Development of a three-dimensional cell culture system based on microfluidics for nuclear magnetic resonance and optical monitoring.

A new microfluidic cell culture device compatible with real-time nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is presented here. The intended application is the long-term monitoring of 3D cell cultures by several techniques. The system has been designed to fit inside commercially available NMR equipment to obtain maximum readout resolution when working with small samples. Moreover, the microfluidic device integrates a fibre-optic-based sensor to monitor parameters such as oxygen, pH, or temperature during NMR monitoring, and it also allows the use of optical microscopy techniques such as confocal fluorescence microscopy. This manuscript reports the initial trials culturing neurospheres inside the microchamber of this device and the preliminary images and spatially localised spectra obtained by NMR. The images show the presence of a necrotic area in the interior of the neurospheres, as is frequently observed in histological preparations; this phenomenon appears whenever the distance between the cells and fresh nutrients impairs the diffusion of oxygen. Moreover, the spectra acquired in a volume of 8 nl inside the neurosphereshow an accumulation of lactate and lipids, which are indicative of anoxic condi-tions. Additionally, a basis for general temperature control and monitoring and a graphical control software have been developed and are also described. The complete platform will allow biomedical assays of therapeutic agents to be performed in the early phases of therapeutic development. Thus, small quantities of drugs or advanced nanodevices may be studied long-term under simulated living conditions that mimic the flow and distribution of nutrient

High scale mixing unification and large neutrino mixing angles

Starting with the hypothesis that quark and lepton mixings are identical at or near the GUT scale, we show that the large solar and atmospheric neutrino mixing angles together with the small reactor angle $U_{e3}$ can be understood purely as a result of renormalization group evolution. The only requirements are that the three neutrinos must be quasi degenerate in mass and have same CP parity. It predicts that the common Majorana mass for the neutrinos must be larger than 0.1 eV making the idea testable in the currently planned or ongoing experiments searching for neutrinoless-double-beta decay.Comment: 10 pages, eight figure, two tables; new material added; results remain unchange

Numerical consistency check between two approaches to radiative corrections for neutrino masses and mixings

We briefly outline the two popular approaches on radiative corrections to neutrino masses and mixing angles, and then carry out a detailed numerical analysis for a consistency check between them in MSSM. We find that the two approaches are nearly consistent with a small discrepancy of a factor of 13 percent in mass eigenvalues at low energy scale, but the predictions on mixing angles are almost consistent. We check the stability of the three types of neutrino models, i.e., hierarchical, inverted hierarchical and degenerate models, under radiative corrections, using both approaches, and find consistent conclusions. The neutrino mass models which are found to be stable under radiative corrections in MSSM are the normal hierarchical model and the inverted hierarchical model with opposite CP parity. We also carry out numerical analysis on some important conjectures related to radiative corrections in MSSM, viz., radiative magnification of solar and atmospheric mixings in case of nearly degenerate model having same CP parity (MPR conjecture) and radiative generation of solar mass scale in exactly two-fold degenerate model with opposite CP parity and non-zero reactor angle (JM conjecture). We observe certain exceptions to these conjectures. Finally the effect of scale-dependent vacuum expectation value in neutrino mass renormalisation is discussed.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures,references added, typos corrected and text modifie

Working Group Report: Neutrino and Astroparticle Physics

This is the report of neutrino and astroparticle physics working group at WHEPP-8. We present the discussions carried out during the workshop on selected topics in the above fields and also indicate progress made subsequently. The neutrino physics subgroup studied the possibilites of constraining neutrino masses, mixing and CPT violation in lepton sector from future experiments. Neutrino mass models in the context of abelian horizontal symmetries, warped extra dimensions and in presence of triplet Higgs were studied. Effect of threshold corrections on radiative magnification of mixing angles was investigated. The astroparticle physics subgroup focused on how various particle physics inputs affect the CMBR fluctuation spectrum, and on brane cosmology. This report also contains an introduction on how to use the publicly available code CMBFAST to calculate the CMBR fluctuations.Comment: Prepared for the 8th Workshop on High-Energy Physics Phenomenology (WHEPP-8), IIT Mumbai, India, 5-16 Jan 200

Chromogenic detection of yam mosaic virus by closed-tube reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (CT-RT-LAMP)

A closed-tube reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (CT-RT-LAMP) assay was developed for the detection of yam mosaic virus (YMV, genus Potyvirus) infecting yam (Dioscorea spp.). The assay uses a set of six oligonucleotide primers targeting the YMV coat protein region, and the amplification products in YMV-positive samples are visualized by chromogenic detection with SYBR Green I dye. The CT-RT-LAMP assay detected YMV in leaf and tuber tissues of infected plants. The assay is 100 times more sensitive in detecting YMV than standard RT-PCR, while maintaining the same specificity

Peste des Petits Ruminants at the Wildlife–Livestock Interface in the Northern Albertine Rift and Nile Basin, East Africa

In the recent past, peste des petits ruminants (PPR) emerged in East Africa causing outbreaks in small livestock across different countries, with evidences of spillover to wildlife. In order to understand better PPR at the wildlife–livestock interface, we investigated patterns of peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) exposure, disease outbreaks, and viral sequences in the northern Albertine Rift. PPRV antibodies indicated a widespread exposure in apparently healthy wildlife from South Sudan (2013) and Uganda (2015, 2017). African buffaloes and Uganda kobs <1-year-old from Queen Elizabeth National Park (2015) had antibodies against PPRV N-antigen and local serosurvey captured a subsequent spread of PPRV in livestock. Outbreaks with PPR-like syndrome in sheep and goats were recorded around the Greater Virunga Landscape in Kasese (2016), Kisoro and Kabale (2017) from western Uganda, and in North Kivu (2017) from eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This landscape would not be considered typical for PPR persistence as it is a mixed forest–savannah ecosystem with mostly sedentary livestock. PPRV sequences from DRC (2017) were identical to strains from Burundi (2018) and confirmed a transboundary spread of PPRV. Our results indicate an epidemiological linkage between epizootic cycles in livestock and exposure in wildlife, denoting the importance of PPR surveillance on wild artiodactyls for both conservation and eradication programs

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV

Discriminating neutrino mass models using Type II seesaw formula

In this paper we propose a kind of natural selection which can discriminate the three possible neutrino mass models, namely the degenerate, inverted hierarchical and normal hierarchical models, using the framework of Type II seesaw formula. We arrive at a conclusion that the inverted hierarchical model appears to be most favourable whereas the normal hierarchical model follows next to it. The degenerate model is found to be most unfavourable. We use the hypothesis that those neutrino mass models in which Type I seesaw term dominates over the Type II left-handed Higgs triplet term are favoured to survive in nature.Comment: No change in the results, a few references added, some changes in Type[IIB] calculation

Search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu decay channel, where l = e or mu, in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data were collected at the LHC, with the CMS detector, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 inverse femtobarns. No significant excess is observed above the background expectation, and upper limits are set on the Higgs boson production cross section. The presence of the standard model Higgs boson with a mass in the 270-440 GeV range is excluded at 95% confidence level.Comment: Submitted to JHE