Muonium-antimuonium conversion in models with heavy neutrinos

We study muonium-antimuonium conversion and mu+ e- to mu- e+ scattering within two different lepton-flavor-violating models with heavy neutrinos: model I is a typical seesaw that violates lepton number as well as flavor; model II has a neutrino mass texture where lepton number is conserved. We look for the largest possible amplitudes of these processes that are consistent with current bounds. We find that model I has very limited chance of providing an observable signal, except if a finely tuned condition in parameter space occurs. Model II, on the other hand, requires no fine tuning and could cause larger effects. However, the maximum amplitude provided by this model is still two orders of magnitude below the sensitivity of current experiments: one predicts an effective coupling G_MM up to 10^{-4}G_F for heavy neutrino masses near 10 TeV. We have also clarified some discrepancies in previous literature on this subject.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, reference adde

Neutrino wave function and oscillation suppression

We consider a thought experiment, in which a neutrino is produced by an electron on a nucleus in a crystal. The wave function of the oscillating neutrino is calculated assuming that the electron is described by a wave packet. If the electron is relativistic and the spatial size of its wave packet is much larger than the size of the crystal cell, then the wave packet of the produced neutrino has essentially the same size as the wave packet of the electron. We investigate the suppression of neutrino oscillations at large distances caused by two mechanisms: 1) spatial separation of wave packets corresponding to different neutrino masses; 2) neutrino energy dispersion for given neutrino mass eigenstates. We resolve contributions of these two mechanisms.Comment: 7 page

Characterization of nebulized buparvaquone nanosuspensions - effect of nebulization technology

The poorly soluble drug buparvaquone is proposed as an alternative treatment of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) lung infections. Physically stable nanosuspensions were formulated in order to deliver the drug at the site of infection using nebulization. The aerosolization characteristics of two buparvaquone nanosuspensions were determined with commercial jet and ultrasonic nebulizer devices. Aerosol droplet size distribution was determined with laser diffractometry (LD). Nebulization of the nanosuspensions and dispersion media surfactant solutions produced aerosol droplets diameters in the range from 3 to 5 mu m for Respi-jet Kendall, Pari Turbo Boy system and Multisonic nebulizers and particles around 9-10 mm with Omron U1. Fractions of the nanosuspensions from the nebulizer reservoir and of aerosol produced were collected to investigate changes in the size of the drug nanocrystals influenced by the nebulization technology. Comparisons were performed measuring the drug nanocrystals with photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS) and LD of the samples. Drug particle aggregates were detected in the fractions of aerosol collected from jet nebulizers. Nebulizer technology ( jet vs. ultrasonic) showed influence on the stability of the drug particle size distribution of buparvaquone nanocrystals during the nebulization time evaluated

Maximum likelihood estimation of locus-specific mutation rates in Y-chromosome short tandem repeats

Motivation: Y-chromosome short tandem repeats (Y-STRs) are widely used for population studies, forensic purposes and, potentially, the study of disease, therefore knowledge of their mutation rate is valuable. Here we show a novel method for estimation of site-specific Y-STR mutation rates from partial phylogenetic information, via the maximum likelihood framework

Using MATLAB software with Tomcat server and Java platform for remote image analysis in pathology

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Matlab software is a one of the most advanced development tool for application in engineering practice. From our point of view the most important is the image processing toolbox, offering many built-in functions, including mathematical morphology, and implementation of a many artificial neural networks as AI. It is very popular platform for creation of the specialized program for image analysis, also in pathology. Based on the latest version of Matlab Builder Java toolbox, it is possible to create the software, serving as a remote system for image analysis in pathology via internet communication. The internet platform can be realized based on Java Servlet Pages with Tomcat server as servlet container.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In presented software implementation we propose remote image analysis realized by Matlab algorithms. These algorithms can be compiled to executable <it>jar</it> file with the help of Matlab Builder Java toolbox. The Matlab function must be declared with the set of input data, output structure with numerical results and Matlab web figure. Any function prepared in that manner can be used as a Java function in Java Servlet Pages (JSP). The graphical user interface providing the input data and displaying the results (also in graphical form) must be implemented in JSP. Additionally the data storage to database can be implemented within algorithm written in Matlab with the help of Matlab Database Toolbox directly with the image processing. The complete JSP page can be run by Tomcat server.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The proposed tool for remote image analysis was tested on the Computerized Analysis of Medical Images (CAMI) software developed by author. The user provides image and case information (diagnosis, staining, image parameter etc.). When analysis is initialized, input data with image are sent to servlet on Tomcat. When analysis is done, client obtains the graphical results as an image with marked recognized cells and also the quantitative output. Additionally, the results are stored in a server database. The internet platform was tested on PC Intel Core2 Duo T9600 2.8GHz 4GB RAM server with 768x576 pixel size, 1.28Mb tiff format images reffering to meningioma tumour (x400, Ki-67/MIB-1). The time consumption was as following: at analysis by CAMI, locally on a server – 3.5 seconds, at remote analysis – 26 seconds, from which 22 seconds were used for data transfer via internet connection. At jpg format image (102 Kb) the consumption time was reduced to 14 seconds.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results have confirmed that designed remote platform can be useful for pathology image analysis. The time consumption is depended mainly on the image size and speed of the internet connections. The presented implementation can be used for many types of analysis at different staining, tissue, morphometry approaches, etc. The significant problem is the implementation of the JSP page in the multithread form, that can be used parallelly by many users. The presented platform for image analysis in pathology can be especially useful for small laboratory without its own image analysis system.</p

Septic Bleeding of the Common Carotid Artery Following Total Thyroidectomy: An Atypical Complication

Septic rupture of the common carotid artery following total thyroidectomy may rapidly lead to exsanguination. We present a case report of a 16-year-old girl, diagnosed with a questionable thyroglossal duct cyst. Following the initial operative intervention with local excision of the cyst including resection of the medial part of the hyoid bone, pathology revealed papillary carcinoma. Thus secondary total thyroidectomy with locoregional lymphadenectomy was performed. One week later, a wound infection developed, necessitating lavage and drainage. On the 8th postoperative day, a dramatic bleeding of the right common carotid artery occurred. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case in the literature with a septic bleeding of the common carotid artery following total thyroidectomy after one week

GAGA: A New Algorithm for Genomic Inference of Geographic Ancestry Reveals Fine Level Population Substructure in Europeans

Attempts to detect genetic population substructure in humans are troubled by the fact that the vast majority of the total amount of observed genetic variation is present within populations rather than between populations. Here we introduce a new algorithm for transforming a genetic distance matrix that reduces the within-population variation considerably. Extensive computer simulations revealed that the transformed matrix captured the genetic population differentiation better than the original one which was based on the T1 statistic. In an empirical genomic data set comprising 2,457 individuals from 23 different European subpopulations, the proportion of individuals that were determined as a genetic neighbour to another individual from the same sampling location increased from 25% with the original matrix to 52% with the transformed matrix. Similarly, the percentage of genetic variation explained between populations by means of Analysis of Molecular Variance (AMOVA) increased from 1.62% to 7.98%. Furthermore, the first two dimensions of a classical multidimensional scaling (MDS) using the transformed matrix explained 15% of the variance, compared to 0.7% obtained with the original matrix. Application of MDS with Mclust, SPA with Mclust, and GemTools algorithms to the same dataset also showed that the transformed matrix gave a better association of the genetic clusters with the sampling locations, and particularly so when it was used in the AMOVA framework with a genetic algorithm. Overall, the new matrix transformation introduced here substantially reduces the within population genetic differentiation, and can be broadly applied to methods such as AMOVA to enhance their sensitivity to reveal population substructure. We herewith provide a publically available (http://www.erasmusmc.nl/fmb/resources/GAGA) model-free method for improved genetic population substructure detection that can be applied to human as well as any other species data in future studies relevant to evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology, medicine, and forensics

Kinetics of diffusion-limited catalytically-activated reactions: An extension of the Wilemski-Fixman approach

We study kinetics of diffusion-limited catalytically-activated $A + B \to B$ reactions taking place in three dimensional systems, in which an annihilation of diffusive $A$ particles by diffusive traps $B$ may happen only if the encounter of an $A$ with any of the $B$s happens within a special catalytic subvolumen, these subvolumens being immobile and uniformly distributed within the reaction bath. Suitably extending the classical approach of Wilemski and Fixman (G. Wilemski and M. Fixman, J. Chem. Phys. \textbf{58}:4009, 1973) to such three-molecular diffusion-limited reactions, we calculate analytically an effective reaction constant and show that it comprises several terms associated with the residence and joint residence times of Brownian paths in finite domains. The effective reaction constant exhibits a non-trivial dependence on the reaction radii, the mean density of catalytic subvolumens and particles' diffusion coefficients. Finally, we discuss the fluctuation-induced kinetic behavior in such systems.Comment: To appear in J. Chem. Phy