One-Loop QCD Mass Effects in the Production of Polarized Bottom and Top Quarks

The analytic expressions for the production cross sections of polarized bottom and top quarks in $e^+e^-$ annihilation are explicitly derived at the one-loop order of strong interactions. Chirality-violating mass effects will reduce the longitudinal spin polarization for the light quark pairs by an amount of $3\%$, when one properly considers the massless limit for the final quarks. Numerical estimates of longitudinal spin polarization effects in the processes $e^+e^-\to b\bar{b}(g)$ and $e^+e^- \to t\bar{t}(g)$ are presented.Comment: 17 p. (5 figs available upon request), LaTeX, MZ-TH/93-30, RAL/93-81, FTUV/93-4

Self Consistent 1/Nc1/N_c Expansion In The Presence Of Electroweak Interactions

In the conventional approach to the $1/N_c$ expansion, electroweak interactions are switched off and large $N_c$ QCD is treated in isolation. We study the self-consistency of taking the large $N_c$ limit in the presence of electroweak interaction. If the electroweak coupling constants are held constant, the large $N_c$ counting rules are violated by processes involving internal photon or weak boson lines. Anomaly cancellations, however, fix the ratio of electric charges of different fermions. This allows a self-consistent way to scale down the electronic charge $e$ in the large $N_c$ limit and hence restoring the validity of the large $N_c$ counting rules.Comment: 9 pages in REVTeX, no figure

Crystal structure and two-stage hydrolysis of dimethoxo(meso-tetra(4-methoxyphenylporphyrinato))tin(IV), Sn(tmpp)(OMe)(2)

In this work, we determine the crystal structure of dimethoxo(meso-tetra(4-methoxyphenylporphyrinato))tin(IV), Sn(tmpp)(OMe)(2) (1). Experimental results indicate that the tin atom has an octahedral geometry. The geometry around the tin center has Sn(1)-O(5) = 2.020(6), Sn(1)-O(6) = 2.003(7) Angstrom and an average Sn(1)-N = 2.10(1) Angstrom. The two methoxo groups are unidentately coordinated to the tin(IV) atom. Two-stage hydrolysis of Sn(tmpp)(OMe)(2) in CDCl3 was observed by H-1 and C-13 NMR spectroscopy. Compound (1) crystallizes in the space group P2(1)/n with a = 14.7492(1), b = 19.2022(3), c = 16.0806(2) Angstrom, beta = 94.104(1)degrees and Z = 4

An unusual cause of gastrointestinal bleeding: duodenal lipoma.

‘The final, published version of this article is available at http://www.karger.com/ 10.1159/000327219Common causes of chronic upper gastrointestinal bleeding include oesophageal varices, gastroduodenal ulcers and malignancy, and patients mostly present with iron deficiency type anaemia. We present the case of a 60-year-old lady who presented with iron deficiency anaemia and on investigation was found to have a large duodenal polyp requiring surgical excision. On histological examination, the polyp was revealed to be a lipoma. We review the recent literature and formulate a management plan for this rare entity

Magnetic Braking in Differentially Rotating, Relativistic Stars

We study the magnetic braking and viscous damping of differential rotation in incompressible, uniform density stars in general relativity. Differentially rotating stars can support significantly more mass in equilibrium than nonrotating or uniformly rotating stars. The remnant of a binary neutron star merger or supernova core collapse may produce such a "hypermassive" neutron star. Although a hypermassive neutron star may be stable on a dynamical timescale, magnetic braking and viscous damping of differential rotation will ultimately alter the equilibrium structure, possibly leading to delayed catastrophic collapse. Here we consider the slow-rotation, weak-magnetic field limit in which E_rot << E_mag << W, where E_rot is the rotational kinetic energy, E_mag is the magnetic energy, and W is the gravitational binding energy of the star. We assume the system to be axisymmetric and solve the MHD equations in both Newtonian gravitation and general relativity. Toroidal magnetic fields are generated whenever the angular velocity varies along the initial poloidal field lines. We find that the toroidal fields and angular velocities oscillate independently along each poloidal field line, which enables us to transform the original 2+1 equations into 1+1 form and solve them along each field line independently. The incoherent oscillations on different field lines stir up turbulent-like motion in tens of Alfven timescales ("phase mixing"). In the presence of viscosity, the stars eventually are driven to uniform rotation, with the energy contained in the initial differential rotation going into heat. Our evolution calculations serve as qualitative guides and benchmarks for future, more realistic MHD simulations in full 3+1 general relativity.Comment: 26 pages, 27 graphs, 1 table, accepted for publication by Phys. Rev.

Hormone Therapy and the Risk of Breast Cancer in BRCA1 Mutation Carriers

Background: Hormone therapy (HT) is commonly given to women to alleviate the climacteric symptoms associated with menopause. There is concern that this treatment may increase the risk of breast cancer. The potential association of HT and breast cancer risk is of particular interest to women who carry a mutation in BRCA1 because they face a high lifetime risk of breast cancer and because many of these women take HT after undergoing prophylactic surgical oophorectomy at a young age. Methods: We conducted a matched case-control study of 472 postmenopausal women with a BRCA1 mutation to examine whether or not the use of HT is associated with subsequent risk of breast cancer. Breast cancer case patients and control subjects were matched with respect to age, age at menopause, and type of menopause (surgical or natural). Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated with conditional logistic regression. Statistical tests were two-sided. Results: In this group of BRCA1 mutation carriers, the adjusted OR for breast cancer associated with ever use of HT compared with never use was 0.58 (95% CI = 0.35 to 0.96; P =. 03). In analyses by type of HT, an inverse association with breast cancer risk was observed with use of estrogen only (OR = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.27 to 0.98; P =. 04); the association with use of estrogen plus progesterone was not statistically significant (OR = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.34 to 1.27; P =. 21). Conclusion: Among postmenopausal women with a BRCA1 mutation, HT use was not associated with increased risk of breast cancer; indeed, in this population, it was associated with a decreased risk

Inheritance of deleterious mutations at both BRCA1 and BRCA2 in an international sample of 32,295 women

Background: Most BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers have inherited a single (heterozygous) mutation. Transheterozygotes (TH) who have inherited deleterious mutations in both BRCA1 and BRCA2 are rare, and the consequences of transheterozygosity are poorly understood. Methods: From 32,295 female BRCA1/2 mutation carriers, we identified 93 TH (0.3 %). "Cases" were defined as TH, and "controls" were single mutations at BRCA1 (SH1) or BRCA2 (SH2). Matched SH1 "controls" carried a BRCA1 mutation found in the TH "case". Matched SH2 "controls" carried a BRCA2 mutation found in the TH "case". After matching the TH carriers with SH1 or SH2, 91 TH were matched to 9316 SH1, and 89 TH were matched to 3370 SH2. Results: The majority of TH (45.2 %) involved the three common Jewish mutations. TH were more likely than SH1 and SH2 women to have been ever diagnosed with breast cancer (BC; p = 0.002). TH were more likely to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer (OC) than SH2 (p = 0.017), but not SH1. Age at BC diagnosis was the same in TH vs. SH1 (p = 0.231), but was on average 4.5 years younger in TH than in SH2 (p < 0.001). BC in TH was more likely to be estrogen receptor (ER) positive (p = 0.010) or progesterone receptor (PR) positive (p = 0.013) than in SH1, but less likely to be ER positive (p < 0.001) or PR positive (p = 0.012) than SH2. Among 15 tumors from TH patients, there was no clear pattern of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) for BRCA1 or BRCA2 in either BC or OC. Conclusions: Our observations suggest that clinical TH phenotypes resemble SH1. However, TH breast tumor marker characteristics are phenotypically intermediate to SH1 and SH2

Identification of independent association signals and putative functional variants for breast cancer risk through fine-scale mapping of the 12p11 locus.

BACKGROUND: Multiple recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), rs10771399, at 12p11 that is associated with breast cancer risk. METHOD: We performed a fine-scale mapping study of a 700 kb region including 441 genotyped and more than 1300 imputed genetic variants in 48,155 cases and 43,612 controls of European descent, 6269 cases and 6624 controls of East Asian descent and 1116 cases and 932 controls of African descent in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC; http://bcac.ccge.medschl.cam.ac.uk/ ), and in 15,252 BRCA1 mutation carriers in the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2 (CIMBA). Stepwise regression analyses were performed to identify independent association signals. Data from the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements project (ENCODE) and the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were used for functional annotation. RESULTS: Analysis of data from European descendants found evidence for four independent association signals at 12p11, represented by rs7297051 (odds ratio (OR) = 1.09, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 1.06-1.12; P = 3 × 10(-9)), rs805510 (OR = 1.08, 95 % CI = 1.04-1.12, P = 2 × 10(-5)), and rs1871152 (OR = 1.04, 95 % CI = 1.02-1.06; P = 2 × 10(-4)) identified in the general populations, and rs113824616 (P = 7 × 10(-5)) identified in the meta-analysis of BCAC ER-negative cases and BRCA1 mutation carriers. SNPs rs7297051, rs805510 and rs113824616 were also associated with breast cancer risk at P < 0.05 in East Asians, but none of the associations were statistically significant in African descendants. Multiple candidate functional variants are located in putative enhancer sequences. Chromatin interaction data suggested that PTHLH was the likely target gene of these enhancers. Of the six variants with the strongest evidence of potential functionality, rs11049453 was statistically significantly associated with the expression of PTHLH and its nearby gene CCDC91 at P < 0.05. CONCLUSION: This study identified four independent association signals at 12p11 and revealed potentially functional variants, providing additional insights into the underlying biological mechanism(s) for the association observed between variants at 12p11 and breast cancer risk.UK funding includes Cancer Research UK and NIH.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from BioMed Central via http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13058-016-0718-

Refined histopathological predictors of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status: A large-scale analysis of breast cancer characteristics from the BCAC, CIMBA, and ENIGMA consortia

Introduction: The distribution of histopathological features of invasive breast tumors in BRCA1 or BRCA2 germline mutation carriers differs from that of individuals with no known mutation. Histopathological features thus have utility for mutation prediction, including statistical modeling to assess pathogenicity of BRCA1 or BRCA2 variants of uncertain clinical significance. We analyzed large pathology datasets accrued by the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2 (CIMBA) and the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) to reassess histopathological predictors of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status, and provide robust likelihood ratio (LR) estimates for statistical modeling. Methods: Selection criteria for study/center inclusion were estrogen receptor (ER) status or grade data available for invasive breast cancer diagnosed younger than 70 years. The dataset included 4,477 BRCA1 mutation carriers, 2,565 BRCA2 mutation carriers, and 47,565 BCAC breast cancer cases. Country-stratified estimates of the

Associations of common breast cancer susceptibility alleles with risk of breast cancer subtypes in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers

Introduction: More than 70 common alleles are known to be involved in breast cancer (BC) susceptibility, and several exhibit significant heterogeneity in their associations with different BC subtypes. Although there are differences in the association patterns between BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers and the general population for several loci, no study has comprehensively evaluated the associations of all known BC susceptibility alleles with risk of BC subtypes in BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers. Methods: We used data from 15,252 BRCA1 and 8,211 BRCA2 carriers to analyze the associations between approximately 200,000 genetic variants on the iCOGS array and risk of BC subtypes defined by estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and triple-negative- (TN) status; morphologic subtypes; histological grade; and nodal involvement. Results: The estimated BC hazard ratios (HRs) for the 74 known BC alleles in BRCA1 carriers exhibited moderate correlations with the corresponding odds ratios from the general population. However, their associations with ER-positive BC in BRCA1 carriers were more consistent with the ER-positive as