Revisiting Constraints on Fourth Generation Neutrino Masses

We revisit the current experimental bounds on fourth-generation Majorana neutrino masses, including the effects of right handed neutrinos. Current bounds from LEPII are significantly altered by a global analysis. We show that the current bounds on fourth generation neutrinos decaying to eW and mu W can be reduced to about 80 GeV (from the current bound of 90 GeV), while a neutrino decaying to tau W can be as light as 62.1 GeV. The weakened bound opens up a neutrino decay channel for intermediate mass Higgs, and interesting multi-particle final states for Higgs and fourth generation lepton decays.Comment: 7 pages 1 fi

Isolation of 39 polymorphic microsatellite loci and the development of a fluorescently labelled marker set for the Eurasian badger

We have isolated 78 microsatellite loci from the Eurasian badger (Meles meles). Of the 52 loci characterized, 39 were found to be polymorphic. A fluorescently labelled primer set was developed to enable individual-specific 17-locus genotypes to be obtained efficiently

Revealing the pure confinement effect in glass-forming liquids by dynamic mechanical analysis

Many molecular glass forming liquids show a shift of the glass transition Tg to lower temperatures when the liquid is confined into mesoporous host matrices. Two contrary explanations for this effect are given in literature: First, confinement induced acceleration of the dynamics of the molecules leads to an effective downshift of Tg increasing with decreasing pore size. Secondly, due to thermal mismatch between the liquid and the surrounding host matrix, negative pressure develops inside the pores with decreasing temperature, which also shifts Tg to lower temperatures. Here we present novel dynamic mechanical analysis measurements of the glass forming liquid salol in Vycor and Gelsil with pore sizes of d = 2.6, 5.0 and 7.5 nm. The dynamic complex elastic susceptibility data can be consistently described with the assumption of two relaxation processes inside the pores: A surface induced slowed down relaxation due to interaction with rough pore interfaces and a second relaxation within the core of the pores. This core relaxation time is reduced with decreasing pore size d, leading to a downshift of Tg in perfect agreement with recent DSC measurements

Making Sense of Social Prescribing

This report is a guide to commission, running and evaluating social prescribing schemes

Simulations of a double-diffusive interface in the diffusive convection regime

Three-dimensional direct numerical simulations are performed that give us an in-depth account of the evolution and structure of the double-diffusive interface. We examine the diffusive convection regime, which, in the oceanographically relevant case, consists of relatively cold fresh water above warm salty water. A ‘double-boundary-layer' structure is found in all of the simulations, in which the temperature ( $T$ ) interface has a greater thickness than the salinity ( $S$ ) interface. Therefore, thin gravitationally unstable boundary layers are maintained at the edges of the diffusive interface. The $TS$ -interface thickness ratio is found to scale with the diffusivity ratio in a consistent manner once the shear across the boundary layers is accounted for. The turbulence present in the mixed layers is not able to penetrate the stable stratification of the interface core, and the $TS$ -fluxes through the core are given by their molecular diffusion values. Interface growth in time is found to be determined by molecular diffusion of the $S$ -interface, in agreement with a previous theory. The stability of the boundary layers is also considered, where we find boundary layer Rayleigh numbers that are an order of magnitude lower than previously assume

Embedding the Pentagon

The Pentagon Model is an explicit supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model, which involves a new strongly-interacting SU(5) gauge theory at TeV-scale energies. We show that the Pentagon can be embedded into an SU(5) x SU(5) x SU(5) gauge group at the GUT scale. The doublet-triplet splitting problem, and proton decay compatible with experimental bounds, can be successfully addressed in this context. The simplest approach fails to provide masses for the lighter two generations of quarks and leptons; however, this problem can be solved by the addition of a pair of antisymmetric tensor fields and an axion.Comment: 39 page

Representing addition and subtraction : learning the formal conventions

The study was designed to test the effects of a structured intervention in teaching children to represent addition and subtraction. In a post-test only control group design, 90 five-year-olds experienced the intervention entitled Bi-directional Translation whilst 90 control subjects experienced typical teaching. Post-intervention testing showed some significant differences between the two groups both in terms of being able to effect the addition and subtraction operations and in being able to determine which operation was appropriate. The results suggest that, contrary to historical practices, children's exploration of real world situations should precede practice in arithmetical symbol manipulation

Massive Protoplanetary Disks in the Trapezium Region

(abridged) We determine the disk mass distribution around 336 stars in the young Orion Nebula cluster by imaging a 2.5' x 2.5' region in 3 mm continuum emission with the Owens Valley Millimeter Array. For this sample of 336 stars, we observe 3 mm emission above the 3-sigma noise level toward ten sources, six of which have also been detected optically in silhouette against the bright nebular background. In addition, we detect 20 objects that do not correspond to known near-IR cluster members. Comparisons of our measured fluxes with longer wavelength observations enable rough separation of dust emission from thermal free-free emission, and we find substantial dust emission toward most objects. For the ten objects detected at both 3 mm and near-IR wavelengths, eight exhibit substantial dust emission. Excluding the high-mass stars and assuming a gas-to-dust ratio of 100, we estimate circumstellar masses ranging from 0.13 to 0.39 Msun. For the cluster members not detected at 3 mm, images of individual objects are stacked to constrain the mean 3 mm flux of the ensemble. The average flux is detected at the 3-sigma confidence level, and implies an average disk mass of 0.005 Msun, comparable to the minimum mass solar nebula. The percentage of stars in Orion surrounded by disks more massive than ~0.1 Msun is consistent with the disk mass distribution in Taurus, and we argue that massive disks in Orion do not appear to be truncated through close encounters with high-mass stars. Comparison of the average disk mass and number of massive dusty structures in Orion with similar surveys of the NGC 2024 and IC 348 clusters constrains the evolutionary timescales of massive circumstellar disks in clustered environments.Comment: 27 pages, including 7 figures. Accepted by Ap

Elevation resolution enhancement in 3D photoacoustic imaging using FDMAS beamforming

Photoacoustic imaging is a non-invasive and non-ionizing imaging technique that combines the spectral selectivity of laser excitation with the high resolution of ultrasound imaging. It is possible to identity the vascular structure of the cancerous tissue using this imaging modality. However, elevation and lateral resolution of photoacoustic imaging is usually poor for imaging target. In this study, three dimension filter delay multiply and sum beamforming technique (FDMAS(3D)) is used to improve the resolution and enhance the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the 3D photoacoustic image that is created by using linear array transducer. This beamforming technique showed improvement in the elevation by 36% when its compared with three dimension delay and sum beamforming technique (DAS(3D)). In addition, it enhanced the SNR by 13 dB compared with DAS (3D)