9,115 research outputs found
Estimating the reproductive number, total outbreak size, and reporting rates for Zika epidemics in South and Central America
As South and Central American countries prepare for increased birth defects
from Zika virus outbreaks and plan for mitigation strategies to minimize
ongoing and future outbreaks, understanding important characteristics of Zika
outbreaks and how they vary across regions is a challenging and important
problem. We developed a mathematical model for the 2015 Zika virus outbreak
dynamics in Colombia, El Salvador, and Suriname. We fit the model to publicly
available data provided by the Pan American Health Organization, using
Approximate Bayesian Computation to estimate parameter distributions and
provide uncertainty quantification. An important model input is the at-risk
susceptible population, which can vary with a number of factors including
climate, elevation, population density, and socio-economic status. We informed
this initial condition using the highest historically reported dengue incidence
modified by the probable dengue reporting rates in the chosen countries. The
model indicated that a country-level analysis was not appropriate for Colombia.
We then estimated the basic reproduction number, or the expected number of new
human infections arising from a single infected human, to range between 4 and 6
for El Salvador and Suriname with a median of 4.3 and 5.3, respectively. We
estimated the reporting rate to be around 16% in El Salvador and 18% in
Suriname with estimated total outbreak sizes of 73,395 and 21,647 people,
respectively. The uncertainty in parameter estimates highlights a need for
research and data collection that will better constrain parameter ranges.Comment: 35 pages, 16 figure
Predicting Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay
We give predictions for the neutrinoless double beta decay rate in a simple
variant of the A_4 family symmetry model. We show that there is a lower bound
for the neutrinoless double beta decay amplitude even in the case of normal
hierarchical neutrino masses, corresponding to an effective mass parameter
|m_{ee}| >= 0.17 \sqrt{\Delta m^2_{ATM}}. This result holds both for the CP
conserving and CP violating cases. In the latter case we show explicitly that
the lower bound on |m_{ee}| is sensitive to the value of the Majorana phase. We
conclude therefore that in our scheme, neutrinoless double beta decay may be
accessible to the next generation of high sensitivity experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl
Invisible Higgs Boson Decays in Spontaneously Broken R-Parity
The Higgs boson may decay mainly to an invisible mode characterized by
missing energy, instead of the Standard Model channels. This is a generic
feature of many models where neutrino masses arise from the spontaneous
breaking of ungauged lepton number at relatively low scales, such as
spontaneously broken R-parity models. Taking these models as framework, we
reanalyze this striking suggestion in view of the recent data on neutrino
oscillations that indicate non-zero neutrino masses. We show that, despite the
smallness of neutrino masses, the Higgs boson can decay mainly to the invisible
Goldstone boson associated to the spontaneous breaking of lepton number. This
requires a gauge singlet superfield coupling to the electroweak doublet
Higgses, as in the Next to Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM)
scenario for solving the -problem. The search for invisibly decaying Higgs
bosons should be taken into account in the planning of future accelerators,
such as the Large Hadron Collider and the Next Linear Collider.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures; typos corrected, published versio
Probing minimal supergravity in the type-I seesaw mechanism with lepton flavour violation at the CERN LHC
The most general supersymmetric seesaw mechanism has too many parameters to
be predictive and thus can not be excluded by any measurements of lepton
flavour violating (LFV) processes. We focus on the simplest version of the
type-I seesaw mechanism assuming minimal supergravity boundary conditions. We
compute branching ratios for the LFV scalar tau decays, , as well as loop-induced LFV decays at low energy, such as
and , exploring their sensitivity to the
unknown seesaw parameters. We find some simple, extreme scenarios for the
unknown right-handed parameters, where ratios of LFV branching ratios correlate
with neutrino oscillation parameters. If the overall mass scale of the left
neutrinos and the value of the reactor angle were known, the study of LFV
allows, in principle, to extract information about the so far unknown
right-handed neutrino parameters.Comment: 29 pages, 27 figures; added explanatory comments, corrected typos,
final version for publicatio
Effect of heavy-quark energy loss on the muon differential production cross section in Pb-Pb collisions at \sqrtsNN=5.5 TeV
We study the nuclear modification factors RAA and RCP of the high transverse
momentum 5<pt<60 GeV/c distribution of muons in Pb--Pb collisions at LHC
energies. We consider two pseudo-rapidity ranges covered by the LHC
experiments: and . Muons from semi-leptonic decays of
heavy quarks (c and b) and from leptonic decays of weak gauge bosons (W and Z)
are the main contributions to the muon pt distribution above a few GeV/c. We
compute the heavy quark contributions using available pQCD-based programs. We
include the nuclear shadowing modification of the parton distribution functions
and the in-medium radiative energy loss for heavy quarks, using the
mass-dependent BDMPS quenching weights. Muons from W and Z leptonic decays,
that dominate the yield at high pt, can be used as a medium-blind reference to
observe the medium-induced suppression of beauty quarks
Assessment of the variability of atmospheric pollution in national parks of mainland Spain
Air quality in nine National Parks in mainland Spain was assessed analysing SO2, NOx, O3, PM10 and PM2.5 data from background stations. As emissions in and around parks are limited, the levels of primary pollutants are low. Concentrations of secondary pollutants are high especially in summer due to photochemical production. The geographical variability of pollutants responds to regional emission patterns and the dominant circulation regimes in different regions resulting in west-east gradients for O3 and PM. Seasonal variability of pollutants was also interpreted in virtue of transport scenarios, changes in photochemical activity and emissions variability. NOx and SO2, maximize in winter due to higher emissions while O3 and PM do it in summer due to photochemical production, lower precipitation and, in the case of PM, the occurrence of African dust outbreaks. The diurnal evolution was interpreted in virtue of variability in emissions and changes in the Planetary Boundar Layer height
Force-free state in a superconducting single crystal and angle-dependent vortex helical instability
Superconducting 2HâNbSe2 single crystals show intrinsic low pinning values. Therefore, they are ideal materials with which to explore fundamental properties of vortices. (V, I) characteristics are the experimental data we have used to investigate the dissipation mechanisms in a rectangular-shaped 2HâNbSe2 single crystal. Particularly, we have studied dissipation behavior with magnetic fields applied in the plane of the crystal and parallel to the injected currents, i.e., in the force-free state where the vortex helical instability governs the vortex dynamics. In this regime, the data follow the elliptic critical state model and the voltage dissipation shows an exponential dependence, Vâeα(IâICâ„), ICâ„ being the critical current in the force-free configuration and α a linear temperature-dependent parameter. Moreover, this exponential dependence can be observed for in-plane applied magnetic fields up to 40° off the current direction, which implies that the vortex helical instability plays a role in dissipation even out of the force-free configuration
- âŠ