Aspects of Relativistic Sum Rules

The status of our understanding of relativistic sum rules is reviewed. The recent development of new theoretical methods for the evaluation of these sum rules offers hope for further advances in this challenging field. These new techniques are described, along with a discussion of the source of difficulties inherent in such relativistic calculations. A connection is pointed out between certain sum rules for atomic interactions with charged particles and those for interactions with photons.Comment: 32 pages, accepted for publication in Advances in Quantum Chemistr

Complications Reported in Maxillary Skeletal Expanders: A Retrospective Study

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the types and prevalence of complications following Maxillary Skeletal Expansion protocol at University of the Pacific

Computational Modeling of Single-Cell Migration::The Leading Role of Extracellular Matrix Fibers

Cell migration is vitally important in a wide variety of biological contexts ranging from embryonic development and wound healing to malignant diseases such as cancer. It is a very complex process that is controlled by intracellular signaling pathways as well as the cell's microenvironment. Due to its importance and complexity, it has been studied for many years in the biomedical sciences, and in the last 30 years it also received an increasing amount of interest from theoretical scientists and mathematical modelers. Here we propose a force-based, individual-based modeling framework that links single-cell migration with matrix fibers and cell-matrix interactions through contact guidance and matrix remodelling. With this approach, we can highlight the effect of the cell's environment on its migration. We investigate the influence of matrix stiffness, matrix architecture, and cell speed on migration using quantitative measures that allow us to compare the results to experiments

The Australia Telescope 20 GHz Survey: The Source Catalogue

We present the full source catalogue from the Australia Telescope 20 GHz (AT20G) Survey. The AT20G is a blind radio survey carried out at 20 GHz with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) from 2004 to 2008, and covers the whole sky south of declination 0 deg. The AT20G source catalogue presented here is an order of magnitude larger than any previous catalogue of high-frequency radio sources, and includes 5890 sources above a 20 GHz flux-density limit of 40 mJy. All AT20G sources have total intensity and polarisation measured at 20 GHz, and most sources south of declination -15 deg also have near-simultaneous flux-density measurements at 5 and 8 GHz. A total of 1559 sources were detected in polarised total intensity at one or more of the three frequencies. We detect a small but significant population of non-thermal sources that are either undetected or have only weak detections in low-frequency catalogues. We introduce the term Ultra-Inverted Spectrum (UIS) to describe these radio sources, which have a spectral index alpha(5, 20) > +0.7 and which constitute roughly 1.2 per cent of the AT20G sample. The 20 GHz flux densities measured for the strongest AT20G sources are in excellent agreement with the WMAP 5-year source catalogue of Wright et al. (2009), and we find that the WMAP source catalogue is close to complete for sources stronger than 1.5 Jy at 23 GHz.Comment: 21 pages, accepted for publication in MNRA

Standardizing Clinical Trials Workflow Representation in UML for International Site Comparison

BACKGROUND: With the globalization of clinical trials, a growing emphasis has been placed on the standardization of the workflow in order to ensure the reproducibility and reliability of the overall trial. Despite the importance of workflow evaluation, to our knowledge no previous studies have attempted to adapt existing modeling languages to standardize the representation of clinical trials. Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a computational language that can be used to model operational workflow, and a UML profile can be developed to standardize UML models within a given domain. This paper's objective is to develop a UML profile to extend the UML Activity Diagram schema into the clinical trials domain, defining a standard representation for clinical trial workflow diagrams in UML. METHODS: Two Brazilian clinical trial sites in rheumatology and oncology were examined to model their workflow and collect time-motion data. UML modeling was conducted in Eclipse, and a UML profile was developed to incorporate information used in discrete event simulation software. RESULTS: Ethnographic observation revealed bottlenecks in workflow: these included tasks requiring full commitment of CRCs, transferring notes from paper to computers, deviations from standard operating procedures, and conflicts between different IT systems. Time-motion analysis revealed that nurses' activities took up the most time in the workflow and contained a high frequency of shorter duration activities. Administrative assistants performed more activities near the beginning and end of the workflow. Overall, clinical trial tasks had a greater frequency than clinic routines or other general activities. CONCLUSIONS: This paper describes a method for modeling clinical trial workflow in UML and standardizing these workflow diagrams through a UML profile. In the increasingly global environment of clinical trials, the standardization of workflow modeling is a necessary precursor to conducting a comparative analysis of international clinical trials workflows

Pathogenicity and Epitope Characteristics Do Not Differ in IgG Subclass-Switched Anti-Desmoglein 3 IgG1 and IgG4 Autoantibodies in Pemphigus Vulgaris

Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is characterized by IgG1 and IgG4 autoantibodies to desmoglein (Dsg) 3, causing suprabasal blistering of skin and mucous membranes. IgG4 is the dominant autoantibody subclass in PV and correlates with disease activity, whereas IgG1 can be associated with remittent disease. It is unknown if switching the same variable region between IgG4 and IgG1 directly impacts pathogenicity. Here, we tested whether three pathogenic PV monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) from three different patients demonstrate differences in antigen affinity, epitope specificity, or pathogenicity when expressed as IgG1 or IgG4. F706 anti-Dsg3 IgG4 and F779 anti-Dsg3 IgG1, previously isolated as heterohybridomas, and Px43, a monovalent anti-Dsg3/Dsg1 IgG antibody isolated by phage display, were subcloned to obtain paired sets of IgG1 and IgG4 mAbs. Using ELISA and cell surface staining assays, F706 and F779 demonstrated similar antigen binding affinities of IgG1 and IgG4, whereas Px43 showed 3- to 8-fold higher affinity of IgG4 versus IgG1 by ELISA, but identical binding affinities to human skin, perhaps due to targeting of a quaternary epitope best displayed in tissues. All 3 mAb pairs targeted the same extracellular cadherin (EC) domain on Dsg3, caused Dsg3 internalization in primary human keratinocytes, and caused suprabasal blisters in human skin at comparable doses. We conclude that switching IgG1 and IgG4 subclasses of pathogenic PV mAbs does not directly affect their antigen binding or pathogenic properties

DNAJC21 Mutations Link a Cancer-Prone Bone Marrow Failure Syndrome to Corruption in 60S Ribosome Subunit Maturation

This work was funded by The Medical Research Council UK (MR/K000292/1), Children with Cancer UK (2013/144), Barts and The London Charity (845/1796), and Leukaemia Lymphoma Research/Bloodwise (14032)

Time-integrated luminosity recorded by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II e+e- collider

This article is the Preprint version of the final published artcile which can be accessed at the link below.We describe a measurement of the time-integrated luminosity of the data collected by the BABAR experiment at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e+e- collider at the ϒ(4S), ϒ(3S), and ϒ(2S) resonances and in a continuum region below each resonance. We measure the time-integrated luminosity by counting e+e-→e+e- and (for the ϒ(4S) only) e+e-→μ+μ- candidate events, allowing additional photons in the final state. We use data-corrected simulation to determine the cross-sections and reconstruction efficiencies for these processes, as well as the major backgrounds. Due to the large cross-sections of e+e-→e+e- and e+e-→μ+μ-, the statistical uncertainties of the measurement are substantially smaller than the systematic uncertainties. The dominant systematic uncertainties are due to observed differences between data and simulation, as well as uncertainties on the cross-sections. For data collected on the ϒ(3S) and ϒ(2S) resonances, an additional uncertainty arises due to ϒ→e+e-X background. For data collected off the ϒ resonances, we estimate an additional uncertainty due to time dependent efficiency variations, which can affect the short off-resonance runs. The relative uncertainties on the luminosities of the on-resonance (off-resonance) samples are 0.43% (0.43%) for the ϒ(4S), 0.58% (0.72%) for the ϒ(3S), and 0.68% (0.88%) for the ϒ(2S).This work is supported by the US Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada), the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physiquedes Particules (France), the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany), the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Italy), the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (The Netherlands), the Research Council of Norway, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain), and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (United Kingdom). Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie IEF program (European Union) and the A.P. Sloan Foundation (USA)

A search for the decay modes B+/- to h+/- tau l

We present a search for the lepton flavor violating decay modes B+/- to h+/- tau l (h= K,pi; l= e,mu) using the BaBar data sample, which corresponds to 472 million BBbar pairs. The search uses events where one B meson is fully reconstructed in one of several hadronic final states. Using the momenta of the reconstructed B, h, and l candidates, we are able to fully determine the tau four-momentum. The resulting tau candidate mass is our main discriminant against combinatorial background. We see no evidence for B+/- to h+/- tau l decays and set a 90% confidence level upper limit on each branching fraction at the level of a few times 10^-5.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Improved Limits on B0B^{0} decays to invisible (+γ)(+\gamma) final states

We establish improved upper limits on branching fractions for B0 decays to final States 10 where the decay products are purely invisible (i.e., no observable final state particles) and for final states where the only visible product is a photon. Within the Standard Model, these decays have branching fractions that are below the current experimental sensitivity, but various models of physics beyond the Standard Model predict significant contributions for these channels. Using 471 million BB pairs collected at the Y(4S) resonance by the BABAR experiment at the PEP-II e+e- storage ring at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, we establish upper limits at the 90% confidence level of 2.4x10^-5 for the branching fraction of B0-->Invisible and 1.7x10^-5 for the branching fraction of B0-->Invisible+gammaComment: 8 pages, 3 postscript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D (Rapid Communications