A stereological and histopathological study of the effects of exposure of male rat testes to mercury vapor

Mercury is ubiquitous in the environment; it is an occupational pollutant and a potential toxicant. We investigated the effects of exposure of rat testes to mercury vapor (Hg-0). Twelve male rats were divided into two groups of six: the rats of the Hg-0 group were exposed to mercury (1 mg/m(3)/day) in a chamber for six weeks; the control group rats were housed under the same conditions without exposure to Hg-0. After the experimental period, the testes were removed, sections of testis were evaluated histopathologically after hematoxylin and eosin staining, and stereologically using the Cavalieri principle and optical fractionator methods. We found significant decreases in the total volume of testis, diameters of seminiferous tubules and total volume of seminiferous tubules. Significant decreases were detected in the numbers of Sertoli cells, spermatogonia, spermatocytes and spermatids of the Hg-0 group compared to the control group. In the Hg-0 exposed group, spermatogenic cells were degenerated and seminiferous tubules were atrophied.This study was supported by Ataturk University Scientific Project Fun

Temporal significant wave height estimation from wind speed by perceptron Kalman filtering

The significant wave heights and periods are conventionally forecasted from the wind information on the basis of the wind-wave relationship. However, the error may become large due to many uncertainties in the wind generation prediction and wind-wave relationship. This is also confirmed by the authors, where the correlation (r) between measured wind speeds and significant wave heights is found to be 0.595 (r 2 = 0.3541). The authors have rightly mentioned the restrictive uses of regression method, especially for predicting wind generated waves. The authors have established the two layered Perceptron based on Kalman Interestingly the PKF model is a two layered network (input and output) without hidden layer. Also it is a fact that numerical or physical models have restrictions by certain assumptions and conditions, whereas artificial neural network (ANN) ha

Finitely Many Dirac-Delta Interactions on Riemannian Manifolds

This work is intended as an attempt to study the non-perturbative renormalization of bound state problem of finitely many Dirac-delta interactions on Riemannian manifolds, S^2, H^2 and H^3. We formulate the problem in terms of a finite dimensional matrix, called the characteristic matrix. The bound state energies can be found from the characteristic equation. The characteristic matrix can be found after a regularization and renormalization by using a sharp cut-off in the eigenvalue spectrum of the Laplacian, as it is done in the flat space, or using the heat kernel method. These two approaches are equivalent in the case of compact manifolds. The heat kernel method has a general advantage to find lower bounds on the spectrum even for compact manifolds as shown in the case of S^2. The heat kernels for H^2 and H^3 are known explicitly, thus we can calculate the characteristic matrix. Using the result, we give lower bound estimates of the discrete spectrum.Comment: To be published in JM

Fine-tuning implications for complementary dark matter and LHC SUSY searches

The requirement that SUSY should solve the hierarchy problem without undue fine-tuning imposes severe constraints on the new supersymmetric states. With the MSSM spectrum and soft SUSY breaking originating from universal scalar and gaugino masses at the Grand Unification scale, we show that the low-fine-tuned regions fall into two classes that will require complementary collider and dark matter searches to explore in the near future. The first class has relatively light gluinos or squarks which should be found by the LHC in its first run. We identify the multijet plus E_T^miss signal as the optimal channel and determine the discovery potential in the first run. The second class has heavier gluinos and squarks but the LSP has a significant Higgsino component and should be seen by the next generation of direct dark matter detection experiments. The combined information from the 7 TeV LHC run and the next generation of direct detection experiments can test almost all of the CMSSM parameter space consistent with dark matter and EW constraints, corresponding to a fine-tuning not worse than 1:100. To cover the complete low-fine-tuned region by SUSY searches at the LHC will require running at the full 14 TeV CM energy; in addition it may be tested indirectly by Higgs searches covering the mass range below 120 GeV.Comment: References added. Version accepted for publication in JHE

When Anomaly Mediation is UV Sensitive

Despite its successes---such as solving the supersymmetric flavor problem---anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking is untenable because of its prediction of tachyonic sleptons. An appealing solution to this problem was proposed by Pomarol and Rattazzi where a threshold controlled by a light field deflects the anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking trajectory, thus evading tachyonic sleptons. In this paper we examine an alternate class of deflection models where the non-supersymmetric threshold is accompanied by a heavy, instead of light, singlet. The low energy form of this model is the so-called extended anomaly mediation proposed by Nelson and Weiner, but with potential for a much higher deflection threshold. The existence of this high deflection threshold implies that the space of anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking deflecting models is larger than previously thought.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure (version to appear in JHEP

Phenomenological Implications of Deflected Mirage Mediation: Comparison with Mirage Mediation

We compare the collider phenomenology of mirage mediation and deflected mirage mediation, which are two recently proposed "mixed" supersymmetry breaking scenarios motivated from string compactifications. The scenarios differ in that deflected mirage mediation includes contributions from gauge mediation in addition to the contributions from gravity mediation and anomaly mediation also present in mirage mediation. The threshold effects from gauge mediation can drastically alter the low energy spectrum from that of pure mirage mediation models, resulting in some cases in a squeezed gaugino spectrum and a gluino that is much lighter than other colored superpartners. We provide several benchmark deflected mirage mediation models and construct model lines as a function of the gauge mediation contributions, and discuss their discovery potential at the LHC.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figure

The Footprint of F-theory at the LHC

Recent work has shown that compactifications of F-theory provide a potentially attractive phenomenological scenario. The low energy characteristics of F-theory GUTs consist of a deformation away from a minimal gauge mediation scenario with a high messenger scale. The soft scalar masses of the theory are all shifted by a stringy effect which survives to low energies. This effect can range from 0 GeV up to ~ 500 GeV. In this paper we study potential collider signatures of F-theory GUTs, focussing in particular on ways to distinguish this class of models from other theories with an MSSM spectrum. To accomplish this, we have adapted the general footprint method developed recently for distinguishing broad classes of string vacua to the specific case of F-theory GUTs. We show that with only 5 fb^(-1) of simulated LHC data, it is possible to distinguish many mSUGRA models and low messenger scale gauge mediation models from F-theory GUTs. Moreover, we find that at 5 fb^(-1), the stringy deformation away from minimal gauge mediation produces observable consequences which can also be detected to a level of order ~ +/- 80 GeV. In this way, it is possible to distinguish between models with a large and small stringy deformation. At 50 fb^(-1), this improves to ~ +/- 10 GeV.Comment: 85 pages, 37 figure

High Scale Physics Connection to LHC Data

The existing data appears to provide hints of an underlying high scale theory. These arise from the gauge coupling unification, from the smallness of the neutrino masses, and via a non-vanishing muon anomaly. An overview of high scale models is given with a view to possible tests at the Large Hadron Collider. Specifically we discuss here some generic approaches to deciphering their signatures. We also consider an out of the box possibility of a four generation model where the fourth generation is a mirror generation rather than a sequential generation. Such a scenario can lead to some remarkably distinct signatures at the LHC.Comment: 23 pages, no figures. Based on invited lectures at the 46th Course at the International School of Subnuclear Physics- Erice -Sicily: 29 August -7 September, 200