Two-Loop Four-Fermion Scattering Amplitude in QED.

We present the first fully analytic evaluation of the transition amplitude for the scattering of a massless into a massive pair of fermions at the two-loop level in quantum electrodynamics. Our result is an essential ingredient for the determination of the electromagnetic coupling within scattering reactions, beyond the currently known accuracy, which has a crucial impact on the evaluation of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. It will allow, in particular, for a precise determination of the leading hadronic contribution to the (g-2)_{µ} in the MUonE experiment at CERN, and therefore can be used to shed light on the current discrepancy between the standard model prediction and the experimental measurement for this important physical observable.

Rapidity distributions in Drell-Yan and Higgs productions at threshold to third order in QCD.

We present the threshold N(3)LO perturbative QCD corrections to the rapidity distributions of dileptons in the Drell-Yan process and Higgs boson in gluon fusion. Sudakov resummation of QCD amplitudes, renormalization group invariance, and the mass factorization theorem provide useful guidelines to obtain them in an elegant manner. We use various state of the art three loop results that have been recently available to obtain these distributions. For the Higgs boson, we demonstrate numerically the importance of these corrections at the LHC.

Predicted concentrations of anticancer drugs in the aquatic environment: What should we monitor and where should we treat?

Anticancer drugs have been detected in the aquatic environment, they have a potent mechanism of action and their consumption is expected to drastically increase in the future. Consequently, it is crucial to routinely monitor the occurrence of anticancer drugs and to develop effective treatment options to avoid their release into the environment. Prior to implementing a monitoring program, it is important to define which anticancer drugs are more prone to be found in the surface waters. In this study the consumption of anticancer drugs in the Lisbon region (Portugal), Belgium and Haryana state (India) were used to estimate the concentrations that can be expected in surface waters. Moreover, one important aspect is to define the major entry route of anticancer drugs in the aquatic environment: is it hospital or household effluents? The results disclosed in this study showed that in Belgium and Lisbon, 94 % of the total amount of anticancer drugs were delivered to outpatients, indicating that household effluents are the primary input source of these drugs and thus, upgrading the treatment in the domestic wastewater facilities should be the focus.

Plasma MDA and antioxidant vitamins in diabetic retinopathy.

Hyperglycemia and dyslipidemia in diabetes mellitus induce increased lipid peroxidation and peroxyl radical formation, an important mechanism in genesis of microangiopathy. We took up a study on oxidative stress, measured by plasma MDA and antioxidant vitamin status in type - 2 DM patients with and without retinopathy and compared them with a control non-diabetic group. Lipid peroxidation marker MDA was significantly elevated (p < 0.001) in both the diabetic groups whereas, serum vitamin E and vitamin C registered a significant fall (p<0.001) as compared to controls. Our correlation study revealed a significant positive association between plasma MDA with both fasting and 2hr post prandial plasma glucose (r=0.81, p < 0.001, r=0.92, p <0.001) suggesting the role of hyperglycemia in free radical production. Plasma MDA also depicted significant positive relation (p< 0.001) with all lipid parameters except serum HDLc pointing the role of dyslipidemia towards lipid peroxidation. Plasma MDA level was also found to be negatively correlated with both the vitamins (p<0.001, p<0.001) in the study group explaining their protective consumption in the oxidative process prevailing in diabetic retinopathy.

Production of biodiesel from microalgae through biological carbon capture: a review.

Gradual increase in concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere due to the various anthropogenic interventions leading to significant alteration in the global carbon cycle has been a subject of worldwide attention and matter of potential research over the last few decades. In these alarming scenario microalgae seems to be an attractive medium for capturing the excess CO2 present in the atmosphere generated from different sources such as power plants, automobiles, volcanic eruption, decomposition of organic matters and forest fires. This captured CO2 through microalgae could be used as potential carbon source to produce lipids for the generation of biofuel for replacing petroleum-derived transport fuel without affecting the supply of food and crops. This comprehensive review strives to provide a systematic account of recent developments in the field of biological carbon capture through microalgae for its utilization towards the generation of biodiesel highlighting the significance of certain key parameters such as selection of efficient strain, microalgal metabolism, cultivation systems (open and closed) and biomass production along with the national and international biodiesel specifications and properties. The potential use of photobioreactors for biodiesel production under the influence of various factors viz., light intensity, pH, time, temperature, CO2 concentration and flow rate has been discussed. The review also provides an economic overview and future outlook on biodiesel production from microalgae.

Evaluation of oxidative stress in pregnancy induced hypertension.

This work was undertaken to investigate correlation between oxidative stress and initiation of pathogenesis of pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH). Fifty primigravidae in age group of 20-35 years and gestational age 28-42 weeks with PIH were taken as cases. Twenty healthy primigravidae with no medical and surgical complications of pregnancy and with blood pressure ≤140/90 mm Hg served as controls. The cases were again subgrouped as severe preeclampsia (12 in number) and mild pre-eclampsia (38 in number). All of them were evaluated for serum malondialdehyde (MDA), Serum vitamin E and plasma vitamin C levels. The serum MDA levels were raised significantly in women with mild preeclampsia (P<0.01) and in women with severe preeclampsia (P<0.01) in comparison to normal primi gravida. The serum vitamin E levels were decreased in primi gravida with mild preeclampsia (p<0.1) and in primi with severe pre eclampsia (P<0.1) in comparison to normal primi gravida but the fall was not statistically significant. There was a significant fall (P<0.05) in the vitamin C levels in primi with mild preeclampsia than in the normal primi. The vitamin C levels in severe preeclamptic patients were lower than the normal primi but the fall was not statistically significant (P=0.10). The serum MDA and vitamin E showed a negative correlation in all the cases. The serum MDA and plasma vitamin C also showed a negative correlation in the control and study group. This observation suggests that in hypertensive disorders of pregnancy there is an imbalance between lipid peroxidation and antioxidant vitamin status because of oxidative stress. The decreased serum concentrations of the antioxidant vitamins supports the hypothesis that lipid peroxidation is an important causative factor in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia. The rise in antioxidants is probably to compensate the increased peroxide load in severe preeclampsia.

Emotional processing in schizophrenia across cultures: standardized measures of discrimination and experience.

Schizophrenia appears quite similar across a range of cultures. However, variability has been noted, and understanding the variant and invariant features of the disorder is necessary for elucidating its biological and environmental basis. Evidence of prominent emotion processing deficits in schizophrenia, including perceptual and experiential aspects, led us to extend the paradigm of standardized measures cross-culturally. We assessed performance of American, German, and Indian patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls on standardized emotion discrimination and experience (mood induction) procedures using happy, sad, and neutral facial expressions of Caucasian actors. Participants were 80 Americans (40 patients; 40 controls), 48 Germans (24 patients; 24 controls), and 58 Indians (29 patients; 29 controls). Face discrimination performance was impaired across patient groups, but was most impaired in those of Indian origin. Lower performance was also found in Indian controls, relative to their American and German counterparts. Mood induction produced weaker effects in all patient groups relative to their respective controls. The results supported the feasibility of cross-cultural comparisons and also emphasized the importance of poser ethnic background for facial affect identification, while poser ethnicity was less consequential for mood induction effects. Emotion processing deficits in schizophrenia may add to the clinical burden, and merit further examination.

Paralinguistic characteristics of speech in schizophrenics and depressives.

Schizophrenics, depressives, patients with anxiety neurosis and normal controls were asked to comment freely for 2 min on photographs depicting seven facial emotional expressions. Schizophrenics commented for the shortest duration of time with characteristic vocalization; depressives' speech was characterized by low initiative time latency, greater duration of utterance but fewer word-counts.

Facial expressions of emotions and schizophrenia: a review.

It is generally agreed that schizophrenia patients show a markedly reduced ability to perceive and express facial emotions. Previous studies have shown, however, that such deficits are emotion-specific in schizophrenia and not generalized. Three kinds of studies were examined: decoding studies dealing with schizophrenia patients' ability to perceive universally recognized facial expressions of emotions, encoding studies dealing with schizophrenia patients' ability to express certain facial emotions, and studies of subjective reactions of patients' sensitivity toward universally recognized facial expressions of emotions. A review of these studies shows that schizophrenia patients, despite a general impairment of perception or expression of facial emotions, are highly sensitive to certain negative emotions of fear and anger. These observations are discussed in the light of hemispheric theory, which accounts for a generalized performance deficit, and social-cognitive theory, which accounts for an emotion-specific deficit in schizophrenia.

Right brain damage impairs recognition of negative emotions.

Patients with right or left hemisphere-damage and normal control groups were asked to judge facial emotions from photographs presented in two orientations--upright, inverted. Responses were elicited with a matching and a verbal labelling task. Normal controls were significantly superior in the judgment of facial emotions than left hemisphere-damaged patients, who in turn were significantly superior than right hemisphere-damaged patients. Negative-aroused (fear, anger) and negative-nonaroused (sadness, disgust) facial expressions were recognized with significantly greater accuracy by left hemisphere-damaged patients compared to right hemisphere-damaged patients; the group difference in performance was nonsignificant for positive (happiness, surprise) emotions.

Visuospatial and affect recognition deficit in depression.

BACKGROUND: Theorists differ in their opinion whether interpersonal difficulties in depression is associated more with perceptual impairment or with emotional bias. The present study intended to resolve such differences of opinion. METHOD: Major depressives, general medical patients, and non-patient controls were administered three visuospatial and two affective tasks to examine the nature of performance deficit associated with each group. RESULTS: Major depressives were found significantly impaired in both visuospatial and affective tasks in comparison to general medical patients, who in turn, were impaired than non-patient controls. CONCLUSION: Major depressives' perceptual deficit is pervasive and not specific to affective categories. LIMITATION: The study could have been more informative if more psychiatric groups had been included as subjects. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Improvement in depressives' ability for visuospatial and affective tasks may be considered as a marker of their clinical improvement.

Responses to facial emotion and psychopathology.

Schizophrenics, anxious-neurotics, and nonpatient controls were asked to recognize facial affect in photographs depicting six emotions and a neutral expression. The time elapsed between presentation of the photograph and response to it was also noted. Schizophrenics were significantly less accurate at judging the expressed affect and had the largest mean response time compared to others. Preference to interact with the type of affect expressions was also analyzed. Happy and neutral expressions were chosen, while fearful and angry expressions were rejected by neurotic and control subjects. Schizophrenics were largely inconsistent in their choice.

Bilateral transfer deficit in schizophrenia: a trait marker.

Schizophrenic patients who had shown improvement over a 6-week treatment period were tested for their bilateral transfer of skill with a mirror-drawing task. Compared with first degree relatives and normal control subjects, patients showed a significant deficit in bilateral transfer of skills in terms of response accuracy both before and after treatment. These findings indicate that the deficit is an enduring functional loss in schizophrenia.

Generality and specificity of emotion-recognition deficit in schizophrenic patients with positive and negative symptoms.

Schizophrenic patients with positive and negative symptoms, as well as non-patient control subjects, were asked to recognize emotional stimuli of happy, sad, and neutral facial expressions. Dependent measures were the percentage of correct responses, and the incorrect use of an emotion category owing to false recognition. Schizophrenic patients with negative symptoms exhibited a generalized emotion-recognition deficit, and their use of emotion categories during false recognition was random. Schizophrenic patients with positive symptoms showed a deficit in their recognition of 'sad' emotion and were 'positively biased' to the category 'happy' as reflected by its most frequent usage during false recognition.

Judgment of facial expression of emotion in unilateral brain-damaged patients.

Patients with unilateral brain damage and normal controls were asked to give (1) inter-emotion judgment within the photographs of six facial emotions in terms of mutual similarities, and (2) intra-emotion judgment within the hemifacial composite photographs of an emotion in terms of intensity of expression. Right brain-damaged patients could differentiate between the emotion of happiness and all other emotions. Left brain-damaged patients differentiated between aroused-nonaroused emotions. Normal controls differentiated between positive-negative as well as aroused-nonaroused emotions. Left-left facial composites were judged to have expressed more intensely than right-right facial composites or normal/mirror-reversed facial orientations of emotions (except fear) by any group (p >.05).

Wavelet-based image coding using nonlinear interpolative vector quantization.

We propose a reduced complexity wavelet-based image coding technique. Here, 64-D (for three stages of decomposition) vectors are formed by combining appropriate coefficients from the wavelet subimages, 16-D feature vectors are then extracted from the 64-D vectors on which vector quantization (VQ) is performed. At the decoder, 64-D vectors are reconstructed using a nonlinear interpolative technique. The proposed technique has a reduced complexity and has the potential to provide a superior coding performance when the codebook is generated using the training vectors drawn from similar images.

Judgement of facial affect among depressives and schizophrenics.

Forty depressives, 48 schizophrenics and 105 non-patient controls were asked to judge the mutual similarities amongst six different facial affects depicted in photographs. Inter-stimulus distances suggest two dimensions of affect operative in controls: pleasantness-unpleasantness and arousal-non-arousal. Depressives' judgements correspond to the former dimension whilst schizophrenics' judgements correspond to the latter.

Processing of facial expressions of emotion and alexithymia.

OBJECTIVE: The primary objective was to examine emotional responsiveness in alexithymia. DESIGN: A quasi-experimental design was followed with the alexithymia variable being manipulated by subject stratification based on Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20-H. METHOD: Alexithymics (N = 12) and non-alexithymics (N = 12) were asked to match, label and verbally describe photographs displaying facial emotions along with TAT card II. RESULTS: Alexithymics did not differ from non-alexithymics in emotional matching and labelling tasks but had significant difficulty in verbally describing emotional expressions as evident by less duration of utterance, greater response latency and increased linguistic-type speech disruptions. Speech disruptions did not produce a group difference for TAT card II. CONCLUSION: Such difficulty in alexithymics may be associated with their inability to use emotional words in the appropriate context.

The right-ear advantage in schizophrenia.

Schizophrenics, patients with affective disorder and normal controls were tested on a verbal dichotic listening task at three time periods, 0-2, 4-6 and 14-16 weeks. Schizophrenics had non-significant ear difference during the acute state of illness (0-2 weeks) and the normal right-ear advantage emerged when acuteness subsided (14-16 weeks).

Identification of tachistoscopically presented alphanumeric stimuli in schizophrenia.

Schizophrenics, general medical patients and non-patient controls were compared for their ability to identify tachistoscopically presented alphanumeric stimuli at six exposure durations. Schizophrenics did not differ from general medical patients but both were inferior to controls - a difference that increased as the exposure duration decreased.