Clean-up of Contaminated Indoor Air Using Photocatalytic Technology

A number of Sick Building Syndrome studies have concluded that microorganisms, endotoxins and VOCs in indoor air are involved in the development and/or aggravation of allergies and illnesses in buildings. The phototcatalytic indoor air disinfection and detoxification technology provides one of the most viable solutions to the growing need to remediate and purify contaminated indoor air. The experiments were conducted in a stainless steel environmental chamber to quantitatively measure the photocatalytic VOC destruction using Acetone as a representative VOC. While monitoring the VOC destruction, carbon dioxide (C02) levels were also measured. By performing a mass balance between the VOC destruction and C02 production, the photocatalytic technology was found to be completely effective. Dark control experiments were performed for each condition to confirm the validity of each experiment. The photocatalytic technology tested in these experiments was demonstrated to completely oxidize acetone at normal indoor air atmospheric conditions

Clean-up of Contaminated Indoor Air Using Photocatalytic Technology

A number of Sick Building Syndrome studies have concluded that microorganisms, endotoxins and VOCs in indoor air are involved in the development and/or aggravation of allergies and illnesses in buildings. The phototcatalytic indoor air disinfection and detoxification technology provides one of the most viable solutions to the growing need to remediate and purify contaminated indoor air. The experiments were conducted in a stainless steel environmental chamber to quantitatively measure the photocatalytic VOC destruction using Acetone as a representative VOC. While monitoring the VOC destruction, carbon dioxide (C02) levels were also measured. By performing a mass balance between the VOC destruction and C02 production, the photocatalytic technology was found to be completely effective. Dark control experiments were performed for each condition to confirm the validity of each experiment. The photocatalytic technology tested in these experiments was demonstrated to completely oxidize acetone at normal indoor air atmospheric conditions

Gauge Singlet Scalars as Cold Dark Matter

In light of recent interest in minimal extensions of the Standard Model and gauge singlet scalar cold dark matter, we provide an arXiv preprint of the paper, published as Phys.Rev. D50 (1994) 3637, which presented the first detailed analysis of gauge singlet scalar cold dark matter.Comment: 37 pages, 11 figures, LaTe

CP Violation and Dark Matter

A brief review is given of the effects of CP violation on the direct detection of neutralinos in dark matter detectors. We first summarize the current developments using the cancellation mechanism which allows for the existence of large CP violating phases consistent with experimental limits on the electron and on the neutron electric dipole moments in a broad class of SUSY, string and D brane models. We then discuss their effects on the scattering of neutralinos from quarks and on the event rates. It is found that while CP effects on the event rates can be enormous such effects are reduced significantly with the imposition of the EDM constraints. However, even with the inclusion of the EDM constraints the effects are still very significant and should be included in a precision prediction of event rates in any SUSY, string or D brane model.Comment: Based on an invited talk at the conference "Sources and Detection of Dark Matter in the Universe", at Marina del Rey, CA, Feb. 23-25, 2000; 12 pages, Latex including 2 figure

Predictions of Neutralino Dark Matter Event Rates in Minimal Supergravity Unification

A detailed analysis of dark matter event rates in minimal supergravity models (MSGM) is given. It is shown analytically that the lightest neutralino the ${{\tilde {Z}_{1}}}$ is the LSP over almost all of the parameter space, and hence the natural candidate for cold dark matter (CDM). The radiative breaking of $SU(2)\times U(1)$ constraints are shown to be crucial in determining the expected event rates. Approximate analytic formulae are obtained to determine the gaugino-higgsino content of the ${{\tilde{Z}_{1}}}$ particle.From this one can deduce the behavior of the event rates as one varies the SUSY soft breaking parameters and tan $\beta$. The constraint on the event rates due to the recently measured $b\rightarrow s+\gamma$ decay is calculated. It is seen that this data eliminates most of the parameter space where $\mu$ (the Higgs mixing parameter) and $A_t$ (the t-quark cubic soft breaking parameter) have the same sign. Since the t-quark is close to its Landau pole, $A_t$ is restricted to be mostly positive, and so most of the $\mu>0$ part of the parameter space is eliminated...Comment: Revised version for easier TeXing, with some typos corrected. 25 pages + 12 figs.The figs can be faxed on request

Gaugino Mass Nonuniversality and Dark Matter in SUGRA, Strings and D Brane Models

The effects of nonuniversality of gaugino masses on dark matter are examined within supersymmetric grand unification, and in string and D brane models with R parity invariance. In SU(5) unified models nonuniversality in the gaugino sector can be generated via the gauge kinetic energy function which may depend on the 24, 75 and 200 dimensional Higgs representations. We also consider string models which allow for nonuniversality of gaugino masses and D brane models where nonuniversality arises from embeddings of the Standard Model gauge group on five branes and nine branes. It is found that with gaugino mass nonuniversality the range of the LSP mass can be extended much beyond the range allowed in the universal SUGRA case, up to about 600 GeV even without coannihilation effects in some regions of the parameter space. The effects of coannihilation are not considered and inclusion of these effects may further increase the allowed neutralino mass range. Similarly with the inclusion of gaugino mass nonuniversality, the neutralino-proton ($\chi -p$) cross-section can increase by as much as a factor of 10 in some of regions of the parameter space. An analysis of the uncertainties in the quark density content of the nucleon is given and their effects on $\chi -p$ cross-section are discussed. The predictions of our analysis including nonuniversality is compared with the current limits from dark matter detectors and implications for future dark matter searches are discussed.Comment: Revised version, 23 pages, Latex, and 7 figure

Non-Universal Soft SUSY Breaking and Dark Matter

An analysis is given of the effects of non-universal soft SUSY breaking masses in the Higgs sector and in the third generation squark sector, and it is shown that they are highly coupled. Analytic expressions are obtained for their effects on the parameters $\mu,m_A$ and on the third generation squark masses. Non-universality effects on dark matter event rates in neutralino-nucleus scattering are analysed. It is found that the effects are maximal in the range $m_{\tilde\chi_1}\leq 65$~GeV where the relic density is governed by the Z and Higgs poles. In this range the minimum event rates can be increased or decreased by factors of O(10) depending on the sign of non-universality. Above this range Landau pole effects arising from the heavy top mass tend to suppress the non-universality effects. The effect of more precise measurements of cosmological parameters on event rates, which is expected to occur in the next round of COBE like sattelite experiments, is also investigated. Implications for the analysis for dark matter searches are discussed.Comment: 28 pages, latex, and 7 fig

Internet-based search of randomised trials relevant to mental health originating in the Arab world

BACKGROUND: The internet is becoming a widely used source of accessing medical research through various on-line databases. This instant access to information is of benefit to busy clinicians and service users around the world. The population of the Arab World is comparable to that of the United States, yet it is widely believed to have a greatly contrasting output of randomised controlled trials related to mental health. This study was designed to investigate the existence of such research in the Arab World and also to investigate the availability of this research on-line. METHODS: Survey of findings from three internet-based potential sources of randomised trials originating from the Arab world and relevant to mental health care. RESULTS: A manual search of an Arabic online current contents service identified 3 studies, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO searches identified only 1 study, and a manual search of a specifically indexed, study-based mental health database, PsiTri, revealed 27 trials. CONCLUSION: There genuinely seem to be few trials from the Arab world and accessing these on-line was problematic. Replication of some studies that guide psychiatric/psychological practice in the Arab world would seem prudent

Twenty Years of SUGRA

A brief review is given of the developments of mSUGRA and its extensions since the formulation of these models in 1982. Future directions and prospects are also discussed.Comment: Invited talk at the International Conference BEYOND-2003, Schloss Ringberg, Germany, June 10-14, 2003; 21 pages, Late