Two experiments for the price of one? -- The role of the second oscillation maximum in long baseline neutrino experiments

We investigate the quantitative impact that data from the second oscillation maximum has on the performance of wide band beam neutrino oscillation experiments. We present results for the physics sensitivities to standard three flavor oscillation, as well as results for the sensitivity to non-standard interactions. The quantitative study is performed using an experimental setup similar to the Fermilab to DUSEL Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE). We find that, with the single exception of sensitivity to the mass hierarchy, the second maximum plays only a marginal role due to the experimental difficulties to obtain a statistically significant and sufficiently background-free event sample at low energies. This conclusion is valid for both water Cherenkov and liquid argon detectors. Moreover, we confirm that non-standard neutrino interactions are very hard to distinguish experimentally from standard three-flavor effects and can lead to a considerable loss of sensitivity to \theta_{13}, the mass hierarchy and CP violation.Comment: RevTex 4.1, 23 pages, 10 figures; v2: Typos corrected, very minor clarifications; matches published version; v3: Fixed a typo in the first equation in sec. III

Non-standard interactions versus non-unitary lepton flavor mixing at a neutrino factory

The impact of heavy mediators on neutrino oscillations is typically described by non-standard four-fermion interactions (NSIs) or non-unitarity (NU). We focus on leptonic dimension-six effective operators which do not produce charged lepton flavor violation. These operators lead to particular correlations among neutrino production, propagation, and detection non-standard effects. We point out that these NSIs and NU phenomenologically lead, in fact, to very similar effects for a neutrino factory, for completely different fundamental reasons. We discuss how the parameters and probabilities are related in this case, and compare the sensitivities. We demonstrate that the NSIs and NU can, in principle, be distinguished for large enough effects at the example of non-standard effects in the $\mu$-$\tau$-sector, which basically corresponds to differentiating between scalars and fermions as heavy mediators as leading order effect. However, we find that a near detector at superbeams could provide very synergistic information, since the correlation between source and matter NSIs is broken for hadronic neutrino production, while NU is a fundamental effect present at any experiment.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figures. Final version published in JHEP. v3: Typo in Eq. (27) correcte

Analysis of the Temporal Organization of Sleep Spindles in the Human Sleep EEG Using a Phenomenological Modeling Approach

The sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) is characterized by typical oscillatory patterns such as sleep spindles and slow waves. Recently, we proposed a method to detect and analyze these patterns using linear autoregressive models for short (≈ 1 s) data segments. We analyzed the temporal organization of sleep spindles and discuss to what extent the observed interevent intervals correspond to properties of stationary stochastic processes and whether additional slow processes, such as slow oscillations, have to be assumed. We have found evidence for such an additional slow process, most pronounced in sleep stage 2

Multi-step self-guided pathways for shape-changing metamaterials

Multi-step pathways, constituted of a sequence of reconfigurations, are central to a wide variety of natural and man-made systems. Such pathways autonomously execute in self-guided processes such as protein folding and self-assembly, but require external control in macroscopic mechanical systems, provided by, e.g., actuators in robotics or manual folding in origami. Here we introduce shape-changing mechanical metamaterials, that exhibit self-guided multi-step pathways in response to global uniform compression. Their design combines strongly nonlinear mechanical elements with a multimodal architecture that allows for a sequence of topological reconfigurations, i.e., modifications of the topology caused by the formation of internal self-contacts. We realized such metamaterials by digital manufacturing, and show that the pathway and final configuration can be controlled by rational design of the nonlinear mechanical elements. We furthermore demonstrate that self-contacts suppress pathway errors. Finally, we demonstrate how hierarchical architectures allow to extend the number of distinct reconfiguration steps. Our work establishes general principles for designing mechanical pathways, opening new avenues for self-folding media, pluripotent materials, and pliable devices in, e.g., stretchable electronics and soft robotics.Comment: 16 pages, 3 main figures, 10 extended data figures. See https://youtu.be/8m1QfkMFL0I for an explanatory vide

Stereotactic large-core needle breast biopsy: analysis of pain and discomfort related to the biopsy procedure

The purpose of this study was to determine the significance of variables such as duration of the procedure, type of breast tissue, number of passes, depth of the biopsies, underlying pathology, the operator performing the procedure, and their effect on women’s perception of pain and discomfort during stereotactic large-core needle breast biopsy. One hundred and fifty consecutive patients with a non-palpable suspicious mammographic lesions were included. Between three and nine 14-gauge breast passes were taken using a prone stereotactic table. Following the biopsy procedure, patients were asked to complete a questionnaire. There was no discomfort in lying on the prone table. There is no relation between type of breast lesion and pain, underlying pathology and pain and performing operator and pain. The type of breast tissue is correlated with pain experienced from biopsy (P = 0.0001). We found out that patients with dense breast tissue complain of more pain from biopsy than patients with more involution of breast tissue. The depth of the biopsy correlates with pain from biopsy (P = 0.0028). Deep lesions are more painful than superficial ones. There is a correlation between the number of passes and pain in the neck (P = 0.0188) and shoulder (P = 0.0366). The duration of the procedure is correlated with pain experienced in the neck (P = 0.0116) but not with pain experienced from biopsy

CP violation Beyond the MSSM: Baryogenesis and Electric Dipole Moments

We study electroweak baryogenesis and electric dipole moments in the presence of the two leading-order, non-renormalizable operators in the Higgs sector of the MSSM. Significant qualitative and quantitative differences from MSSM baryogenesis arise due to the presence of new CP-violating phases and to the relaxation of constraints on the supersymmetric spectrum (in particular, both stops can be light). We find: (1) spontaneous baryogenesis, driven by a change in the phase of the Higgs vevs across the bubble wall, becomes possible; (2) the top and stop CP-violating sources can become effective; (3) baryogenesis is viable in larger parts of parameter space, alleviating the well-known fine-tuning associated with MSSM baryogenesis. Nevertheless, electric dipole moments should be measured if experimental sensitivities are improved by about one order of magnitude.Comment: 33 pages, 6 figure

Increased proportion of nitric oxide synthase immunoreactive neurons in rat ileal myenteric ganglia after severe acute pancreatitis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) remains a potentially life-threatening disease. Gastrointestinal motility disturbance such as intestinal ileus is seen in every case. By now, the mechanisms of pancreatitis-induced ileus are largely unknown. The main purpose of the present study was to observe changes of nitric oxide synthase-immunoreactive (NOS-IR) neurons in ileal myenteric ganglia in SAP rats with gastrointestinal dysmotility, trying to explore underlying nervous mechanisms of pancreatitis-induced ileus.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Twenty Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into sham operated group and SAP group. SAP was induced by retrograde cholangiopancreatic duct injection of 5% sodium taurocholate. Abdominal X-ray and intestinal transit were performed to detect the existence of paralytic ileus and intestinal dysmotility. Pathological damage of pancreas was evaluated. Double-immunolabeling was employed for the whole-mount preparations of ileal myenteric ganglia. The morphology of NOS-IR neurons were observed and the percentage of NOS-IR neurons was calculated based on the total Hu-immunoreactive neurons. Total RNA of ileum was extracted according to Trizol reagent protocol. Neuronal NOS (nNOS) mRNA expression was evaluated by RT-PCR.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The small intestinal transit index in the SAP group was significantly lower compared with the sham operated group (29.21 ± 3.68% vs 52.48 ± 6.76%, <it>P <</it>0.01). The percentage of NOS-IR neurons in ileal myenteric ganglia in the SAP group was significantly higher than that in the sham operated group (37.5 ± 12.28% vs 26.32 ± 16.15%, <it>P <</it>0.01). nNOS mRNA expression in ileum of SAP group was significantly higher than that in the sham operated group (1.02 ± 0.10 vs 0.70 ± 0.06, <it>P </it>< 0.01).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The increased quantity of NOS-IR neurons in ileal myenteric ganglia and increased nNOS mRNA expression may suggest nNOS over expression as one of the nervous mechanisms of gastrointestinal dysmotility in SAP rat.</p

UNCLES: Method for the identification of genes differentially consistently co-expressed in a specific subset of datasets

Background: Collective analysis of the increasingly emerging gene expression datasets are required. The recently proposed binarisation of consensus partition matrices (Bi-CoPaM) method can combine clustering results from multiple datasets to identify the subsets of genes which are consistently co-expressed in all of the provided datasets in a tuneable manner. However, results validation and parameter setting are issues that complicate the design of such methods. Moreover, although it is a common practice to test methods by application to synthetic datasets, the mathematical models used to synthesise such datasets are usually based on approximations which may not always be sufficiently representative of real datasets. Results: Here, we propose an unsupervised method for the unification of clustering results from multiple datasets using external specifications (UNCLES). This method has the ability to identify the subsets of genes consistently co-expressed in a subset of datasets while being poorly co-expressed in another subset of datasets, and to identify the subsets of genes consistently co-expressed in all given datasets. We also propose the M-N scatter plots validation technique and adopt it to set the parameters of UNCLES, such as the number of clusters, automatically. Additionally, we propose an approach for the synthesis of gene expression datasets using real data profiles in a way which combines the ground-truth-knowledge of synthetic data and the realistic expression values of real data, and therefore overcomes the problem of faithfulness of synthetic expression data modelling. By application to those datasets, we validate UNCLES while comparing it with other conventional clustering methods, and of particular relevance, biclustering methods. We further validate UNCLES by application to a set of 14 real genome-wide yeast datasets as it produces focused clusters that conform well to known biological facts. Furthermore, in-silico-based hypotheses regarding the function of a few previously unknown genes in those focused clusters are drawn. Conclusions: The UNCLES method, the M-N scatter plots technique, and the expression data synthesis approach will have wide application for the comprehensive analysis of genomic and other sources of multiple complex biological datasets. Moreover, the derived in-silico-based biological hypotheses represent subjects for future functional studies.The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grants for Applied Research Programme (Grant Reference Number RP-PG-0310-1004)

Non-Standard Interactions at a Neutrino Factory: Correlations and CP violation

We explore the potential of several Neutrino Factory (NF) setups to constrain, discover and measure new physics effects due to Non-Standard Interactions (NSI) in propagation through Earth matter. We first study the impact of NSI in the measurement of $\theta_{13}$: we find that these could be large due to strong correlations of $\theta_{13}$ with NSI parameters in the golden channel, and the inclusion of a detector at the magic baseline is crucial in order to reduce them as much as possible. We present, then, the sensitivity of the considered NF setups to the NSI parameters, paying special attention to correlations arising between them and the standard oscillation parameters, when all NSI parameters are introduced at once. Off-diagonal NSI parameters could be tested down to the level of $10^{-3}$, whereas the diagonal combinations $(\epsilon_{ee} - \epsilon_{\tau\tau})$ and $(\epsilon_{\mu\mu}-\epsilon_{\tau\tau})$ can be tested down to $10^{-1}$ and $10^{-2}$, respectively. The possibilities of observing CP violation in this context are also explored, by presenting a first scan of the CP discovery potential of the NF setups to the phases $\phi_{e\mu}, \phi_{e\tau}$ and $\delta$. We study separately the case where CP violation comes only from non-standard sources, and the case where it is entangled with the standard source, $\delta$. In case $\delta$ turns out to be CP conserving, the interesting possibility of observing CP violation for reasonably small values of the NSI parameters emerges.Comment: Final note added. 38 pages, 11 figure

An ultraviolet-optical flare from the tidal disruption of a helium-rich stellar core

The flare of radiation from the tidal disruption and accretion of a star can be used as a marker for supermassive black holes that otherwise lie dormant and undetected in the centres of distant galaxies. Previous candidate flares have had declining light curves in good agreement with expectations, but with poor constraints on the time of disruption and the type of star disrupted, because the rising emission was not observed. Recently, two `relativistic' candidate tidal disruption events were discovered, each of whose extreme X-ray luminosity and synchrotron radio emission were interpreted as the onset of emission from a relativistic jet. Here we report the discovery of a luminous ultraviolet-optical flare from the nuclear region of an inactive galaxy at a redshift of 0.1696. The observed continuum is cooler than expected for a simple accreting debris disk, but the well-sampled rise and decline of its light curve follows the predicted mass accretion rate, and can be modelled to determine the time of disruption to an accuracy of two days. The black hole has a mass of about 2 million solar masses, modulo a factor dependent on the mass and radius of the star disrupted. On the basis of the spectroscopic signature of ionized helium from the unbound debris, we determine that the disrupted star was a helium-rich stellar core.Comment: To appear in Nature on May 10, 201