A combination of the inclusive diffractive cross section measurements made by the H1 and ZEUS Collaborations at HERA is presented. The analysis uses samples of diffractive deep inelastic
ep
...scattering data at a centre-of-mass energy
where leading protons are detected by dedicated spectrometers. Correlations of systematic uncertainties are taken into account, resulting in an improved precision of the cross section measurement which reaches 6 % for the most precise points. The combined data cover the range 2.5<
Q
2
<200 GeV
2
in photon virtuality,
in proton fractional momentum loss, 0.09<|
t
|<0.55 GeV
2
in squared four-momentum transfer at the proton vertex and 0.0018<
β
<0.816 in
, where
x
is the Bjorken scaling variable.
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DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Single- and double-differential inclusive dijet cross sections in neutral current deep inelastic
ep
scattering have been measured with the ZEUS detector using an integrated luminosity of 374 pb
−1
. ...The measurement was performed at large values of the photon virtuality,
Q
2
, between 125 and 20 000 GeV
2
. The jets were reconstructed with the
k
T
cluster algorithm in the Breit reference frame and selected by requiring their transverse energies in the Breit frame,
, to be larger than 8 GeV. In addition, the invariant mass of the dijet system,
, was required to be greater than 20 GeV. The cross sections are described by the predictions of next-to-leading-order QCD.
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DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
MCNPX-PoliMi for nuclear nonproliferation applications Pozzi, S.A.; Clarke, S.D.; Walsh, W.J. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
12/2012, Volume:
694
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This paper describes the use of the Monte Carlo code MCNPX-PoliMi for nuclear-nonproliferation applications, with particular emphasis on the simulation of spontaneous and neutron-induced nuclear ...fission. New models for the outgoing neutrons and gamma rays emitted in spontaneous and induced fission are described. For spontaneous fission, the models include prompt neutron energy distributions that depend on the number of neutrons emitted in the individual fission events. For neutron-induced fission, due to lack of data, the prompt neutron energy distributions are independent of the number of neutrons emitted in the individual fission events. Gamma rays are sampled independently of the neutrons. Code validation is performed on well-characterized mixed-oxide fuel and plutonium-oxide samples.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
OBJECTIVE:The aim of the study was to declare a call to action to improve mental health in the workplace.
METHODS:We convened a public health summit and assembled an Advisory Council consisting of ...experts in the field of occupational health and safety, workplace wellness, and public policy to offer recommendations for action steps to improve health and well-being of workers.
RESULTS:The Advisory Council narrowed the list of ideas to four priority projects.
CONCLUSIONS:The recommendations for action include developing a mental health in the workplace (1) “how to” guide, (2) scorecard, (3) recognition program, and (4) executive training.
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BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK
Electrocochleography (ECochG) patterns observed during cochlear implant (CI) electrode insertion may provide information about scalar location of the electrode array.
Conventional CI surgery is ...performed without actively monitoring auditory function and potential damage to intracochlear structures. The central hypothesis of this study was that ECochG obtained directly through the CI may be used to estimate intracochlear electrode position and, ultimately, residual hearing preservation.
Intracochlear ECochG was performed on 32 patients across 3 different implant centers. During electrode insertion, a 50-ms tone burst stimulus (500 Hz) was delivered at 110 dB SPL. The ECochG response was monitored from the apical-most electrode. The amplitude and phase changes of the first harmonic were imported into an algorithm in an attempt to predict the intracochlear electrode location (scala tympani ST, translocation from ST to scala vestibuli SV, or interaction with basilar membrane). Anatomic electrode position was verified using postoperative computed tomography (CT) with image processing.
CT analysis confirmed 25 electrodes with ST position and 7 electrode arrays translocating from ST into SV. The ECochG algorithm correctly estimated electrode position in 26 (82%) of 32 subjects while 6 (18%) electrodes were wrongly identified as translocated (sensitivity = 100%, specificity = 77%, positive predictive value = 54%, and a negative predictive value = 100%). Greater hearing loss was observed postoperatively in participants with translocated electrode arrays (36 ± 15 dB) when compared with isolated ST insertions (28 ± 20 dB HL). This result, however, was not significant (p = 0.789).
Intracochlear ECochG may provide information about CI electrode location and hearing preservation.
Improving the prediction of chemical toxicity is a goal common to both environmental health research and pharmaceutical drug development. To improve safety detection assays, it is critical to have a ...reference set of molecules with well-defined toxicity annotations for training and validation purposes. Here, we describe a collaboration between safety researchers at Pfizer and the research team at the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD) to text mine and manually review a collection of 88,629 articles relating over 1,200 pharmaceutical drugs to their potential involvement in cardiovascular, neurological, renal and hepatic toxicity. In 1 year, CTD biocurators curated 254,173 toxicogenomic interactions (152,173 chemical-disease, 58,572 chemical-gene, 5,345 gene-disease and 38,083 phenotype interactions). All chemical-gene-disease interactions are fully integrated with public CTD, and phenotype interactions can be downloaded. We describe Pfizer's text-mining process to collate the articles, and CTD's curation strategy, performance metrics, enhanced data content and new module to curate phenotype information. As well, we show how data integration can connect phenotypes to diseases. This curation can be leveraged for information about toxic endpoints important to drug safety and help develop testable hypotheses for drug-disease events. The availability of these detailed, contextualized, high-quality annotations curated from seven decades' worth of the scientific literature should help facilitate new mechanistic screening assays for pharmaceutical compound survival. This unique partnership demonstrates the importance of resource sharing and collaboration between public and private entities and underscores the complementary needs of the environmental health science and pharmaceutical communities. Database URL: http://ctdbase.org/
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a disease of the aortic wall, which can progress to catastrophic rupture. Assessment of mechanical characteristics of AAA, such as aortic distensibility, may ...provide important insights to help identify at-risk patients and understand disease progression. While the majority of studies on this topic have focused on retrospective patient data, recent studies have used mouse models of AAA to prospectively evaluate the evolution of aortic mechanics. Quantification of aortic distensibility requires accurate measurement of arterial blood pressure, particularly pulse pressure, which is challenging to perform accurately in murine models. We hypothesized that volume/pressure tail-cuff measurements of arterial pulse pressure in anesthetized mice would have sufficient accuracy to enable calculations of aortic distensibility with minimal error. Telemetry devices and osmotic mini-pumps filled with saline or angiotensin-II were surgically implanted in male apolipoprotein-E deficient (ApoE(-/-)) mice. Blood pressure in the aortic arch was measured continuously via telemetry. In addition, simultaneous blood pressure measurements with a volume/pressure tail-cuff system were performed under anesthesia at specific intervals to assess agreement between techniques. Compared to controls, mice infused with angiotensin-II had an overall statistically significant increase in systolic pressure, with no overall difference in pulse pressure; however, pulse pressure did increase significantly with time. Systolic measurements agreed well between telemetry and tail-cuff (coefficient of variation = 10%), but agreement of pulse pressure was weak (20%). In fact, group-averaged pulse pressure from telemetry was a better predictor of a subject's pulse pressure on a given day than a simultaneous tail-cuff measurement. Furthermore, these approximations introduced acceptable errors (15.1 ± 12.8%) into the calculation of aortic distensibility. Contrary to our hypothesis, we conclude that tail-cuff measures of arterial pulse pressure have limited accuracy. Future studies of aneurysm mechanics using the ApoE(-/-)/angiotensin-II model would be better in assuming pulse pressure profiles consistent with our telemetry findings instead of attempting to measure pulse pressure in individual mice.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Zika virus (ZIKV) infection has a profound impact on the fetal nervous system. The postnatal period is also a time of rapid brain growth, and it is important to understand the potential ...neurobehavioral consequences of ZIKV infection during infancy. Here we show that postnatal ZIKV infection in a rhesus macaque model resulted in long-term behavioral, motor, and cognitive changes, including increased emotional reactivity, decreased social contact, loss of balance, and deficits in visual recognition memory at one year of age. Structural and functional MRI showed that ZIKV-infected infant rhesus macaques had persistent enlargement of lateral ventricles, smaller volumes and altered functional connectivity between brain areas important for socioemotional behavior, cognitive, and motor function (e.g. amygdala, hippocampus, cerebellum). Neuropathological changes corresponded with neuroimaging results and were consistent with the behavioral and memory deficits. Overall, this study demonstrates that postnatal ZIKV infection in this model may have long-lasting neurodevelopmental consequences.
Long-lasting, latently infected resting CD4
T cells are the greatest obstacle to obtaining a cure for HIV infection, as these cells can persist despite decades of treatment with antiretroviral ...therapy (ART). Estimates indicate that more than 70 years of continuous, fully suppressive ART are needed to eliminate the HIV reservoir
. Alternatively, induction of HIV from its latent state could accelerate the decrease in the reservoir, thus reducing the time to eradication. Previous attempts to reactivate latent HIV in preclinical animal models and in clinical trials have measured HIV induction in the peripheral blood with minimal focus on tissue reservoirs and have had limited effect
. Here we show that activation of the non-canonical NF-κB signalling pathway by AZD5582 results in the induction of HIV and SIV RNA expression in the blood and tissues of ART-suppressed bone-marrow-liver-thymus (BLT) humanized mice and rhesus macaques infected with HIV and SIV, respectively. Analysis of resting CD4
T cells from tissues after AZD5582 treatment revealed increased SIV RNA expression in the lymph nodes of macaques and robust induction of HIV in almost all tissues analysed in humanized mice, including the lymph nodes, thymus, bone marrow, liver and lung. This promising approach to latency reversal-in combination with appropriate tools for systemic clearance of persistent HIV infection-greatly increases opportunities for HIV eradication.
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FZAB, GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
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