293 research outputs found
Electrolyte measurements differ between point-of-care and reference analysers in dogs with hypoadrenocorticism
Introduction:
Dogs treated for hypoadrenocorticism are monitored through analysis of their blood electrolytes. This is routinely performed with pointâofâcare analysers and doses of medications are adjusted based on the results.
Objectives:
To investigate the performance of two pointâofâcare analysers (IDEXX Catalyst Dx and IDEXX VetStat) against a reference laboratory method for the measurement of blood sodium, potassium and chloride concentrations, as well as sodium: potassium ratios, in dogs diagnosed with and treated for hypoadrenocorticism.
Methods:
Fortyâeight dogs were enrolled into a prospective crossâsectional study. Paired blood samples were taken and tested on two pointâofâcare analysers and at a reference laboratory. Statistical analysis was then performed with BlandâAltman analysis and PassingâBablok regression. The clinical effects of inaccurate electrolyte analysis were investigated.
Results:
In total, 329 samples were tested on the Catalyst analyser, while another 72 samples were tested on the VetStat. PassingâBablok regression identified both proportional and constant bias for some analytes. There was poor agreement between sodium and chloride concentrations on both analysers. Both analysers tended to give higher results than the reference method for all analytes, except for potassium when measured on the VetStat.
Clinical Significance:
There are inherent differences between the electrolyte concentrations measured by these two pointâofâcare analysers and reference laboratory methods in dogs with hypoadrenocorticism
A decision aid for considering indomethacin prophylaxis vs. symptomatic treatment of PDA for extreme low birth weight infants
Implications of the 125 GeV Higgs boson for scalar dark matter and for the CMSSM phenomenology
We study phenomenological implications of the ATLAS and CMS hint of a GeV Higgs boson for the singlet, and singlet plus doublet non-supersymmetric
dark matter models, and for the phenomenology of the CMSSM. We show that in
scalar dark matter models the vacuum stability bound on Higgs boson mass is
lower than in the standard model and the 125 GeV Higgs boson is consistent with
the models being valid up the GUT or Planck scale. We perform a detailed study
of the full CMSSM parameter space keeping the Higgs boson mass fixed to GeV, and study in detail the freeze-out processes that imply the observed
amount of dark matter. After imposing all phenomenological constraints except
for the muon we show that the CMSSM parameter space is divided
into well separated regions with distinctive but in general heavy sparticle
mass spectra. Imposing the constraint introduces severe tension
between the high SUSY scale and the experimental measurements -- only the
slepton co-annihilation region survives with potentially testable sparticle
masses at the LHC. In the latter case the spin-independent DM-nucleon
scattering cross section is predicted to be below detectable limit at the
XENON100 but might be of measurable magnitude in the general case of light dark
matter with large bino-higgsino mixing and unobservably large scalar masses.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures. v3: same as published versio
The impact of XENON100 and the LHC on Supersymmetric Dark Matter
The effect of 2010 and 2011 LHC data are discussed in connection to the
potential for the direct detection of supersymmetric dark matter. The impact of
the recent XENON100 results are contrasted to these predictions.Comment: 14 pages, 23 figures, To be published in the Proceedings of the 7th
DSU Conference, Beijing Chin
Optical properties of LaNiO3 films tuned from compressive to tensile strain
Materials with strong electronic correlations host remarkable -- and
technologically relevant -- phenomena such as magnetism, superconductivity and
metal-insulator transitions. Harnessing and controlling these effects is a
major challenge, on which key advances are being made through lattice and
strain engineering in thin films and heterostructures, leveraging the complex
interplay between electronic and structural degrees of freedom. Here we show
that the electronic structure of LaNiO3 can be tuned by means of lattice
engineering. We use different substrates to induce compressive and tensile
biaxial epitaxial strain in LaNiO3 thin films. Our measurements reveal
systematic changes of the optical spectrum as a function of strain and,
notably, an increase of the low-frequency free carrier weight as tensile strain
is applied. Using density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we show that
this apparently counter-intuitive effect is due to a change of orientation of
the oxygen octahedra.The calculations also reveal drastic changes of the
electronic structure under strain, associated with a Fermi surface Lifshitz
transition. We provide an online applet to explore these effects. The
experimental value of integrated spectral weight below 2 eV is significantly
(up to a factor of 3) smaller than the DFT results, indicating a transfer of
spectral weight from the infrared to energies above 2 eV. The suppression of
the free carrier weight and the transfer of spectral weight to high energies
together indicate a correlation-induced band narrowing and free carrier mass
enhancement due to electronic correlations. Our findings provide a promising
avenue for the tuning and control of quantum materials employing lattice
engineering.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figure
MFV Reductions of MSSM Parameter Space
The 100+ free parameters of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM)
make it computationally difficult to compare systematically with data,
motivating the study of specific parameter reductions such as the cMSSM and
pMSSM. Here we instead study the reductions of parameter space implied by using
minimal flavour violation (MFV) to organise the R-parity conserving MSSM, with
a view towards systematically building in constraints on flavour-violating
physics. Within this framework the space of parameters is reduced by expanding
soft supersymmetry-breaking terms in powers of the Cabibbo angle, leading to a
24-, 30- or 42-parameter framework (which we call MSSM-24, MSSM-30, and MSSM-42
respectively), depending on the order kept in the expansion. We provide a
Bayesian global fit to data of the MSSM-30 parameter set to show that this is
manageable with current tools. We compare the MFV reductions to the
19-parameter pMSSM choice and show that the pMSSM is not contained as a subset.
The MSSM-30 analysis favours a relatively lighter TeV-scale pseudoscalar Higgs
boson and with multi-TeV sparticles.Comment: 2nd version, minor comments and references added, accepted for
publication in JHE
Probing natural SUSY from stop pair production at the LHC
We consider the natural supersymmetry scenario in the framework of the
R-parity conserving minimal supersymmetric standard model (called natural MSSM)
and examine the observability of stop pair production at the LHC. We first scan
the parameters of this scenario under various experimental constraints,
including the SM-like Higgs boson mass, the indirect limits from precision
electroweak data and B-decays. Then in the allowed parameter space we study the
stop pair production at the LHC followed by the stop decay into a top quark
plus a lightest neutralino or into a bottom quark plus a chargino. From
detailed Monte Carlo simulations of the signals and backgrounds, we find the
two decay modes are complementary to each other in probing the stop pair
production, and the LHC with TeV and 100 luminosity is
capable of discovering the stop predicted in natural MSSM up to 450 GeV. If no
excess events were observed at the LHC, the 95% C.L. exclusion limits of the
stop masses can reach around 537 GeV.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, version accepted by JHE
TNF-inhibitors or bisphosphonates in chronic nonbacterial osteomyelitis? - Results of an international retrospective multicenter study
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