REMOVED: Preparation of Nanofiltration Membranes using Sol–gel Transition of Organic Molecular Networks in their Phase–separating Mixtures with Linear Polymers

This article has been removed: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).This article has been removed at the request of the Executive Publisher.This article has been removed because it was published without the permission of the author(s)

MSSM Higgs sector CP violation at photon colliders: Revisited

We present a comprehensive analysis on the MSSM Higgs sector CP violation at photon colliders including the chargino contributions as well as the contributions of other charged particles. The chargino loop contributions can be important for the would-be CP odd Higgs production at photon colliders. Polarization asymmetries are indispensable in determining the CP properties of neutral Higgs bosons.Comment: 24 pages, 40 figure

Observability of the Lightest MSSM Higgs Boson with Explicit CP Violation via Gluon Fusion at the LHC

We investigate the observability of the lightest Higgs boson in the gluon-fusion channel at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model with explicit CP-violating mixing among three neutral Higgs bosons. The lightest Higgs boson with its mass less than 130 GeV can be detected at the LHC via its gluon-fusion production followed by the decay into two photons. The explicit CP violation can suppress both the production cross section and the two-photon decay branching fraction so significantly that the signal cross section may be more than ten times smaller than the SM signal. This reduction factor can be as small as 1/40 if the lightest Higgs boson mass is 115 GeV and its production cross section at LEP2 is more than 90 % that of the SM case.Comment: 12 pages, 4 eps figures, a reference with two papers adde

Original use of MUSE's laser tomography adaptive optics to directly image young accreting exoplanets

Stars and planetary system

Top Squarks and Bottom Squarks in the MSSM with Complex Parameters

We present a phenomenological study of top squarks (~t_1,2) and bottom squarks (~b_1,2) in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) with complex parameters A_t, A_b, \mu and M_1. In particular we focus on the CP phase dependence of the branching ratios of (~t_1,2) and (~b_1,2) decays. We give the formulae of the two-body decay widths and present numerical results. We find that the effect of the phases on the (~t_1,2) and (~b_1,2) decays can be quite significant in a large region of the MSSM parameter space. This could have important implications for (~t_1,2) and (~b_1,2) searches and the MSSM parameter determination in future collider experiments. We have also estimated the accuracy expected in the determination of the parameters of ~t_i and ~b_i by a global fit of the measured masses, decay branching ratios and production cross sections at e^+ e^- linear colliders with polarized beams. Analysing two scenarios, we find that the fundamental parameters apart from A_t and A_b can be determined with errors of 1% to 2%, assuming an integrated luminosity of 1 ab^-1 and a sufficiently large c.m.s. energy to produce also the heavier ~t_2 and ~b_2 states. The parameter A_t can be determined with an error of 2 - 3%, whereas the error on A_b is likely to be of the order of 50%.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures, comments and references added, conclusions unchanged; version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Shrinking a large dataset to identify variables associated with increased risk of Plasmodium falciparum infection in Western Kenya

Large datasets are often not amenable to analysis using traditional single-step approaches. Here, our general objective was to apply imputation techniques, principal component analysis (PCA), elastic net and generalized linear models to a large dataset in a systematic approach to extract the most meaningful predictors for a health outcome. We extracted predictors for Plasmodium falciparum infection, from a large covariate dataset while facing limited numbers of observations, using data from the People, Animals, and their Zoonoses (PAZ) project to demonstrate these techniques: data collected from 415 homesteads in western Kenya, contained over 1500 variables that describe the health, environment, and social factors of the humans, livestock, and the homesteads in which they reside. The wide, sparse dataset was simplified to 42 predictors of P. falciparum malaria infection and wealth rankings were produced for all homesteads. The 42 predictors make biological sense and are supported by previous studies. This systematic data-mining approach we used would make many large datasets more manageable and informative for decision-making processes and health policy prioritization

Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set

We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity. We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2, -1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012

Climatic yield potential of Japonica???type rice in the Korean Peninsula under RCP scenarios using the ensemble of multi???GCM and multi???RCM chains

Rice production in the Korean Peninsula (KP) in the near future (2021-2050) is analysed in terms of the climatic yield potential (CYP) index for Japonica-type rice. Data obtained from the dynamically downscaled daily temperature and sunshine duration for the Historical period (1981-2010) and near future under two Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) scenarios are utilized. To reduce uncertainties that might be induced by using a Coupled General Circulation Model (CGCM)-a Regional Climate Model (RCM) chain in dynamical downscaling, two CGCM-three RCM chains are used to estimate the CYP index. The results show that the mean rice production decreases, mainly due to the increase of the temperature during the grain-filling period (40 days after the heading date). According to multi model ensemble, the optimum heading date in the near future will be approximately 12 days later and the maximum CYP will be even higher than in the Historical. This implies that the rice production is projected to decrease if the heading date is selected based on the optimum heading date of Historical, but to increase if based on that of near future. The mean rice production during the period of ripening is projected to decrease (to about 95% (RCP4.5) and 93% (RCP8.5) of the Historical) in the western and southern regions of the KP, but to increase (to about 104% (RCP4.5) and 106% (RCP8.5) of the Historical) in the northeastern coastal regions of the KP. However, if the optimum heading date is selected in the near future climate, the peak rice production is projected to increase (to about 105% (RCP4.5) and 104% (RCP8.5) of the Historical) in the western, southern and northeastern coastal regions of the KP, but to decrease (to about 98% (RCP4.5) and 96% (RCP8.5) of the Historical) in the southeastern coastal regions of the KP

Saethre-Chotzen syndrome : cranofacial anomalies caused by genetic changes in the TWIST gene

In this thesis, one of the most frequently occurring and most variable craniosynostosis syndromes was investigated; Saethre-Chotzen syndrome. Craniosynostosis is the premature obliteration of cranial sutures in the developing embryo. It can also occur in the first few months of life. Saethre-Chotzen syndrome is, besides craniosynostosis, characterized by specific facial and limb abnormalities, of which the most frequently reported are ptosis, prominent crus helicis, cutaneous syndactyly of digit 2 and 3 on both hands and feet, and broad halluces. Saethre-Chotzen syndrome has been linked to the TWIST gene on chromosome 7p21.1. Mutations in and variably sized deletions of this gene can be found in patients with clinical features of Saethre-Chotzen syndrome. The latter, TWIST deletions, often also include part of the surrounding chromosome 7p and are reported to be associated with mental retardation. In Saethre-Chotzen patients, in whom neither a mutation nor a deletion of TWIST had been found, the FGFR3 P250R mutation was in some cases detected. This mutation has specifically been linked to Muenke syndrome that is characterized by unior bicoronal synostosis and slight facial dysmorphology. However, a Saethre-Chotzen like phenotype can also result from this mutation. Because of the possible overlap of Saethre-Chotzen with Muenke syndrome, these syndromes were studied in order to provide clinical criteria that discriminate between the two (chapter 4). Many phenotypic features occur in both syndromes. In addition, although unicoronal synostosis occurs slightly more frequently in Muenke syndrome, unicoronal and bicoronal synostosis are seen in both syndromes. The discrimination between Saethre-Chotzen and Muenke is often not made easily and the associated genes, TWIST and FGFR3, respectively, are simultaneously tested for pathogenic m

W boson polarization measurement in the ttbar dilepton channel using the CDF II Detector

We present a measurement of $W$ boson polarization in top-quark decays in $t\bar{t}$ events with decays to dilepton final states using $5.1 {\rm fb^{-1}}$ of integrated luminosity in $p\bar{p}$ collisions collected by the CDF II detector at the Tevatron. A simultaneous measurement of the fractions of longitudinal ($f_0$) and right-handed ($f_+$) $W$ bosons yields the results $f_0 = 0.71 ^{+0.18}_{-0.17} {\rm (stat)} \pm 0.06 {\rm (syst)}$ and $f_+ = -0.07 \pm 0.09 {\rm (stat)} \pm 0.03 {\rm (syst)}$. Combining this measurement with our previous result based on single lepton final states, we obtain $f_0 = 0.84 \pm 0.09 {\rm (stat)} \pm 0.05 {\rm (syst)}$ and $f_{+} = -0.16 \pm 0.05 {\rm (stat)} \pm 0.04 {\rm (syst)}$. The results are consistent with standard model expectation.Comment: Published in Phys. Lett.