Neutrino Phenomenology, Dark Energy and Leptogenesis from pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone Bosons

We consider a model of dynamical neutrino masses via the see-saw mechanism. Nambu-Goldstone bosons (majorons) arise associated with the formation of the heavy right-handed majorana masses. These bosons then acquire naturally soft masses (become pNGB's) at loop level via the Higgs-Yukawa mass terms. These models, like the original neutrino pNGB quintessence schemes of the 1980's that proceed through the Dirac masses, are natural, have cosmological implications through mass varying neutrinos, long range forces, and provide a soft potential for dark energy. We further argue that these models can explain leptogenesis naturally through the decays of the right-handed neutrinos.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

The utility of multiparametric seven-color flow cytometry in the detection of double hit lymphoma in ascitic fluid samples.

Double-hit lymphoma (DHL) is a rare type of lymphoma with concurrent chromosomal translocations of C-MYC with BCL2 or BCL6, associated with unfavorable prognosis. We describe a case of DHL in a 79-year-old female patient previously diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) with an early relapse in the ascitic fluid. A seven-color multiparametric flow cytometry immunophenotyping study of the ascitic fluid was carried out, and revealed 99.78% of large in size and high cellular complexity B-cells positive for CD19, CD10 (64.27%), CD45 dim, CD22 dim, CD25 (60%), CD43 bright, CD38 bright, and IgM (18.53%); and negative for CD20, CD5, CD23, CD79b, CD103, CD200, CD11c, and FMC7, and 78.99% without light chain expression and 21% with Lambda chain restriction. Due to the expression of CD19 and CD10 with overexpression of BCL-2 protein and due to CD43 and CD38 positivity detected, those cells showed features between DLBCL and Burkitt lymphoma. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) confirmed both c-MYC/IGH and BCL2/IGH rearrangement. Our findings may help to identify cases requiring additional cytogenetic analysis. © 2015 International Clinical Cytometry Society.S

Use of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs That Elevate Cardiovascular Risk: An Examination of Sales and Essential Medicines Lists in Low-, Middle-, and High-Income Countries

PMCID: PMC3570554This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Choosing and using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in haemophilia

The management of pain and inflammation in haemophilic arthropathy is challenging due to the lack of anti-inflammatory analgesic agents perfectly suitable for this population. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are widely used in the management of arthritis due to their analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects. Their use in persons with haemophilia (PWH), however, is limited due to increased risk of bleeding mainly from the upper gastrointestinal (UGI) tract. Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) selective NSAIDs which have comparable analgesic effect to traditional NSAIDs (tNSAIDs) but with less UGI bleeding have been considered to be a suitable option for treatment of haemophilic arthropathy. COX-2 inhibitors, however, have an increased in the risk of cardiovascular (CV) disease. Although the atherosclerotic burden in PWH is similar to that in the general population, the risk of CV-related deaths is lower. PWH have a higher risk of GI bleeding and lower risk of thrombotic disease compared to general population. Therefore, when PWH require anti-inflammatory/analgesic agents, it seems reasonable to use lowest dose of COX-2 inhibitors for the shortest period together with a proton pump inhibitor. Helicobacter pylori infection should be tested for and eradicated prior to starting NSAID treatment in PWH. Furthermore, regular blood pressure and renal function test monitoring is required during COX-2 inhibitor treatment

Achievement of treatment goals for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in clinical practice across Europe: the EURIKA study

Aims: Most studies on the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) have been limited to patients at high CVD risk. We assessed the achievement of treatment goals for CVD risk factors among patients with a substantial variation in CVD risk. Methods and results: This study was conducted with 7641 outpatients aged ≥50 years, free of clinical CVD and with at least one major CVD risk factor, selected from 12 European countries in 2009. Risk factor definition and treatment goals were based on the 2007 European guidelines on CVD prevention. Cholesterol fractions and glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) were measured in a central laboratory. Cardiovascular disease risk was estimated with the SCORE equation. Patients' mean age was 63 years (48% men), and 40.1% had a high CVD risk. Among treated hypertensives (94.2%), only 38.8% achieved the blood pressure target of <140/90 mmHg [between-country range (BCR): 32.1–47.5%]. Among treated dyslipidaemic patients (74.4%), 41.2% attained both the total- and LDL-cholesterol target of <5 and <3 mmol/L, respectively (BCR: 24.3–68.4%). Among treated type 2 diabetic patients (87.2%), 36.7% achieved the <6.5% HbA1c target (BCR: 23.4–48.4%). Among obese patients on non-pharmacological treatment (92.2%), 24.7% reached the body mass index target of <30 kg/m2 (BCR: 12.7–37.1%). About one-third of controlled patients on treatment were still at high remaining CVD risk. Although most patients were advised to reduce excess weight and to follow a low-calorie diet, less than half received written recommendations. Conclusions: In Europe, a large proportion of patients in primary prevention have CVD risk factors that remain uncontrolled, and lifestyle counselling is not well implemented; moreover, there is substantial between-country variation, which indicates additional room for improvement. Raised residual CVD risk is relatively frequent among patients despite control of their primary risk factors and should be addressed

Dark Matter Candidates: A Ten-Point Test

An extraordinarily rich zoo of non-baryonic Dark Matter candidates has been proposed over the last three decades. Here we present a 10-point test that a new particle has to pass, in order to be considered a viable DM candidate: I.) Does it match the appropriate relic density? II.) Is it {\it cold}? III.) Is it neutral? IV.) Is it consistent with BBN? V.) Does it leave stellar evolution unchanged? VI.) Is it compatible with constraints on self-interactions? VII.) Is it consistent with {\it direct} DM searches? VIII.) Is it compatible with gamma-ray constraints? IX.) Is it compatible with other astrophysical bounds? X.) Can it be probed experimentally?Comment: 29 pages, 12 figure

Numerical Approaches to Spacetime Singularities

This Living Review updates a previous version which its itself an update of a review article. Numerical exploration of the properties of singularities could, in principle, yield detailed understanding of their nature in physically realistic cases. Examples of numerical investigations into the formation of naked singularities, critical behavior in collapse, passage through the Cauchy horizon, chaos of the Mixmaster singularity, and singularities in spatially inhomogeneous cosmologies are discussed.Comment: 51 pages, 6 figures may be found in online version: Living Rev. Relativity 2002-1 at www.livingreviews.or

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto- noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far

Phenomenology of the Higgs effective Lagrangian via FeynRules

The Higgs discovery and the lack of any other hint for new physics favor a description of non-standard Higgs physics in terms of an effective field theory. We present an implementation of a general Higgs effective Lagrangian containing operators up to dimension six in the framework of FeynRules and provide details on the translation between the mass and interaction bases, in particular for three- and four-point interaction vertices involving Higgs and gauge bosons. We illustrate the strengths of this implementation by using the UFO interface of FeynRules capable to generate model files that can be understood by the MadGraph 5 event generator and that have the specificity to contain all interaction vertices, without any restriction on the number of external legs or on the complexity of the Lorentz structures. We then investigate several new physics effects in total rates and differential distributions for different Higgs production modes, including gluon fusion, associated production with a gauge boson and di-Higgs production. We finally study contact interactions of gauge and Higgs bosons to fermions