Dark Radiation from Neutrino Mixing after Big Bang Nucleosynthesis.

Light dark fermions can mass mix with the standard model (SM) neutrinos. As a result, through oscillations and scattering, they can equilibrate in the early universe. Interactions of the dark fermion generically suppress such production at high temperatures but enhance it at later times.

Micromechanical Origin of Plasticity and Hysteresis in Nestlike Packings.

Disordered packings of unbonded, semiflexible fibers represent a class of materials spanning contexts and scales. From twig-based bird nests to unwoven textiles, bulk mechanics of disparate systems emerge from the bending of constituent slender elements about impermanent contacts. In experimental and computational packings of wooden sticks, we identify prominent features of their response to cyclic oedometric compression: nonlinear stiffness, transient plasticity, and eventually repeatable velocity-independent hysteresis.

Is acute appendicitis more severe in foreign workers of northern Israel? A retrospective cohort study.

Background: Acute appendicitis (AA) is one of the most common surgical emergencies worldwide. It's classified into simple or complicated disease. Due to the high prevalence of the disease, AA has been studied as a marker to assess the quality of care afforded to minority groups.

The Bacteriology of Acute Cholecystitis: Comparison of Bile Cultures and Clinical Outcomes in Diabetic and Non-Diabetic Patients.

Background: Acute cholecystitis is one of the most common acute surgical diseases. Diabetic patients have been shown to have an increased risk for gallbladder disease, but the correlation between the severity of gallstone disease and diabetes is still debated. The aim of this study is to examine the possible difference in the disease process between patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) and those without.

First Results on Dark Matter Substructure from Astrometric Weak Lensing.

Low-mass structures of dark matter (DM) are expected to be entirely devoid of light-emitting regions and baryons. Precisely because of this lack of baryonic feedback, small-scale substructures of the Milky Way are a relatively pristine testing ground for discovering aspects of DM microphysics and primordial fluctuations on subgalactic scales. In this Letter, we report results from the first search for Galactic DM subhalos with time-domain astrometric weak gravitational lensing.

Maternal hyperoxygenation: A potential therapy for congenital heart disease in the fetuses? A systematic review of the current literature.

Objectives: To assess efficacy, safety, outcomes, and intrauterine complications following maternal hyperoxygenation (MH) therapy in fetuses with congenital heart disease (CHD).

Methods: A systematic review was performed following an electronic search of databases. Articles were published before January 1, 2017, in an English-language and non-English-language journals (with English translations), and included human fetuses and expectant mothers with a fetal diagnosis of CHD who received MH.

A systematic approach for developing a ventilator-associated pneumonia prevention bundle.

Background: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is among the most common type of health care-associated infection in the intensive care unit and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Existing VAP prevention intervention bundles vary widely on the interventions included and in the approaches used to develop these bundles. The objective of this study was to develop a new VAP prevention bundle using a systematic approach that elicits clinician perceptions on which interventions are most important and feasible to implement.

Goldstone Gauginos.

Models of supersymmetry with Dirac gauginos provide an attractive scenario for physics beyond the standard model. The "supersoft" radiative corrections and suppressed supersymmetry production at colliders provide for more natural theories and an understanding of why no new states have been seen. Unfortunately, these models are handicapped by a tachyon which is naturally present in existing models of Dirac gauginos.

Impact of Age, Gender, and Addition of Probiotics on Treatment Success for Helicobacter pylori in Children.

The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of age, gender, and the use of probiotics with standard treatment regimen on Helicobacter pylori eradication. Based on endoscopic findings and clinical presentation, selected patients were treated with standard triple therapy (omeprazole, clarithromycin, and amoxicillin). Those who failed were offered a repeat treatment with omeprazole, metronidazole, and amoxicillin.

Systematic review of apraxia treatments to improve occupational performance outcomes.

The objective was to assess effectiveness of apraxia treatments using a systematic review. In contrast to previous reviews, each study was rated as to its applicability to occupational therapy practice and its focus on occupational performance using the FAME rating system (defined by four categories: Feasibility, Appropriateness, Meaningfulness, Effectiveness). This systematic review included eight studies: four randomized controlled trials (level 1 evidence) and four pre-post designs (level 3 evidence).

Hypoxia-induced mitogenic factor (FIZZ1/RELMα) induces endothelial cell apoptosis and subsequent interleukin-4-dependent pulmonary hypertension.

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is characterized by elevated pulmonary artery pressure that leads to progressive right heart failure and ultimately death. Injury to endothelium and consequent wound repair cascades have been suggested to trigger pulmonary vascular remodeling, such as that observed during PH. The relationship between injury to endothelium and disease pathogenesis in this disorder remains poorly understood.

Weekly Calendar Planning Activity (WCPA): a performance-based assessment of executive function piloted with at-risk adolescents.

Objective: We piloted the Weekly Calendar Planning Activity (WCPA), a performance-based measure of executive function (EF), to establish a baseline for at-risk adolescents.

Method: Participants were 113 youths ages 16-21 who were enrolled at a charter school for youth returning to high school after dropping out. We administered the WCPA and collected demographic information.

Cores in dwarf galaxies from dark matter with a Yukawa potential.

We show that cold dark matter particles interacting through a Yukawa potential could naturally explain the recently observed cores in dwarf galaxies without affecting the dynamics of objects with a much larger velocity dispersion, such as clusters of galaxies. The velocity dependence of the associated cross section as well as the possible exothermic nature of the interaction alleviates earlier concerns about strongly interacting dark matter. Dark matter evaporation in low-mass objects might explain the observed deficit of satellite galaxies in the Milky Way halo and have important implications for the first galaxies and reionization.

Effect of thallium impurities in the DAMA experiment on the allowed parameter space for inelastic dark matter.

The inelastic dark matter scenario was proposed to reconcile the DAMA annual modulation with null results from other experiments. In this scenario, weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) scatter into an excited state, split from the ground state by an energy δ comparable to the available kinetic energy of a galactic WIMP. We note that for large splittings δ the dominant scattering at DAMA can occur off of thallium nuclei, with A∼205, which are present as a dopant at the 10(-3) level in NaI(Tl) crystals.

The intensive medical care of sick, impaired, and preterm newborns in Israel and the production of vulnerable neonatal subjectivities.

Following reduction in mortality rates of term and preterm babies hospitalized in NICUs, neonataology refocused its concerns on the survivors' elevated risks of long-term health and developmental problems, thus turning the "intact survival" of hospitalized newborns into an equivalently desired moral and professional goal as their "survival." Based on ethnographic observations in an Israeli NICU ("pagia"), I suggest that the new moral practice has bearings on the construction of neonatal subjectivities. According to Jewish and Israeli laws, personhood is conferred on at birth.

Relative uptake of minoxidil into appendages and stratum corneum and permeation through human skin in vitro.

We examined uptake of the model therapeutic agent, minoxidil, into appendages, stratum corneum (SC), and through human skin, under the influence of different vehicles. Quantitative estimation of therapeutic drug deposition into all three areas has not previously been reported. Finite doses of minoxidil (2%, w/v) in formulations containing varying amounts of ethanol, propylene glycol (PG), and water (60:20:20, 80:20:0, and 0:80:20 by volume, respectively) were used.

New reproductive technologies, genetic counselling and the standing of the fetus: views from Germany and Israel.

This paper reports findings from a comparative study of Israeli and German genetic counsellors' perceptions of the moral standing of the fetus. Data collected through in-depth interviews with counsellors in both countries (N=32) are presented, and their moral practices are analysed. The paper's findings suggest that while German counsellors perceive the fetus as an autonomous being and debate the particular biological stages through which this autonomy is acquired; Israeli counsellors do not consider the moral status of the fetus independently of its relations with its family hence, deploying a 'relational ethics'.

Visible cascade Higgs decays to four photons at hadron colliders.

The presence of a new singlet scalar particle a can open up new decay channels for the Higgs boson, through cascades of the form h --> 2a --> X, possibly making discovery through standard model channels impossible. If a is CP odd, its decays are particularly sensitive to new physics. Quantum effects from heavy fields can naturally make h --> 4 g the dominant decay which is difficult to observe at hadron colliders, and is allowed by CERN LEP for m(h) > 82 GeV.

Severe neutropenia in CHOP occurs most frequently in cycle 1: a predictive model.

Chemotherapy used to treat lymphoma can cause severe neutropenia. Risk models have identified factors that predict neutropenia across all chemotherapy cycles. We used clinical information obtained during pretreatment evaluation to develop a predictive model for severe neutropenia in the first cycle of cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone (CHOP) chemotherapy.

A newly developed intra-operative gamma camera: performance characteristics in a laboratory phantom study.

Purpose: Radioguided surgery depends on the intra-operative detection of radiolabelled tissues. This is currently accomplished with hand tools capable of providing a tone signal, depending on the proximity and direction of a radioactive source in relation to the probe. The advantages of visual images of radiolabelled tissues are well recognised, but satisfactory means of acquiring such images intra-operatively are not yet available.

Termination of pregnancy: attitudes and behavior of women in a traditional society.

Objectives: The Bedouin Arabs, a Muslim traditional ethnic minority in Israel, are faced with difficult choices when offered prenatal diagnosis as part of the universally provided prenatal care in Israel. This paper is to examine attitudes towards and practice of pregnancy termination, following an unfavorable prenatal diagnosis.

Methods: Semistructured interviews with 83 women were conducted to study attitudes.

Neutrino oscillations as a probe of dark energy.

We consider a class of theories in which neutrino masses depend significantly on environment, as a result of interactions with the dark sector. Such theories of mass varying neutrinos were recently introduced to explain the origin of the cosmological dark energy density and why its magnitude is apparently coincidental with that of neutrino mass splittings. In this Letter we argue that in such theories neutrinos can exhibit different masses in matter and in vacuum, dramatically affecting neutrino oscillations.

A scanning electron microscope examination of silver cones removed from endodontically treated teeth. 1972.

Twenty-five silver cones were removed from teeth which had been treated endodontically from 3 months to 20 years previously. Examination by the scanning electron microscope revealed that these cones were moderately to severely corroded. The corrosion patterns were described as ranging from pitting to deep crater formation with globular or spherical agglomerations.

Hadron masses and screening from anti-de Sitter space Wilson loops.

We show that in strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills conformal theory the binding energy of a heavy and a light quark is independent of the strength of the coupling constant. As a consequence we are able to show that in the presence of light quarks the analog of the QCD string can snap and color charges are screened. The resulting neutral mesons interact with each other only via pion exchange and we estimate the masses of those states.