Neutrino charged-current quasielastic-like scattering, a reaction category extensively used in neutrino oscillation measurements, probes nuclear effects that govern neutrino-nucleus interactions. ...This Letter reports the first measurement of the triple-differential cross section for νμ quasielastic-like reactions using the hydrocarbon medium of the MINERvA detector exposed to a wide-band beam spanning 2 ≤ Eν≤ 20 GeV. The measurement maps the correlations among transverse and longitudinal muon momenta and summed proton kinetic energies, and compares them to predictions from a state-of-art simulation. Discrepancies are observed that likely reflect shortfalls with modeling of pion and nucleon intranuclear scattering and/or spectator nucleon ejection from struck nuclei. The separate determination of leptonic and hadronic variables can inform experimental approaches to neutrino-energy estimation.
The invasive weed yellow starthistle (
Centaurea solstitialis) has infested between 4 and 6 million hectares in California. It often forms dense infestations and rapidly depletes soil moisture, ...preventing the establishment of other species. Precise assessment of its canopy cover, especially low-density abundance in the earlier growing season, is the key to effective management. Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager 2 (CASI-2) hyperspectral imagery was acquired at the western edge of California's Central Valley grasslands on July 15, 2003. Four linear spectral mixture models (LSMM) were investigated from the original CASI-2 data. Band selections based upon residual analysis and feature extraction (PCA) were further explored to reduce the data dimension. All approaches, except four band-selection unconstrained LSMMs, provide consistent results. The uncertainty of the PCA-based LSMM was estimated through a Monte-Carlo simulation. The maximum standard deviation was approximately 11%. The results suggest that unmixing CASI-2 imagery could be used for estimating and mapping yellow starthistle for larger regional areas.
Cross sections for the interaction νμA → μ-π0X with neutrino energies between 1 and 5 GeV are measured using a sample of 165,000 selected events collected in the NOvA experiment’s near detector, a ...hydrocarbon-based detector exposed to the Neutrinos from the Main Injector beam at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Results are presented as a flux-averaged total cross section and as differential cross sections in the momenta and angles of the outgoing muon and π0 , the total four-momentum transfer, and the invariant mass of the hadronic system. Comparisons are made with predictions from a reference version of the genie neutrino interaction generator. The measured total cross section of ( 3.57±0.44 ) ×10-39 cm2 is 7.5% higher than the genie prediction, but is consistent within experimental errors.
Using the NOvA neutrino detectors, a broad search has been performed for any signal coincident with 28 gravitational wave events detected by the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration between September 2015 and ...July 2019. For all of these events, NOvA is sensitive to possible arrival of neutrinos and cosmic rays of GeV and higher energies. For five (seven) events in the NOvA Far (Near) Detector, timely public alerts from the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration allowed recording of MeV-scale events. No signal candidates were found.
Using two years of data from the NOvA Near Detector at Fermilab, we report a seasonal variation of cosmic ray induced multiple-muon (Nμ≥2) event rates which has an opposite phase to the seasonal ...variation in the atmospheric temperature. The strength of the seasonal multiple-muon variation is shown to increase as a function of the muon multiplicity. However, no significant dependence of the strength of the seasonal variation of the multiple-muon variation is seen as a function of the muon zenith angle, or the spatial or angular separation between the correlated muons.
Laguna de Bay is the largest lake in the Philippines. It is surrounded by developing cities that pollute the lake with plastics from different industrial and domestic activities. In the study, ...microplastics were collected from the lake’s surface water through three (3) collection points within the lake. The collection of microplastics was conducted from August 2018 to October 2018. About eight-hundred ninety (890) microplastics were collected and cataloged. Among the collection sites, ‘Brgy. Sampiruhan’ has the most microplastics, with a median of 15 ranging from 11-24 microplastics per 1000 L of lake water. On the other hand, ‘Brgy. Napindan’ has a median of 4 which ranges from 2-6 microplastics per 1000 L, and ‘Brgy. San Isidro’ has a median of 6 which ranges from 4-24 microplastics per 1000 L. Image analysis revealed that microplastics from this site were larger and angular. The color analysis shows signs of whitening and yellowing of the plastic materials, which suggests that the microplastics undergo photodegradation. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) found that most of the microplastics in the lake are made of polyethylene and its derivatives. Microplastics in Laguna de Bay show the continuous plastic pollution in the Philippines’ largest lake.
Canonical Wnt signaling converts the TCF/LEF transcription factor from repressor to activator by increasing nuclear levels of its coactivator, β-catenin. A striking exception had been reported for ...Wnt-induced endoderm formation during
C. elegans embryogenesis. It has long been believed that transcriptional activation of Wnt target genes in the endoderm precursor occurred due to a lowering of nuclear levels of the worm TCF/LEF protein, POP-1, effectively alleviating POP-1 repressive activity. Contrary to this model, we demonstrate here that POP-1 directly activates Wnt target genes in the endoderm precursor. Wnt converts POP-1 from a repressor to an activator, and this conversion requires that POP-1 nuclear levels be lowered in the endoderm precursor. We propose that the balance between TCF/LEF and coactivator(s), achieved by elevating coactivator levels (the canonical pathway) and/or reducing TCF/LEF levels (worm endoderm), determines Wnt signal strength.
Background
Genome wide association studies (GWAS) conducted primarily in European Ancestry (EA) have identified hundreds of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are associated with general ...cognitive function. The association between these SNPs and cognitive function has not yet been evaluated in South Asians yet, either individually or in polygenic risk scores (PRS) which aggregate the effects from many SNPs across the genome. The goal of this study was to investigate whether SNPs identified in EA GWAS, either individually or as a PRS, were associated with a general cognitive factor and the Hindi version of the Mini‐Mental State Examination (HMSE) score in 932 South Asians from the Diagnostic Assessment of Dementia for the Longitudinal Aging Study of India (LASI‐DAD).
Method
Participants were genotyped using the Illumina Global Screening Array and imputed to 1000G Phase 3v5. We used linear models to assess the association between 130 top SNPs from the EA GWAS (p<5e‐08) and both measures of cognitive function after controlling for age, gender, and population structure. We also evaluated the association between PRSs using the top GWAS SNPs and the cognitive measures using the same models. Finally, we estimated the variation in cognitive function explained by the cognitive function PRS, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) PRSs, and/or APOE e2 and e4 genotypes individually or simultaneously.
Result
Preliminary analyses showed that none of the GWAS SNPs were significantly associated either of the cognitive measures after multiple testing correction. The PRS, however, was significantly associated with the general cognitive factor and HMSE score (p<0.025). The PRS explained 0.40% and 0.59% of the variance in the general cognitive factor and HMSE score, and explained 1.50% and 1.85% of the variance when coupled with AD PRSs and APOE genotypes.
Conclusion
SNPs identified for cognitive function in EA GWAS may not be as strongly associated in South Asians. However, the genetic risk score for both general cognitive function and AD contribute additively to cognitive function in LASI‐DAD participants. Future large scale GWAS of general cognitive function and AD are needed to identify specific risk variants for cognition in South Asians.
Background
Genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) in European ancestry (EA) participants have identified many loci associated with cognitive function. However, the association between variants at ...these loci and cognition has not been evaluated in South Asians. Due to ancestral genetic heterogeneity, the functional SNPs/variants in South Asians may be different than those identified in EA GWAS, even if the same genes/genomic regions are associated. Topologically associated domains (TADs), a basic unit of chromosome foldin, reflect a high level of intradomain interaction. This study used a region‐based approach to investigate whether the TAD regions tagged by SNPs identified in EA GWAS were associated with a general cognitive factor and the Hindi version of the Mini‐Mental State Examination (HMSE) score in 932 South Asians from the Diagnostic Assessment of Dementia for the Longitudinal Aging Study of India (LASI‐DAD).
Method
Participants were genotyped using the Illumina Global Screening Array and imputed to 1000G Phase 3v5. The sequence kernel association test (SKAT and SKAT‐O) was used to assess the joint effects of multiple SNPs/variants in 146 TAD regions after controlling for age, gender, and population structure, with or without education. We used two weighting schemes: equal weight for all SNPs/variants (beta(1,1)), and upweighting of rare variants (beta(1,25)). Due to the large size of each TAD region, we used a moving window approach (window size: 300 variants).
Result
Three windows (in TAD region tagged by rs6819372) were significantly associated with the general cognitive factor using the equal SNP/variant weighting approach (FDR<0.1). Using the rare variant weighting approach, five windows (in TAD regions tagged by rs889956, rs7494275, and rs830386) were significantly associated with the general cognitive factor after adjusting for education. Those windows, however, often do not overlap with the SNPs identified from EA GWAS.
Conclusion
Given that the associated regions often do not contain the EA GWAS SNPs GWAS, there may be substantial genetic heterogeneity between EA and South Asians even when the same gene regions are associated with cognition. Future work is needed to identify the specific variants that influence cognitive function in South Asians.
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