pinecone/core-2020-05-10-deduplication huggingface dataset:
Quark–lepton mass relation in a realistic A4 extension of the Standard Model

AbstractWe propose a realistic A4 extension of the Standard Model involving a particular quark–lepton mass relation, namely that the ratio of the third family mass to the geometric mean of the first and second family masses are equal for down-type quarks and charged leptons. This relation, which is approximately renormalization group invariant, is usually regarded as arising from the Georgi–Jarlskog relations, but in the present model there is no unification group or supersymmetry. In the neutrino sector we propose a simple modification of the so-called Zee–Wolfenstein mass matrix pattern which allows an acceptable reactor angle along with a deviation of the atmospheric and solar angles from their bi-maximal values. Quark masses, mixing angles and CP violation are well described by a numerical fit
Cleaning up the masses: Exclusion lists to reduce contamination with HPLC-MS/MS

AbstractMass spectrometry, in the past five years, has increased in speed, accuracy and use. With the ability of the mass spectrometers to identify increasing numbers of proteins the identification of undesirable peptides (those not from the protein sample) has also increased. Most undesirable contaminants originate in the laboratory and come from either the user (e.g. keratin from hair and skin), or from reagents (e.g. trypsin), that are required to prepare samples for analysis. We found that a significant amount of MS instrument time was spent sequencing peptides from abundant contaminant proteins. While completely eliminating non-specific protein contamination is not feasible, it is possible to reduce the sequencing of these contaminants. For example, exclusion lists can provide a list of masses that can be used to instruct the mass spectrometer to ‘ignore’ the undesired contaminant peptides in the list. We empirically generated be-spoke exclusion lists for several model organisms (Homo sapiens, Caenorhabditis elegans, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Xenopus laevis), utilising information from over 500 mass spectrometry runs and cumulative analysis of these data. Here we show that by employing these empirically generated lists, it was possible to reduce the time spent analysing contaminating peptides in a given sample thereby facilitating more efficient data acquisition and analysis.Biological significanceGiven the current efficacy of the Mass Spectrometry instrumentation, the utilisation of data from ~500 mass spec runs to generate be-spoke exclusion lists and optimise data acquisition is the significance of this manuscript.This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: New Horizons and Applications for Proteomics [EuPA 2012]
He migration and bubble formation in Ga stabilised δ-Pu

AbstractThe migration and formation of He into bubbles in Ga stabilised δ-Pu has been investigated using molecular dynamics simulation. Formation energy calculations indicate that isolated He interstitial atoms are unfavourable and that it is preferential for He to reside as a substitutional atom at the expense of producing a Pu self-interstitial. Migration energy barrier calculations and on-the-fly kinetic Monte Carlo simulations support this result establishing that an interstitial He atom soon becomes substitutional, after which migration is unlikely unless assisted by local vacancies. He-vacancy cluster formation energies show that as the void size increases, a He:vacancy ratio up to 2:1 becomes energetically favourable over isolated He substitutional atoms and vacancies
Self-Renewing Human Bone Marrow Mesenspheres Promote Hematopoietic Stem Cell Expansion

SummaryStrategies for expanding hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) include coculture with cells that recapitulate their natural microenvironment, such as bone marrow stromal stem/progenitor cells (BMSCs). Plastic-adherent BMSCs may be insufficient to preserve primitive HSCs. Here, we describe a method of isolating and culturing human BMSCs as nonadherent mesenchymal spheres. Human mesenspheres were derived from CD45− CD31− CD71− CD146+ CD105+ nestin+ cells but could also be simply grown from fetal and adult BM CD45−-enriched cells. Human mesenspheres robustly differentiated into mesenchymal lineages. In culture conditions where they displayed a relatively undifferentiated phenotype, with decreased adherence to plastic and increased self-renewal, they promoted enhanced expansion of cord blood CD34+ cells through secreted soluble factors. Expanded HSCs were serially transplantable in immunodeficient mice and significantly increased long-term human hematopoietic engraftment. These results pave the way for culture techniques that preserve the self-renewal of human BMSCs and their ability to support functional HSCs
Vestibular receptors contribute to cortical auditory evoked potentials

AbstractAcoustic sensitivity of the vestibular apparatus is well-established, but the contribution of vestibular receptors to the late auditory evoked potentials of cortical origin is unknown. Evoked potentials from 500 Hz tone pips were recorded using 70 channel EEG at several intensities below and above the vestibular acoustic threshold, as determined by vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs). In healthy subjects both auditory mid- and long-latency auditory evoked potentials (AEPs), consisting of Na, Pa, N1 and P2 waves, were observed in the sub-threshold conditions. However, in passing through the vestibular threshold, systematic changes were observed in the morphology of the potentials and in the intensity dependence of their amplitude and latency. These changes were absent in a patient without functioning vestibular receptors. In particular, for the healthy subjects there was a fronto-central negativity, which appeared at about 42 ms, referred to as an N42, prior to the AEP N1. Source analysis of both the N42 and N1 indicated involvement of cingulate cortex, as well as bilateral superior temporal cortex. Our findings are best explained by vestibular receptors contributing to what were hitherto considered as purely auditory evoked potentials and in addition tentatively identify a new component that appears to be primarily of vestibular origin
Reducing vulnerability to hydro-meteorological extremes in Africa. A qualitative assessment of national climate disaster management policies: Accounting for heterogeneity

AbstractIn Africa, hydro-meteorological disasters (HMDs) have hit with increasing frequency and magnitude in recent years, with detrimental impacts on local livelihoods.African countries display a patchwork of national policies and institutional frameworks to address these rising HMDs.This paper examines the heterogeneity that exists within Africa′s institutional arrangements for climate-related disaster risk management, and introduces a three-partite policy classification that ranks each country as one of three disaster management policy types: the ‘Unprepared Firefighters′ (whose response to disasters is late, delayed and ineffective), the ‘Prepared Firefighters′ (for the most part effective disaster responders) and the ‘Disaster Averters′ (who experienced a paradigm shift and moved focus away from the hazard itself towards a reduction of the underlying risk factors that cause disasters). Through extensive data mining, interviews and qualitative country assessments, we map where African countries lie on this spectrum of effective climate-related disaster risk management.We find that African countries lay at different levels on the spectrum of effective disaster risk management. Across Africa, countries display differential progress in achieving the Hyogo Framework for Action goals and great variation and heterogeneity exists from country to country, one that calls for a concomitant heterogeneity in aid programs and initiatives meant to support comprehensive disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation (DRR–CCA) in Africa.In closing, this paper suggests ways to support African countries′ efforts towards effective disaster risk management and planning. It offers a qualitative method to continually assess developing countries′ progress in achieving the Hyogo Framework for Action goals, one that straddles top-down country self-reporting and bottom-up civil society assessment
A survey of urban climate change experiments in 100 cities

AbstractCities are key sites where climate change is being addressed. Previous research has largely overlooked the multiplicity of climate change responses emerging outside formal contexts of decision-making and led by actors other than municipal governments. Moreover, existing research has largely focused on case studies of climate change mitigation in developed economies. The objective of this paper is to uncover the heterogeneous mix of actors, settings, governance arrangements and technologies involved in the governance of climate change in cities in different parts of the world.The paper focuses on urban climate change governance as a process of experimentation. Climate change experiments are presented here as interventions to try out new ideas and methods in the context of future uncertainties. They serve to understand how interventions work in practice, in new contexts where they are thought of as innovative. To study experimentation, the paper presents evidence from the analysis of a database of 627 urban climate change experiments in a sample of 100 global cities.The analysis suggests that, since 2005, experimentation is a feature of urban responses to climate change across different world regions and multiple sectors. Although experimentation does not appear to be related to particular kinds of urban economic and social conditions, some of its core features are visible. For example, experimentation tends to focus on energy. Also, both social and technical forms of experimentation are visible, but technical experimentation is more common in urban infrastructure systems. While municipal governments have a critical role in climate change experimentation, they often act alongside other actors and in a variety of forms of partnership. These findings point at experimentation as a key tool to open up new political spaces for governing climate change in the city
Asymptotic theory for the multidimensional random on-line nearest-neighbour graph

AbstractThe on-line nearest-neighbour graph on a sequence of n uniform random points in (0,1)d (d∈N) joins each point after the first to its nearest neighbour amongst its predecessors. For the total power-weighted edge-length of this graph, with weight exponent α∈(0,d/2], we prove O(max{n1−(2α/d),logn}) upper bounds on the variance. On the other hand, we give an n→∞ large-sample convergence result for the total power-weighted edge-length when α>d/2. We prove corresponding results when the underlying point set is a Poisson process of intensity n
Lifetime Prevalence, Age and Gender Distribution and Age-of-Onset of Psychiatric Disorders in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area, Brazil: Results from the São Paulo Megacity Mental Health Survey

AbstractObjectivesTo estimate prevalence, age-of-onset, gender distribution and identify correlates of lifetime psychiatric disorders in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area (SPMA).MethodsThe São Paulo Megacity Mental Health Survey assessed psychiatric disorders on a probabilistic sample of 5,037 adult residents in the SPMA, using the World Mental Health Survey Version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Response rate was 81.3%.ResultsLifetime prevalence for any disorder was 44.8%; estimated risk at age 75 was 57.7%; comorbidity was frequent. Major depression, specific phobias and alcohol abuse were the most prevalent across disorders; anxiety disorders were the most frequent class. Early age-of-onset for phobic and impulse-control disorders and later age-of-onset for mood disorders were observed. Women were more likely to have anxiety and mood disorders, whereas men, substance use disorders. Apart from conduct disorders, more frequent in men, there were no gender differences in impulse-control disorders. There was a consistent trend of higher prevalence in the youngest cohorts. Low education level was associated to substance use disorders.ConclusionsPsychiatric disorders are highly prevalent among the general adult population in the SPMA, with frequent comorbidity, early age-of-onset for most disorders, and younger cohorts presenting higher rates of morbidity. Such scenario calls for vigorous public health action
Degeneracy between θ23 octant and neutrino non-standard interactions at DUNE

AbstractWe expound in detail the degeneracy between the octant of θ23 and flavor-changing neutral-current non-standard interactions (NSI's) in neutrino propagation, considering the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) as a case study. In the presence of such NSI parameters involving the e−μ (εeμ) and e−τ (εeτ) flavors, the νμ→νe and ν¯μ→ν¯e appearance probabilities in long-baseline experiments acquire an additional interference term, which depends on one new dynamical CP-phase ϕeμ/eτ. This term sums up with the well-known interference term related to the standard CP-phase δ creating a source of confusion in the determination of the octant of θ23. We show that for values of the NSI coupling (taken one at-a-time) as small as few% (relative to the Fermi coupling constant GF), and for unfavorable combinations of the two CP-phases δ and ϕeμ/eτ, the discovery potential of the octant of θ23 gets completely lost
Viability of minimal left–right models with discrete symmetries

AbstractWe provide a systematic study of minimal left–right models that are invariant under P, C, and/or CP transformations. Due to the high amount of symmetry such models are quite predictive in the amount and pattern of CP violation they can produce or accommodate at lower energies. Using current experimental constraints some of the models can already be excluded. For this purpose we provide an overview of the experimental constraints on the different left–right symmetric models, considering bounds from colliders, meson-mixing and low-energy observables, such as beta decay and electric dipole moments. The features of the various Yukawa and Higgs sectors are discussed in detail. In particular, we give the Higgs potentials for each case, discuss the possible vacua and investigate the amount of fine-tuning present in these potentials. It turns out that all left–right models with P, C, and/or CP symmetry have a high degree of fine-tuning, unless supplemented with mechanisms to suppress certain parameters. The models that are symmetric under both P and C are not in accordance with present observations, whereas the models with either P, C, or CP symmetry cannot be excluded by data yet. To further constrain and discriminate between the models measurements of B-meson observables at LHCb and B-factories will be especially important, while measurements of the EDMs of light nuclei in particular could provide complementary tests of the LRMs
Termination of logic programs: the never-ending story

AbstractWe survey termination analysis techniques for Logic Programs. We give an extensive introduction to the topic. We recall several motivations for the work, and point out the intuitions behind a number of LP-specific issues that turn up, such as: the study of different classes of programs and LP languages, of different classes of queries and of different selection rules, the difference between existential and universal termination, and the treatment of backward unification and local variables. Then, we turn to more technical aspects: the structure of the termination proofs, the selection of well-founded orderings, norms and level mappings, the inference of interargument relations, and special treatments proposed for dealing with mutual recursion. For each of these, we briefly sketch the main approaches presented in the literature, using a fixed example as a file rouge. We conclude with some comments on loop detection and cycle unification and state some open problems
A ‘good hospital’: Nurse and patient perceptions of good clinical care for HIV-positive people on antiretroviral treatment in rural Zimbabwe—A mixed-methods qualitative study

AbstractBackgroundAntiretroviral treatment for HIV is gradually being made available across sub-Saharan Africa. With antiretroviral treatment, HIV can be approached as a chronic, manageable condition rather than a shorter-term issue of palliative care. This treatment involves repeated interaction between health staff and patients for ongoing check-ups and prescription refills.ObjectiveThis study aimed to understand patient and healthcare staff perceptions of good clinical antiretroviral treatment care.DesignOver 100h of ethnographic observation at healthcare sites; interviews and focus groups with 25 healthcentre workers (mostly nurses), 53 HIV-positive adults taking ARVs and 40 carers of children on ART. The data were analyzed using thematic content analysis.SettingThree healthcare sites providing free antiretroviral drugs in rural Zimbabwe, where the adult HIV infection rate is approximately 20%.ResultsContrary to reports of poor antiretroviral treatment adherence and task-oriented rather than patient-oriented nursing, our study found great patient commitment to adherence, outstanding nurse dedication and a pervasive sense of hope about coping with HIV. Within this context however there were some situations where patients and nurses had different expectations of the medical encounter, leading to stress and dissatisfaction. Patients and staff both emphasized the importance of nurse kindness, understanding, confidentiality and acceptance (i.e. treating HIV patients ‘like normal’) and patient adherence to medical directions. However, nurses at times overlooked the negative effects of long wait times and frequent hospital visits. Further, nurses sometimes conflated medical adherence with general patient obedience in all aspects of the nurse–patient relationships. Patients and staff were frustrated by the ambiguity and unpredictability surrounding key elements of hospital visits such as how much patients had to pay for service, how long it would take to be served, and whether drugs or the doctor's services would be available
Neutralino relic density in a supersymmetric U(1)′ model

AbstractWe study properties of the lightest neutralino (χ0) and calculate its cosmological relic density in a supersymmetric U(1)′ model with a secluded U(1)′ breaking sector (the S-model). The lightest neutralino mass is smaller than in the minimal supersymmetric standard model; for instance, mχ0≲100 GeV in the limit that the U(1)′ gaugino mass is large compared to the electroweak scale. We find that the Zχ0χ0 coupling can be enhanced due to the singlino components in the extended neutralino sector. Neutralino annihilation through the Z-resonance then reproduces the measured cold dark matter density over broad regions of the model parameter space
Editor's Choice – Type II Endoleak: Conservative Management Is a Safe Strategy

ObjectiveType II endoleak is the most common complication after endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair (EVAR); however, its natural history is unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the incidence and outcomes of type II endoleak, at a single institution after EVAR.MethodsA total of 904 consecutive patients who underwent EVAR between September 1995 and July 2013 at a single centre were entered onto a prospective database. All patients were followed up by duplex ultrasound (DUSS). Patients who developed type II endoleak were compared for preoperative demographics, mortality, and sac expansion.ResultsA total of 175(19%) patients developed type II endoleak over a median follow-up of 3.6 years (1.5–5.9 years); 54% of type II endoleaks spontaneously resolved within 6 months (0.25–1.2 years). No difference was found in preoperative demographics or choice of endograft between the two groups. Survival was significantly higher in the group with type II endoleak (94.1% vs. 85.6%; p = .01) and this effect was most pronounced in those with late type II endoleaks (97.7% vs. 85.6% p = .004). No difference was seen in aneurysm-related mortality or rate of type I endoleak between the two groups. Freedom from sac expansion (>5 mm from preoperative diameter) was significantly lower in the group of patients with type II endoleak (82.5% vs. 93.2%, p = .0001); however, at a threshold of >10 mm from preoperative diameter no difference was seen.ConclusionsPatients with isolated type II endoleak demonstrate equivalent aneurysm-related mortality and an improved survival
Long-term follow-up of cortical hyperexcitability in Japanese Unverricht–Lundborg disease

AbstractPurposeTo delineate chronological changes of cortical hyperexcitability by long-term follow-up of the amplitudes of somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) in patients with Japanese Unverricht–Lundborg disease (ULD).MethodSEPs to median nerve stimulation were repeatedly examined in 7 genetically diagnosed ULD patients with the mean interval of 11.9 years. The degree of temporal changes in the amplitude of 3 early cortical components, N20, P25 and N35, to the age was analyzed and compared with that of healthy subjects.ResultsTheir clinical course was almost stable during the follow-up period, namely cessation of generalized tonic-clonic seizures and little or no progression of myoclonus. SEP amplitudes of P25 and N35 were enlarged in all patients and were gradually decreased with aging in ULD on average. The degree of temporal changes of P25 and N35 in ULD was similar or even lower than that of healthy subjects.ConclusionEnlarged but relatively stable SEP amplitudes had a consistency with so-called self-limited clinical course in Japanese ULD. SEP amplitude could be one of the surrogate markers of the degree of cortical hyperexcitability in ULD during the long-term follow-up period
Binding affinities and activation of Asp712Ala and Cys100Ser mutated kinin B1 receptor forms suggest a bimodal scheme for the molecule of bound-DABK

AbstractMutant forms of kinin B1 receptor (B1R) and analogs of the full agonist des-Arg9-bradykinin (DABK) were investigated aiming to verify the importance of selected receptor residues and of each agonist-peptide residue in the specific binding and activation. Linked by a specific disulfide bond (Cys100–Cys650), the N-terminal (Nt) and the EC3 loop C-terminal (Ct) segments of angiotensin II (AngII) receptor 1 (AT1R) have been identified to form an extracellular site for binding the agonist Nt segment (Asp1 and Arg2 residues). Asp712 residue at the receptor EC3 loop binds the peptide Arg2 residue. By homology, a similar site might be considered for DABK binding to B1R since this receptor contains the same structural elements for composing the site in AT1R, namely the disulfide bond and the EC3 loop Asp712 residue. DABK, Alan-DABK analogs (n=Ala1-, Ala2-, Ala3-, Ala4-, Ala5-, Ala6-, Ala7-, Ala8-DABK), and other analogs were selected to binding wild-type, Asp712Ala and Cys100Ser mutated B1R receptors. The results obtained suggested that the same bimodal scheme adopted for AngII-AT1R system may be applied to DABK binding to B1R. The most crucial similarity in the two cases is that the Nt segments of peptides equally bind to the homologous Asp712 residue of both AT1R and B1R extracellular sites. Confirming this preliminary supposition, mutation of residues located at the B1R extracellular site as EC3 loop Asp712 and Cys100 caused the same modifications in biological assays observed in AT1R submitted to homologous mutations, such as significant weakening of agonist binding and reduction of post-receptor-activation processes. These findings provided enough support for defining a site that determines the specific binding of DABK to B1R receptors