Don't tax me? : Determinants of individual attitudes toward progressive taxation

This contribution empirically analyses the individual determinants of tax rate preferences. For that purpose we make use of the representative German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) that offers data on the individual attitudes toward progressive, proportional, and regressive taxation. Our theoretical considerations suggest that beyond self-interest, information, fairness considerations, economic beliefs and several other individual factors drive individual preferences for tax rate structures. Our empirical results indicate that the self-interest view does not offer the sole explanation for the heterogeneity in attitudes toward progressive taxation. Rather, we show that the choice of the favoured tax rate is also driven by fairness considerations

A Polymorphism in a Gene Encoding Perilipin 4 Is Associated with Height but not with Bone Measures in Individuals from the Framingham Osteoporosis Study

There is increasing interest in identifying new pathways and candidate genes that confer susceptibility to osteoporosis. There is evidence that adipogenesis and osteogenesis may be related, including a common bone marrow progenitor cell for both adipocytes and osteoblasts. Perilipin 1 (PLIN1) and Perilipin 4 (PLIN4) are members of the PATS family of genes and are involved in lipolysis of intracellular lipid deposits. A previous study reported gender-specific associations between one polymorphism of PLIN1 and bone mineral density (BMD) in a Japanese population. We hypothesized that polymorphisms in PLIN1 and PLIN4 would be associated with bone measures in adult Caucasian participants of the Framingham Osteoporosis Study (FOS). We genotyped 1,206 male and 1,445 female participants of the FOS for four single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) in PLIN1 and seven SNPs in PLIN4 and tested for associations with measures of BMD, bone ultrasound, hip geometry, and height. We found several gender-specific significant associations with the measured traits. The association of PLIN4 SNP rs8887, G>A with height in females trended toward significance after simulation testing (adjusted P = 0.07) and remained significant after simulation testing in the combined-sex model (adjusted P = 0.033). In a large study sample of men and women, we found a significant association between one SNP in PLIN4 and height but not with bone traits, suggesting that PATS family genes are not important in the regulation of bone. Identification of genes that influence human height may lead to a better understanding of the processes involved in growth and development

The last forests on Antarctica: Reconstructing flora and temperature from the Neogene Sirius Group, Transantarctic Mountains

Fossil-bearing deposits in the Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctica indicate that, despite the cold nature of the continent’s climate, a tundra ecosystem grew during periods of ice sheet retreat in the mid to late Neogene (17–2.5 Ma), 480 km from the South Pole. To date, palaeotemperature reconstruction has been based only on biological ranges, thereby calling for a geochemical approach to understanding continental climate and environment. There is contradictory evidence in the fossil record as to whether this flora was mixed angiosperm-conifer vegetation, or whether by this point conifers had disappeared from the continent. In order to address these questions, we have analysed, for the first time in sediments of this age, plant and bacterial biomarkers in terrestrial sediments from the Transantarctic Mountains to reconstruct past temperature and vegetation during a period of East Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat. From tetraether lipids (MBT’/CBT palaeothermometer), we conclude that the mean continental summer temperature was ca. 5 °C, in agreement with previous reconstructions. This was warm enough to have allowed woody vegetation to survive and reproduce even during the austral winter. Biomarkers from vascular plants indicate a low diversity and spatially variable flora consisting of higher plants, moss and algal mats growing in microenvironments in a glacial outwash system. Abietane-type compounds were abundant in some samples, indicating that conifers, most likely Podocarpaceae, grew on the Antarctic continent well into the Neogene. This is supported by the palynological record, but not the macrofossil record for the continent, and has implications for the evolution of vegetation on Antarctica

Bivariate genome-wide association meta-analysis of pediatric musculoskeletal traits reveals pleiotropic effects at the SREBF1/TOM1L2 locus

Bone mineral density is known to be a heritable, polygenic trait whereas genetic variants contributing to lean mass variation remain largely unknown. We estimated the shared SNP heritability and performed a bivariate GWAS meta-analysis of total-body lean mass (TB-LM) and total-body less head bone mineral density (TBLH-BMD) regions in 10,414 children. The estimated SNP heritability is 43% for TBLH-BMD, and 39% for TB-LM, with a shared genetic component of 43%. We identify variants with pleiotropic effects in eight loci, including seven established bone mineral density loci: _WNT4, GALNT3, MEPE, CPED1/WNT16, TNFSF11, RIN3, and PPP6R3/LRP5_. Variants in the _TOM1L2/SREBF1_ locus exert opposing effects TB-LM and TBLH-BMD, and have a stronger association with the former trait. We show that _SREBF1_ is expressed in murine and human osteoblasts, as well as in human muscle tissue. This is the first bivariate GWAS meta-analysis to demonstrate genetic factors with pleiotropic effects on bone mineral density and lean mass

Search for heavy gauge W ' bosons in events with an energetic lepton and large missing transverse momentum at root s=13TeV

Peer reviewe

Search for massive resonances decaying in to WW,WZ or ZZ bosons in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

Peer reviewe

Measurement of differential cross sections for Higgs boson production in the diphoton decay channel in pp collisions at √s = 8 TeV

Artículo escrito por un elevado número de autores, solo se referencian el que aparece en primer lugar, el nombre del grupo de colaboración, si le hubiere, y los autores pertenecientes a la UAMA measurement is presented of differential cross sections for Higgs boson (H) production in pp collisions at √s = 8TeV. The analysis exploits the H→γγ decay in data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7fb-1 collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The cross section is measured as a function of the kinematic properties of the diphoton system and of the associated jets. Results corrected for detector effects are compared with predictions at next-to-leading order and next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative quantum chromodynamics, as well as with predictions beyond the standard model. For isolated photons with pseudorapidities |η|1/3 and >1/4, the total fiducial cross section is 32±10fbWe acknowledge the enduring support for the construction and operation of the LHC and the CMS detector provided by the following funding agencies: the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy and the Austrian Science Fund; the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique, and Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek; the Brazilian Funding Agencies (CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP); the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science; CERN; the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ministry of Science and Technology, and National Natural Science Foundation of China; the Colombian Funding Agency (COLCIENCIAS); the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sport, and the Croatian Science Foundation; the Research Promotion Foundation, Cyprus; the Ministry of Education and Research, Estonian Research Council via IUT23-4 and IUT23- 6 and European Regional Development Fund, Estonia; the Academy of Finland, Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, and Helsinki Institute of Physics; the Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules/CNRS, and Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives/CEA, France; the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren, Germany; the General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Greece; the National Scientific Research Foundation, and National Innovation Office, Hungary; the Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Science and Technology, India; the Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, Iran; the Science Foundation, Ireland; the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Italy; the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, and National Research Foundation (NRF), Republic of Korea; the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences; the Ministry of Education, and University of Malaya (Malaysia); the Mexican Funding Agencies (CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI); the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, New Zealand; the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission; the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the National Science Centre, Poland; the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal; JINR, Dubna; the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, the Federal Agency of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation, Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research; the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of Serbia; the Secretaría de Estado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación and Programa Consolider-Ingenio 2010, Spain; the Swiss Funding Agencies (ETH Board, ETH Zurich, PSI, SNF, UniZH, Canton Zurich, and SER); the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taipei; the Thailand Center of Excellence in Physics, the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology of Thailand, Special Task Force for Activating Research and the National Science and Technology Development Agency of Thailand; the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey, and Turkish Atomic Energy Authority; the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and State Fund for Fundamental Researches, Ukraine; the Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK; the US Department of Energy, and the US National Science Foundation. Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council and EPLANET(European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l’Industrie et dans l’Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the HOMING PLUS program of the Foun-dation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund; the OPUS program of the National Science Center (Poland); the Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino); the Consorzio per la Fisica (Trieste); MIUR project 20108T4XTM (Italy); the Thalis and Aristeia programs cofinanced by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; the National PrioritiesResearch Program by QatarNationalResearch Fund; the Rachadapisek Sompot Fund for Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand); and the Welch Foundation, contract C-184

Search for light bosons in decays of the 125 GeV Higgs boson in proton-proton collisions at root s=8 TeV

Peer reviewe

Search for narrow resonances in dilepton mass spectra in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV and combination with 8 TeV data

A search for narrow resonances in dielectron and dimuon invariant mass spectra has been performed using data obtained from proton–proton collisions at View the MathML sources=13 TeV collected with the CMS detector. The integrated luminosity for the dielectron sample is 2.7 fb−1 and for the dimuon sample 2.9 fb−1. The sensitivity of the search is increased by combining these data with a previously analyzed set of data obtained at View the MathML sources=8 TeV and corresponding to a luminosity of 20 fb−1. No evidence for non-standard-model physics is found, either in the 13 TeV data set alone, or in the combined data set. Upper limits on the product of production cross section and branching fraction have also been calculated in a model-independent manner to enable interpretation in models predicting a narrow dielectron or dimuon resonance structure. Limits are set on the masses of hypothetical particles that could appear in new-physics scenarios. For the View the MathML sourceZSSM′ particle, which arises in the sequential standard model, and for the superstring inspired View the MathML sourceZψ′ particle, 95% confidence level lower mass limits for the combined data sets and combined channels are found to be 3.37 and 2.82 TeV, respectively. The corresponding limits for the lightest Kaluza–Klein graviton arising in the Randall–Sundrum model of extra dimensions with coupling parameters 0.01 and 0.10 are 1.46 and 3.11 TeV, respectively. These results significantly exceed the limits based on the 8 TeV LHC data