Structure of dimension-six derivative interactions in pseudo Nambu-Goldstone N Higgs doublet models

We derive the general structure of dimension-six derivative interactions in the N Higgs doublet models, where Higgs fields arise as pseudo Nambu-Goldstone modes of a strongly interacting sector. We show that there are several relations among the dimension-six operators, and therefore the number of independent operators decreases compared with models on which only SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y invariance is imposed. As an explicit example, we derive scattering amplitudes of longitudinal gauge bosons and Higgs bosons at high energy on models involving two Higgs doublets, and compare them with the amplitudes in the case of one Higgs doublet.Comment: 49 pages, 10 figure

Improved Measurements of RNA Structure Conservation with Generalized Centroid Estimators

Identification of non-protein-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) in genomes is a crucial task for not only molecular cell biology but also bioinformatics. Secondary structures of ncRNAs are employed as a key feature of ncRNA analysis since biological functions of ncRNAs are deeply related to their secondary structures. Although the minimum free energy (MFE) structure of an RNA sequence is regarded as the most stable structure, MFE alone could not be an appropriate measure for identifying ncRNAs since the free energy is heavily biased by the nucleotide composition. Therefore, instead of MFE itself, several alternative measures for identifying ncRNAs have been proposed such as the structure conservation index (SCI) and the base pair distance (BPD), both of which employ MFE structures. However, these measurements are unfortunately not suitable for identifying ncRNAs in some cases including the genome-wide search and incur high false discovery rate. In this study, we propose improved measurements based on SCI and BPD, applying generalized centroid estimators to incorporate the robustness against low quality multiple alignments. Our experiments show that our proposed methods achieve higher accuracy than the original SCI and BPD for not only human-curated structural alignments but also low quality alignments produced by CLUSTAL W. Furthermore, the centroid-based SCI on CLUSTAL W alignments is more accurate than or comparable with that of the original SCI on structural alignments generated with RAF, a high quality structural aligner, for which twofold expensive computational time is required on average. We conclude that our methods are more suitable for genome-wide alignments which are of low quality from the point of view on secondary structures than the original SCI and BPD

Association of body temperature with in-hospital mortality among paediatric trauma patients: An analysis of a nationwide observational trauma database in Japan

Okada A, Okada Y, Narumiya H, et alAssociation of body temperature with in-hospital mortality among paediatric trauma patients: an analysis of a nationwide observational trauma database in JapanBMJ Open 2020;10:e033822. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-033822

Abnormalities of the First Three Steps of Gait Initiation in Patients with Parkinson's Disease with Freezing of Gait

The purpose of this study was to investigate abnormalities of the first three steps of gait initiation in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) with freezing of gait (FOG). Ten PD patients with FOG and 10 age-matched healthy controls performed self-generated gait initiation. The center of pressure (COP), heel contact positions, and spatiotemporal parameters were estimated from the vertical pressures on the surface of the force platform. The initial swing side of gait initiation was consistent among the trials in healthy controls but not among the trials in PD patients. The COP and the heel contact position deviated to the initial swing side during the first step, and the COP passed medial to each heel contact position during the first two steps in PD patients. Medial deviation of the COP from the first heel contact position had significant correlation with FOG questionnaire item 5. These findings indicate that weight shifting between the legs is abnormal and that medial deviation of the COP from the first heel contact position sensitively reflects the severity of FOG during the first three steps of gait initiation in PD patients with FOG

Self-Assembled π-Conjugated Organic/Polymeric Microresonators and Microlasers

Optical microresonators are minute dielectric objects that are utilized as essential components in micrometer-scale light and laser sources, optical integrated circuits, micro-displays, chemo- and biosensors, and so forth. Particularly, microresonators made from organic and polymeric materials find unique applications owing to structural flexibility, color tunability, and functionality with a simple fabrication process, low cost and low energy consumption. In this Account, we highlight our recent progress on organic/polymeric microresonators made through precisely controlled self-assembly. The microstructures display novel optical functions such as circularly polarized luminescence emission, lasing, light energy harvest, optical gate operations, optical memories and authentications, and optical sensing for environmental changes and mechanical forces. Our methodology for the precise design and control of organic and polymeric microstructures will bridge between nanometer-scale supramolecular chemistry and bulk materials and will pave the way toward flexible optical and laser applications.</p

Difference between 5A score and the HOPE score

Recently, a letter to the editor was published to comment on the 5A score which is the prediction model for accidental hypothermia patients comparing the HOPE score. In this letter, we responded to the comments to clarify the difference between the 5A score and the HOPE score