The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab reports results from an analysis of ν_{e} appearance data from 12.84×10^{20} protons on target in neutrino mode, an increase of approximately a factor of 2 over ...previously reported results. A ν_{e} charged-current quasielastic event excess of 381.2±85.2 events (4.5σ) is observed in the energy range 200<E_{ν}^{QE}<1250 MeV. Combining these data with the νover ¯_{e} appearance data from 11.27×10^{20} protons on target in antineutrino mode, a total ν_{e} plus νover ¯_{e} charged-current quasielastic event excess of 460.5±99.0 events (4.7σ) is observed. If interpreted in a two-neutrino oscillation model, ν_{μ}→ν_{e}, the best oscillation fit to the excess has a probability of 21.1%, while the background-only fit has a χ^{2} probability of 6×10^{-7} relative to the best fit. The MiniBooNE data are consistent in energy and magnitude with the excess of events reported by the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND), and the significance of the combined LSND and MiniBooNE excesses is 6.0σ. A two-neutrino oscillation interpretation of the data would require at least four neutrino types and indicate physics beyond the three neutrino paradigm. Although the data are fit with a two-neutrino oscillation model, other models may provide better fits to the data.
•Hand hygiene opportunities and events decreased as COVID-19 progressed.•Hand hygiene performance initially increased at the outset of the COVID-19 crisis.•Improvements in hand hygiene performance ...during COVID-19 were not sustained.•Over 35 million hand hygiene opportunities were captured with automated monitoring.
Achieving high levels of hand hygiene compliance of health care personnel has been an ongoing challenge. The objective of this study was to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hand hygiene performance (HHP) rates in acute care hospitals.
HHP rates were estimated using an automated hand hygiene monitoring system installed in 74 adult inpatient units in 7 hospitals and 10 pediatric inpatient units in 2 children's hospitals. A segmented regression model was used to estimate the trajectory of HHP rates in the 10 weeks leading up to a COVID-19-related milestone event (eg, school closures) and for 10 weeks after.
Three effects emerged, all of which were significant at P < .01. Average HHP rates increased from 46% to 56% in the months preceding pandemic-related school closures. This was followed by a 6% upward shift at the time school closures occurred. HHP rates remained over 60% for 4 weeks before declining to 54% at the end of the study period.
Data from an automated hand hygiene monitoring system indicated that HHP shifted in multiple directions during the early stages of the pandemic. We discuss possible reasons why HHP first increased as the pandemic began and then decreased as it progressed.
African-Americans and Latinos suffer the highest cervical cancer burden compared to other populations and have sub-optimal HPV vaccination rates.
To condense research findings of studies conducted ...with African-Americans and Latinos on factors associated with HPV vaccine acceptability and uptake.
Standards for conducting an integrative review were used. PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and PsycINFO databases were searched.
Awareness about HPV and the HPV vaccine varied by demographics of parents. For Latino parents, acculturation and awareness were associated. However, findings were mixed regarding the association between acculturation and knowledge. Among African-Americans, higher socioeconomic status (SES) and awareness were associated. Sexuality-related concerns, concerns about safety and low perceived risk of daughter’s acquiring HPV emerged as barriers to vaccination among Latinos and African-Americans. Among Latinos, vaccine acceptability was associated with the vaccine’s cancer prevention benefits and a provider’s recommendation. Among African-Americans, acceptability was associated with awareness, perceived risk of acquiring HPV, religion, and a provider’s recommendation. Few interventions have been developed to increase HPV vaccine acceptance. Importantly, few studies assessed the influence of culture on vaccine acceptance and uptake.
Future research should be informed by culture-centered theories as this is the first step to inform the development of culturally-grounded interventions.
•Few studies assess reasons for African-Americans’ low HPV vaccine completion rate.•Few studies examine how acculturation may affect U.S. Latinos’ HPV vaccine acceptance.•Few studies assessed beliefs and attitudes that underpin barriers to acceptance.•African-Americans’ HPV vaccine acceptance is linked with socio-demographic factors.•Few studies assessed the potential influence of culture-related variables.
It is recognized that the coexistence of herbaceous species in N-depleted habitats can be facilitated by N partitioning; however, the existence of such a phenomenon for trees has not yet been ...demonstrated. Here, we show from both foliage and soil
15
N natural abundance values and from a 12-year in situ
15
N addition experiment, that black spruce (
Picea mariana
) and jack pine (
Pinus banksiana
), two widespread species of the Canadian boreal forest, take up N at different depths. While black spruce takes up N from the organic soil, jack pine acquires it deeper within the highly N-depleted mineral soil. Systematic difference in foliar
15
N natural abundance between the two species across seven sites distributed throughout the eastern Canadian boreal forest shows that N spatial partitioning is a widespread phenomenon. Distinct relationships between δ
15
N and N concentration in leaves of both species further emphasize their difference in N acquisition strategies. This result suggests that such complementary mechanisms of N acquisition could facilitate tree species coexistence in such N-depleted habitats and could contribute to the positive biodiversity-productivity relationship recently revealed for the eastern Canadian boreal forest, where jack pine is present. It also has implications for forest management and provides new insights to interpret boreal forest regeneration following natural or anthropogenic perturbations.
QCD shear viscosity at (almost) NLO Ghiglieri, Jacopo; Moore, Guy D.; Teaney, Derek
The journal of high energy physics,
03/2018, Letnik:
2018, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
A
bstract
We compute the shear viscosity of QCD with matter, including almost all next-to-leading order corrections — that is, corrections suppressed by one power of
g
relative to leading order. We ...argue that the still missing terms are small. The next-to-leading order corrections are large and bring
η/s
down by more than a factor of 3 at physically relevant couplings. The perturbative expansion is problematic even at
T
≃ 100 GeV. The largest next-to-leading order correction to
η/s
arises from modifications to the
q
^
parameter, which determines the rate of transverse momentum diffusion. We also explore quark number diffusion, and shear viscosity in pure-glue QCD and in QED.
A
bstract
We investigate how relativistic, nonabelian plasmas approach equilibrium in a general context. Our treatment is entirely parametric and for small Yang-Mills coupling
α
. First we study ...isotropic systems with an initially nonequilibrium momentum distribution. We consider both the case of initially very high occupancy and initially very low occupancy. Then we consider systems which are anisotropic. We consider both weak anisotropy and large anisotropy, and allow the occupancy to be parametrically large or small. Writing the typical momentum of an initial excitation as
Q
and the final temperature as
T
final
, full equilibration occurs in a time
for
T
final
>
Q
, and
for
T
final
<
Q
, unless the initial system is sufficiently anisotropic and
, in which 7 case equilibration occurs somewhat faster,
.
A
bstract
The leading-order weak-coupling shear viscosity of QCD was computed almost 20 years ago, and the extension to next-to-leading order is 4 years old. But these results have never been applied ...at finite baryon chemical potential
μ
, despite the fact that intermediate-energy heavy ion collisions and merging neutron stars may explore the Quark-Gluon Plasma in a regime where baryon chemical potentials are large. Here we extend the leading-log shear viscosity calculation to finite
μ
, and we argue that the convergence of the weak-coupling expansion, while questionable for achievable plasmas, should be better at
μ > T
than at
μ
= 0.
Recent reports describe the ability of select bacterial strains to bind human norovirus, although the specificity of such interactions is unknown. The purpose of this work was to determine if a ...select group of bacterial species representative of human gut microbiota bind to human norovirus, and if so, to characterize the intensity and location of that binding. The bacteria screened included naturally occurring strains isolated from human stool (Klebsiella spp., Citrobacter spp., Bacillus spp., Enterococcus faecium and Hafnia alvei) and select reference strains (Staphylococcus aureus and Enterobacter cloacae). Binding in PBS was evaluated to three human norovirus strains (GII.4 New Orleans 2009 and Sydney 2012, GI.6) and two surrogate viruses (Tulane virus and Turnip Crinkle Virus (TCV)) using a suspension assay format linked to RT-qPCR for quantification. The impact of different overnight culture media prior to washing on binding efficiency in PBS was also evaluated, and binding was visualized using transmission electron microscopy. All bacteria tested bound the representative human norovirus strains with high efficiency (<1 log10 of input virus remained unbound or <10% unbound and >90% binding efficiency) (p>0.05); there was selective binding for Tulane virus and no binding observed for TCV. Binding efficiency was highest when bacteria were cultured in minimal media (<1 log10 of input virus remained unbound, so >90% bound), but notably decreased when cultured in enriched media (1-3 log10 unbound or 0.01 -<90% bound)) (p<0.05). The norovirus-bacteria binding occurred around the outer cell surfaces and pili structures, without apparent localization. The findings reported here further elucidate and inform the dynamics between human noroviruses and enteric bacteria with implications for norovirus pathogenesis.
Magnetic cooling could be a radically different energy solution substituting conventional vapour compression refrigeration in the future. For the largest cooling effects of most potential ...refrigerants we need to fully exploit the different degrees of freedom such as magnetism and crystal structure. We report now for Heusler-type Ni–Mn–In–(Co) magnetic shape-memory alloys, the adiabatic temperature change ΔT(ad) = −3.6 to −6.2 K under a moderate field of 2 T. Here it is the structural transition that plays the dominant role towards the net cooling effect. A phenomenological model is established that reveals the parameters essential for such a large ΔT(ad). We also demonstrate that obstacles to the application of Heusler alloys, namely the usually large hysteresis and limited operating temperature window, can be overcome by using the multi-response to different external stimuli and/or fine-tuning the lattice parameters, and by stacking a series of alloys with tailored magnetostructural transitions.
•Cas9 has utility across gene editing especially for rapid knock-out (KO) generation.•The D10A nickase mutant may boost rates of homologous recombination.•The infrastructure developed for shRNA can ...be redeployed in sgRNA drop out screens.•sgRNA KO screens may overcome many of the issues with large-scale shRNA screens.•Cas9 enables rapid gene editing in vivo: KO animals can be made in a few months.
The addition of an RNA-guided nuclease, Cas9, to the gene editing toolbox has increased the accessibility of gene editing technologies by greatly simplifying the design of editing reagents. Only a single 75–100 nucleotide RNA is required to guide Cas9 to the target gene of interest, which has meant that the established infrastructure of short-hairpin RNA interference screen could be readily adapted to genome-wide knock out screens. Cas9-based editing technology should streamline the generation of animal and cell-line models, make the generation of activity-dead mutations in target validation routine, and enable the discovery of a new generation of targets across therapeutic areas.
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