Fourth Family Neutrinos and the Higgs Boson

We evaluate the LHC discovery potential for the fourth family Standard Model neutrinos in the process $pp\to Z/h\to\nu_{4}{\bar{\nu}_{4}}\to W\mu W\mu$. We show that, depending on their masses, the simultaneous discovery of both the Higgs boson and the heavy neutrinos is probable at early stages of LHC operation. Results are presented for both Majorana and Dirac type fourth family neutrinos.Comment: 12 pages, uses axodraw.sty, v2: includes typo fixes, improved analysis, v4: minor modifications in response to the JHEP refere

Patent Information Retrieval: Approaching a Method and Analyzing Nanotechnology Patent Collaborations

ArticleThis is the final version of the article. Available from Springer Verlag via the DOI in this record.Many challenges still remain in the processing of explicit technological knowledge documents such as patents. Given the limitations and drawbacks of the existing approaches, this research sets out to develop an improved method for searching patent databases and extracting patent information to increase the efficiency and reliability of nanotechnology patent information retrieval process and to empirically analyse patent collaboration. A tech-mining method was applied and the subsequent analysis was performed using Thomson data analyser software. The findings show that nations such as Korea and Japan are highly collaborative in sharing technological knowledge across academic and corporate organisations within their national boundaries, and China presents, in some cases, a great illustration of effective patent collaboration and co-inventorship. This study also analyses key patent strengths by country, organisation and technology

Parasite motility is critical for virulence of African trypanosomes.

African trypanosomes, Trypanosoma brucei spp., are lethal pathogens that cause substantial human suffering and limit economic development in some of the world's most impoverished regions. The name Trypanosoma ("auger cell") derives from the parasite's distinctive motility, which is driven by a single flagellum. However, despite decades of study, a requirement for trypanosome motility in mammalian host infection has not been established. LC1 is a conserved dynein subunit required for flagellar motility. Prior studies with a conditional RNAi-based LC1 mutant, RNAi-K/R, revealed that parasites with defective motility could infect mice. However, RNAi-K/R retained residual expression of wild-type LC1 and residual motility, thus precluding definitive interpretation. To overcome these limitations, here we generate constitutive mutants in which both LC1 alleles are replaced with mutant versions. These double knock-in mutants show reduced motility compared to RNAi-K/R and are viable in culture, but are unable to maintain bloodstream infection in mice. The virulence defect is independent of infection route but dependent on an intact host immune system. By comparing different mutants, we also reveal a critical dependence on the LC1 N-terminus for motility and virulence. Our findings demonstrate that trypanosome motility is critical for establishment and maintenance of bloodstream infection, implicating dynein-dependent flagellar motility as a potential drug target

Possible Single Resonant Production of the Fourth Generation Charged Leptons at γe\gamma e Colliders

Single resonant productions of the fourth standard model generation charged lepton via anomalous interactions at gamma e colliders based on future linear e^+ e^- colliders with 500 GeV and 1 TeV center of mass energies are studied. Signatures of $\gamma e\to \ell_4\to e\gamma$ and $\gamma e\to \ell_4\to eZ$ anomalous processes followed by the hadronic and leptonic decay of the Z boson and corresponding standard model backgrounds are discussed in details. The lowest necessary luminosities to observe these processes and the achievable values of the anomalous coupling strengths are determined.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 4 table