The supermultiplet of boundary conditions in supergravity

Boundary conditions in supergravity on a manifold with boundary relate the bulk gravitino to the boundary supercurrent, and the normal derivative of the bulk metric to the boundary energy-momentum tensor. In the 3D N=1 setting, we show that these boundary conditions can be stated in a manifestly supersymmetric form. We identify the Extrinsic Curvature Tensor Multiplet, and show that boundary conditions set it equal to (a conjugate of) the boundary supercurrent multiplet. Extension of our results to higher-dimensional models (including the Randall-Sundrum and Horava-Witten scenarios) is discussed.Comment: 22 pages. JHEP format; references added; published versio

Characterization of the diffusion coefficient of blood.

PurposeTo characterize the diffusion coefficient of human blood for accurate results in intravoxel incoherent motion imaging.MethodsDiffusion-weighted MRI of blood samples from 10 healthy volunteers was acquired with a single-shot echo-planar-imaging sequence at body temperature. Effects of gradient profile (monopolar or flow-compensated), diffusion time (40-100 ms), and echo time (60-200 ms) were investigated.ResultsAlthough measured apparent diffusion coefficients of blood were larger for flow-compensated than for monopolar gradients, no dependence of the apparent diffusion coefficient on the diffusion time was found. Large differences between individual samples were observed, with results ranging from 1.26 to 1.66 µm2 /ms for flow-compensated and 0.94 to 1.52 µm2 /ms for monopolar gradients. Statistical analysis indicates correlations of the flow-compensated apparent diffusion coefficient with hematocrit (P = 0.007) and hemoglobin (P = 0.017), but not with mean corpuscular volume (P = 0.64). Results of Monte-Carlo simulations support the experimental observations.ConclusionsMeasured blood apparent diffusion coefficient values depend on hematocrit/hemoglobin concentration and applied gradient profile due to non-Gaussian diffusion. Because in vivo measurement is delicate, an estimation based on blood count results could be an alternative. For intravoxel incoherent motion modeling, the use of a blood self-diffusion constant Db  = 1.54 ± 0.12 µm2 /ms for flow-compensated and Db  = 1.30 ± 0.18 µm2 /ms for monopolar encoding is suggested. Magn Reson Med 79:2752-2758, 2018. © 2017 The Authors Magnetic Resonance in Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

f(R) theories

Over the past decade, f(R) theories have been extensively studied as one of the simplest modifications to General Relativity. In this article we review various applications of f(R) theories to cosmology and gravity - such as inflation, dark energy, local gravity constraints, cosmological perturbations, and spherically symmetric solutions in weak and strong gravitational backgrounds. We present a number of ways to distinguish those theories from General Relativity observationally and experimentally. We also discuss the extension to other modified gravity theories such as Brans-Dicke theory and Gauss-Bonnet gravity, and address models that can satisfy both cosmological and local gravity constraints.Comment: 156 pages, 14 figures, Invited review article in Living Reviews in Relativity, Published version, Comments are welcom

Epstein-Barr virus-encoded microRNA BART1 induces tumour metastasis by regulating PTEN-dependent pathways in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), aetiologically linked to nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), is the first human virus found to encode many miRNAs. However, how these viral miRNAs precisely regulate the tumour metastasis in NPC remains obscure. Here we report that EBV-miR-BART1 is highly expressed in NPC and closely associated with pathological and advanced clinical stages of NPC. Alteration of EBV-miR-BART1 expression results in an increase in migration and invasion of NPC cells in vitro and causes tumour metastasis in vivo. Mechanistically, EBV-miR-BART1 directly targets the cellular tumour suppressor PTEN. Reduction of PTEN dosage by EBV-miR-BART1 activates PTEN-dependent pathways including PI3K-Akt, FAK-p130(Cas) and Shc-MAPK/ERK1/2 signalling, drives EMT, and consequently increases migration, invasion and metastasis of NPC cells. Reconstitution of PTEN rescues all phenotypes generated by EBV-miR-BART1, highlighting the role of PTEN in EBV-miR-BART-driven metastasis in NPC. Our findings provide new insights into the metastasis of NPC regulated by EBV and advocate for developing clinical intervention strategies against NPC

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Search for new physics in the multijet and missing transverse momentum final state in proton-proton collisions at √s=8 Tev

Peer reviewe

Measurement of Higgs boson production and properties in the WW decay channel with leptonic final states

Peer reviewe

Overdiagnosis and overtreatment of breast cancer: Overdiagnosis and overtreatment in service screening

Screening mammography has been shown to be effective for reducing breast cancer mortality. According to screening theory, the first expected consequence of mammography screening is the detection of the disease at earlier stages and this diagnostic anticipation changes the population incidence curve, with an observed increase in incidence rates at earlier ages. It is unreasonable to expect that the age-specific incidence will ever return to pre-screening levels or to anticipate a significant reduction of incidence at older ages immediately after the first screening round. The interpretation of incidence trends, especially in the short term, is difficult. Methodology for quantification of overdiagnosis and statistical modelling based on service screening data is not well developed and few population-based studies are available. The overtreatment issue is discussed in terms of appropriateness of effective treatment considering the question of chemotherapy in very early stages and the use of breast conserving surgery

Study of double parton scattering using W+2-jet events in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV

Peer reviewe