Large Mass Scale by Strong Gauge Dynamics with Infrared Fixed Point

We consider a mechanism for realizing the desired decoupling of strongly-coupled sector which is supposed to generate hierarchical structure of the Yukawa couplings. In our mechanism, the same strongly-coupled sector is responsible for generating a sufficiently flat potential and a large vacuum expectation value (VEV) of a gauge-singlet scalar field by suppressing its soft scalar mass and self-coupling. Vacuum instability is caused by supersymmetry-breaking A-term of order 10 TeV. We explicitly demonstrate the infrared convergence of soft scalar masses due to strongly-coupled dynamics and show the soft mass of the singlet is at most comparable to soft masses of squarks and sleptons, which are much suppressed than the A-term. The physical mass scale of the decoupling is calculated in a self-consistent way. We also reinterpret the result in terms of a RG-improved effective potential.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, LaTeX (PTPTeX style

ANALYSIS ON SUPPORT PROGRAM WITH CONVERSION FROM VACANT HOUSES INTO COMMUNITY BASES: A CASE IN SETAGAYA WARD, TOKYO

The municipal government of Setagaya Ward established a consultation program for individual owners of vacant houses in July 2013 to convert them into useful places for the community. This service aims to match with owners of vacant houses and citizen groups such as non-profit organizations and has established 22 bases for the community in 10 years. The authors found that the majority of them are used for social welfare offering places for children, disabilities, or the elderly. These facts indicate the necessity of the role of the public sector’s program rather than private companies to promote the re-utilization of vacant houses into places of inclusionary use for the community

New RG-invariants of Soft Supersymmetry Breaking Parameters

We study new renormalization-group invariant quantities of soft supersymmetry breaking parameters other than the ratio of gaugino mass to gauge coupling squared by using the spurion method. The obtained invariants are useful to probe supersymmetry breaking and mu-term generation mechanisms at high-energy scale. We also discuss the convergence behavior of fixed points of supersymmetry breaking parameters.Comment: 9 page

Moduli trapping mechanism in modular flavor symmetric models

We discuss how the moduli in modular flavor symmetric models dynamically select enhanced symmetry points at which the residual modular symmetry renders extra matter fields massless. The moduli dynamics non-perturbatively produces the extra matter particles, which gives (time-dependent) effective potential that traps the moduli to enhanced symmetry points. We show analytic estimates of particle production rate consistent with numerical results, and the dynamics of moduli based on the analytic estimates.Comment: 35 pages, 14 figure

Tolerance induction after organ transplantation, “delayed tolerance,” via the mixed chimerism approach: Planting flowers in a battle field

We have previously reported that peri-transplant conditioning leads to successful induction of renal allograft tolerance via the mixed chimerism approach in nonhuman primates (NHP) and humans. However, this strategy requires treatments beginning six days prior to transplantation, which limits its relevance only to living donor transplant recipients. To extend the clinical applicability of this approach, we developed a novel regimen “delayed tolerance,” with which the recipient initially undergoes organ transplantation with conventional immunosuppression, followed by conditioning and donor bone marrow transplantation (DBMT) at a later date. This approach might be likened to “planting flowers in a battle field.” That is, the recipient’s immunologic environment after organ transplantation is like a battlefield filled with hostile innate and adaptive immune-responses directed against donor antigeneic specificities. Implanting fragile donor hematopoietic progenitors into this environment and encouraging them to bloom in this vicious field requires special treatments

Further all-loop results in softly-broken supersymmetric gauge theories

It is proven that the recently found, renormalization-group invariant sum rule for the soft scalar masses in softly-broken N=1 supersymmetric gauge-Yukawa unified theories can be extended to all orders in perturbation theory. In the case of finite unified theories, the sum rule ensures the all-loop finiteness in the soft supersymmetry breaking sector. As a byproduct the exact $\beta$ function for the soft scalar masses in the Novikov-Shifman-Vainstein-Zakharov (NSVZ) scheme for softly-broken supersymmetric QCD is obtained. It is also found that the singularity appearing in the sum rule in the NSVZ scheme exactly coincides with that which has been previously found in a certain class of superstring models in which the massive string states are organized into $N = 4$ supermultiplets.Comment: 14 page

A primary aorto-duodenal fistula associated with an inflammatory abdominal aortic aneurysm: a case report.

Primary aorto-enteric fistula (PAEF)is a serious complication of abdominal aortic aneurysm(AAA). We report a patient with PAEF associated with inflammatory AAA who underwent emergent surgery. A 52-year-old male presented with recurrent hematemesis. A computer tomography scan showed a sealed rupture of the AAA adjacent to the duodenum. At surgery, a coin-sized PAEF was noted. The aorta was replaced with a Dacron graft in situ . Histological examination revealed the characteristics of an inflammatory AAA. The postoperative course was uneventful, and there has been no evidence of infection during a follow-up period of 3 years. We discuss the etiologic and surgical considerations regarding this unusual entity.</p

Critical Point Mutations for Hepatitis C Virus NS3 Proteinase

AbstractThe hepatitis C virus NS3 proteinase plays an essential role in processing of HCV nonstructural precursor polyprotein. To detect its processing activity, we developed a simpletrans-cleavage assay. Two recombinant plasmids expressing the NS3 proteinase region and a chimeric substrate polyprotein containing the NS5A/5B cleavage site between maltose binding protein and protein A were co-introduced intoEscherichia colicells. The proteinase processed the substrate at the single site during their polyprotein expression. Deletion analysis indicated that the functionally minimal domain of the NS3 proteinase was composed of 146 amino acids, 1059 to 1204. We isolated several cDNA clones encoding the functional domain of the NS3 proteinase from the sera of patients chronically infected with HCV and determined their proteinase activity by thistrans-cleavage assay. Both active and inactive clones existed in the same patients. Comparative sequence analyses of these clones suggested that certain point mutations seemed to be related to the loss of proteolytic activity. This was confirmed by back mutation experiments. Among the critical mutations, Pro-1168 to Thr and Arg-1135 to Gly were intriguing. These amino acids, which are situated near the oxyanion hole, seem to be essential for maintaining the conformation of the active center of the NS3 proteinase