Plaque-Like Sclerodermiform Localized Mucinosis Rapidly Responsive to Topical Tacrolimus

We report the successful treatment of plaque-like sclerodermiform mucinosis using tacrolimus ointment topically. We present a 70-year-old male with a large chronic erythema and hardening of the nuchal skin and shoulder area. Subjective symptoms were a moderate pruritus and a rather disabling stiffness. A biopsy specimen revealed typical features of lichen myxedematosus. In a subsequent clinical examination, no associated illnesses such as hypothyroidism or gammopathy were found. Since no established therapy exists for this condition, and as there was a lack of response to potent topical glucocorticosteroids, tacrolimus 0.03% ointment was used off-label twice daily. Surprisingly, this resulted in a rapid, almost complete clearance of the skin within three weeks of treatment

AN ATLAS FOR NAVIGATING THE INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM: HYBRID AIRSHIPS AS A USE CASE TO ENGAGE THE COMMERCIAL SECTOR

The Chief of Naval Operations and Commandant of the Marine Corps have stated the need to streamline innovation practices for faster adoption of emerging technologies to support force design initiatives. However, the Department of Defense (DOD) innovation ecosystem is difficult to navigate. This research develops an atlas to guide interaction and engagement for DOD personnel to navigate the innovation ecosystem while assessing commercially-developed, large-capacity transportation platforms. Using hybrid airships as the use case, the authors employed two research methods while developing the atlas: 1) technology progress and cost modeling and 2) market analysis through research and interviews with industry leaders. The results confirm that early DOD engagement with commercial partners can positively influence long-term procurement options. The authors believe that the atlas can guide timely and productive engagement with the commercial sector for the sustainable development of large-capacity platforms, but must have a framework that protects commercial intellectual property. We recommend that the DOD utilize the atlas to explore how commercial markets will affect future hybrid airship development, while creating a more complete picture of the function and utility of these versatile platforms.Outstanding ThesisCaptain, United States Marine CorpsCaptain, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

The Little Higgs from a Simple Group

We present a model of electroweak symmetry breaking in which the Higgs boson is a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson. By embedding the standard model SU(2) x U(1) into an SU(4) x U(1) gauge group, one-loop quadratic divergences to the Higgs mass from gauge and top loops are canceled automatically with the minimal particle content. The potential contains a Higgs quartic coupling which does not introduce one-loop quadratic divergences. Our theory is weakly coupled at the electroweak scale, it has new weakly coupled particles at the TeV scale and a cutoff above 10 TeV, all without fine tuning. We discuss the spectrum of the model and estimate the constraints from electroweak precision measurements.Comment: 29 pages, referencing error corrected after death threats, dude remove

Vacuum Stability in Split Susy and Little Higgs Models

We study the stability of the effective higgs potential in the split supersymmetry and Little Higgs models. In particular, we study the effects of higher dimensional operators in the effective potential on the higgs mass predictions. We find that the size and sign of the higher dimensional operators can significantly change the higgs mass required to maintain vacuum stability in Split Susy models. In the Little Higgs models the effects of higher dimensional operators can be large because of a relatively lower cut-off scale. Working with a specific model we find that a contribution from the higher dimensional operator with coefficient of O(1) can destabilize the vacuum.Comment: Latex 22 pages, 3 figures. Added discussion, published versio

Collective Quartics from Simple Groups

This article classifies Little Higgs models that have collective quartic couplings. There are two classes of collective quartics: Special Cosets and Special Quartics. After taking into account dangerous singlets, the smallest Special Coset models are SU(5)/SO(5) and SU(6)/Sp(6). The smallest Special Quartic model is SU(5)/SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) and has not previously been considered as a candidate Little Higgs model.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figure

Solving the strong CP problem with supersymmetry

We propose a new solution to the strong CP problem based on supersymmetric non-renormalization theorems. CP is broken spontaneously and it's breaking is communicated to the MSSM by radiative corrections. The strong CP phase is protected by a susy non-renormalization theorem and remains exactly zero while loops can generate a large CKM phase from wave function renormalization. We present a concrete model as an example but stress that our framework is general. We also discuss constraints on susy breaking and point out experimental signatures.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, references adde

Apparent annual survival of staging ruffs during a period of population decline: insights from sex and site-use related differences

The ruff Philomachus pugnax, a lekkingshorebird wintering in Africa and breeding across northernEurasia, declined severely in its western range. Based on acapture-mark-resighting programme (2004–2011) in thewesternmost staging area in Friesland (the Netherlands),we investigated changes in apparent annual survival inrelation to age and sex to explore potential causes ofdecline. We also related temporal variation in apparentsurvival to environmental factors. We used the Capture-Mark-Recapture multievent statistical framework to overcomebiases in survival estimates after testing for hiddenheterogeneity of detection. This enabled the estimation ofthe probability to belong to high or low detectabilityclasses. Apparent survival varied between years but wasnot related to weather patterns along the flyway, or to floodlevels in the Sahel. Over time, a decline in apparent survivalis suggested. Due to a short data series and flag loss inthe last period this cannot be verified. Nevertheless, thepatterns in sex-specific detectability and survival lead tonew biological insights. Among highly detectable birds,supposedly most reliant on Friesland, males survived betterthan females (?/HDmales = 0.74, range 0.51–0.93;?/HDfemales = 0.51, range 0.24–0.81). Among lowdetectable birds, the pattern is reversed (?/LDmales = 0.64,range 0.37–0.89; ?/LDfemales = 0.73, range 0.48–0.93).Probably the staging population contains a mixture of sexspecificmigration strategies. A loss of staging femalescould greatly affect the dynamics of the western ruffpopulation. Further unravelling of these population processesrequires geographically extended demographicmonitoring and the use of tracking devices

Near-brane SU(6) origin Higgs in Scherk-Schwarz breaking of five-dimensional SU(6) GUT

The symmetry breaking of five-dimensional SU(6) GUT is realized by Scherk-Schwarz mechanisms through trivial and pseudo nontrivial orbifold S1/Z2 breakings to produce dimensional deconstruction 5D SU(6) \rightarrow4D SU(6). The latter also induces near-brane weakly-coupled SU(6) Baby Higgs to further break the symmetry into SU(3)C \otimes SU(3)H \otimes U(1)C. The model successfully provides a scenario of the origin of (Little) Higgs from GUT scale, produces the (intermediate and light) Higgs boson with the most preferred range and establishes coupling unification and compactification scale correctly.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figure

Sneutrino Mass Measurements at e+e- Linear Colliders

It is generally accepted that experiments at an e+e- linear colliders will be able to extract the masses of the selectron as well as the associated sneutrinos with a precision of ~ 1% by determining the kinematic end points of the energy spectrum of daughter electrons produced in their two body decays to a lighter neutralino or chargino. Recently, it has been suggested that by studying the energy dependence of the cross section near the production threshold, this precision can be improved by an order of magnitude, assuming an integrated luminosity of 100 fb^-1. It is further suggested that these threshold scans also allow the masses of even the heavier second and third generation sleptons and sneutrinos to be determined to better than 0.5%. We re-examine the prospects for determining sneutrino masses. We find that the cross sections for the second and third generation sneutrinos are too small for a threshold scan to be useful. An additional complication arises because the cross section for sneutrino pair to decay into any visible final state(s) necessarily depends on an unknown branching fraction, so that the overall normalization in unknown. This reduces the precision with which the sneutrino mass can be extracted. We propose a different strategy to optimize the extraction of m(\tilde{\nu}_\mu) and m(\tilde{\nu}_\tau) via the energy dependence of the cross section. We find that even with an integrated luminosity of 500 fb^-1, these can be determined with a precision no better than several percent at the 90% CL. We also examine the measurement of m(\tilde{\nu}_e) and show that it can be extracted with a precision of about 0.5% (0.2%) with an integrated luminosity of 120 fb^-1 (500 fb^-1).Comment: RevTex, 46 pages, 15 eps figure