Intermediate-energy Coulomb excitation of 104 Sn: Moderate E2 strength decrease approaching 100 Sn

International audienceThe reduced transition probability B(E2)↑ of the first excited 2 + state in the nucleus 104 Sn was measured via Coulomb excitation in inverse kinematics at intermediate energies. A value of 0.173(28) e 2 b 2 was extracted from the absolute cross section on a Pb target. Feeding contributions in 104 Sn from higher lying states were estimated by a reference measurement of the stable 112 Sn. Corresponding only to a moderate decrease of excitation strength relative to the almost constant values observed in the proton-rich, even-A 106−114 Sn isotopes, present state-of-the-art shell-model predictions, which include proton and neutron excitations across the N = Z = 50 shell closures as well as standard polarization charges, underestimate the experimental findings

Comparison of vaginal microbiota sampling techniques: Cytobrush versus swab

© 2017 The Author(s). Evidence suggests the vaginal microbiota (VM) may influence risk of persistent Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection and cervical carcinogenesis. Established cytology biobanks, typically collected with a cytobrush, constitute a unique resource to study such associations longitudinally. It is plausible that compared to rayon swabs; the most commonly used sampling devices, cytobrushes may disrupt biofilms leading to variation in VM composition. Cervico-vaginal samples were collected with cytobrush and rayon swabs from 30 women with high-grade cervical precancer. Quantitative PCR was used to compare bacterial load and Illumina MiSeq sequencing of the V1-V3 regions of the 16S rRNA gene used to compare VM composition. Cytobrushes collected a higher total bacterial load. Relative abundance of bacterial species was highly comparable between sampling devices (R 2 = 0.993). However, in women with a Lactobacillus-depleted, high-diversity VM, significantly less correlation in relative species abundance was observed between devices when compared to those with a Lactobacillus species-dominant VM (p = 0.0049). Cytobrush and swab sampling provide a comparable VM composition. In a small proportion of cases the cytobrush was able to detect underlying high-diversity community structure, not realized with swab sampling. This study highlights the need to consider sampling devices as potential confounders when comparing multiple studies and datasets

Ancestral diversity improves discovery and fine-mapping of genetic loci for anthropometric traits — The Hispanic/Latino Anthropometry Consortium

Hispanic/Latinos have been underrepresented in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for anthropometric traits despite their notable anthropometric variability, ancestry proportions, and high burden of growth stunting and overweight/obesity. To address this knowledge gap, we analyzed densely imputed genetic data in a sample of Hispanic/Latino adults to identify and fine-map genetic variants associated with body mass index (BMI), height, and BMI-adjusted waist-to-hip ratio (WHRadjBMI). We conducted a GWAS of 18 studies/consortia as part of the Hispanic/Latino Anthropometry (HISLA) Consortium (stage 1, n = 59,771) and generalized our findings in 9 additional studies (stage 2, n = 10,538). We conducted a trans-ancestral GWAS with summary statistics from HISLA stage 1 and existing consortia of European and African ancestries. In our HISLA stage 1 + 2 analyses, we discovered one BMI locus, as well as two BMI signals and another height signal each within established anthropometric loci. In our trans-ancestral meta-analysis, we discovered three BMI loci, one height locus, and one WHRadjBMI locus. We also identified 3 secondary signals for BMI, 28 for height, and 2 for WHRadjBMI in established loci. We show that 336 known BMI, 1,177 known height, and 143 known WHRadjBMI (combined) SNPs demonstrated suggestive transferability (nominal significance and effect estimate directional consistency) in Hispanic/Latino adults. Of these, 36 BMI, 124 height, and 11 WHRadjBMI SNPs were significant after trait-specific Bonferroni correction. Trans-ancestral meta-analysis of the three ancestries showed a small-to-moderate impact of uncorrected population stratification on the resulting effect size estimates. Our findings demonstrate that future studies may also benefit from leveraging diverse ancestries and differences in linkage disequilibrium patterns to discover novel loci and additional signals with less residual population stratification

Ancestral diversity improves discovery and fine-mapping of genetic loci for anthropometric traits - the Hispanic/Latino Anthropometry Consortium

Hispanic/Latinos have been underrepresented in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for anthropometric traits despite their notable anthropometric variability, ancestry proportions, and high burden of growth stunting and overweight/obesity. To address this knowledge gap, we analyzed densely-imputed genetic data in a sample of Hispanic/Latino adults to identify and fine-map genetic variants associated with body mass index (BMI), height, and BMI-adjusted waist-to-hip ratio (WHRadjBMI). We conducted a GWAS of 18 studies/consortia as part of the Hispanic/Latino Anthropometry (HISLA) Consortium (Stage 1, n=59,771) and generalized our findings in 9 additional studies (HISLA Stage 2, n=10,538). We conducted a trans-ancestral GWAS with summary statistics from HISLA Stage 1 and existing consortia of European and African ancestries. In our HISLA Stage 1+2 analyses, we discovered one BMI locus, as well as two BMI signals and another height signal each within established anthropometric loci. In our trans-ancestral meta-analysis, we discovered three BMI loci, one height locus, and one WHRadjBMI locus. We also identified three secondary signals for BMI, 28 for height, and two for WHRadjBMI in established loci. We show that 336 known BMI, 1,177 known height, and 143 known WHRadjBMI (combined) SNPs demonstrated suggestive transferability (nominal significance and effect estimate directional consistency) in Hispanic/Latino adults. Of these, 36 BMI, 124 height, and 11 WHRadjBMI SNPs were significant after trait-specific Bonferroni correction. Trans-ancestral meta-analysis of the three ancestries showed a small-to-moderate impact of uncorrected population stratification on the resulting effect size estimates. Our findings demonstrate that future studies may also benefit from leveraging diverse ancestries and differences in linkage disequilibrium patterns to discover novel loci and additional signals with less residual population stratification

Evaporation-cost dependence in heavy-ion fragmentation

Inclusive multineutron and multiproton removal cross sections from 112Sn and 104Sn at relativistic energies have been measured. The data show two distinct regimes of the reaction process that depend on the nucleon evaporation cost of the final nucleus. This behavior is universal by regarding the mass or asymmetry of the initial system or target composition. A state-of-the-art cascade and deexcitation model reproduces the observed trend but systematically fails in reproducing cross sections for the removal of the more bound nucleon species. © 2013 American Physical Society.A. Jungclaus acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion under Contracts No. FPA2009-13377-C02-02 and No. FPA2011-29854-C04-01.Peer Reviewe

Precision half-life and Q-value measurement of the super-allowed beta emitter (30)S

The b \beta -decay half-life and the ground-state-to-ground-state Q EC -value of 30S were measured with a relative precision of 14 and 2 parts in 104, respectively. The half-life measurement yields a value of 1175.9(17)ms which is in agreement with previous measurements but has a precision that is better by a factor of three. The new super-allowed Q EC -value 5464.32(20)keV is 20 times more precise and slightly larger than the previously adopted value. The experiment was performed at the IGISOL facility at the Accelerator Laboratory of the University of Jyväskylä.This work was supported in part by the Conseil Regional d’Aquitaine. We also acknowledge support from the Academy of Finland under the Finnish Center of Excellence Programme 2006-2011 (Project No. 213503, Nuclear and Accelerator Based Physics Programme at JYFL).Peer Reviewe