Higgs friends and counterfeits at hadron colliders

We consider the possibility of "Higgs counterfeits" - scalars that can be produced with cross sections comparable to the SM Higgs, and which decay with identical relative observable branching ratios, but which are nonetheless not responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking. We also consider a related scenario involving "Higgs friends," fields similarly produced through gg fusion processes, which would be discovered through diboson channels WW, ZZ, gamma gamma, or even gamma Z, potentially with larger cross sections times branching ratios than for the Higgs. The discovery of either a Higgs friend or a Higgs counterfeit, rather than directly pointing towards the origin of the weak scale, would indicate the presence of new colored fields necessary for the sizable production cross section (and possibly new colorless but electroweakly charged states as well, in the case of the diboson decays of a Higgs friend). These particles could easily be confused for an ordinary Higgs, perhaps with an additional generation to explain the different cross section, and we emphasize the importance of vector boson fusion as a channel to distinguish a Higgs counterfeit from a true Higgs. Such fields would naturally be expected in scenarios with "effective Z's," where heavy states charged under the SM produce effective charges for SM fields under a new gauge force. We discuss the prospects for discovery of Higgs counterfeits, Higgs friends, and associated charged fields at the LHC.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures. References added and typos fixe

Draft Genome Sequences of the Type Strains of Actinobacillus indolicus (46K2C) and Actinobacillus porcinus (NM319), Two NAD-Dependent Bacterial Species Found in the Respiratory Tract of Pigs.

We report here the draft genome sequences of the type strains of Actinobacillus indolicus (46K2C) and Actinobacillus porcinus (NM319). These NAD-dependent bacterial species are frequently found in the upper respiratory tract of pigs and are occasionally associated with lung pathology

Automated Analysis of Cryptococcal Macrophage Parasitism Using GFP-Tagged Cryptococci

The human fungal pathogens Cryptococcus neoformans and C. gattii cause life-threatening infections of the central nervous system. One of the major characteristics of cryptococcal disease is the ability of the pathogen to parasitise upon phagocytic immune effector cells, a phenomenon that correlates strongly with virulence in rodent models of infection. Despite the importance of phagocyte/Cryptococcus interactions to disease progression, current methods for assaying virulence in the acrophage system are both time consuming and low throughput. Here, we introduce the first stable and fully characterised GFP–expressing derivatives of two widely used cryptococcal strains: C. neoformans serotype A type strain H99 and C. gattii serotype B type strain R265. Both strains show unaltered responses to environmental and host stress conditions and no deficiency in virulence in the macrophage model system. In addition, we report the development of a method to effectively and rapidly investigate macrophage parasitism by flow cytometry, a technique that preserves the accuracy of current approaches but offers a four-fold improvement in speed

Generic, network schema agnostic sparse tensor factorization for single-pass clustering of heterogeneous information networks

Heterogeneous information networks (e.g. bibliographic networks and social media networks) that consist of multiple interconnected objects are ubiquitous. Clustering analysis is an effective method to understand the semantic information and interpretable structure of the heterogeneous information networks, and it has attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years. However, most studies assume that heterogeneous information networks usually follow some simple schemas, such as bi-typed networks or star network schema, and they can only cluster one type of object in the network each time. In this paper, a novel clustering framework is proposed based on sparse tensor factorization for heterogeneous information networks, which can cluster multiple types of objects simultaneously in a single pass without any network schema information. The types of objects and the relations between them in the heterogeneous information networks are modeled as a sparse tensor. The clustering issue is modeled as an optimization problem, which is similar to the well-known Tucker decomposition. Then, an Alternating Least Squares (ALS) algorithm and a feasible initialization method are proposed to solve the optimization problem. Based on the tensor factorization, we simultaneously partition different types of objects into different clusters. The experimental results on both synthetic and real-world datasets have demonstrated that our proposed clustering framework, STFClus, can model heterogeneous information networks efficiently and can outperform state-of-the-art clustering algorithms as a generally applicable single-pass clustering method for heterogeneous network which is network schema agnostic

Living in rural New England amplifies the risk of depression in patients with HIV

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The importance of depression as a complication of HIV infection is increasingly understood, and people living in rural areas are at increased risk for depression. However, it is not known whether living in rural areas amplifies the risk of depression in patients with HIV.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We compared the prevalence of depression between rural and metropolitan HIV patients seen at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock HIV Program in a retrospective cohort study. Using the validated Rural-Urban Commuting Area Score, we categorized patients as living in small town/rural areas, micropolitan or metropolitan towns. Then, using a multivariate logistic regression model to adjust for demographic factors that differed between rural and metropolitan patients, we estimated the impact of living in rural areas on the odds of depression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among 646 patients with HIV (185 small town/rural, 145 micropolitan, 316 metropolitan), rural patients were older, white, male, and men who have sex with men (ANOVA, F-statistic < 0.05). The prevalence of depression was highest in rural patients (59.5 vs. 51.7 vs. 41.2%, F statistic < 0.001), particularly rural patients on antiretroviral therapy (72.4 vs. 53.5 vs. 38.2%, F-statistic < 0.001. A multivariate logistic regression model showed that the odds of depression in rural patients with HIV were 1.34 (P < 0.001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>HIV-infected patients living in rural areas, particularly those on antiretroviral therapy, are highly vulnerable to depression.</p

Molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the evolution of form and function in the amniote jaw.

The amniote jaw complex is a remarkable amalgamation of derivatives from distinct embryonic cell lineages. During development, the cells in these lineages experience concerted movements, migrations, and signaling interactions that take them from their initial origins to their final destinations and imbue their derivatives with aspects of form including their axial orientation, anatomical identity, size, and shape. Perturbations along the way can produce defects and disease, but also generate the variation necessary for jaw evolution and adaptation. We focus on molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate form in the amniote jaw complex, and that enable structural and functional integration. Special emphasis is placed on the role of cranial neural crest mesenchyme (NCM) during the species-specific patterning of bone, cartilage, tendon, muscle, and other jaw tissues. We also address the effects of biomechanical forces during jaw development and discuss ways in which certain molecular and cellular responses add adaptive and evolutionary plasticity to jaw morphology. Overall, we highlight how variation in molecular and cellular programs can promote the phenomenal diversity and functional morphology achieved during amniote jaw evolution or lead to the range of jaw defects and disease that affect the human condition