical river (SE, Brazil)
Supernova neutrino burst detection with the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), a 40-kton underground liquid argon time projection chamber experiment, will be sensitive to the electron-neutrino flavor component of the burst of neutrinos expected from the next Galactic core-collapse supernova. Such an observation will bring unique insight into the astrophysics of core collapse as well as into the properties of neutrinos. The general capabilities of DUNE for neutrino detection in the relevant few- to few-tens-of-MeV neutrino energy range will be described. As an example, DUNE's ability to constrain the νe spectral parameters of the neutrino burst will be considered