The MSSM from Scherk-Schwarz Supersymmetry Breaking

We present a five-dimensional model compactified on an interval where supersymmetry is broken by the Scherk-Schwarz mechanism. The gauge sector propagates in the bulk, two Higgs hypermultiplets are quasilocalized, and quark and lepton multiplets localized, in one of the boundaries. The effective four-dimensional theory is the MSSM with very heavy gauginos, heavy squarks and light sleptons and Higgsinos. The soft tree-level squared masses of the Higgs sector can be negative and they can (partially) cancel the positive one-loop contributions from the gauge sector. Electroweak symmetry breaking can then comfortably be triggered by two-loop radiative corrections from the top-stop sector. The fine tuning required to obtain the electroweak scale is found to be much smaller than in the MSSM, with essentially no fine-tuning for few TeV gaugino masses. All bounds from direct Higgs searches at LEP and from electroweak precision observables can be satisfied. The lightest supersymmetric particle is a (Higgsino-like) neutralino that can accomodate the abundance of Dark Matter consistently with recent WMAP observations.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figure

Appendiceal Mucocele – Unexpected Diagnosis in a Gynecology Department

Appendiceal mucocele is a rare entity, occuring in < 1% among appendicectomies, with a female predominance 4/1 (F/M) and a mean age of more than 50 years. The preoperative diagnosis is difficult; in most cases, it´s an intraoperative finding. In such work, we describe the two clinical cases occurring in last 10 years in our Department. Case 1 - 56 years old, posmenopausal, referred to our Department (02/2004) because an asymptomatic right adnexal septated cystic image, 53x48mm, with hipovascularized septa and a vascularised capsule with low flow resistance (IR 0,57). CA 125 elevated (71,3 U/mL).Exploratory laparotomy: an ovary increased, with a gelatanious consistency and an appendicular enlargement. Extemporaneous examination: a pseudomixoma peritonei, associated with a mucinous appendicular and an ovary tumor. It was performed a radical surgery. The histo-pathological analysis showed a mucinous cystadenoma of the appendix with peritoneal mucinous dissemination involving the ovary. Expectant attitude since the surgery, without clinical and imaging signs of recurrence. Case 2- 62 years old posmenopausal and asymptomatic woman, with a large adnexal mass detected on routine pelvic ultrasound: heterogeneous, 94x84mm without vascularisation signs in its interior. CEA was elevated (41,47U/ml). Exploratory laparotomy (02/2010): enlarged appendix and macroscopically normal pelvic organs. An appendicectomy was performed. The histo-pathological analysis showed a 10cm mucinous cystadenoma of the appendix and signs of localized (visceral peritoneal surface) pseudomyxoma peritonei. Currently she’s clinically well, in an expectant attitude. Despite mucoceles of the appendix are rare, they should be considered in women presenting with abnormal quadrant masses

On the applicability of transfer function models for ssi embedment effects

Soil-structure interaction (SSI) effects are typically neglected for relatively lightweight buildings that are less than two-three storeys high with a limited footprint area and resting on shallow foundations (i.e., not featuring a basement). However, when the above conditions are not satisfied, and in particular when large basements are present, important kinematic SSI may develop, causing the foundation-level motion to deviate from the free-field one due to embedment effects. In the literature, transfer function models that estimate the filtering effect induced by rigid massless embedded foundations are available to “transform” foundation-level recordings into free-field ones, and vice-versa. This work describes therefore a numerical study aimed at assessing potential limits of the applicability of such transfer functions through the employment of a 3D nonlinear soil-block model representing a layered soil, recently developed and validated by the authors, and featuring on top a large heavy building with basement. A number of finite element site response analyses were carried out for different seismic input signals, soil profiles and embedment depths of the building’s basement. The numerically obtained transfer functions were compared with the curves derived using two analytical models. It was observed that the latter are able to reliably predict the embedment effects in “idealised” soil/input conditions under which they have been developed. However, in real conditions, namely when a non-homogeneous profile with nonlinear behaviour under a given seismic excitation is considered, especially in presence of a basement that is more than one storey high, they may fail in capturing some features, such as the frequency-dependent amplification of the motion at the basement level of a building with respect to the free-field one

R-HybrID: Evolution of agent controllers with a hybridisation of indirect and direct encodings

Neuroevolution, the optimisation of artificial neural networks (ANNs) through evolutionary computation, is a promising approach to the synthesis of controllers for autonomous agents. Traditional neuroevolution approaches employ direct encodings, which are limited in their ability to evolve complex or large-scale controllers because each ANN parameter is independently optimised. Indirect encodings, on the other hand, facilitate scalability because each gene can be reused multiple times to construct the ANN, but are biased towards regularity and can become ineffective when irregularity is required. To address such limitations, we introduce a novel algorithm called R-HybrID. In R-HybrID, controllers have both indirectly encoded and directly encoded structure. Because the portion of structure following a specific encoding is under evolutionary control, R-HybrID can automatically find an appropriate encoding combination for a given task. We assess the performance of R-HybrID in three tasks: (i) a high-dimensional visual discrimination task that requires geometric principles to be evolved, (ii) a challenging benchmark for modular robotics, and (iii) a memory task that has proven difficult for current algorithms because it requires effectively accumulating neural structure for cognitive behaviour to emerge. Our results show that R-HybrID consistently outperforms three stateof-the-art neuroevolution algorithms, and effectively evolves complex controllers and behaviours.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Patients with cancer: social representations in nursing

The meaning attributed to cancer, when passing the patient-family boundary is, in some degree, also shared between health professionals, which can have effect on the professionals’ performance and influence the opinions of users about health services. The focus of this work is the analysis of social representations about patients with cancer, in a population of nurse students, professional nurses working with cancer patients, and professional nurses not working with cancer patients, of both sexes. Our main goal is to know their conceptions towards oncologic patients. The methodological option was the social representations theory. The data was retrieved by questionnaire using the free word association technique. Several Factorial Correspondence Analysis where made to identify the different dimensions (or dependent variables). In general, all professional groups represent oncologic patients by their physical alterations. Nurse students decipher cancer in a distant perspective, as the unknown and something that causes discomfort and eventually… death. In fact, patients with cancer are strongly associated to situations of pain, involving suffering, and death. Women show a more positive perception of cancer, supported in treatment and hoping for a healing possibility. Men demonstrate a greater difficulty in dissociating the patients with cancer of people who soon will die. There is still a long way to walk before cancer patients are no longer associated to a death sign.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Patients with cancer: Social representations in nursing

The meaning attributed to cancer, when passing the patient-family boundary is, in some degree, also shared between health professionals, which can have effect on the professionals’ performance and influence the opinions of users about health services. The focus of this work is the analysis of social representations about patients with cancer, in a population of nurse students, professional nurses working with cancer patients, and professional nurses not working with cancer patients, of both sexes. Our main goal is to know their conceptions towards oncologic patients. The methodological option was the social representations theory. The data was retrieved by questionnaire using the free word association technique. Several Factorial Correspondence Analysis where made to identify the different dimensions (or dependent variables). In general, all professional groups represent oncologic patients by their physical alterations. Nurse students decipher cancer in a distant perspective, as the unknown and something that causes discomfort and eventually… death. In fact, patients with cancer are strongly associated to situations of pain, involving suffering, and death. Women show a more positive perception of cancer, supported in treatment and hoping for a healing possibility. Men demonstrate a greater difficulty in dissociating the patients with cancer of people who soon will die. There is still a long way to walk before cancer patients are no longer associated to a death sign.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Corrections to the Boltzmann mean free path in disordered systems with finite size scatterers

The mean free path is an essential characteristic length in disordered systems. In microscopic calculations, it is usually approximated by the classical value of the elastic mean free path. It corresponds to the Boltzmann mean free path when only isotropic scattering is considered, but it is different for anisotropic scattering. In this paper, we work out the corrections to the so called Boltzmann mean free path due to multiple scattering effects on finite size scatterers, in the s-wave approximation, ie. when the elastic mean free path is equivalent to the Boltzmann mean free path. The main result is the expression for the mean free path expanded in powers of the perturbative parameter given by the scatterer density.Comment: 12 page

Online hyper-evolution of controllers in multirobot systems

In this paper, we introduce online hyper-evolution (OHE) to accelerate and increase the performance of online evolution of robotic controllers. Robots executing OHE use the different sources of feedback information traditionally associated with controller evaluation to find effective evolutionary algorithms and controllers online during task execution. We present two approaches: OHE-fitness, which uses the fitness score of controllers as the criterion to select promising algorithms over time, and OHE-diversity, which relies on the behavioural diversity of controllers for algorithm selection. Both OHE-fitness and OHE-diversity are distributed across groups of robots that evolve in parallel. We assess the performance of OHE-fitness and of OHE-diversity in two foraging tasks with differing complexity, and in five configurations of a dynamic phototaxis task with varying evolutionary pressures. Results show that our OHE approaches: (i) outperform multiple state-of-the-art algorithms as they facilitate controllers with superior performance and faster evolution of solutions, and (ii) can increase effectiveness at different stages of evolution by combining the benefits of multiple algorithms over time. Overall, our study shows that OHE is an effective new paradigm to the synthesis of controllers for robots.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Transdisciplinary insight of digital architecture

The research outlines a historic perspective of transdisciplinary digital architecture through the work of key personalities by establishing links between them. Researches on digital architecture history are generally grounded on methods with limited sets of primary sources and data is lost. Following the increasing availability of digital data sources in the internet, which were not created and structured with research purposes in mind, new methods are required for mapping, analyzing and visualizing it. Data-driven and geospatial approaches can allow researchers to address multidimensional aspects and facts. This paper presents the first preliminary results of an ongoing research.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio