S₃ flavor symmetry at the LHC

Discrete symmetries employed to explain neutrino mixing and mass hierarchies are often associated with an enlarged scalar sector which might lead to exotic Higgs decay modes. We explore such a possibility in a scenario with S3 flavor symmetry which requires three scalar SU(2) doublets. The spectrum is fixed by minimizing the scalar potential, and we observe that the symmetry of the model leads to tantalizing Higgs decay models potentially observable at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

A case-based reasoning framework for prediction of stroke

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018. Case-based reasoning (CBR) has been a popular method in health care sector from the last two decades. It is used for analysis, prediction, diagnosis and recommending treatment for patients. This research purposes a conceptual CBR framework for stroke disease prediction that uses previous case-based knowledge. The outcomes of this approach not only assist in stroke disease decision-making, but also will be very useful for prevention and early treatment of patients

Microstructure and Rheology of Lamellar Liquid Crystalline Phases

We have investigated the microstructure and rheological properties of ternary surfactant mixtures in a salt solution. The surfactants were 6% sodium 4-dodecylbenzenesulfonate, 3% C13-15 ethoxylated alcohol with seven ethylene oxide (EO) units and 1% C13-15 ethoxylated alcohol with 2, 4, 7, 9, 11, 14, 20, or 25 EO units. The salt solution was 10% nitrilotriacetate·H2O. Microstructural investigations (electron microscopy, light microscopy, confocal laser microscopy, conductivity measurements, and centrifugation) show that at rest the samples containing the surfactant with 2 EO to 9 EO units are dispersions of lamellar droplets (curved surfactant bilayers). The samples containing the surfactant with 11 EO to 25 EO units show a continuous lamellar structure (sheets of surfactant bilayers) with a small amount of lamellar droplets present. The change in several rheological parameters reflects this change in microstructure. The power law index from flow experiments at low shear rates changes from 0.1 for the lamellar dispersions to 0.4 for the continuous lamellar phases. Similar changes are observed in shear modulus and in the limiting strain for linear viscoelastic behavior. The continuous lamellar phase is converted to droplets by shearing at rates above 1 s-1. The continuous lamellar structures will recover in about a week when the samples are allowed to relax. The nature of the droplets is highly dynamic. Confocal laser microscopy shows small fluctuations in droplet shape on a time scale of about 100 s. This time coincides with a characteristic time of around 100 s pertaining to a (shallow) peak in G''

Examining potential school contextual influences on gambling among high school youth

Background and Objectives: Gambling is an increasing concern among adolescence, yet there has been limited investigation into school-level factors that may increase the risk for gambling. The current study examined the relationship between substance use and gambling, and explored the influence of school context on adolescent gambling. Methods: Data come from 25,456 students in 58 high schools participating in the Maryland Safe and Supportive Schools Initiative. Youth-reports of socio-demographics, lifetime gambling, and past-month substance use (ie, alcohol, cigarette, marijuana, non-medical prescription drug) were collected. School-level characteristics were student suspension rate, student mobility, percentage of students receiving free/reduce-priced meals, percentage of African American students, urbanicity, gambling prevalence, gambling problem prevalence, and substance use prevalence. Weighted multilevel analyses were conducted. Results: One-third (n = 8,318) reported lifetime gambling, and 10% (n = 2,580) of the full sample, or 31% of the gamblers, experienced gambling problems. Being male and alcohol, marijuana, and non-medical prescription drug use were associated with twice the odds of gambling. Among gamblers, being male, African American, and cigarette, marijuana, and non-medical prescription drug use were associated with higher odds of gambling problems. The school-level factors of suspension rate and percentage of African American had minimal, inverse associations with gambling; however, none were related to gambling problems. Conclusions: Multilevel results indicated that adolescents that are male and use substances are more likely to gamble and have gambling problems. Scientific Significance: The findings indicate a need for prevention programs targeting risky behaviors to also target gambling as such behaviors often co-occur among adolescents

Perancangan Aplikasi Enkripsi dan Dekripsi File Berbasis Web

In the development of technology that is so advanced today, especially in the field of communication and information, maintaining privacy is something that absolutely must be done for each individual. Rapoport (in Soesilo, 1998) defines privacy as an ability to control the interaction, the ability to acquire options and the ability to achieve the desired interaction. Nowadays, a lot of things that can be done by using the internet, such as selling, social interacting through social media (Social Media) such as Facebook, learn, or just read the news through the portal of electronic media, and so forth. Most of the activities that can be done on the internet, requires personal data of its users, where the issue of privacy is of onsiderableconcern. As the development of information and communication technology in this case the Internet, the technology used to protect all personal data users also grown and will continue to evolve into more sophisticated. For this reason the author took the initiative to create a Endesapp application program, which aims to facilitate a person or agency who frequently exchange data in the form of files through the Internet. With so security in maintaining personal data even be increased as well as the possibility of the spread of sensitive data has been poor. In this study, the method used is to design programs shaped application file encryption and decryption web-based cryptographic techniques to the type of algorithm that is supported is 3DES ( Triple DES ) , AES - 128 ( Advanced encyption Standard) , AES - 192 and AES - 256

Optical fiber-based sensing method for nanoparticle detection through supervised back-scattering analysis: A potential contributor for biomedicine

Background: In view of the growing importance of nanotechnologies, the detection/identification of nanoparticles type has been considered of utmost importance. Although the characterization of synthetic/organic nanoparticles is currently considered a priority (eg, drug delivery devices, nanotextiles, theranostic nanoparticles), there are many examples of “naturally” generated nanostructures - for example, extracellular vesicles (EVs), lipoproteins, and virus - that provide useful information about human physiology or clinical conditions. For example, the detection of tumor-related exosomes, a specific type of EVs, in circulating fluids has been contributing to the diagnosis of cancer in an early stage. However, scientists have struggled to find a simple, fast, and low-cost method to accurately detect/identify these nanoparticles, since the majority of them have diameters between 100 and 150 nm, thus being far below the diffraction limit. Methods: This study investigated if, by projecting the information provided from short-term portions of the back-scattered laser light signal collected by a polymeric lensed optical fiber tip dipped into a solution of synthetic nanoparticles into a lower features dimensional space, a discriminant function is able to correctly detect the presence of 100 nm synthetic nanoparticles in distilled water, in different concentration values. Results and discussion: This technique ensured an optimal performance (100% accuracy) in detecting nanoparticles for a concentration above or equal to 3.89 µg/mL (8.74E+10 particles/mL), and a performance of 90% for concentrations below this value and higher than 1.22E-03 µg/mL (2.74E+07 particles/mL), values that are compatible with human plasmatic levels of tumorderived and other types of EVs, as well as lipoproteins currently used as potential biomarkers of cardiovascular diseases. Conclusion: The proposed technique is able to detect synthetic nanoparticles whose dimensions are similar to EVs and other “clinically” relevant nanostructures, and in concentrations equivalent to the majority of cell-derived, platelet-derived EVs and lipoproteins physiological levels. This study can, therefore, provide valuable insights towards the future development of a device for EVs and other biological nanoparticles detection with innovative characteristics.This work was partly developed under the project NanoSTIMA, funded by the North Portugal Regional Operational Program (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, and through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). It was also funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (PhD research grant PD/BD/135023/2017). Rita SR Ribeiro is currently working at 4Dcell and Elvesys, Paris, France

Stratus 13 thirteenth setting of the Stratus Ocean Reference Station cruise on board RV Ron Brown February 25 - March 15, 2014 Valparaiso, Chile - Arica, Chile

The Ocean Reference Station at 20°S, 85°W under the stratus clouds west of northern Chile is being maintained to provide ongoing climate-quality records of surface meteorology, air-sea fluxes of heat, freshwater, and momentum, and of upper ocean temperature, salinity, and velocity variability. The Stratus Ocean Reference Station (ORS Stratus) is supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Observation Program. It is recovered and redeployed annually, with past cruises that have come between October and January. This cruise was conducted on the NOAA vessel Ron Brown. During the 2014 cruise on the Ron Brown to the ORS Stratus site, the primary activities were the recovery of the previous (Stratus 12) WHOI surface mooring, which was adrift since January 25 2014 and drifting northwest, deployment of the new Stratus 13 WHOI surface mooring, in-situ calibration of the buoy meteorological sensors by comparison with instrumentation installed on the ship, CTD casts near the moorings. Surface drifters and subsurface floats were also launched along the track.Funding was provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under Grant No. NA09OAR4320129 and the Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region (CINAR)

Mass-Varying Neutrinos from a Variable Cosmological Constant

We consider, in a completely model-independent way, the transfer of energy between the components of the dark energy sector consisting of the cosmological constant (CC) and that of relic neutrinos. We show that such a cosmological setup may promote neutrinos to mass-varying particles, thus resembling a recently proposed scenario of Fardon, Nelson, and Weiner (FNW), but now without introducing any acceleronlike scalar fields. Although a formal similarity of the FNW scenario with the variable CC one can be easily established, one nevertheless finds different laws for neutrino mass variation in each scenario. We show that as long as the neutrino number density dilutes canonically, only a very slow variation of the neutrino mass is possible. For neutrino masses to vary significantly (as in the FNW scenario), a considerable deviation from the canonical dilution of the neutrino number density is also needed. We note that the present `coincidence' between the dark energy density and the neutrino energy density can be obtained in our scenario even for static neutrino masses.Comment: 8 pages, minor corrections, two references added, to apear in JCA

Accretion Processes for General Spherically Symmetric Compact Objects

We investigate the accretion process for different spherically symmetric space-time geometries for a static fluid. We analyse this procedure using the most general black hole metric ansatz. After that, we examine the accretion process for specific spherically symmetric metrics obtaining the velocity of the sound during the process and the critical speed of the flow of the fluid around the black hole. In addition, we study the behaviour of the rate of change of the mass for each chosen metric for a barotropic fluid.Comment: 10 pages, 15 figures, v2 accepted for publication in 'European Physical Journal C

A phase I, dose-escalation study of volasertib combined with nintedanib in advanced solid tumors

Background: Volasertib is a potent and selective cell-cycle kinase inhibitor that induces mitotic arrest and apoptosis by targeting Polo-like kinases. This study determined the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and pharmacokinetics of volasertib combined with nintedanib, a potent and orally bioavailable triple angiokinase inhibitor, in patients with advanced solid tumors. Patients and methods: This open-label, dose-escalation trial recruited patients with advanced metastatic solid tumors following failure of conventional treatment (NCT01022853; Study 1230.7). Volasertib was administered by intravenous infusion over 2 h, starting at 100 mg in the first dose cohort. Nintedanib was administered orally at a dose of 200 mg twice daily. The first treatment cycle comprised 28 days (days 1-7 and days 9-28: nintedanib; day 8: volasertib). From cycle 2 onwards, volasertib was administered on day 1 of a 21-day cycle and nintedanib was administered days 2-21. The primary objective was the MTD of volasertib in combination with nintedanib. Results: Thirty patients were treated. The MTD of volasertib plus fixed-dose nintedanib was 300 mg once every 3 weeks, the same as the recommended single-agent dose of volasertib in solid tumors. Two of 12 assessable patients treated with the MTD experienced dose-limiting toxicities [grade 3 increased alanine aminotransferase (ALT); grade 3 ALT increase and grade 3 increased aspartate aminotransferase]. Disease control [stable disease (SD)/partial response (PR)/complete response (CR)] was achieved in 18 patients (60%): 1 CR (breast cancer), 1 PR (nonsmall-cell lung cancer), and 16 patients with SD. Volasertib showed that multiexponential pharmacokinetic behavior and co-administration of nintedanib had no significant effects on its exposure. Conclusions: Volasertib could be combined with fixed-dose nintedanib at the recommended single-agent dose. At this dose, the combination had a manageable safety profile without unexpected or overlapping adverse events, and showed antitumor activity