TeV Scale Phenomenology of e+e−→μ+μ−e^+e^- \to\mu^+ \mu^- Scattering in the Noncommutative Standard Model with Hybrid Gauge Transformation

The hybrid gauge transformation and its nontrivial phenomenological implications are investigated using the noncommutative gauge theory with the Seiberg-Witten map expanded scenario. Particularly, the $e^+e^- \to\mu^+ \mu^-$ process is studied with a generalized noncommutative standard model (NCSM) including massive neutrinos and neutrino-photon interaction. In this model, the hybrid gauge transformation in the lepton sector is naturally introduced through the requirement of gauge invariance of the seesaw neutrino mass term. It is shown that in the NCSM without hybrid gauge transformation the noncommutative correction to the scattering amplitude of the $e^+e^- \to\mu^+ \mu^-$ process appears only as a phase factor, predicting no new physical deviation in the cross section. However, when the hybrid feature is considered, the noncommutative effect appears in the single channel process. The cross section and angular distribution are analyzed in the laboratory frame including Earth's rotation. It is proposed that pair production of muons in the upcoming TeV International Linear Collider (ILC) can provide an ideal opportunity for exploring not only the NC space-time, but also the mathematical structure of the corresponding gauge theory.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figure

Decoupled Land and Ocean Temperature Trends in the Early-Middle Pleistocene

Record of long-term land temperature changes remains ephemeral, discontinuous, and isolated, thus leaving the common view that Pleistocene land temperature evolution should have followed ocean temperatures unconfirmed. Here, we present a continuous land surface temperature reconstruction in the Asian monsoon region over the past 3.0 Myr based on the distribution of soil bacterial lipids from the Chinese Loess Plateau. The land temperature record indicates an unexpected warming trend over the Pleistocene, which is opposite to the cooling trend in Pleistocene ocean temperatures, resulting in increased land-sea thermal contrast. We propose that the previously unrecognized increase of land-sea thermal contrast during much of the Pleistocene is a regional climate phenomenon that provides a likely mechanism in favor of the long-term enhancement of the Pleistocene East Asian summer monsoon

Brain SegNet: 3D local refinement network for brain lesion segmentation.

MR images (MRIs) accurate segmentation of brain lesions is important for improving cancer diagnosis, surgical planning, and prediction of outcome. However, manual and accurate segmentation of brain lesions from 3D MRIs is highly expensive, time-consuming, and prone to user biases. We present an efficient yet conceptually simple brain segmentation network (referred as Brain SegNet), which is a 3D residual framework for automatic voxel-wise segmentation of brain lesion. Our model is able to directly predict dense voxel segmentation of brain tumor or ischemic stroke regions in 3D brain MRIs. The proposed 3D segmentation network can run at about 0.5s per MRIs - about 50 times faster than previous approaches Med Image Anal 43: 98-111, 2018, Med Image Anal 36:61-78, 2017. Our model is evaluated on the BRATS 2015 benchmark for brain tumor segmentation, where it obtains state-of-the-art results, by surpassing recently published results reported in Med Image Anal 43: 98-111, 2018, Med Image Anal 36:61-78, 2017. We further applied the proposed Brain SegNet for ischemic stroke lesion outcome prediction, with impressive results achieved on the Ischemic Stroke Lesion Segmentation (ISLES) 2017 database

The polycomb group protein EZH2 induces epithelial–mesenchymal transition and pluripotent phenotype of gastric cancer cells by binding to PTEN promoter

Abstract Background The influences of oncogenic Ezh2 on the progression and prognosis of gastric cancer (GC) and the underlying mechanisms are still poorly understood. Here, we aimed at investigating clinicopathological significance of Ezh2 in GC and the mechanisms underlying its function in GC development. Methods The expression level of Ezh2 was determined by qRT-PCR, immunoblot, and immunohistochemistry analysis in 156 pairs of GC tissues and adjacent normal gastric mucosa tissues. The biological functions of Ezh2 were assessed by in vitro and in vivo functional experiments. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), luciferase, and Western blotting analyses were utilized to identify the relationship between Ezh2 and the PTEN/Akt signaling. Results The expression of Ezh2 was higher in gastric cancer tissues in comparison with para-nontumorous epithelium. High expression of Ezh2 was associated with more aggressive biological behavior and poor prognosis in GC. In vitro studies indicated that Ezh2 promoted GC cells’ proliferation and clonogenicity. Besides, Ezh2 led to the acquisition of epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) phenotype of GC cells and enhanced GC cell migration and invasion capacity. In particular, Ezh2 strengthened sphere-forming capacity of GC cells, indicating its role in the enrichment of GC stem cells. Furthermore, we found that PTEN/Akt signaling contributed to the effects of Ezh2 on cancer stem cells (CSC) and EMT phenotype in GC cells, and blocking PTEN signaling significantly rescued the effects of Ezh2. Conclusions Taken together, Ezh2 has a central role in regulating diverse aspects of the pathogenesis of GC in part by involving PTEN/Akt signaling, indicating that it could be an independent prognostic factor and potential therapeutic target

The Interannual Relationship between the Diabatic Heating over the South Asia and the Snow Depth over the Southern Tibetan Plateau in Late Spring to Early Summer: Roles of the Air Temperature

The southern Tibetan Plateau (TP) is snow covered during cold season but exhibits faster snow melting in early summer. Using in situ observations and improved satellite-derived data, the present study indicates that the snow depth (SD) over the southern TP exhibits distinction characteristics between late spring (i.e., P1: April 16th–May 15th) and early summer (i.e., P2: May 16th–June 14th). In terms of climate states, the snow melting rate over the southern TP in P2 is faster than that in P1. The acceleration of snow melting during P2 is mainly found over high elevation areas caused by the increase of local air temperature. Diagnoses of the thermodynamic equation further demonstrate that the warming over the southern TP during the two periods is mainly attributed to the meridional temperature advection and diabatic heating in situ. On the interannual time scale, the SD over the southern TP is closely related to diabatic heating over South Asia. During P1, the diabatic cooling from the southern Bay of Bengal eastward to the western South China Sea suppresses convection over the Bay of Bengal and southern TP and has resulted in an upper-level anomalous cyclone and cold temperature anomalies from the surface to 200 hPa over the southern TP, favoring the above-normal SD over the southern TP. On the other hand, SD over the southern TP in P2 is closely related to diabatic cooling over the northern Indochina Peninsula and diabatic heating over the southern China. But we could not prove that these diabatic heating anomalies can affect the SD over the southern TP by modulating local surface air temperature. This may be limited by the quality of the data and the simulation capability of the simple model