185 research outputs found
Tuberculosis in roe deer from Spain and Italy
TUBERCULOSIS (TB) is a chronic infectious disease caused by bacteria
of the genus Mycobacterium (Grange and others 1990). The detection
of wildlife reservoirs of disease is important, particularly in areas where
there is a relatively low incidence of the disease in domestic animals.
Tuberculosis cases in roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) are reported only
sporadically, despite the wide distribution and the abundance of this cervid.
Roe deer with TB have been reported in Germany (Schmidt 1938),
Switzerland (Bouvier 1963), France (Zanella and others 2008) and the
UK (Gunning 1985, Delahay and others 2007). This short communication
is the first report of TB in roe deer in Spain and Italy, and discusses
the implications of these findings for wildlife and livestock disease control.
The prevalence of mycobacterial infections, such as TB and paratuberculosis,
seems to be increasing in Spain. Wildlife species may act as disease
reservoirs, so this short communication also elucidates the epidemiology
of mycobacterial infections in species such as roe deer
Higgs Interference Effects in \Pg \Pg \to \PZ\PZ and their Uncertainty
Interference between the Standard Model Higgs boson and continuum
contributions is considered in the heavy-mass scenario. Results are available
at leading order for the background. It is discussed how to combine the result
with the next-to-next-to-leading order Higgs production cross-section and a
proposal for estimating the associated theoretical uncertainty is presented.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures; improved numerical accuracy, Numerics updated,
conclusions unchanged, references added. v
Semantic-Functional Communications in Cyber-Physical Systems
This paper explores the use of semantic knowledge inherent in the
cyber-physical system (CPS) under study in order to minimize the use of
explicit communication, which refers to the use of physical radio resources to
transmit potentially informative data. It is assumed that the acquired data
have a function in the system, usually related to its state estimation, which
may trigger control actions. We propose that a semantic-functional approach can
leverage the semantic-enabled implicit communication while guaranteeing that
the system maintains functionality under the required performance. We
illustrate the potential of this proposal through simulations of a swarm of
drones jointly performing remote sensing in a given area. Our numerical results
demonstrate that the proposed method offers the best design option regarding
the ability to accomplish a previously established task -- remote sensing in
the addressed case -- while minimising the use of radio resources by
controlling the trade-offs that jointly determine the CPS performance and its
effectiveness in the use of resources. In this sense, we establish a
fundamental relationship between energy, communication, and functionality
considering a given end application
Inadequacy of zero-width approximation for a light Higgs boson signal
In the Higgs search at the LHC, a light Higgs boson (115 GeV <~ M_H <~ 130
GeV) is not excluded by experimental data. In this mass range, the width of the
Standard Model Higgs boson is more than four orders of magnitude smaller than
its mass. The zero-width approximation is hence expected to be an excellent
approximation. We show that this is not always the case. The inclusion of
off-shell contributions is essential to obtain an accurate Higgs signal
normalisation at the 1% precision level. For gg (-> H) -> VV, V= W,Z, O(10%)
corrections occur due to an enhanced Higgs signal in the region M_VV > 2 M_V,
where also sizable Higgs-continuum interference occurs. We discuss how
experimental selection cuts can be used to exclude this region in search
channels where the Higgs invariant mass cannot be reconstructed. We note that
the H -> VV decay modes in weak boson fusion are similarly affected.Comment: 26 pages, 18 figures, 6 tables; added references, expanded
introduction, version to appear in JHE
Heavy Higgs signal-background interference in gg → VV in the Standard Model plus real singlet
For the Standard Model extended with a real scalar singlet field, the
modification of the heavy Higgs signal due to interference with the continuum
background and the off-shell light Higgs contribution is studied for gg --> ZZ,
WW --> 4 lepton processes at the Large Hadron Collider. Interference effects
can range from O(10%) to O(1) effects for integrated cross sections. Despite a
strong cancellation between the heavy Higgs-continuum and the heavy Higgs-light
Higgs interference, the full interference is clearly non-negligible and
modifies the heavy Higgs line shape. A |M_VV - M_h2| < Gamma_h2 cut mitigates
interference effects to O(10%) or less. A public program that allows to
simulate the full interference is presented.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures, 9 tables; added results and references,
improved discussion, corrected v2 results (heavy top approximation was
inadvertently active, results deviate by less than 5%), conclusions
unchanged, updated gg2VV code, version to appear in EPJ
Non-irradiation-derived reactive oxygen species (ROS) and cancer: therapeutic implications
Owing to their chemical reactivity, radicals have cytocidal properties. Destruction of cells by irradiation-induced radical formation is one of the most frequent interventions in cancer therapy. An alternative to irradiation-induced radical formation is in principle drug-induced formation of radicals, and the formation of toxic metabolites by enzyme catalysed reactions. Although these developments are currently still in their infancy, they nevertheless deserve consideration. There are now numerous examples known of conventional anti-cancer drugs that may at least in part exert cytotoxicity by induction of radical formation. Some drugs, such as arsenic trioxide and 2-methoxy-estradiol, were shown to induce programmed cell death due to radical formation. Enzyme-catalysed radical formation has the advantage that cytotoxic products are produced continuously over an extended period of time in the vicinity of tumour cells. Up to now the enzymatic formation of toxic metabolites has nearly exclusively been investigated using bovine serum amine oxidase (BSAO), and spermine as substrate. The metabolites of this reaction, hydrogen peroxide and aldehydes are cytotoxic. The combination of BSAO and spermine is not only able to prevent tumour cell growth, but prevents also tumour growth, particularly well if the enzyme has been conjugated with a biocompatible gel. Since the tumour cells release substrates of BSAO, the administration of spermine is not required. Combination with cytotoxic drugs, and elevation of temperature improves the cytocidal effect of spermine metabolites. The fact that multidrug resistant cells are more sensitive to spermine metabolites than their wild type counterparts makes this new approach especially attractive, since the development of multidrug resistance is one of the major problems of conventional cancer therapy
Search for a high-mass Higgs boson decaying to a W boson pair in pp collisions at √s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
A search for a high-mass Higgs boson H is performed in the H → WW → ℓνℓν and H → WW → ℓνqq decay channels using pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb−¹ collected at √s = 8 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. No evidence of a high-mass Higgs boson is found. Limits on σH × BR(H → WW) as a function of the Higgs boson mass mH are determined in three different scenarios: one in which the heavy Higgs boson has a narrow width compared to the experimental resolution, one for a width increasing with the boson mass and modeled by the complex-pole scheme following the same behavior as in the Standard Model, and one for intermediate widths. The upper range of the search is mH = 1500 GeV for the narrow-width scenario and mH = 1000 GeV for the other two scenarios. The lower edge of the search range is 200–300 GeV and depends on the analysis channel and search scenario. For each signal interpretation, individual and combined limits from the two WW decay channels are presented. At mH = 1500 GeV, the highest-mass point tested, σH × BR(H → WW) for a narrow-width Higgs boson is constrained to be less than 22 fb and 6.6 fb at 95% CL for the gluon fusion and vector-boson fusion production modes, respectively
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