Creating semiclassical black holes in collider experiments and keeping them on a string

We argue that a simple modification of the TeV scale quantum gravity scenario allows production of semiclassical black holes in particle collisions at the LHC. The key idea is that in models with large extra dimensions the strength of gravity in the bulk can be higher than on the brane where we live. A well-known example of this situation is the case of warped extra dimensions. Even if the energy of the collision is not sufficient to create a black hole on the brane, it may be enough to produce a particle which accelerates into the bulk up to trans-Planckian energy and creates a large black hole there. In a concrete model we consider, the black hole is formed in a collision of the particle with its own image at an orbifold plane. When the particle in question carries some Standard Model gauge charges the created black hole gets attached to our brane by a string of the gauge flux. For a 4-dimensional observer such system looks as a long-lived charged state with the mass continuously decreasing due to Hawking evaporation of the black hole. This provides a distinctive signature of black hole formation in our scenario.Comment: Journal version, a misprint correcte

Spectacle lens fabrication in an optometric practice

Recently many of our classmates have asked questions concerning the actual set-up of an ophthalmic lens fabrication lab in an optometric practice. Our colleagues and peers not only want to know about feasibility, investment, space, equipment, and prices, but also how to perform the actual process of spectacle making. As graduating optometrists some of our classmates will enter into an association with an older established optometrist and some will go into solo practice. In either case one of their duties may be doing the actual lab work in spectacle fabrication. This is very common practice in the current optometric community. As more and more optometrists become involved with lab work, the need for a manual of this type is obvious. A literature search proved fruitless in obtaining any source that covers the breadth and scope of the edging process in its entirety. Optometric and optician\u27s publications sometimes deal with various aspects of the spectacle fabrication process, but we have found these to be too general and in the style of an overview or snapshot . We were unable to find any source containing the actual mechanisms involved. A previous research project involved a video tape of the edging process from a local laboratory, and was aimed toward explaining how the edging process is accomplished. We feel that the tape was good in that it oriented the viewer as to how this is done . However, the thrust of our project is to explain, step-by-step, how to edge lenses in an optometric office. The manual will be written from the perspective of How to do it , rather than how it is done . To our knowledge, this work will be the first of its kind, and will represent a compilation of technical information obtained from manufacturers of laboratory equipment, combined with textbook information, and original writings based on our training and experience as laboratory 1 opticians. The authors do not intend this manual to be a statement saying that professional optometrists should spend their time edging lenses. To the contrary, we feel that the optometrist should spend his/her time doing what he/she was trained to do, that is, providing vision care. If however, a spectacle fabrication lab is to be incorporated into an optometric practice, two things are necessary. First, the optometrist needs to know the processes involved as well as the equipment required in order to set up the lab. Second, he/she needs a working knowledge of the basic mechanics and procedures involved, in order to train personnel if necessary

Avian Resistance to Campylobacter jejuni Colonization Is Associated with an Intestinal Immunogene Expression Signature Identified by mRNA Sequencing

peer-reviewedThis research was funded by the The Irish Department of Agriculture and Food’s Food Institutional Research Measure (http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/ research/foodinstitutionalresearchmeasurefirm) – Grant No: 06_RDD_486.Campylobacter jejuni is the most common cause of human bacterial gastroenteritis and is associated with several post-infectious manifestations, including onset of the autoimmune neuropathy Guillain-Barré syndrome, causing significant morbidity and mortality. Poorly-cooked chicken meat is the most frequent source of infection as C. jejuni colonizes the avian intestine in a commensal relationship. However, not all chickens are equally colonized and resistance seems to be genetically determined. We hypothesize that differences in immune response may contribute to variation in colonization levels between susceptible and resistant birds. Using high-throughput sequencing in an avian infection model, we investigate gene expression associated with resistance or susceptibility to colonization of the gastrointestinal tract with C. jejuni and find that gut related immune mechanisms are critical for regulating colonization. Amongst a single population of 300 4-week old chickens, there was clear segregation in levels of C. jejuni colonization 48 hours post-exposure. RNAseq analysis of caecal tissue from 14 C. jejuni-susceptible and 14 C. jejuni-resistant birds generated over 363 million short mRNA sequences which were investigated to identify 219 differentially expressed genes. Significantly higher expression of genes involved in the innate immune response, cytokine signaling, B cell and T cell activation and immunoglobulin production, as well as the renin-angiotensin system was observed in resistant birds, suggesting an early active immune response to C. jejuni. Lower expression of these genes in colonized birds suggests suppression or inhibition of a clearing immune response thus facilitating commensal colonization and generating vectors for zoonotic transmission. This study describes biological processes regulating C. jejuni colonization of the avian intestine and gives insight into the differential immune mechanisms incited in response to commensal bacteria in general within vertebrate populations. The results reported here illustrate how an exaggerated immune response may be elicited in a subset of the population, which alters host-microbe interactions and inhibits the commensal state, therefore having wider relevance with regard to inflammatory and autoimmune disease

Bimodal Fluorescence-Magnetic Resonance Contrast Agent for Apoptosis Imaging

Effective cancer therapy largely depends on inducing apoptosis in cancer cells via chemotherapy and/or radiation. Monitoring apoptosis in real-time provides invaluable information for evaluating cancer therapy response and screening preclinical anticancer drugs. In this work, we describe the design, synthesis, characterization, and in vitro evaluation of caspase probe 1 (CP1), a bimodal fluorescence-magnetic resonance (FL-MR) probe that exhibits simultaneous FL-MR turn-on response to caspase-3/7. Both caspases exist as inactive zymogens in normal cells but are activated during apoptosis and are unique biomarkers for this process. CP1 has three distinct components: a DOTA-Gd­(III) chelate that provides the MR signal enhancement, tetraphenylethylene as the aggregation induced emission luminogen (AIEgen), and DEVD peptide which is a substrate for caspase-3/7. In response to caspase-3/7, the water-soluble peptide DEVD is cleaved and the remaining Gd­(III)-AIEgen (Gad-AIE) conjugate aggregates leading to increased FL-MR signals. CP1 exhibited sensitive and selective dual FL-MR turn-on response to caspase-3/7 in vitro and was successfully tested by fluorescence imaging of apoptotic cells. Remarkably, we were able to use the FL response of CP1 to quantify the exact concentrations of inactive and active agents and accurately predict the MR signal in vitro. We have demonstrated that the aggregation-driven FL-MR probe design is a unique method for MR signal quantification. This probe design platform can be adapted for a variety of different imaging targets, opening new and exciting avenues for multimodal molecular imaging

A review of Quantum Gravity at the Large Hadron Collider

The aim of this article is to review the recent developments in the phenomenology of quantum gravity at the Large Hadron Collider. We shall pay special attention to four-dimensional models which are able to lower the reduced Planck mass to the TeV region and compare them to models with a large extra-dimensional volume. We then turn our attention to reviewing the emission of gravitons (massless or massive) at the LHC and to the production of small quantum black holes.Comment: 32 pages, invited revie

The RMS Survey: Far-Infrared Photometry of Young Massive Stars

Context: The Red MSX Source (RMS) survey is a multi-wavelength campaign of follow-up observations of a colour-selected sample of candidate massive young stellar objects (MYSOs) in the galactic plane. This survey is returning the largest well-selected sample of MYSOs to date, while identifying other dust contaminant sources with similar mid-infrared colours including a large number of new ultra-compact (UC)HII regions. Aims:To measure the far-infrared (IR) flux, which lies near the peak of the spectral energy distribution (SED) of MYSOs and UCHII regions, so that, together with distance information, the luminosity of these sources can be obtained. Methods:Less than 50% of RMS sources are associated with IRAS point sources with detections at 60 micron and 100 micron, though the vast majority are visible in Spitzer MIPSGAL or IRAS Galaxy Atlas (IGA) images. However, standard aperture photometry is not appropriate for these data due to crowding of sources and strong spatially variable far-IR background emission in the galactic plane. A new technique using a 2-dimensional fit to the background in an annulus around each source is therefore used to obtain far-IR photometry for young RMS sources. Results:Far-IR fluxes are obtained for a total of 1113 RMS candidates identified as young sources. Of these 734 have flux measurements using IGA 60 micron and 100 micron images and 724 using MIPSGAL 70 micron images, with 345 having measurements in both data sets.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, 2 Tables, accepted to A&A. A full version of table 1 is available from the lead author or at the CDS upon publicatio

Long-Lived Neutralino NLSPs

We investigate the collider signatures of heavy, long-lived, neutral particles that decay to charged particles plus missing energy. Specifically, we focus on the case of a neutralino NLSP decaying to Z and gravitino within the context of General Gauge Mediation. We show that a combination of searches using the inner detector and the muon spectrometer yields a wide range of potential early LHC discoveries for NLSP lifetimes ranging from 10^(-1)-10^5 mm. We further show that events from Z(l+l-) can be used for detailed kinematic reconstruction, leading to accurate determinations of the neutralino mass and lifetime. In particular, we examine the prospects for detailed event study at ATLAS using the ECAL (making use of its timing and pointing capabilities) together with the TRT, or using the muon spectrometer alone. Finally, we also demonstrate that there is a region in parameter space where the Tevatron could potentially discover new physics in the delayed Z(l+l-)+MET channel. While our discussion centers on gauge mediation, many of the results apply to any scenario with a long-lived neutral particle decaying to charged particles.Comment: 31 pages, 12 figure

The Status of GMSB After 1/fb at the LHC

We thoroughly investigate the current status of supersymmetry in light of the latest searches at the LHC, using General Gauge Mediation (GGM) as a well-motivated signature generator that leads to many different simplified models. We consider all possible promptly-decaying NLSPs in GGM, and by carefully reinterpreting the existing LHC searches, we derive limits on both colored and electroweak SUSY production. Overall, the coverage of GGM parameter space is quite good, but much discovery potential still remains even at 7 TeV. We identify several regions of parameter space where the current searches are the weakest, typically in models with electroweak production, third generation sfermions or squeezed spectra, and we suggest how ATLAS and CMS might modify their search strategies given the understanding of GMSB at 1/fb. In particular, we propose the use of leptonic $M_{T2}$ to suppress $t{\bar t}$ backgrounds. Because we express our results in terms of simplified models, they have broader applicability beyond the GGM framework, and give a global view of the current LHC reach. Our results on 3rd generation squark NLSPs in particular can be viewed as setting direct limits on naturalness.Comment: 44 pages, refs added, typos fixed, improved MC statistics in fig 1

Embedded Star Formation in the Eagle Nebula with Spitzer/GLIMPSE

We present new Spitzer photometry of the Eagle Nebula (M16, containing the optical cluster NGC 6611) combined with near-infrared photometry from 2MASS. We use dust radiative transfer models, mid-infrared and near-infrared color-color analysis, and mid-infrared spectral indices to analyze point source spectral energy distributions, select candidate young stellar objects (YSOs), and constrain their mass and evolutionary state. Comparison of the different protostellar selection methods shows that mid-infrared methods are consistent, but as has been known for some time, near-infrared-only analysis misses some young objects. We reveal more than 400 protostellar candidates, including one massive young stellar object (YSO) that has not been previously highlighted. The YSO distribution supports a picture of distributed low-level star formation, with no strong evidence of triggered star formation in the ``pillars''. We confirm the youth of NGC 6611 by a large fraction of infrared-excess sources, and reveal a younger cluster of YSOs in the nearby molecular cloud. Analysis of the YSO clustering properties shows a possible imprint of the molecular cloud's Jeans length. Multiwavelength mid-IR imaging thus allows us to analyze the protostellar population, to measure the dust temperature and column density, and to relate these in a consistent picture of star formation in M16.Comment: 16p preprint - ApJ accepte

A Pyramid Scheme for Particle Physics

We introduce a new model, the Pyramid Scheme, of direct mediation of SUSY breaking, which is compatible with the idea of Cosmological SUSY Breaking (CSB). It uses the trinification scheme of grand unification and avoids problems with Landau poles in standard model gauge couplings. It also avoids problems, which have recently come to light, associated with rapid stellar cooling due to emission of the pseudo Nambu-Goldstone Boson (PNGB) of spontaneously broken hidden sector baryon number. With a certain pattern of R-symmetry breaking masses, a pattern more or less required by CSB, the Pyramid Scheme leads to a dark matter candidate that decays predominantly into leptons, with cross sections compatible with a variety of recent observations. The dark matter particle is not a thermal WIMP but a particle with new strong interactions, produced in the late decay of some other scalar, perhaps the superpartner of the QCD axion, with a reheat temperature in the TeV range. This is compatible with a variety of scenarios for baryogenesis, including some novel ones which exploit specific features of the Pyramid Scheme.Comment: JHEP Latex, 32 pages, 1 figur