Flavoured soft leptogenesis and natural values of the B term

We revisit flavour effects in soft leptogenesis relaxing the assumption of universality for the soft supersymmetry breaking terms. We find that with respect to the case in which the heavy sneutrinos decay with equal rates and equal CP asymmetries for all lepton flavours, hierarchical flavour configurations can enhance the efficiency by more than two orders of magnitude. This translates in more than three order of magnitude with respect to the one-flavour approximation. We verify that lepton flavour equilibration effects related to off-diagonal soft slepton masses are ineffective for damping these large enhancements. We show that soft leptogenesis can be successful for unusual values of the relevant parameters, allowing for $B\sim {\cal O}({\rm TeV})$ and for values of the washout parameter up to $m_{\rm eff}/m_* \sim 5\times 10^{3}$.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures postscript, Minor changes to match the published version in JHE

Non-resonant leptogenesis in seesaw models with an almost conserved B-L

We review the motivations and some results on leptogenesis in seesaw models with an almost conserved lepton number. The paper is based on a talk given at the 5th International Symposium on Symmetries in Subatomic Physics, SSP2012.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure. Published in the proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Symmetries in Subatomic Physics, SSP201

R-parity violation in SU(5)

We show that judiciously chosen R-parity violating terms in the minimal renormalizable supersymmetric SU(5) are able to correct all the phenomenologically wrong mass relations between down quarks and charged leptons. The model can accommodate neutrino masses as well. One of the most striking consequences is a large mixing between the electron and the Higgsino. We show that this can still be in accord with data in some regions of the parameter space and possibly falsified in future experiments.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figure. Revised version. To appear in JHE

A realistic pattern of fermion masses from a five-dimensional SO(10) model

We provide a unified description of fermion masses and mixing angles in the framework of a supersymmetric grand unified SO(10) model with anarchic Yukawa couplings of order unity. The space-time is five dimensional and the extra flat spatial dimension is compactified on the orbifold $S^1/(Z_2 \times Z_2')$, leading to Pati-Salam gauge symmetry on the boundary where Yukawa interactions are localised. The gauge symmetry breaking is completed by means of a rather economic scalar sector, avoiding the doublet-triplet splitting problem. The matter fields live in the bulk and their massless modes get exponential profiles, which naturally explain the mass hierarchy of the different fermion generations. Quarks and leptons properties are naturally reproduced by a mechanism, first proposed by Kitano and Li, that lifts the SO(10) degeneracy of bulk masses in terms of a single parameter. The model provides a realistic pattern of fermion masses and mixing angles for large values of $\tan\beta$. It favours normally ordered neutrino mass spectrum with the lightest neutrino mass below 0.01 eV and no preference for leptonic CP violating phases. The right handed neutrino mass spectrum is very hierarchical and does not allow for thermal leptogenesis. We analyse several variants of the basic framework and find that the results concerning the fermion spectrum are remarkably stable.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures, 4 table

Radiative contribution to neutrino masses and mixing in μν\mu\nuSSM

In an extension of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (popularly known as the $\mu\nu$SSM), three right handed neutrino superfields are introduced to solve the $\mu$-problem and to accommodate the non-vanishing neutrino masses and mixing. Neutrino masses at the tree level are generated through $R-$parity violation and seesaw mechanism. We have analyzed the full effect of one-loop contributions to the neutrino mass matrix. We show that the current three flavour global neutrino data can be accommodated in the $\mu\nu$SSM, for both the tree level and one-loop corrected analyses. We find that it is relatively easier to accommodate the normal hierarchical mass pattern compared to the inverted hierarchical or quasi-degenerate case, when one-loop corrections are included.Comment: 51 pages, 14 figures (58 .eps files), expanded introduction, other minor changes, references adde

Specifying content and mechanisms of change in interventions to change professionals’ practice : an illustration from the Good Goals study in occupational therapy

PMID: 23078918 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] PMCID: PMC3502268 Free PMC Article The study was funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorates (ref: CZF/1/38). The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors. The funder was not involved in the conduct of the study or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Building Online Platforms for Peer Support Groups as a Persuasive Behavioural Change Technique

Online peer group approach is inherently a persuasive technique as it is centered on peer pressure and surveillance. They are persuasive social net- works equipped with tools and facilities that enable behaviour change. This paper presents the case for domain-specific persuasive social networks and provides insights on problematic and addictive behaviour change. A 4-month study was conducted in an addiction rehab centre in the UK, followed by 2-month study in an online peer group system. The study adopted qualitative methods to under- stand the broad parameters of peer groups including the sessions' environment, norms, interaction styles occurring between groups' members and how such in- teractions are governed. The qualitative techniques used were (1) observations, (2) form and document analysis, and (3) semi-structured interviews. The findings concern governing such groups in addition to the roles to be enabled and tasks to be performed. The Honeycomb framework was revisited to comment on its build- ing blocks with the purpose of highlighting points to consider when building do- main-specific social networks for such domain, i.e. online peer groups to combat addictive behaviour

For which side the bell tolls: The laterality of approach-avoidance associative networks

The two hemispheres of the brain appear to play different roles in emotion and/or motivation. A great deal of previous research has examined the valence hypothesis (left hemisphere = positive; right = negative), but an increasing body of work has supported the motivational hypothesis (left hemisphere = approach; right = avoidance) as an alternative. The present investigation (N = 117) sought to provide novel support for the latter perspective. Left versus right hemispheres were briefly activated by neutral lateralized auditory primes. Subsequently, participants categorized approach versus avoidance words as quickly and accurately as possible. Performance in the task revealed that approach-related thoughts were more accessible following left-hemispheric activation, whereas avoidance-related thoughts were more accessible following right-hemispheric activation. The present results are the first to examine such lateralized differences in accessible motivational thoughts, which may underlie more “downstream” manifestations of approach and avoidance motivation such as judgments, decision making, and behavior

Chromosomal-level assembly of the Asian Seabass genome using long sequence reads and multi-layered scaffolding

We report here the ~670 Mb genome assembly of the Asian seabass (Lates calcarifer), a tropical marine teleost. We used long-read sequencing augmented by transcriptomics, optical and genetic mapping along with shared synteny from closely related fish species to derive a chromosome-level assembly with a contig N50 size over 1 Mb and scaffold N50 size over 25 Mb that span ~90% of the genome. The population structure of L. calcarifer species complex was analyzed by re-sequencing 61 individuals representing various regions across the species' native range. SNP analyses identified high levels of genetic diversity and confirmed earlier indications of a population stratification comprising three clades with signs of admixture apparent in the South-East Asian population. The quality of the Asian seabass genome assembly far exceeds that of any other fish species, and will serve as a new standard for fish genomics

Has education lost sight of children?

The reflections presented in this chapter are informed by clinical and personal experiences of school education in the UK. There are many challenges for children and young people in the modern education system and for the professionals who support them. In the UK, there are significant gaps between the highly selective education provided to those who pay privately for it and to the majority of those educated in the state-funded system. Though literacy rates have improved around the world, many children, particularly boys, do not finish their education for reasons such as boredom, behavioural difficulties or because education does not ‘pay’. Violence, bullying, and sexual harassment are issues faced by many children in schools and there are disturbing trends of excluding children who present with behavioural problems at school whose origins are not explored. Excluded children are then educated with other children who may also have multiple problems which often just make the situation worse. The experience of clinicians suggests that school-related mental health problems are increasing in severity. Are mental health services dealing with the consequences of an education system that is not meeting children’s needs? An education system that is testing- and performance-based may not be serving many children well if it is driving important decisions about them at increasingly younger ages. Labelling of children and setting them on educational career paths can occur well before they reach secondary schools, limiting potential very early on in their developmental trajectory. Furthermore, the emphasis at school on testing may come at the expense of creativity and other forms of intelligence, which are also valuable and important. Meanwhile the employment marketplace requires people with widely different skills, with an emphasis on innovation, creativity, and problem solving. Is education losing sight of the children it is educating