Gauge Coupling Unification in MSSM + 5 Flavors

We investigate gauge coupling unification at 2-loops for theories with 5 extra vectorlike SU(5) fundamentals added to the MSSM. This is a borderline case where unification is only predicted in certain regions of parameter space. We establish a lower bound on the scale for the masses of the extra flavors, as a function of the sparticle masses. Models far outside of the bound do not predict unification at all (but may be compatible with unification), and models outside but near the boundary cannot reliably claim to predict it with an accuracy comparable to the MSSM prediction. Models inside the boundary can work just as well as the MSSM.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures. Added references, fixed minor typos. No changes to content. Page count was incorrect in v1 Comment

DNA waves and water

Some bacterial and viral DNA sequences have been found to induce low frequency electromagnetic waves in high aqueous dilutions. This phenomenon appears to be triggered by the ambient electromagnetic background of very low frequency. We discuss this phenomenon in the framework of quantum field theory. A scheme able to account for the observations is proposed. The reported phenomenon could allow to develop highly sensitive detection systems for chronic bacterial and viral infections.Comment: Invited talk at the DICE2010 Conference, Castiglioncello, Italy September 201

Guideline on management of the acute asthma attack in children by Italian Society of Pediatrics.

BACKGROUND: Acute asthma attack is a frequent condition in children. It is one of the most common reasons for emergency department (ED) visit and hospitalization. Appropriate care is fundamental, considering both the high prevalence of asthma in children, and its life-threatening risks. Italian Society of Pediatrics recently issued a guideline on the management of acute asthma attack in children over age 2, in ambulatory and emergency department settings. METHODS: The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology was adopted. A literature search was performed using the Cochrane Library and Medline/PubMed databases, retrieving studies in English or Italian and including children over age 2 year. RESULTS: Inhaled ß2 agonists are the first line drugs for acute asthma attack in children. Ipratropium bromide should be added in moderate/severe attacks. Early use of systemic steroids is associated with reduced risk of ED visits and hospitalization. High doses of inhaled steroids should not replace systemic steroids. Aminophylline use should be avoided in mild/moderate attacks. Weak evidence supports its use in life-threatening attacks. Epinephrine should not be used in the treatment of acute asthma for its lower cost / benefit ratio, compared to β2 agonists. Intravenous magnesium solphate could be used in children with severe attacks and/or forced expiratory volume1 (FEV1) lower than 60% predicted, unresponsive to initial inhaled therapy. Heliox could be administered in life-threatening attacks. Leukotriene receptor antagonists are not recommended. CONCLUSIONS: This Guideline is expected to be a useful resource in managing acute asthma attacks in children over age 2

Why the Water Bridge does not collapse

In 2007 an interesting phenomenon was discovered: a thread of water, the so-called water bridge (WB), can hang between two glass beakers filled with deionized water if voltage is applied to them. We analyze the available explanations of the WB stability and propose a completely different one: the force that supports the WB is the surface tension of water and the role of electric field is not to allow the WB to reduce its surface energy by means of breaking into separate drops.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Behaviour change at work: Empowering energy efficiency in the workplace through user-centred design

Copyright @ 2011 University of California eScholarship RepositoryCO2 emissions from non-domestic buildings - primarily workplaces - make up 18 percent of the UK's carbon footprint. A combination of technology advances and behavioural changes have the potential to make significant impact, but interventions have often been planned in ways which do not take into account the needs, levels of understanding and everyday behavioural contexts of building users - and hence do not achieve the hoped-for success.This paper provides a brief introduction to the Empower project, a current industrial-academic collaboration in the UK which is applying methods from user-centred design practice to understand diverse users' needs, priorities, mental models of energy and decision-making heuristics - as well as the affordances available to them - in a number of office buildings. We are developing and trialling a set of low-cost, simple software interventions tailored to multiple user groups with different degrees of agency over their energy use, which seek to influence more energy efficient behaviour at work in areas such as HVAC, lighting and equipment use. The project comprises an ethnographic research phase, a participatory design programme involving building users in the design of interventions, and iterative trials in a large office building in central London

Pure Gravity Mediation with m_{3/2} = 10-100TeV

Recently, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations reported exciting hints of a Standard Model-like Higgs boson with a mass around 125GeV. Such a Higgs boson mass can be easily obtained in the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model based on the "pure gravity mediation model" where the sfermion masses and the Higgs mass parameters are in tens to hundreds TeV range while the gauginos are in the hundreds GeV to TeV range. In this paper, we discuss detalis of the gaugino mass spectrum in the pure gravity mediation model. We also discuss the signals of the model at the current and future experiments such as cosmic ray observations and the LHC experiments. In particular, we show that the parameter space which is consistent with the thermal leptogenesis can be fully surveyed experimentally in the foreseeable future.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure

A fully Eulerian multiphase model of windblown sand coupled with morphodynamic evolution: Erosion, transport, deposition, and avalanching

Abstract Modeling unsteady windblown sand dynamics requires not only treatment of the sand present in the air as a suspended constituent of a mixture but also consideration of erosion and sedimentation phenomena and consequently of the morphodynamic evolution of the sand-bed surface, including avalanching, especially in the presence of natural or human-built obstacles, artifacts, and infrastructures. With this aim in mind, we present a comprehensive multiphase model capable of accurately simulating all the physical phenomena mentioned above, producing satisfactory results, with reasonable computational effort. As test cases, two- and three-dimensional simulations of dune evolution are reported, as is windblown sand transport over a straight vertical wall. Examples of sand transport around other obstacles are given to show the flexibility of the model and its usefulness for such engineering applications

Adoption of robotic assisted partial nephrectomies: a population-based analysis of U.S. surgeons from 2004-2013

The advent of minimally invasive and robotic techniques has resulted in the rapid adoption of this novel technology, with the field of urology at the forefront. Since the first Robotic‐Assisted Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy (RALP) was performed in 2000 using  the da Vinci Surgical System (Intuitive Surgical, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, USA), surgeons have rapidly incorporated robotic technology for the use of radical prostatectomies for prostatic carcinoma. Prior to 2005, only a minority of surgeons‐‐fewer than 2.5%‐‐performing radical  prostatectomies utilized robotic assistance.  However, robotic assistance has become the predominant approach for radical prostatectomies, increasing from 22% to 85% between the years 2002 to 2013, representing a nearly five‐fold increase in utilization

Higgs Boson Exempt No-Scale Supersymmetry and its Collider and Cosmology Implications

One of the most straightforward ways to address the flavor problem of low-energy supersymmetry is to arrange for the scalar soft terms to vanish simultaneously at a scale $M_{c}$ much larger than the electroweak scale. This occurs naturally in a number of scenarios, such as no-scale models, gaugino mediation, and several models with strong conformal dynamics. Unfortunately, the most basic version of this approach that incorporates gaugino mass unification and zero scalar masses at the grand unification scale is not compatible with collider and dark matter constraints. However, experimental constraints can be satisfied if we exempt the Higgs bosons from flowing to zero mass value at the high scale. We survey the theoretical constructions that allow this, and investigate the collider and dark matter consequences. A generic feature is that the sleptons are relatively light. Because of this, these models frequently give a significant contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, and neutralino-slepton coannihilation can play an important role in obtaining an acceptable dark matter relic density. Furthermore, the light sleptons give rise to a large multiplicity of lepton events at colliders, including a potentially suggestive clean trilepton signal at the Tevatron, and a substantial four lepton signature at the LHC.Comment: 36 pages, 16 figure