155 research outputs found
Idiomatic expressions evoke stronger emotional responses in the brain than literal sentences
Recent neuroscientific research shows that metaphors engage readers at the emotional level more strongly than literal expressions. What still remains unclear is what makes metaphors more engaging, and whether this generalises to all figurative expressions, no matter how conventionalised they are. This fMRI study aimed to investigate whether idiomatic expressions - the least creative part of figurative language - indeed trigger a higher affective resonance than literal expressions, and to explore possible interactions between activation in emotion-relevant neural structures and regions associated with figurative language processing. Participants silently read for comprehension a set of emotionally positive, negative and neutral idioms embedded in short sentences, and similarly valenced literal sentences. As in studies on metaphors, we found enhanced activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus and left amygdala in response to idioms, indexing stronger recruitment of executive control functions and enhanced emotional engagement, respectively. This suggests that the comprehension of even highly conventionalised and familiar figurative expressions, namely idioms, recruits regions involved in emotional processing. Furthermore, increased activation of the IFG interacted positively with activation in the amygdala, suggesting that the stronger cognitive engagement driven by idioms may in turn be coupled with stronger involvement at the emotional level
Dirac gaugino as leptophilic dark matter
We investigate the leptophilic properties of Dirac gauginos in an
R--symmetric N=2 supersymmetric model with extended gauge and Higgs sectors.
The annihilation of Dirac gauginos to leptons requires no chirality flip in the
final states so that it is not suppressed as in the Majorana case. This implies
that it can be sizable enough to explain the positron excess observed by the
PAMELA experiment with moderate or no boost factors. When squark masses are
heavy, the annihilation of Dirac gauginos to hadrons is controlled by their
Higgsino fraction and is driven by the and final states.
Moreover, at variance with the Majorana case, Dirac gauginos with a
non-vanishing higgsino fraction can also have a vector coupling with the
gauge boson leading to a sizable spin--independent scattering cross section off
nuclei. Saturating the current antiproton limit, we show that Dirac gauginos
can leave a signal in direct detection experiments at the level of the
sensitivity of dark matter searches at present and in the near future.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, typos corrected, final version published on
JCA
Can lepton flavor violating interactions explain the LSND results?
If the atmospheric and the solar neutrino problem are both explained by
neutrino oscillations, and if there are only three light neutrinos, then all
mass-squared differences between the neutrinos are known. In such a case,
existing terrestrial neutrino oscillation experiments cannot be significantly
affected by neutrino oscillations, but, in principle there could be an anomaly
in the neutrino flux due to new neutrino interactions. We discuss how a
non-standard muon decay would modify the
neutrino production processes of these experiments. Since violation
is small for New Physics above the weak scale one can use related
flavor-violating charged lepton processes to constrain these decays in a model
independent way. We show that the upper bounds on ,
muonium-antimuonium conversion and rule out any observable
effect for the present experiments due to
for , respectively. Applying similar arguments to
flavor-changing semi-leptonic reactions we exclude the possibility that the
"oscillation signals" observed at LSND are due to flavor-changing interactions
that conserve total lepton number.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, Latex; minor correction
On the construction of wear maps for Y-TZP dental ceramics in aqueous environments : pH, exposure time and impact angle effects
The purpose of this study was to test in-vitro the micro and nano tribological properties of Y-TZP (Yttria Tetragonal Zirconia Polycrystalline) material used in the construction of artificial teeth or dental crowns. The results showed that the effect of pH was to accelerate the wear rate of the Y-TZP material. However, this phenomenon was more apparent in acid than in alkaline environments. Wear maps were constructed based on the results identifying wastage regimes for the material in the erosion-corrosion conditions at a range of impact angles. In addition, a wear map was generated based on the transition from tetragonal to monoclininc phase for the material and the transition to high wear at various pHs and exposure times
Phenomenology of flavor-mediated supersymmetry breaking
The phenomenology of a new economical SUSY model that utilizes dynamical SUSY
breaking and gauge-mediation (GM) for the generation of the sparticle spectrum
and the hierarchy of fermion masses is discussed. Similarities between the
communication of SUSY breaking through a messenger sector, and the generation
of flavor using the Froggatt-Nielsen (FN) mechanism are exploited, leading to
the identification of vector-like messenger fields with FN fields, and the
messenger U(1) as a flavor symmetry. An immediate consequence is that the first
and second generation scalars acquire flavor-dependent masses, but do not
violate FCNC bounds since their mass scale, consistent with effective SUSY, is
of order 10 TeV. We define and advocate a minimal flavor-mediated model (MFMM),
recently introduced in the literature, that successfully accommodates the small
flavor-breaking parameters of the standard model using order one couplings and
ratios of flavon field vevs. The mediation of SUSY breaking occurs via two-loop
log-enhanced GM contributions, as well as several one-loop and two-loop
Yukawa-mediated contributions for which we provide analytical expressions. The
MFMM is parameterized by a small set of masses and couplings, with values
restricted by several model constraints and experimental data. The
next-to-lightest sparticle (NLSP) always has a decay length that is larger than
the scale of a detector, and is either the lightest stau or the lightest
neutralino. Similar to ordinary GM models, the best collider search strategies
are, respectively, inclusive production of at least one highly ionizing track,
or events with many taus plus missing energy. In addition, D^0 - \bar{D}^0
mixing is also a generic low energy signal. Finally, the dynamical generation
of the neutrino masses is briefly discussed.Comment: 54 pages, LaTeX, 8 figure
Phase Stability Effects on Hydrogen Embrittlement Resistance in MartensiteâReverted Austenite Steels
Earlier studies have shown that interlath austenite in martensitic steels can enhance hydrogen embrittlement (HE) resistance. However, the improvements were limited due to microcrack nucleation and growth. A novel microstructural design approach is investigated, based on enhancing austenite stability to reduce crack nucleation and growth. Our findings from mechanical tests, X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy reveal that this strategy is successful. However, the improvements are limited due to intrinsic microstructural heterogeneity effects
Inotuzumab ozogamicin in pediatric patients with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia
Although inotuzumab ozogamicin (InO) is recognized as an effective agent in relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)
in adults, data on safety and efficacy in pediatric patients are scarce. We report the use of InO in 51 children with relapsed/
refractory ALL treated in the compassionate use program. In this heavily pretreated cohort, complete remission was achieved
in 67% of patients with overt marrow disease. The majority (71%) of responders were negative for minimal residual disease.
Responses were observed irrespective of cytogenetic subtype or number or type of prior treatment regimens. InO was welltolerated; grade 3 hepatic transaminitis or hyperbilirubinemia were noted in 6 (12%) and grade 3/4 infections in 11 (22%)
patients. No patient developed sinusoidal obstruction syndrome (SOS) during InO therapy; however, 11 of 21 (52%) patients
who underwent hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) following InO developed SOS. Downregulation of surface
CD22 was detected as a possible escape mechanism in three patients who developed a subsequent relapse after InO. We
conclude that InO is a well-tolerated, effective therapy for children with relapsed ALL and prospective studies are warranted.
Identification of risk factors for developing post-HSCT SOS and strategies to mitigate this risk are ongoing
Frataxin deficiency promotes endothelial senescence in pulmonary hypertension
The dynamic regulation of endothelial pathophenotypes in pulmonary hypertension (PH) remains undefined. Cellular senescence is linked to PH with intracardiac shunts; however, its regulation across PH subtypes is unknown. Since endothelial deficiency of iron-sulfur (Fe-S) clusters is pathogenic in PH, we hypothesized that a Fe-S biogenesis protein, frataxin (FXN), controls endothelial senescence. An endothelial subpopulation in rodent and patient lungs across PH subtypes exhibited reduced FXN and elevated senescence. In vitro, hypoxic and inflammatory FXN deficiency abrogated activity of endothelial Fe-Sâcontaining polymerases, promoting replication stress, DNA damage response, and senescence. This was also observed in stem cellâderived endothelial cells from Friedreichâs ataxia (FRDA), a genetic disease of FXN deficiency, ataxia, and cardiomyopathy, often with PH. In vivo, FXN deficiencyâdependent senescence drove vessel inflammation, remodeling, and PH, whereas pharmacologic removal of senescent cells in Fxn-deficient rodents ameliorated PH. These data offer a model of endothelial biology in PH, where FXN deficiency generates a senescent endothelial subpopulation, promoting vascular inflammatory and proliferative signals in other cells to drive disease. These findings also establish an endothelial etiology for PH in FRDA and left heart disease and support therapeutic development of senolytic drugs, reversing effects of Fe-S deficiency across PH subtypes
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