Polymorphisms in the bradykinin B2 receptor gene and childhood asthma

Bradykinin has been suggested as one of the key mediators of bronchial asthma. Polymorphisms with a potential functional relevance have been described in the B2 bradykinin receptor gene. Study of these polymorphisms in 77 children with asthma and 73 controls revealed no association. However, when comparing the asthmatics according to their age at onset (before and after age 4), the exon 1 allele BE1-2G was significantly associated with late-onset asthma (p <0.05). Since BE1-2G has previously been shown to lead to a higher transcription rate of the B2 receptor, this result warrants further investigation of the role of bradykinin in conferring susceptibility to pediatric asthma

Exact Study of the Effect of Level Statistics in Ultrasmall Superconducting Grains

The reduced BCS model that is commonly used for ultrasmall superconducting grains has an exact solution worked out long ago by Richardson in the context of nuclear physics. We use it to check the quality of previous treatments of this model, and to investigate the effect of level statistics on pairing correlations. We find that the ground state energies are on average somewhat lower for systems with non-uniform than uniform level spacings, but both have an equally smooth crossover from the bulk to the few-electron regime. In the latter, statistical fluctuations in ground state energies strongly depend on the grain's electron number parity.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figs, RevTe

First Results from the Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey (TERMS)

Transiting planet discoveries have yielded a plethora of information towards understanding the structure and atmospheres of extra-solar planets. These discoveries have been restricted to the short-period or low-periastron distance regimes due to the bias inherent in the geometric transit probability. Through the refinement of planetary orbital parmaters, and hence reducing the size of transit windows, long-period planets become feasible targets for photometric follow-up. Here we describe the TERMS project which is monitoring these host stars at predicted transit times

The LAEX and NASA portals for CoRoT public data

* Aims. We describe here the main functionalities of the LAEX (Laboratorio de Astrofisica Estelar y Exoplanetas/Laboratory for Stellar Astrophysics and Exoplanets) and NASA portals for CoRoT Public Data. The CoRoT archive at LAEX was opened to the community in January 2009 and is managed in the framework of the Spanish Virtual Observatory. NStED (NASA Star and Exoplanet Database) serves as the CoRoT portal for the US astronomical community. NStED is a general purpose stellar and exoplanet archive with the aim of providing support for NASA planet finding and characterisation goals, and the planning and support of NASA and other space missions. CoRoT data at LAEX and NStED can be accessed at http://sdc.laeff.inta.es/corotfa/ and http://nsted.ipac.caltech.edu,respectively. * Methods. Based on considerable experience with astronomical archives, the aforementioned archives are designed with the aim of delivering science-quality data in a simple and efficient way. * Results. LAEX and NStED not only provide access to CoRoT Public Data but furthermore serve a variety of observed and calculated astrophysical data. In particular, NStED provides scientifically validated information on stellar and planetary data related to the search for and characterization of extrasolar planets, and LAEX makes any information from Virtual Observatory services available to the astronomical community.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

The impact of drinking water quality and sanitation on child health: Evidence from rural Ethiopia

This paper examines the impact of drinking water quality and sanitation behavior on child health in rural districts of Ethiopia. Using primary household survey data and microbiological water test for Escherichia coli, we use various estimation methods to quantify the impacts of water quality and sanitation behavior on diarrhea incidence among children under five years old. Our results show that uncontaminated household storage water and safe child stool disposal decrease incidence of child diarrhea by 16% and 23% respectively. In contrast, neighborhood concentration of pit latrine increases incidence of child diarrhea by 12%. The latter result casts serious doubt on the assumed health and social benefits of moving from open to fixed-location defecation. Creating open defecation free communities in rural areas is not enough to achieve the desired health benefits of sanitation. To protect rural households from the risk of contracting communicable diseases, existing pit latrines should be upgraded to make them safer to use - fly-proofed and hygienic. There is a need for appropriate policy actions to improve household drinking water quality and to change people's behavior towards safe sanitation practices. Increasing access to clean water supply and providing means for safe excreta disposal will bring significant health and social gains. Moreover, promotion of hygiene education campaigns about household water treatment, safe water storage and handling, washing hands with soaps at critical times, and adequately removing child feces from the domestic environment can also help ensure that people preserve good health in their household and their community

The impact of drinking water quality and sanitation on child health : Evidence from rural Ethiopia

This paper examines the impact of drinking water quality and sanitation behavior on child health in rural districts of Ethiopia. Using primary household survey data and microbiological water test for Escherichia coli, we use various estimation methods to quantify the impacts of water quality and sanitation behavior on diarrhea incidence among children under five years old. Our results show that uncontaminated household storage water and safe child stool disposal decrease incidence of child diarrhea by 16% and 23% respectively. In contrast, neighborhood concentration of pit latrine increases incidence of child diarrhea by 12%. The latter result casts serious doubt on the assumed health and social benefits of moving from open to fixed-location defecation. Creating open defecation free communities in rural areas is not enough to achieve the desired health benefits of sanitation. To protect rural households from the risk of contracting communicable diseases, existing pit latrines should be upgraded to make them safer to use – fly-proofed and hygienic. There is a need for appropriate policy actions to improve household drinking water quality and to change people’s behavior towards safe sanitation practices. Increasing access to clean water supply and providing means for safe excreta disposal will bring significant health and social gains. Moreover, promotion of hygiene education campaigns about household water treatment, safe water storage and handling, washing hands with soaps at critical times, and adequately removing child feces from the domestic environment can also help ensure that people preserve good health in their household and their community

Precision Stellar Characterization of FGKM Stars using an Empirical Spectral Library

Classification of stars, by comparing their optical spectra to a few dozen spectral standards, has been a workhorse of observational astronomy for more than a century. Here, we extend this technique by compiling a library of optical spectra of 404 touchstone stars observed with Keck/HIRES by the California Planet Search. The spectra have high resolution (R ≈ 60,000), high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N ≈ 150/pixel), and are registered onto a common wavelength scale. The library stars have properties derived from interferometry, asteroseismology, LTE spectral synthesis, and spectrophotometry. To address a lack of well-characterized late-K dwarfs in the literature, we measure stellar radii and temperatures for 23 nearby K dwarfs, using modeling of the spectral energy distribution and Gaia parallaxes. This library represents a uniform data set spanning the spectral types ~M5–F1 (T_(eff) ≈ 3000–7000 K, R_★ ≈ 0.1–16 R ⊙). We also present "Empirical SpecMatch" (SpecMatch-Emp), a tool for parameterizing unknown spectra by comparing them against our spectral library. For FGKM stars, SpecMatch-Emp achieves accuracies of 100 K in effective temperature (T_(eff)), 15% in stellar radius (R_★), and 0.09 dex in metallicity ([Fe/H]). Because the code relies on empirical spectra it performs particularly well for stars ~K4 and later, which are challenging to model with existing spectral synthesizers, reaching accuracies of 70 K in T_(eff), 10% in R_★, and 0.12 dex in [Fe/H]. We also validate the performance of SpecMatch-Emp, finding it to be robust at lower spectral resolution and S/N, enabling the characterization of faint late-type stars. Both the library and stellar characterization code are publicly available

Fixed-N Superconductivity: The Crossover from the Bulk to the Few-Electron Limit

We present a truly canonical theory of superconductivity in ultrasmall metallic grains by variationally optimizing fixed-N projected BCS wave-functions, which yields the first full description of the entire crossover from the bulk BCS regime (mean level spacing $d \ll$ bulk gap $\tilde\Delta$) to the ``fluctuation-dominated'' few-electron regime ($d\gg\tilde\Delta$). A wave-function analysis shows in detail how the BCS limit is recovered for $d\ll \tilde \Delta$, and how for $d \gg \tilde \Delta$ pairing correlations become delocalized in energy space. An earlier grand-canonical prediction for an observable parity effect in the spectral gaps is found to survive the fixed-N projection.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, RevTeX, V2: minor charges to mach final printed versio

M dwarf stars in the light of (future) exoplanet searches

We present a brief overview of a splinter session on M dwarf stars as planet hosts that was organized as part of the Cool Stars 17 conference. The session was devoted to reviewing our current knowledge of M dwarf stars and exoplanets in order to prepare for current and future exoplanet searches focusing in low mass stars. We review the observational and theoretical challenges to characterize M dwarf stars and the importance of accurate fundamental parameters for the proper characterization of their exoplanets and our understanding on planet formation.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Summary of the splinter session "M dwarf stars in the light of (future) exoplanet searches" held at the 17th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun, June 28th 2012, Barcelona, Spain. Submitted for publication in Astronomische Nachrichten - Astronomical Notes (AN) 334, Issue 1-2, Eds Klaus Strassmeier and Mercedes L\'opez-Morale