393 research outputs found
Scotogenic Neutrino Model for Nonzero and Large
Assuming that neutrinos acquire radiative seesaw Majorana masses through
their interactions with dark matter, i.e. scotogenic from the Greek 'scotos'
meaning darkness, and using the non-Abelian discrete symmetry , we propose
a model of neutrino masses and mixing with nonzero and
necessarily large leptonic CP violation, allowing both the normal and inverted
hierarchies of neutrino masses, as well as quasi-degenerate solutions.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure
Talking past each other: Conceptual confusion in ‘culture’ and ‘psychopathology’
This article offers a commentary on Hassim and Wagner's article, Considering the cultural context in psychopathology formulations, published in this issue of the South African Journal of Psychiatry (http://dx.doi.org/10.7196/SAJP.400). It clarifies aspects of the concepts of culture and psychopathology. A distinction is drawn between the content of culture and the demarcation of cultures. The former refers to socially acquired meanings and significances that condition subjective experience and the latter to specific, demarcated cultural groups. It is argued that these two meanings of culture must be kept apart, and that only the former is relevant to the project of understanding the range of cultural influences on mental health problems. This is premised on the idea, arising partially from anthropological critique, that while cultural designations (e.g. Maori or Muslim) might serve as important political and identity markers, they obscure rather than reveal the actual influences the subject is exposed to, and which condition subjective experience as seen through the modulation of distress or symptom formation
Radiative Scaling Neutrino Mass with Symmetry
A new idea for neutrino mass was proposed recently, where its smallness is
not due to the seesaw mechanism, i.e. not inversely proportional to some large
mass scale. It comes from a one-loop mechanism with dark matter in the loop
consisting of singlet Majorana fermions with masses of order 10 keV and
neutrino masses are scaled down from them by factors of about . We
discuss how this model may be implemented with the non-Abelian discrete
symmetry for neutrino mixing, and consider the phenomenology of as
well as the extra scalar doublet .Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur
In Defense of Madness: The Problem of Disability
At a time when different groups in society are achieving notable gains in respect and rights, activists in mental health and proponents of mad positive approaches, such as Mad Pride, are coming up against considerable challenges. A particular issue is the commonly held view that madness is inherently disabling and cannot form the grounds for identity or culture. This paper responds to the challenge by developing two bulwarks against the tendency to assume too readily the view that madness is inherently disabling: the first arises from the normative nature of disability judgments, and the second arises from the implications of political activism in terms of being a social subject. In the process of arguing for these two bulwarks, the paper explores the basic structure of the social model of disability in the context of debates on naturalism and normativism, the applicability of the social model to madness, and the difference between physical and mental disabilities in terms of the unintelligibility often attributed to the latter
The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Undergraduate Students’ Interest in the STEM Field
The deadly consequences of COVID-19 have been well documented, as have the social, emotional, and cognitive effects. These sequelae extend to the educational system. Much less investigated have been the potential positive outcomes of the pandemic. Given that STEM education relies heavily on hands-on laboratory experiences, STEM students may have been especially impacted by pandemic-imposed remote instruction. We surveyed 392 students at one liberal arts college querying why they continue studying in STEM or leave the STEM disciplines. Because the literature indicates that people of color and those from lower socioeconomic groups were more negatively affected by COVID-19, we hypothesized that students from traditionally marginalized groups in STEM would report greater adverse educational consequences of the pandemic as well; however, this was not borne out by the findings. Across demographic groups, students reported negative impacts of COVID-19, although in a few areas we found that more traditionally “privileged” groups complained of more negative outcomes than traditionally marginalized students did. What was most novel and dramatic in our results were the positive outcomes of the “lockdown” reported by students. These beneficial results were in the areas of enhanced resilience, improved social relationships, greater opportunities, academic improvement, and better mental health. Our paper concludes with recommendations for addressing the negative outcomes of COVID-19 and remote instruction, and for taking advantage of the unexpected positive effects
COVID-19 is Not All Bad News: Negative and Surprisingly Positive Reports from College STEM Students and Implications for STEM Instruction
The negative educational consequences of COVID-19 are well documented. Much less investigated have been any potential positive outcomes of the pandemic. We surveyed 392 students at one college querying why they continue studying STEM or leave the STEM disciplines and about the effects of COVID-19 on their education. STEM students may have been especially impacted by pandemic-imposed remote instruction given STEM’s reliance on hands-on laboratory experiences. Because the literature indicates that people of color and those from lower socioeconomic groups were more negatively affected by COVID-19, we hypothesized that students from these groups would report greater adverse educational consequences of the pandemic; however, this was not borne out by our findings. Across demographic groups, students reported negative impacts of COVID-19, although in a few areas we found that more traditionally “privileged” groups complained of more negative outcomes than traditionally “marginalized” students did. Most novel and dramatic in our results were the positive outcomes of the “lockdown” reported by students in the areas of enhanced resilience, improved social relationships, greater opportunities, academic improvement, and better mental health. We conclude with recommendations for addressing the negative outcomes of COVID-19 and remote instruction, and for taking advantage of the unexpected positive effects
Deviation from Tri-Bimaximal Mixing and Large Reactor Mixing Angle
Recent observations for a non-zero have come from various
experiments. We study a model of lepton mixing with a 2-3 flavor symmetry to
accommodate the sizable measurement. In this work, we derive
deviations from the tri-bimaximal (TBM) pattern arising from breaking the
flavor symmetry in the neutrino sector, while the charged leptons contribution
has been discussed in a previous work. Contributions from both sectors towards
accommodating the non-zero measurement are presented.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1109.232
Clinically Applicable Machine Learning Approaches to Identify Attributes of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) for Use in Low-Cost Diagnostic Screening.
OBJECTIVE: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a major public health concern worldwide. High costs of late-stage diagnosis and insufficient testing facilities can contribute to high morbidity and mortality rates in CKD patients, particularly in less developed countries. Thus, early diagnosis aided by vital parameter analytics using affordable computer-aided diagnosis could not only reduce diagnosis costs but improve patient management and outcomes. METHODS: In this study, we developed machine learning models using selective key pathological categories to identify clinical test attributes that will aid in accurate early diagnosis of CKD. Such an approach will save time and costs for diagnostic screening. We have also evaluated the performance of several classifiers with k-fold cross-validation on optimized datasets derived using these selected clinical test attributes. RESULTS: Our results suggest that the optimized datasets with important attributes perform well in diagnosis of CKD using our proposed machine learning models. Furthermore, we evaluated clinical test attributes based on urine and blood tests along with clinical parameters that have low costs of acquisition. The predictive models with the optimized and pathologically categorized attributes set yielded high levels of CKD diagnosis accuracy with random forest (RF) classifier being the best performing. CONCLUSIONS: Our machine learning approach has yielded effective predictive analytics for CKD screening which can be developed as a resource to facilitate improved CKD screening for enhanced and timely treatment plans
SU(3) Gauge Family Symmetry and Prediction for the Lepton-Flavor Mixing and Neutrino Masses with Maximal Spontaneous CP Violation
A model for the lepton-flavor mixing and CP violation is proposed based on
the SU(3) gauge family symmetry and the Majorana feature of neutrinos. A
consistent prediction for the lepton-flavor mixing and masses is shown to be
resulted from the appropriate vacuum structure of SU(3) gauge symmetry
breaking. By choosing the SU(3) gauge fixing condition to possess a
residual symmetry and requiring the vacuum structure of spontaneous
symmetry breaking to have approximate global U(1) family symmetries, we obtain
naturally the tri-bimaximal mixing matrix and largely degenerate neutrino
masses in the neutrino sector and the small mixing matrix in the charged-lepton
sector. With a simple ansatz that all the smallness due to the approximate
global U(1) family symmetries is characterized by a single Wolfenstein
parameter , and the charged-lepton mixing matrix has a
similar hierarchy structure as the CKM quark mixing matrix, we arrive at a
consistent prediction for the MNSP lepton-flavor mixing with a maximal
spontaneous CP violation: , (),
and
, which agree well
with the current experimental data. The CP-violating Jarlskog-invariant is
obtained to be , which is detectable in next generation neutrino experiment. The
largely degenerate neutrino masses with the normal hierarchy and inverse
hierarchy are discussed and found be at the order eV with a total mass eV, which is testable in future precision astrophysics and cosmology.Comment: 14 pages, it is explicitly shown that the smallness for both the
charged-lepton mixing and neutrino masses with the standard seesaw mechanism
can naturally be explained by the approximate global U(1) family symmetries
of vacuum structure in the SU(3) gauge family model, references added,
published version in PL
TFH Mixing Patterns, Large and Flavor Symmetry
We perform a comprehensive analysis of the Toorop-Feruglio-Hagedorn (TFH)
mixing patterns within the family symmetry . The general neutrino
mass matrix for the TFH mixing and its symmetry properties are investigated.
The possible realizations of the TFH mixing in are analyzed in the
minimalist approach. We propose two dynamical models which produce the TFH
mixing patterns at leading order. The full flavor symmetries are
and
respectively. The next to leading order terms introduce corrections of order
to the three mixing angles in both models. The allowed mixing
patterns are studied under the condition that the Klein four subgroups and the
cyclic subgroups with are preserved in the neutrino and the
charged lepton sector respectively. We suggest that the deformed tri-bimaximal
mixing is a good leading order approximation to understanding a largish reactor
angle.Comment: 43 pages, 2 figure
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