Simultaneous Determination of long-term average Fluxes of CR Muons and Solar pp-Neutrinos

The Allchar mine of southern FYR Macedonia contains the world's largest known concentration of thallium bearing minerals. LOREX (acronym for the geochemical LORandite EXperiment) is an international collaboration exploring the opportunity to use the rare mineral lorandite (TlAsS2) for the simultaneous determination of both the average cosmic ray (CR) muon flux and the average pp-solar neutrino flux, over the 4.3 million year age of the deposit. Both fluxes will be determined by counting the extremely small number of atoms of the long-lived 205 Pb present in the mineral, produced by both muons and neutrinos in the reactions with the most abundant stable isotope, 205 Tl. CR muons participate in the reaction 205 Tl(μp,n) 205 Pb, whereas the neutrinos induce the capture reaction 205 Tl(νe,e) 205 Pb*→205 Pb. Assuming a constant solar luminosity and using the currently favoured LMA WSM neutrino oscillation scenario and the estimated neutrino capture cross-section, the expected concentration of neutrinogenic 205 Pb is ~23 atoms per gram of lorandite. In contrast with the production of 205 Pb by solar neutrinos, which is independent of depth, cosmogenic 205 Pb production is strongly depth-dependent and, therefore, very sensitive to the long-term erosion history of the field area. The neutrinogenic 205 Pb component will be estimated by measuring, at the GSI, the total (neutrinogenic + muogenic) 205 Pb concentration at different depths in the Allchar mine, and extrapolating the downwards decreasing trend. The muogenic component is then obtained by subtracting the neutrinogenic, and the small depth-independent background concentration, from the total 205 Pb. The average CR muon flux is henceforth deduced by taking into account the experimentally determined erosion rate at the mining field, while the average solar neutrino flux is obtained from the knowledge of the experimentally determined neutrino capture cross section (to be hopefully measured at the GSI in near future). The best expected resolution of the proposed method is at present of the order of 30% at the 68%CL, i.e. we will be able to detect long-term departures from the modern neutrino and/or fast muon fluxes if they were bigger than 30%. Current status of this complex experiment will be discussed in some detail

Metabolic impairments in patients with myotonic dystrophy type 2

Objectives: metabolic syndrome (MetS) increases risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes mellitus type 2. Aim of this study was to investigate frequency and features of MetS in a large cohort of patients with DM2. Materials & methods: this cross-sectional study included 47 DM2 patients. Patients were matched with 94 healthy controls (HCs) for gender and age. MetS was diagnosed according to the new worldwide consensus criteria from 2009. Results: mean age of DM2 patients was 52 ± 11 years, 15 (32%) were males, and mean disease duration was 15 ± 14 years. MetS was present in 53% of DM2 patients and 46% of HCs (p > 0.05). All components of the MetS appeared with the similar frequency in DM2 and HCs, respectively: hypertension 64 vs 52%, central obesity 62 vs 74%, hypertriglyceridemia 49 vs 39%, hyperglycemia 42 vs 33% and low HDL cholesterol 30 vs 42% (p > 0.05). DM2 patients were more commonly on lipid lowering therapy compared to HCs (12 vs 3%, p = 0.05). Fifteen (32%) patients with DM2 and only one (1%) subject from control group had diabetes mellitus (p 0.05). Conclusions: more than half of DM2 subjects met the criteria for the MetS. We suppose that treatment of metabolic disturbances may reduce cardiovascular complications and improve quality of life in patients with DM2, which is progressive and still incurable disorder

New data for the geochemical determination of the solar pp-neutrino flux by means of lorandite mineral

LOREX, the acronym of LORandite EXperiment, is the only long-time solar neutrino experiment still actively pursued. It addresses the long-time detection of the solar neutrino flux with the thallium-bearing mineral lorandite, TlAsS2 at the mine of Allchar, FYRMacedonia, via the neutrino-capture reaction 205Tl+νe→205Pb+e−. The final step of LOREX would be the extraction of lorandite samples and the quantitative determination of the ratio of 205Pb/205Tl atoms providing the product of solar neutrino flux and neutrino-capture cross-section, integrated over the age of lorandite (about 4.3×106 y). There is an unprecedented low threshold of only 50 keV for solar pp-neutrinos, to be compared with 232 keV of the GALLEX and SAGE experiments. Moreover, LOREX would be unique in view of providing the mean luminosity of the sun over the last 4.3 million years. This paper presents new data providing an accurate geological age of mineralization at Allchar, and in particular a lower limit of 36 m/106 y for the erosion rate, based on Accelerator Mass Spectrometry of 26Al and 53Mn samples taken from the mine of Allchar. This data allow first realistic conclusions on the feasibility of the LOREX project. The amount of 205Pb due to fast cosmic rays (e.g. muons), strongly depends on the depth at which the mineral existed from the time of its formation to the present day. For the mineral mined at the present-day depth this contribution then depends upon the average erosion rate at this particular location. A reliable determination of the erosion rate is, therefore, indispensable for a proper estimate of the background of 205Pb induced by cosmic radiation. Provided that this lower limit of 36 m/106 y can be corroborated by the mandatory measurement of additional probes, it is expected to reach a signal-to-background ratio equal or better than one. Finally, it is discussed how to get the still unknown capture probability of solar pp-neutrinos from 205Tl into 205Pb, in particular into its first excited state at E*=2.3 keV