Suchergebnisse

Journal of High Energy Physics 2016.3 (2016): 055 reproduced by permission of Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) ; In this paper we study the lepton favor violating decay channels of the neutral Higgs bosons of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model into a lepton and an antilepton of different flavor. We work in the context of the most general flavor mixing scenario in the slepton sector, in contrast to the minimal flavor violation assumption more frequently used. Our analytic computation is a one-loop diagrammatic one, but in contrast to the full one-loop computation which is usually referred to the physical slepton mass basis, we use here instead the Mass Insertion Approximation (MIA) which uses the electroweak interaction slepton basis and treats perturbatively the mass insertions changing slepton flavor. By performing an expansion in powers of the external momenta in the relevant form factors, we will be able to separate explicitly in the analytic results the leading non-decoupling (constant at asymptotically large sparticle masses) and the next to leading decoupling contributions (decreasing with the sparticle masses). Our final aim is to provide a set of simple analytic formulas for the form factors and the associated effective vertices, that we think may be very useful for future phenomenological studies of the lepton flavor violating Higgs boson decays, and for their comparison with data. The accuracy of the numerical results obtained with the MIA are also analyzed and discussed here in comparison with the full one-loop results. Our most optimistic numerical estimates for the three neutral Higgs boson decays channels into τ and µ leptons, searching for their maximum rates that are allowed by present constraints from τ → µγ data and beyond Standard Model Higgs boson searches at the LHC, are also included ; This work is supported by the European Union Grant No. FP7 ITN INVISIBLES (Marie Curie Actions, Grant No. PITN- GA-2011- 289442), by the CICYT through Grant No. FPA2012-31880, by the Spanish Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Programme CPAN (Grant No. CSD2007-00042), and by the Spanish MINECO's "Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa" Programme under Grant No. SEV-2012-0249. E. A. is financially supported by the Spanish DGIID-DGA Grant No. 2013-E24/2 and the Spanish MICINN Grants No. FPA2012-35453 and No. CPAN-CSD2007-00042. This work has been also supported by CONICET (R. M., A. S.)

PurposeBone turnover markers (BTM) ‐ aminoterminal propeptide of type 1 collagen (P1NP) and C‐terminal telopeptide of type 1 collagen (β‐CTX) ‐ are related to bone density and fracture risk. A high prevalence of osteopenia/osteoporosis and hypovitaminosis D has been reported in HIV patients, however there are few data about BTM in this population. Our aim was to analyse the prevalence of elevated serum levels of BTM in HIV patients before starting antiretroviral therapy (ART), and related factors.MethodsCross‐sectional study of a series of HIV‐patients who started ART during June/11–June/12 in our hospital. Patients with presence of diseases or treatments known to affect bone metabolism were excluded. Epidemiological, clinical, and immunovirological data in addition to serum fasting levels of glucose, lipid profile, calcium, phosphate, alkaline phosphatase, 25‐hydroxyvitamin D3 (25OHD), parathyroid hormone (PTH), P1NP, and β‐CTX were collected. Definitions: hypovitaminosis D if 25OHD<30 ng/ml, vitamin D deficiency if 25OHD<20 ng/ml; elevated levels of BTM if β‐CTX (ng/ml) >0.64 (men<70 years),>0.85 (men >70 years),>0.58 (pre‐menopause women), >0.99 (post‐menopause women), or P1NP (ng/mL)>69.4 (men <60 years), >71.1 (men>60 years), >55.7 (pre‐menopause women), >61.2 (post‐menopause women).Results47 patients were included, 91.5% men, median age 37.1 years (30.0–44.3), and 93.6% sexual transmission of HIV (34 HMX, 10 HTX). Median time since the diagnosis of HIV was 3.4 months (1.4–31.7); there were 7 (14.9%) Aids cases, median CD4 count was 277/mm3 (155–433), and HIV‐VL 4.8 log10 (4.1–5.2). Median serum 25OHD was 29 µg/L (21.9–41.1), with a prevalence of hypovitaminosis of 52.2%, and deficiency of 17.4%. PTH was in range in all cases. Median serum P1NP was 33.3 ng/mL (24.5–52.5) and β‐CTX 0.25 ng/mL (0.20–0.45); five (11.4%) patients presented high levels of BTM: 4 men, median age 37.1 years, median CD4 count 247/mm3, median HIV‐VL 5.18 log10, and one with hypovitaminosis D. Elevated BTM were related with no clinical, analytical, immunovirological parameters nor with serum levels of 25OHD nor PTH.ConclusionsThe prevalence of elevated BTM was high in this series of HIV‐patients, mostly young men, with short time of HIV infection and with no immunovirologic control. BTM were related with no clinical nor analytical data.

Magnetic lateral multilayers have been fabricated on weak perpendicular magnetic anisotropy amorphous Nd-Co films in order to perform a systematic study on the conditions for controlled nucleation of topological defects within their magnetic stripe domain pattern. A lateral thickness modulation of period w is defined on the nanostructured samples that, in turn, induces a lateral modulation of both magnetic stripe domain periods λ and average in-plane magnetization component Min-plane. Depending on lateral multilayer period and in-plane applied field, thin and thick regions switch independently during in-plane magnetization reversal and domain walls are created within the in-plane magnetization configuration coupled to variable angle grain boundaries and disclinations within the magnetic stripe domain patterns. This process is mainly driven by the competition between rotatable anisotropy (that couples the magnetic stripe pattern to in-plane magnetization) and in-plane shape anisotropy induced by the periodic thickness modulation. However, as the structural period w becomes comparable to magnetic stripe period λ, the nucleation of topological defects at the interfaces between thin and thick regions is hindered by a size effect and stripe domains in the different thickness regions become strongly coupled. © 2013 American Physical Society. ; Work was supported by Spanish MICINN under Grant No. FIS2008-06249. R.M. and N.S. acknowledge support from UPV/EHU UFI11/23 and Basque Country Government Grant No. Etorek SE11-304. A.H.-R. acknowledges support from FCT of Portugal grant (Grant No. SFRH/BPD/90471/2012). ; Peer Reviewed

This article summarizes a quantitative microbial risk assessment designed to characterize the public health impact of consumption of shell eggs and egg products contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis (SE). This risk assessment's objectives were to: (1) establish the baseline risk of foodborne illness from SE, (2) identify and evaluate potential risk mitigation strategies, and (3) identify data gaps related to future research efforts. The risk assessment model has five modules. The Egg Production module estimates the number of eggs produced that are SE‐contaminated. Shell Egg Processing, Egg Products Processing, and Preparation & Consumption modules estimate the increase or decrease in the numbers of SE organisms in eggs or egg products as they pass through storage, transportation, processing, and preparation. A Public Health Outcomes module then calculates the incidence of illnesses and four clinical outcomes, as well as the cases of reactive arthritis associated with SE infection following consumption. The baseline model estimates an average production of 2.3 million SE‐contaminated shell eggs/year of the estimated 69 billion produced annually and predicts an average of 661,633, human illnesses per year from consumption of these eggs. The model estimates ≈ 94% of these cases recover without medical care, 5% visit a physician, an additional 0.5% are hospitalized, and 0.05% result in death. The contribution of SE from commercially pasteurized egg products was estimated to be negligible. Five mitigation scenarios were selected for comparison of their individual and combined effects on the number of human illnesses. Results suggest that mitigation in only one segment of the farm‐to‐table continuum will be less effective than several applied in different segments. Key data gaps and areas for future research include the epidemiology of SE on farms, the bacteriology of SE in eggs, human behavior in food handling and preparation, and human responses to SE exposure.