Investigation of a Novel Predictive Biomarker Profile for the Outcome of Periodontal Treatment

BACKGROUND: An ability to predict the response to conventional non-surgical treatment of a periodontal site would be advantageous. However, so far the biomarkers or tests devised to achieve this have lacked sensitivity. The aim of this study was to assess the ability of a novel combination of biomarkers to predict the outcome of treatment of patients with chronic periodontitis. METHODS: GCF and subgingival plaque were collected from 77 patients at 3 representative sites, 1 healthy (≤ 3mm) and 2 diseased (≥ 6mm) at baseline and at 3 and 6-months post treatment. Patients received standard nonsurgical periodontal treatment at each time point as appropriate. The outcome measure was improvement in pocket depth of ≥2mm. Concentrations of active enzymes (MMP 8, elastase and sialidase) in GCF and subgingival plaque levels of Porphyromonas gingivalis, Tannerella forsythia and Fusobacterium nucleatum were analysed for prediction of the outcome measure. RESULTS: Using threshold values of MMP8 (94ng/μl), elastase (33ng/μl), sialidase (23ng/μl), P. gingivalis (0.23%) and T. forsythia (0.35%), Receiver Operating Characteristic curves analysis demonstrated that these biomarkers at baseline could differentiate healthy from diseased sites (sensitivity and specificity ≥77%). Furthermore, logistic regression showed that this combination of the above biomarkers at baseline provided accurate predictions of treatment outcome (≥ 92%). CONCLUSION: The 'finger print' of GCF enzymes and bacteria described here offers a way to predict the outcome of non-surgical periodontal treatment on a site-specific basis

Dynamic Scaling in Diluted Systems Phase Transitions: Deactivation trough Thermal Dilution

Activated scaling is confirmed to hold in transverse field induced phase transitions of randomly diluted Ising systems. Quantum Monte Carlo calculations have been made not just at the percolation threshold but well bellow and above it including the Griffiths-McCoy phase. A novel deactivation phenomena in the Griffiths-McCoy phase is observed using a thermal (in contrast to random) dilution of the system.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, RevTe

Semiclassical theory of potential scattering for massless Dirac fermions

In this paper we study scattering of two-dimensional massless Dirac fermions by a potential that depends on a single Cartesian variable. Depending on the energy of the incoming particle and its angle of incidence, there are three different regimes of scattering. To find the reflection and transmission coefficients in these regimes, we apply the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB), also called semiclassical, approximation. We use the method of comparison equations to extend our prediction to nearly normal incidence, where the conventional WKB method should be modified due to the degeneracy of turning points. We compare our results to numerical calculations and find good agreement.Comment: Minor revision; several references have been adde

Wave Function Based Characteristics of Hybrid Mesons

We propose some extensions of the quark potential model to hybrids, fit them to the lattice data and use them for the purpose of calculating the masses, root mean square radii and wave functions at the origin of the conventional and hybrid charmonium mesons. We treat the ground and excited gluonic field between a quark and an antiquark as in the Born-Oppenheimer expansion, and use the shooting method to numerically solve the required Schr$\ddot{\textrm{o}}$dinger equation for the radial wave functions; from these wave functions we calculate the mesonic properties. For masses we also check through a Crank Nichelson discretization. For hybrid charmonium mesons, we consider the exotic quantum number states with $J^{PC} = 0^{+ -}, 1^{- +}$ and $2^{+ -}$. We also compare our results with the experimentally observed masses and theoretically predicted results of the other models. Our results have implications for scalar form factors, energy shifts, magnetic polarizabilities, decay constants, decay widths and differential cross sections of conventional and hybrid mesons.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, Erratum is submitted to EPJ

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters

Reducing heterotic M-theory to five dimensional supergravity on a manifold with boundary

This paper constructs the reduction of heterotic $M$-theory in eleven dimensions to a supergravity model on a manifold with boundary in five dimensions using a Calabi-Yau three-fold. New results are presented for the boundary terms in the action and for the boundary conditions on the bulk fields. Some general features of dualisation on a manifold with boundary are used to explain the origin of some topological terms in the action. The effect of gaugino condensation on the fermion boundary conditions leads to a `twist' in the chirality of the gravitino which can provide an uplifting mechanism in the vacuum energy to cancel the cosmological constant after moduli stabilisation.Comment: 16 pages, RevTe