3,782 research outputs found
Improving the sensitivity of stop searches with on-shell constrained invariant mass variables
The search for light stops is of paramount importance, both in general as a
promising path to the discovery of beyond the standard model physics and more
specifically as a way of evaluating the success of the naturalness paradigm.
While the LHC experiments have ruled out much of the relevant parameter space,
there are "stop gaps", i.e., values of sparticle masses for which existing LHC
analyses have relatively little sensitivity to light stops. We point out that
techniques involving on-shell constrained M_2 variables can do much to enhance
sensitivity in this region and hence help close the stop gaps. We demonstrate
the use of these variables for several benchmark points and describe the effect
of realistic complications, such as detector effects and combinatorial
backgrounds, in order to provide a useful toolkit for light stop searches in
particular, and new physics searches at the LHC in general.Comment: 49 pages, 28 figures, revised version published in JHEP, references
adde
On-shell constrained variables with applications to mass measurements and topology disambiguation
We consider a class of on-shell constrained mass variables that are 3+1
dimensional generalizations of the Cambridge variable and that
automatically incorporate various assumptions about the underlying event
topology. The presence of additional on-shell constraints causes their
kinematic distributions to exhibit sharper endpoints than the usual
distribution. We study the mathematical properties of these new variables,
e.g., the uniqueness of the solution selected by the minimization over the
invisible particle 4-momenta. We then use this solution to reconstruct the
masses of various particles along the decay chain. We propose several tests for
validating the assumed event topology in missing energy events from new
physics. The tests are able to determine: 1) whether the decays in the event
are two-body or three-body, 2) if the decay is two-body, whether the
intermediate resonances in the two decay chains are the same, and 3) the exact
sequence in which the visible particles are emitted from each decay chain.Comment: 44pages, 17 figures. revised version, published in JHEP. Minor
addition: a paragraph discussing the effect on the background at the end of
section 5.
OPTIMASS: A Package for the Minimization of Kinematic Mass Functions with Constraints
Reconstructed mass variables, such as , , , and
, play an essential role in searches for new physics at hadron
colliders. The calculation of these variables generally involves constrained
minimization in a large parameter space, which is numerically challenging. We
provide a C++ code, OPTIMASS, which interfaces with the MINUIT library to
perform this constrained minimization using the Augmented Lagrangian Method.
The code can be applied to arbitrarily general event topologies and thus allows
the user to significantly extend the existing set of kinematic variables. We
describe this code and its physics motivation, and demonstrate its use in the
analysis of the fully leptonic decay of pair-produced top quarks using the
variables.Comment: 39 pages, 12 figures, (1) minor revision in section 3, (2) figure
added in section 4.3, (3) reference added and (4) matched with published
versio
Voluntary running exercise protects against sepsis-induced early inflammatory and pro-coagulant responses in aged mice
Background: Despite many animal studies and clinical trials, mortality in sepsis remains high. This may be due to the fact that most experimental studies of sepsis employ young animals, whereas the majority of septic patients are elderly (60 - 70 years). The objective of the present study was to examine the sepsis-induced inflammatory and pro-coagulant responses in aged mice. Since running exercise protects against a variety of diseases, we also examined the effect of voluntary running on septic responses in aged mice. Methods: Male C57BL/6 mice were housed in our institute from 2-3 to 22 months (an age mimicking that of the elderly). Mice were prevented from becoming obese by food restriction (given 70-90% of ad libitum consumption amount). Between 20 and 22 months, a subgroup of mice ran voluntarily on wheels, alternating 1-3 days of running with 1-2 days of rest. At 22 months, mice were intraperitoneally injected with sterile saline (control) or 3.75 g/kg fecal slurry (septic). At 7 h post injection, we examined (1) neutrophil influx in the lung and liver by measuring myeloperoxidase and/or neutrophil elastase in the tissue homogenates by spectrophotometry, (2) interleukin 6 (IL6) and KC in the lung lavage by ELISA, (3) pulmonary surfactant function by measuring percentage of large aggregates, (4) capillary plugging (pro-coagulant response) in skeletal muscle by intravital microscopy, (5) endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) protein in skeletal muscle (eNOS-derived NO is putative inhibitor of capillary plugging) by immunoblotting, and (6) systemic blood platelet counts by hemocytometry. Results: Sepsis caused high levels of pulmonary myeloperoxidase, elastase, IL6, KC, liver myeloperoxidase, and capillary plugging. Sepsis also caused low levels of surfactant function and platelet counts. Running exercise increased eNOS protein and attenuated the septic responses. Conclusions: Voluntary running protects against exacerbated sepsis-induced inflammatory and pro-coagulant responses in aged mice. Protection against pro-coagulant responses may involve eNOS upregulation. The present discovery in aged mice calls for clinical investigation into potential beneficial effects of exercise on septic outcomes in the elderly
First fossil of an oestroid fly (Diptera: Calyptratae: Oestroidea) and the dating of oestroid divergences
Calyptrate flies include about 22,000 extant species currently classified into Hippoboscoidea (tsetse, louse, and bat flies), the muscoid grade (house flies and relatives) and the Oestroidea (blow flies, bot flies, flesh flies, and relatives). Calyptrates are abundant in nearly all terrestrial ecosystems, often playing key roles as decomposers, parasites, parasitoids, vectors of pathogens, and pollinators. For oestroids, the most diverse group within calyptrates, definitive fossils have been lacking. The first unambiguous fossil of Oestroidea is described based on a specimen discovered in amber from the Dominican Republic. The specimen was identified through digital dissection by CT scans, which provided morphological data for a cladistic analysis of its phylogenetic position among extant oestroids. The few known calyptrate fossils were used as calibration points for a molecular phylogeny (16S, 28S, CAD) to estimate the timing of major diversification events among the Oestroidea. Results indicate that: (a) the fossil belongs to the family Mesembrinellidae, and it is identified and described as Mesembrinella caenozoica sp. nov.; (b) the mesembrinellids form a sister clade to the Australian endemic Ulurumyia macalpinei (Ulurumyiidae) (McAlpine’s fly), which in turn is sister to all remaining oestroids; (c) the most recent common ancestor of extant Calyptratae lived just before the K–Pg boundary (ca. 70 mya); and (d) the radiation of oestroids began in the Eocene (ca. 50 mya), with the origin of the family Mesembrinellidae dated at ca. 40 mya. These results provide new insight into the timing and rate of oestroid diversification and highlight the rapid radiation of some of the most diverse and ecologically important families of flies. ZooBank accession number–urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:0DC5170B-1D16-407A-889E-56EED3FE3627.publishedVersio
West Nile Virus–associated Flaccid Paralysis Outcome
We report 1-year follow-up data from a longitudinal prospective cohort study of patients with West Nile virus–associated paralysis. As in the 4-month follow-up, a variety of recovery patterns were observed, but persistent weakness was frequent. Respiratory involvement was associated with considerable illness and death
Using ordinal logistic regression to evaluate the performance of laser-Doppler predictions of burn-healing time
Background
Laser-Doppler imaging (LDI) of cutaneous blood flow is beginning to be used by burn surgeons to predict the healing time of burn wounds; predicted healing time is used to determine wound treatment as either dressings or surgery. In this paper, we do a statistical analysis of the performance of the technique.
Methods
We used data from a study carried out by five burn centers: LDI was done once between days 2 to 5 post burn, and healing was assessed at both 14 days and 21 days post burn. Random-effects ordinal logistic regression and other models such as the continuation ratio model were used to model healing-time as a function of the LDI data, and of demographic and wound history variables. Statistical methods were also used to study the false-color palette, which enables the laser-Doppler imager to be used by clinicians as a decision-support tool.
Results
Overall performance is that diagnoses are over 90% correct. Related questions addressed were what was the best blood flow summary statistic and whether, given the blood flow measurements, demographic and observational variables had any additional predictive power (age, sex, race, % total body surface area burned (%TBSA), site and cause of burn, day of LDI scan, burn center). It was found that mean laser-Doppler flux over a wound area was the best statistic, and that, given the same mean flux, women recover slightly more slowly than men. Further, the likely degradation in predictive performance on moving to a patient group with larger %TBSA than those in the data sample was studied, and shown to be small.
Conclusion
Modeling healing time is a complex statistical problem, with random effects due to multiple burn areas per individual, and censoring caused by patients missing hospital visits and undergoing surgery. This analysis applies state-of-the art statistical methods such as the bootstrap and permutation tests to a medical problem of topical interest. New medical findings are that age and %TBSA are not important predictors of healing time when the LDI results are known, whereas gender does influence recovery time, even when blood flow is controlled for.
The conclusion regarding the palette is that an optimum three-color palette can be chosen 'automatically', but the optimum choice of a 5-color palette cannot be made solely by optimizing the percentage of correct diagnoses
Class-switched anti-insulin antibodies originate from unconventional antigen presentation in multiple lymphoid sites
Autoantibodies to insulin are a harbinger of autoimmunity in type 1 diabetes in humans and in non-obese diabetic mice. To understand the genesis of these autoantibodies, we investigated the interactions of insulin-specific T and B lymphocytes using T cell and B cell receptor transgenic mice. We found spontaneous anti-insulin germinal center (GC) formation throughout lymphoid tissues with GC B cells binding insulin. Moreover, because of the nature of the insulin epitope recognized by the T cells, it was evident that GC B cells presented a broader repertoire of insulin epitopes. Such broader recognition was reproduced by activating naive B cells ex vivo with a combination of CD40 ligand and interleukin 4. Thus, insulin immunoreactivity extends beyond the pancreatic lymph node–islets of Langerhans axis and indicates that circulating insulin, despite its very low levels, can have an influence on diabetogenesis
- …