202 research outputs found
The 2-3 symmetry: Flavour Changing , Decays and Neutrino Mixing
The observed pattern of neutrino mixing may be the result of a 2-3() symmetry in the leptonic sector. We consider a two Higgs doublet model
with a 2-3 symmetry in the down type quark and the charged lepton sector. The
breaking of the 2-3 symmetry by the strange quark mass and the muon mass leads
to FCNC in the quark sector and the charged lepton sector that are suppressed
by and in addition to the mass of
the heavy Higgs boson of the second Higgs doublet. A Higgs boson mass of GeV can explain the deviation from standard model reported in
several rare B decays. Predictions for other B decays are made and a new CP
phase is predicted in mixing. The lepton flavour
violating decays are below the
experimental limits. The breaking of 2-3 symmetry in the lepton sector can lead
to deviations of the atmospheric neutrino mixing angle from the maximal value
by degrees.Comment: 21 pages, no figures. Reorganization and addition of text. Reference
added and misprints corrected. Conclusions unchanged. Accepted for
publicatio
Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay and CP Violation
We study the relation between the Majorana neutrino mass matrices and the
neutrinoless double beta decay when CP is not conserved. We give an explicit
form of the decay rate in terms of a rephasing invariant quantity and
demonstrate that in the presence of CP violation it is impossible to have
vanishing neutrinoless double beta decay in the case of two neutrino
generations (or when the third generation leptons do not mix with other leptons
and hence decouple).Comment: 9 pages, UTPT-93-1
Charm and Bottom Semileptonic Decays
We review the present status of theoretical attempts to calculate the
semileptonic charm and bottom decays and then present a calculation of these
decays in the light--front frame at the kinematic point . This allows us
to evaluate the form factors at the same value of , even though the
allowed kinematic ranges for charm and bottom decays are very different. Also,
at this kinematic point the decay is given in terms of only one form factor
. For the ratio of the decay rates given by the E653 collaboration we
show that the determination of the ratio of the Cabibbo--Kobayashi--Maskawa
(CKM) matrix elements is consistent with that obtained from the unitarity
constraint. At present, though, the unitarity method still has greater
accuracy. Since comparisons of the semileptonic decays into and either
electrons or muons will be available soon from the E791 Fermilab experiment, we
also look at the massive muon case. We show that for a range of the
symmetry breaking is small even though the contributions of the
various helicity amplitudes becomes more complicated. For decays, the decay
at involves an extra form factor
coming from the photon contribution and so is not amenable to the same kind of
analysis, leaving only the decay as a
possibility. As the mass of the decaying particle increases we note that the
symmetry becomes badly broken at .Comment: Latex, 19 pages, two figures are attached, a minor change in the
manuscript related to thi
Weak Decays in the light--front Quark Model
We study the form factors of heavy--to--heavy and heavy--to--light weak
decays using the light--front relativistic quark model. For the
heavy--to--heavy B \ra D^{(\ast)} semileptonic decays we calculate the
corresponding Isgur--Wise function for the whole kinematic region. For the
heavy--to--light B\ra P and B\ra V semileptonic decays we calculate the
form factors at ; in particular, we have derived the dependence of the
form factors on the --quark mass in the m_b \ra \infty limit. This
dependence can not be produced by extrapolating the scaling behavior of the
form factors at using the single--pole assumption. This shows that
the dependence of the form factors in regions far away from the
zero--recoil could be much more complicated than that predicted by the
single--pole assumption.Comment: 24 pages, Latex, Postscript figure included at the en
Serum from COVID-19 patients early in the pandemic shows limited evidence of cross-neutralization against variants of concern
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) results in a variety of clinical symptoms ranging from no or mild to severe disease. Currently, there are multiple postulated mechanisms that may push a moderate to severe disease into a critical state. Human serum contains abundant evidence of the immune status following infection. Cytokines, chemokines, and antibodies can be assayed to determine the extent to which a patient responded to a pathogen. We examined serum and plasma from a cohort of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 early in the pandemic and compared them to negative-control sera. Cytokine and chemokine concentrations varied depending on the severity of infection, and antibody responses were significantly increased in severe cases compared to mild to moderate infections. Neutralization data revealed that patients with high titers against an early 2020 SARS-CoV-2 isolate had detectable but limited neutralizing antibodies against the emerging SARS-CoV-2 Alpha, Beta and Delta variants. This study highlights the potential of re-infection for recovered COVID-19 patients
Just a wind-up? Ethnicity, religion and prejudice in Scottish football-related comedy
This article probes how media representations of football in Scotland sustain the hegemonic ideologies associated with ethnicity and religion. The paper probes the football-related comedy output of one radio programme; radio output and football comedy are both neglected cultural material in studies of sport in Scotland. It argues that ambiguity and allusive language in comedy construct multiple interpretative possibilities that can demean the social and cultural identity of particular groups in society. The discussion analyses specific sketches from the Scottish radio comedy show Watson's Wind Up. It is concluded that although humorous, these sketches reveal how ideas, myths and stereotypes that coalesce round Celtic FC and the Irish-descended and Catholic communities in Scotland reinforce and sustain anti-Irish and anti-Catholic bigotry
A cohort study to identify and evaluate concussion risk factors across multiple injury settings: findings from the CARE Consortium
BACKGROUND:
Concussion, or mild traumatic brain injury, is a major public health concern affecting 42 million individuals globally each year. However, little is known regarding concussion risk factors across all concussion settings as most concussion research has focused on only sport-related or military-related concussive injuries.
METHODS:
The current study is part of the Concussion, Assessment, Research, and Education (CARE) Consortium, a multi-site investigation on the natural history of concussion. Cadets at three participating service academies completed annual baseline assessments, which included demographics, medical history, and concussion history, along with the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT) symptom checklist and Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI-18). Clinical and research staff recorded the date and injury setting at time of concussion. Generalized mixed models estimated concussion risk with service academy as a random effect. Since concussion was a rare event, the odds ratios were assumed to approximate relative risk.
RESULTS:
Beginning in 2014, 10,604 (n = 2421, 22.83% female) cadets enrolled over 3 years. A total of 738 (6.96%) cadets experienced a concussion, 301 (2.84%) concussed cadets were female. Female sex and previous concussion were the most consistent estimators of concussion risk across all concussion settings. Compared to males, females had 2.02 (95% CI: 1.70-2.40) times the risk of a concussion regardless of injury setting, and greater relative risk when the concussion occurred during sport (Odds Ratio (OR): 1.38 95% CI: 1.07-1.78). Previous concussion was associated with 1.98 (95% CI: 1.65-2.37) times increased risk for any incident concussion, and the magnitude was relatively stable across all concussion settings (OR: 1.73 to 2.01). Freshman status was also associated with increased overall concussion risk, but was driven by increased risk for academy training-related concussions (OR: 8.17 95% CI: 5.87-11.37). Medical history of headaches in the past 3 months, diagnosed ADD/ADHD, and BSI-18 Somatization symptoms increased overall concussion risk.
CONCLUSIONS:
Various demographic and medical history factors are associated with increased concussion risk. While certain factors (e.g. sex and previous concussion) are consistently associated with increased concussion risk, regardless of concussion injury setting, other factors significantly influence concussion risk within specific injury settings. Further research is required to determine whether these risk factors may aid in concussion risk reduction or prevention
Charmed Baryon Strong Coupling Constants in a Light-Front Quark Model
Light-Front quark model spin wave functions are employed to calculate the
three independent couplings g_{\Sigma_c \Lambda_c \pi}, f_{\Lambda_{c1}
\Sigma_c \pi} and f_{\Lambda^{*}_{c1} \Sigma_c \pi} of S-wave to S-wave and
P-wave to S-wave one-pion transitions. It is found that g_{\Sigma_c \Lambda_c
\pi}=6.81 MeV^{-1}, f_{\Lambda_{c1} \Sigma_c \pi}=1.16 and f_{\Lambda^{*}_{c1}
\Sigma_c \pi}=0.96 . 10^{-4} MeV^{-2}. We also predict decay rates for specific
strong transitions of charmed baryons.Comment: 21 Pages, No figures, LaTeX, some typos correcte
MicroRNAs in pulmonary arterial remodeling
Pulmonary arterial remodeling is a presently irreversible pathologic hallmark of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). This complex disease involves pathogenic dysregulation of all cell types within the small pulmonary arteries contributing to vascular remodeling leading to intimal lesions, resulting in elevated pulmonary vascular resistance and right heart dysfunction. Mutations within the bone morphogenetic protein receptor 2 gene, leading to dysregulated proliferation of pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells, have been identified as being responsible for heritable PAH. Indeed, the disease is characterized by excessive cellular proliferation and resistance to apoptosis of smooth muscle and endothelial cells. Significant gene dysregulation at the transcriptional and signaling level has been identified. MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNA molecules that negatively regulate gene expression and have the ability to target numerous genes, therefore potentially controlling a host of gene regulatory and signaling pathways. The major role of miRNAs in pulmonary arterial remodeling is still relatively unknown although research data is emerging apace. Modulation of miRNAs represents a possible therapeutic target for altering the remodeling phenotype in the pulmonary vasculature. This review will focus on the role of miRNAs in regulating smooth muscle and endothelial cell phenotypes and their influence on pulmonary remodeling in the setting of PAH
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