Cell-based therapy is emerging as a promising strategy for treating a wide range of human diseases, such as diabetes, blood disorders, acute liver failure, spinal cord injury, and several types of ...cancer. Pancreatic islets, blood cells, hepatocytes, and stem cells are among the many cell types currently used for this strategy. The encapsulation of these “therapeutic” cells is under intense investigation to not only prevent immune rejection but also provide a controlled and supportive environment so they can function effectively. Some of the advanced encapsulation systems provide active agents to the cells and enable a complete retrieval of the graft in the case of an adverse body reaction. Here, we review various encapsulation strategies developed in academic and industrial settings, including the state-of-the-art technologies in advanced preclinical phases as well as those undergoing clinical trials, and assess their advantages and challenges. We also emphasize the importance of stimulus-responsive encapsulated cell systems that provide a “smart and live” therapeutic delivery to overcome barriers in cell transplantation as well as their use in patients.
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We show that high energy measurements of Drell–Yan at the LHC can serve as electroweak precision tests. Dimension-6 operators, from the Standard Model Effective Field Theory, modify the high energy ...behavior of electroweak gauge boson propagators. Existing measurements of the dilepton invariant mass spectrum, from neutral current Drell–Yan at 8 TeV, have comparable sensitivity to LEP. We propose measuring the transverse mass spectrum of charged current Drell–Yan, which can surpass LEP already with 8 TeV data. The 13 TeV LHC will elevate electroweak tests to a new precision frontier.
A
bstract
A “Higgs factory”, an electron-positron collider with center-of-mass energy of about 250 GeV, will measure the cross section of the Higgsstrahlung process,
e
+
e
−
→
hZ
, with sub-percent ...precision. This measurement is sensitive to a variety of new physics scenarios. In this paper, we study two examples. First, we compute corrections to the
e
+
e
−
→
hZ
differential cross section in the effective field theory (EFT) approach, including the complete set of dimension-6 operators contributing to this process. These results are applicable to any model where the new physics mass scale is significantly above the weak scale. Second, we present a complete one-loop calculation of the effect of third-generation squarks, with arbitrary soft masses and mixing, on this cross section. This is expected to be the leading correction in natural supersymmetric models. We demonstrate the agreement between the full one-loop calculation and the EFT result in the limit of large stop masses. Finally, we estimate the discovery reach of the
e
+
e
−
→
hZ
cross section measurement in the two models.
Precision probes of QCD at high energies Alioli, Simone; Farina, Marco; Pappadopulo, Duccio ...
The journal of high energy physics,
07/2017, Volume:
2017, Issue:
7
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
A
bstract
New physics, that is too heavy to be produced directly, can leave measurable imprints on the tails of kinematic distributions at the LHC. We use energetic QCD processes to perform novel ...measurements of the Standard Model (SM) Effective Field Theory. We show that the dijet invariant mass spectrum, and the inclusive jet transverse momentum spectrum, are sensitive to a dimension 6 operator that modifies the gluon propagator at high energies. The dominant effect is constructive or destructive interference with SM jet production. We compare differential next-to-leading order predictions from POWHEG to public 7 TeV jet data, including scale, PDF, and experimental uncertainties and their respective correlations. We constrain a New Physics (NP) scale of 3.5 TeV with current data. We project the reach of future 13 and 100 TeV measurements, which we estimate to be sensitive to NP scales of 8 and 60 TeV, respectively. As an application, we apply our bounds to constrain heavy vector octet colorons that couple to the QCD current. We project that effective operators will surpass bump hunts, in terms of coloron mass reach, even for sequential couplings.
New physics from high energy tops Farina, Marco; Mondino, Cristina; Pappadopulo, Duccio ...
The journal of high energy physics,
01/2019, Volume:
2019, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
A
bstract
Precision measurements of high energy top quarks at the LHC constitute a powerful probe of new physics. We study the effect of four fermion operators involving two tops and two light quarks ...on the high energy tail of the
t
t
¯
invariant mass distribution. We use existing measurements at a center of mass energy of 13 TeV, and state of the art calculations of the Standard Model contribution, to derive bounds on the coefficients of these operators. We estimate the projected reach of the LHC at higher luminosities and discuss the validity of these limits within the Effective Field Theory description. We find that current measurements constrain the mass scale of these operators to be larger than about 1–2 TeV, while we project that future LHC data will be sensitive to mass scales of about 3–4 TeV. We apply our bounds to constrain composite Higgs models with partial compositeness and models with approximate flavor symmetries. We find our limits to be most relevant to flavor non-universal models with a moderately large coupling of the heavy new physics states to third generation quarks.
Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are excellent platforms to design hybrid electrolytes for Li batteries with liquid-like transport and stability against lithium dendrites. We report on Li+ dynamics in ...quasi-solid electrolytes consisting in Mg-MOF-74 soaked with LiClO4–propylene carbonate (PC) and LiClO4–ethylene carbonate (EC)/dimethyl carbonate (DMC) solutions by combining studies of ion conductivity, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) characterization, and spin relaxometry. We investigate nanoconfinement of liquid inside MOFs to characterize the adsorption/solvation mechanism at the basis of Li+ migration in these materials. NMR supports that the liquid is nanoconfined in framework micropores, strongly interacting with their walls and that the nature of the solvent affects Li+ migration in MOFs. Contrary to the “free’’ liquid electrolytes, faster ion dynamics and higher Li+ mobility take place in LiClO4–PC electrolytes when nanoconfined in MOFs demonstrating superionic conductor behavior (conductivity σrt > 0.1 mS cm–1, transport number t Li+ > 0.7). Such properties, including a more stable Li electrodeposition, make MOF-hybrid electrolytes promising for high-power and safer lithium-ion batteries.
Motivated by the two candidate Dark Matter events observed by the CDMS experiment, we consider a Constrained Dark Matter Singlet (CDMS) model that, with no free parameters, predicts the DM mass and ...the DM direct cross section to be in the range weakly favored by CDMS.
Many skeletal muscle diseases such as muscular dystrophy, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and sarcopenia share the dysregulation of calcium (Ca2+) as a key mechanism of ...disease at a cellular level. Cytosolic concentrations of Ca2+ can signal dysregulation in organelles including the mitochondria, nucleus, and sarcoplasmic reticulum in skeletal muscle. In this work, a treatment is applied to mimic the Ca2+ increase associated with these atrophy-related disease states, and broadband impedance measurements are taken for single cells with and without this treatment using a microfluidic device. The resulting impedance measurements are fitted using a single-shell circuit simulation to show calculated electrical dielectric property contributions based on these Ca2+ changes. From this, similar distributions were seen in the Ca2+ from fluorescence measurements and the distribution of the S-parameter at a single frequency, identifying Ca2+ as the main contributor to the electrical differences being identified. Extracted dielectric parameters also showed different distribution patterns between the untreated and ionomycin-treated groups; however, the overall electrical parameters suggest the impact of Ca2+-induced changes at a wider range of frequencies.
We perform a fit to the recent
Xenon100 data and study its implications for Dark Matter scenarios. We find that Inelastic Dark Matter is disfavored as an explanation to the DAMA/LIBRA annual ...modulation signal. Concerning the scalar singlet DM model, we find that the
Xenon100 data disfavors its constrained limit. We study the CMSSM as well as the low scale phenomenological MSSM taking into account latest Tevatron and LHC data (1.1/fb) about sparticles and
B
s
→
μ
μ
. After the EPS 2011 conference, LHC excludes the “Higgs-resonance” region of DM freeze-out and
Xenon100 disfavors the “well-tempered” bino/higgsino, realized in the “focus-point” region of the CMSSM parameter space. The preferred region shifts to heavier sparticles, higher fine-tuning, higher
tan
β
and the quality of the fit deteriorates.
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