Measurements of direct CP violation

We review the experimental searches and determinations of direct CP violation in meson decays and other systems.Comment: 115 pages, 19 figure

Palmitoylethanolamide is a disease-modifying agent in peripheral neuropathy : pain relief and neuroprotection share a PPAR-alpha-mediated mechanism

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Relationship of serum prolactin with severity of drug use and treatment outcome in cocaine dependence.

RATIONALE: Alteration in serum prolactin (PRL) levels may reflect changes in central dopamine activity, which modulates the behavioral effects of cocaine. Therefore, serum PRL may have a potential role as a biological marker of drug severity and treatment outcome in cocaine dependence. OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether serum PRL levels differed between cocaine-dependent (CD) subjects and controls, and whether PRL levels were associated with severity of drug use and treatment outcome in CD subjects. METHODS: Basal PRL concentrations were assayed in 141 African-American (AA) CD patients attending an outpatient treatment program and 60 AA controls. Severity of drug use was assessed using the Addiction Severity Index (ASI). Measures of abstinence and retention during 12 weeks of treatment and at 6-month follow-up were employed as outcome variables. RESULTS: The basal PRL (ng/ml) in CD patients (9.28+/-4.13) was significantly higher than controls (7.33+/-2.94) (t=3.77, P\u3c0.01). At baseline, PRL was positively correlated with ASI-drug (r=0.38, P\u3c0.01), ASI-alcohol (r=0.19, P\u3c0.05), and ASI-psychological (r=0.25, P\u3c0.01) composite scores, and with the quantity of cocaine use (r=0.18, P\u3c0.05). However, PRL levels were not significantly associated with number of negative urine screens, days in treatment, number of sessions attended, dropout rate or changes in ASI scores during treatment and at follow-up. Also, basal PRL did not significantly contribute toward the variance in predicting any of the outcome measures. CONCLUSION: Although cocaine use seems to influence PRL levels, it does not appear that PRL is a predictor of treatment outcome in cocaine dependence

de Sitter Vacua, Renormalization and Locality

We analyze the renormalization properties of quantum field theories in de Sitter space and show that only two of the maximally invariant vacuum states of free fields lead to consistent perturbation expansions. One is the Euclidean vacuum, and the other can be viewed as an analytic continuation of Euclidean functional integrals on $RP^d$. The corresponding Lorentzian manifold is the future half of global de Sitter space with boundary conditions on fields at the origin of time. We argue that the perturbation series in this case has divergences at the origin, which render the future evolution of the system indeterminate without a better understanding of high energy physics.Comment: JHEP Latex, 13 pages, v2. references adde

Spontaneous internal carotid artery rupture during neck dissection in osteogenesis imperfecta patient.

Several connective tissue disorders are associated with vascular wall abnormalities, including spontaneous dissection of the cervical arteries. Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a hereditary disorder, with rare neurovascular complications, which potentially lead to life-threatening events.We presented a case of spontaneous internal carotid artery (ICA) rupture that occurred in a 52-year-old-woman, suffering from OI type I, and who underwent a bilateral modified radical neck dissection (mRND) plus total thyroidectomy for a T4aN1b thyroid cancer. During mRND, an ICA's spontaneous rupture occurred.Histopathologic report suggested a structural defect of the arterial wall without cancer infiltration. The patient did not experience any neurologic complications.Head and neck surgeons have to be aware about early clinical recognition of possible cervical vascular abnormalities, in patients with connective tissue disorders, potentially responsible for dramatic vascular rupture during cervical surgical procedures

Large-N reduced models of supersymmetric quiver, Chern-Simons gauge theories and ABJM

Using the Eguchi-Kawai equivalence, we provide regularizations of supersymmetric quiver and Chern-Simons gauge theories which leave the supersymmetries unbroken. This allow us to study many interesting theories on a computer. As examples we construct large-$N$ reduced models of supersymmetric QCD with flavor and the ABJM model of multiple M2 branes.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures, references adde

Meta-Stable Supersymmetry Breaking in a Cooling Universe

We look at the recently proposed idea that susy breaking can be accomplished in a meta-stable vacuum. In the context of one of the simplest models (the Seiberg-dual of super-QCD), we address the following question: if we look at this theory as it cools from high temperature, is it at all possible that we can end up in a susy-breaking meta-stable vacuum? To get an idea about the answer, we look at the free energy of the system at high temperature. We conclude that the phase-structure of the free-energy as the temperature drops, is indeed such that there is a second order phase transition in the direction of the non-susy vacuum at a finite $T=T_c^Q$. On the other hand, the potential barrier in the direction of the susy vacuum is there all the way till $T \sim 0$.Comment: writing full author name

Flow synthesis and biological studies of an analgesic adamantane derivative that inhibits P2X7-evoked glutamate release

We report the biological evaluation of a class of adamantane derivatives, which were achieved via modified telescoped machine-assisted flow procedure. Among the series of compounds tested in this work, 5 demonstrated outstanding analgesic properties. This compound showed that its action was not mediated through direct interaction with opioid and/or cannabinoid receptors. Moreover, it did not display any significant anti-inflammatory properties. Experiments carried out on rat cerebrocortical purified synaptosomes indicated that 5 inhibits the P2X7-evoked glutamate release, which may contribute to its antinociceptive properties. Nevertheless, further experiments are ongoing to characterize the pharmacological properties and mechanism of action of this molecule

Recent NA48/2 and NA62 results

The NA48/2 Collaboration at CERN has accumulated and analysed unprecedented statistics of rare kaon decays in the $K_{e4}$ modes: $K_{e4}(+-)$ ($K^\pm \to \pi^+ \pi^- e^\pm \nu$) and $K_{e4}(00)$ ($K^\pm \to \pi^0 \pi^0 e^\pm \nu$) with nearly one percent background contamination. It leads to the improved measurement of branching fractions and detailed form factor studies. New final results from the analysis of 381 $K^\pm \to \pi^\pm \gamma \gamma$ rare decay candidates collected by the NA48/2 and NA62 experiments at CERN are presented. The results include a decay rate measurement and fits to Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) description.Comment: Prepared for the Proceedings of "Moriond QCD and High Energy Interactions. March 22-29 2014." conferenc