Discovering Supersymmetry at the Tevatron in Wino LSP Scenarios

In supersymmetric models, Winos, partners of the SU(2) gauge bosons, may be the lightest supersymmetric particles (LSPs). For generic parameters, charged and neutral Winos are highly degenerate. Charged Winos travel macroscopic distances, but can decay to neutral Winos and extremely soft leptons or pions before reaching the muon chambers, thereby circumventing conventional trigger requirements based on energetic decay products or muon chamber hits. However, these charginos are detectable, and can be triggered on when produced in association with jets. In addition, we propose a new trigger for events with a high p_T track and low hadronic activity. For Tevatron Run II with luminosity 2 fb^-1, the proposed searches can discover Winos with masses up to 300 GeV and explore a substantial portion of the parameter space in sequestered sector models.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures; Fig.1 corrected, discussion generalized, references adde

Impact of the Choosing the Best Program in Communities Committed to Abstinence Education

States vary in standards for sex education, some requiring an emphasis on abstinence. Schools seek to identify curricula that reflect local community values and meet state standards. Choosing the Best (CTB), a classroom-based abstinence education curriculum, has been implemented in 75 Georgia school districts since 1995. CTB Inc., sought to determine if this popular program had an impact on abstinence attitudes, intentions, and behavior. Six Georgia public schools (1,143 ninth graders) participated in the study in 2009-2010. Four randomly assigned schools received the CTB curriculum, taught by trained CTB staff. Two control schools received their usual textbook-based abstinence lessons. Surveys were conducted at the beginning and end of 9th grade, and the beginning of 10th grade. Data demonstrated significant impact of CTB at the end of 9th grade on commitment to abstinence, proabstinence beliefs and attitudes, intentions to maintain abstinence, and lower onset of sexual intercourse, and at the beginning of 10th grade on proabstinence attitudes. In two communities that sought an abstinence education approach, CTB had a short-term impact on abstinence attitudes, commitment, and behaviors, and a longer term impact on abstinence attitudes only

Evaluation of ChatGPT Feedback on ELL Writers' Coherence and Cohesion

Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has had a transformative effect on education where students are using it to help with homework assignments and teachers are actively employing it in their teaching practices. This includes using ChatGPT as a tool for writing teachers to grade and generate feedback on students' essays. In this study, we evaluated the quality of the feedback generated by ChatGPT regarding the coherence and cohesion of the essays written by English Language Learners (ELLs) students. We selected 50 argumentative essays and generated feedback on coherence and cohesion using the ELLIPSE rubric. During the feedback evaluation, we used a two-step approach: first, each sentence in the feedback was classified into subtypes based on its function (e.g., positive reinforcement, problem statement). Next, we evaluated its accuracy and usability according to these types. Both the analysis of feedback types and the evaluation of accuracy and usability revealed that most feedback sentences were highly abstract and generic, failing to provide concrete suggestions for improvement. The accuracy in detecting major problems, such as repetitive ideas and the inaccurate use of cohesive devices, depended on superficial linguistic features and was often incorrect. In conclusion, ChatGPT, without specific training for the feedback generation task, does not offer effective feedback on ELL students' coherence and cohesion.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure

Obesity, mortality, and life years lost associated with breast cancer in nonsmoking US women, national health interview survey, 1997-2000

INTRODUCTION: The relationship between obesity and breast cancer has been extensively investigated. However, how obesity and breast cancer interplay to affect mortality and life expectancy of women in the United States has not been well studied. METHODS: We used data from the National Health Interview Survey, 1997–2000. Our sample included nonsmoking, nonpregnant women who reported a body mass index of at least 18.5 kg/m(2) and no cancer other than breast cancer at the time of the survey. A survival model with Gamma frailty and Gompertz baseline was used to estimate relative risks of total mortality and project life years lost associated with breast cancer by obesity status and age. RESULTS: Breast cancer increased risk of mortality depending on degree of obesity and decreased life years by 1 to 12 years depending on race, age, and obesity status. Relative risks for death increased with degree of obesity. Obese women under age 50 across all racial groups were predicted to lose the most life years; racial groups other than whites and blacks lost the most life years (11.9 y), followed by whites (9.8 y) and blacks (9.2 y). CONCLUSION: The number of life years lost associated with breast cancer was more marked for more obese than for less obese women and for women under age 50 and women aged 70 or older than for women aged 50 through 69. Public health initiatives should put more emphasis on the prevention and control of obesity for these target populations

Smokers’ reports on receiving a doctor’s advice to quit smoking; receiving the advice is more prevalent among smokers with Crohn’s Disease relative to smokers with Ulcerative Colitis

Receiving a doctor’s advice to quit smoking is an important predictor for improving smokers’ intentions to quit smoking and successful smoking cessation. We examined reports of smokers with Crohn’s Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC) regarding receiving a doctor’s advice to quit smoking in the past 12 months, and eval-uated the differences in the rates of receiving the advice between the CD and UC patients. The data were retrospectively reported by CD and UC patients (n = 453) who self-identified as current smokers in online assessments conducted by IBD Partners in the period from 2011 to 2014 in the USA. Statistical methods included chi-square tests and a multiple logistic regression model for the logit of the probability of receiving the advice as a function of patient’s characteristics and assessment year. Overall, about 77% of smokers reported receiving a doctor’s advice to quit smoking. The percentage was significantly (p \u3c 0.001) higher among smokers with CD (80%) than it was among smokers with UC (63%). While the specificdifferences by CD/UC depended on smoking initiation age, the overall effect of disease type on the odds of receiving the advice remained significant: the odds of receiving the advice were higher for smokers with CD relative to smokers with UC (OR = 3.6, p \u3c 0.001). Although the majority of CD and UC patients report receiving a doctor’s advice to quit smoking, the encountered difference associated with the disease type is concerning. Because long-term smoking increases cancer and mortality risks, doctors should address smoking cessation with all patients who smoke

Inhibition of interleukin-1 signaling enhances elimination of tyrosine kinase inhibitor treated CML stem cells

Treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) with BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) fails to eliminate leukemia stem cells (LSC). Patients remain at risk for relapse, and additional approaches to deplete CML LSC are needed to enhance the possibility of discontinuing TKI treatment. We have previously reported that expression of the pivotal proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-1 (IL-1) is increased in CML bone marrow (BM). We show here that CML LSC demonstrated increased expression of the IL-1 receptors, IL-1RAP and IL- 1R1, and enhanced sensitivity to IL-1-induced NF-KB signaling compared to normal stem cells. Treatment with recombinant IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1RA) inhibited IL-1 signaling in CML LSC and inhibited growth of CML LSC. Importantly, the combination of IL-1RA with TKI resulted in significantly greater inhibition of CML LSC compared with TKI alone. Our studies also suggest that IL-1 signaling contributes to overexpression of inflammatory mediators in CML LSC, suggesting that blocking IL-1 signaling could modulate the inflammatory milieu. We conclude that IL-1 signaling contributes to maintenance of CML LSC following TKI treatment, and that IL- 1 blockade with IL-1RA enhances elimination of TKI-treated CML LSC. These results provide a strong rationale for further exploration of anti-IL-1 strategies to enhance LSC elimination in CML

Supersymmetric Partners of Oblique Corrections

We discuss a potential new probe of supersymmetric physics. In particular, we discuss the possibility of measuring hard supersymmetry violation which occurs at one loop through "super-oblique" corrections to the gauge and gaugino propagators. In models with heavy scalar partners, or with many gauge-charged particles which participate in supersymmetry breaking, these effects can be substantial due to logarithmic and multiplicity factor enhancements.Comment: 8 Pages, LaTeX, sprocl.st

Health Starts at Home: Final Evaluation Report

Health Starts at Home was a multi-partner collaboration to improve child and family health for low-income families experiencing housing instability. The Boston Foundation funded four entities, each a partnership of at least one health-care and one housing organization, to design and implement programs to improve service delivery and reduce housing instability for participating families. The evaluators—Health Resources in Action and Urban Institute—tracked changes in these families' housing status, economic well-being, health status and health-care use for the caregivers and enrolled children at baseline, six-month, and 12-month follow-up surveys. The goal of the evaluation was to determine whether improvements in housing stability (achieved through delivery of the four Health Starts at Home program interventions) were associated with improvements in health-related outcomes. Survey data was supplemented by administrative data from the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) on the use of shelters and state rental assistance programs.

The ciliary protein cystin forms a regulatory complex with necdin to modulate Myc expression

Cystin is a novel cilia-associated protein that is disrupted in the cpk mouse, a well-characterized mouse model of autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPKD). Interestingly, overexpression of the Myc gene is evident in animal models of ARPKD and is thought to contribute to the renal cystic phenotype. Using a yeast two-hybrid approach, the growth suppressor protein necdin, known to modulate Myc expression, was found as an interacting partner of cystin. Deletion mapping demonstrated that the C-terminus of cystin and both termini of necdin are required for their mutual interaction. Speculating that these two proteins may function to regulate gene expression, we developed a luciferase reporter assay and observed that necdin strongly activated the Myc P1 promoter, and cystin did so more modestly. Interestingly, the necdin effect was significantly abrogated when cystin was co-transfected. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and electrophoretic mobility shift assays revealed a physical interaction with both necdin and cystin and the Myc P1 promoter, as well as between these proteins. The data suggest that these proteins likely function in a regulatory complex. Thus, we speculate that Myc overexpression in the cpk kidney results from the dysregulation of the cystin-necdin regulatory complex and c-Myc, in turn, contributes to cystogenesis in the cpk mouse

A nonradial bifurcation result with applications to supercritical problems

In this paper we consider the problem $-\Delta u=|x|^{\alpha} F(u)$ in $R^N$, with $\alpha>0$ and $N\ge3$. Under some assumptions on $F$ we deduce the existence of nonradial solutions which bifurcate from the radial one when $\alpha$ is an even integer.Comment: 20 page