Two lectures on color superconductivity

The first lecture provides an introduction to the physics of color superconductivity in cold dense quark matter. The main color superconducting phases are briefly described and their properties are listed. The second lecture covers recent developments in studies of color superconducting phases in neutral and beta-equilibrated matter. The properties of gapless color superconducting phases are discussed.Comment: 56 pages, 9 figures. Minor corrections and references added. Lectures delivered at the IARD 2004 conference, Saas Fee, Switzerland, June 12 - 19, 2004, and at the Helmholtz International Summer School and Workshop on Hot points in Astrophysics and Cosmology, JINR, Dubna, Russia, August 2 - 13, 200

The climate of HD 189733b from fourteen transits and eclipses measured by Spitzer

We present observations of seven transits and seven eclipses of the transiting planet system HD 189733 taken with Spitzer IRAC at 8 microns. We use a new correction for the detector ramp variation with a double-exponential function. Our main findings are: (1) an upper limit on the variability of the day-side planet flux of 2.7% (68% confidence); (2) the most precise set of transit times measured for a transiting planet, with an average accuracy of 3 seconds; (3) a lack of transit-timing variations, excluding the presence of second planets in this system above 20% of the mass of Mars in low-order mean-motion resonance at 95% confidence; (4) a confirmation of the planet's phase variation, finding the night side is 64% as bright as the day side, as well as an upper limit on the night-side variability of 17% (68% confidence); (5) a better correction for stellar variability at 8 micron causing the phase function to peak 3.5 hrs before secondary eclipse, confirming that the advection and radiation timescales are comparable at the 8 micron photosphere; (6) variation in the depth of transit, which possibly implies variations in the surface brightness of the portion of the star occulted by the planet, posing a fundamental limit on non-simultaneous multi-wavelength transit absorption measurements of planet atmospheres; (7) a measurement of the infrared limb-darkening of the star, in agreement with stellar atmosphere models; (8) an offset in the times of secondary eclipse of 69 sec, which is mostly accounted for by a 31 sec light travel time delay and 33 sec delay due to the shift of ingress and egress by the planet hot spot; this confirms that the phase variation is due to an offset hot spot on the planet; (9) a retraction of the claimed eccentricity of this system due to the offset of secondary eclipse; and (10) high precision measurements of the parameters of this system.Comment: 18 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Expected Performance of the ATLAS Experiment - Detector, Trigger and Physics

A detailed study is presented of the expected performance of the ATLAS detector. The reconstruction of tracks, leptons, photons, missing energy and jets is investigated, together with the performance of b-tagging and the trigger. The physics potential for a variety of interesting physics processes, within the Standard Model and beyond, is examined. The study comprises a series of notes based on simulations of the detector and physics processes, with particular emphasis given to the data expected from the first years of operation of the LHC at CERN

Tumour Cell Heterogeneity.

The population of cells that make up a cancer are manifestly heterogeneous at the genetic, epigenetic, and phenotypic levels. In this mini-review, we summarise the extent of intra-tumour heterogeneity (ITH) across human malignancies, review the mechanisms that are responsible for generating and maintaining ITH, and discuss the ramifications and opportunities that ITH presents for cancer prognostication and treatment

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

A High-Resolution Map of Human Evolutionary Constraint Using 29 Mammals

The comparison of related genomes has emerged as a powerful lens for genome interpretation. Here we report the sequencing and comparative analysis of 29 eutherian genomes. We confirm that at least 5.5% of the human genome has undergone purifying selection, and locate constrained elements covering ~4.2% of the genome. We use evolutionary signatures and comparisons with experimental data sets to suggest candidate functions for ~60% of constrained bases. These elements reveal a small number of new coding exons, candidate stop codon readthrough events and over 10,000 regions of overlapping synonymous constraint within protein-coding exons. We find 220 candidate RNA structural families, and nearly a million elements overlapping potential promoter, enhancer and insulator regions. We report specific amino acid residues that have undergone positive selection, 280,000 non-coding elements exapted from mobile elements and more than 1,000 primate- and human-accelerated elements. Overlap with disease-associated variants indicates that our findings will be relevant for studies of human biology, health and disease.National Human Genome Research Institute (U.S.)National Institute of General Medical Sciences (U.S.) (Grant number GM82901)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Postdoctural Fellowship (Award 0905968)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Career (0644282)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (R01-HG004037)Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.Austrian Science Fund. Erwin Schrodinger Fellowshi

Multifrequency Studies of the Peculiar Quasar 4C +21.35 During the 2010 Flaring Activity

The discovery of Very High Energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) γ-ray emission from 4C +21.35 (PKS 1222+216) by MAGIC on 2010 June 17, triggered by the high activity detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) in high energy (HE) γ-rays, poses intriguing questions on the location of the γ-ray emitting region in this flat spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ). We present multifrequency data of 4C +21.35 collected from radio to VHE during 2010 for investigating the properties of this source and discussing a possible emission model. The first hint of detection at VHE was observed by MAGIC on 2010 May 3, soon after a γ-ray flaring activity detected by Fermi-LAT and peaking on April 29. The same emission mechanism may therefore be responsible for both the HE and VHE emission during the 2010 flaring episodes. Two optical peaks were detected on 2010 April 20 and June 30, close in time but not simultaneous with the two γ-ray peaks, while no clear correlation was observed between the X-ray and γ-ray emission. An increasing flux density was observed in radio and mm bands from the beginning of 2009, in accordance with the increasing γ-ray activity observed by Fermi-LAT, and peaking on 2011 January 27 at 230 GHz. We model the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of 4C +21.35 for the two periods of the VHE detection and a quiescent state with a one-zone model considering the emission from a very compact region outside the broad line region. The three SEDs could be fit with a combination of synchrotron self-Compton and external Compton emission of seed photons from a dust torus, changing only the electron distribution parameters among the SEDs. The fit of the optical/UV part of the spectrum for 2010 April 29 seems to favor an inner disk radius of 3 gravitational radii, a value expected for a maximally prograde rotating Kerr black hole

Racism as a determinant of health: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Despite a growing body of epidemiological evidence in recent years documenting the health impacts of racism, the cumulative evidence base has yet to be synthesized in a comprehensive meta-analysis focused specifically on racism as a determinant of health. This meta-analysis reviewed the literature focusing on the relationship between reported racism and mental and physical health outcomes. Data from 293 studies reported in 333 articles published between 1983 and 2013, and conducted predominately in the U.S., were analysed using random effects models and mean weighted effect sizes. Racism was associated with poorer mental health (negative mental health: r = -.23, 95% CI [-.24,-.21], k = 227; positive mental health: r = -.13, 95% CI [-.16,-.10], k = 113), including depression, anxiety, psychological stress and various other outcomes. Racism was also associated with poorer general health (r = -.13 (95% CI [-.18,-.09], k = 30), and poorer physical health (r = -.09, 95% CI [-.12,-.06], k = 50). Moderation effects were found for some outcomes with regard to study and exposure characteristics. Effect sizes of racism on mental health were stronger in cross-sectional compared with longitudinal data and in non-representative samples compared with representative samples. Age, sex, birthplace and education level did not moderate the effects of racism on health. Ethnicity significantly moderated the effect of racism on negative mental health and physical health: the association between racism and negative mental health was significantly stronger for Asian American and Latino(a) American participants compared with African American participants, and the association between racism and physical health was significantly stronger for Latino(a) American participants compared with African American participants.<br /

Laparoscopy in management of appendicitis in high-, middle-, and low-income countries: a multicenter, prospective, cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Appendicitis is the most common abdominal surgical emergency worldwide. Differences between high- and low-income settings in the availability of laparoscopic appendectomy, alternative management choices, and outcomes are poorly described. The aim was to identify variation in surgical management and outcomes of appendicitis within low-, middle-, and high-Human Development Index (HDI) countries worldwide. METHODS: This is a multicenter, international prospective cohort study. Consecutive sampling of patients undergoing emergency appendectomy over 6 months was conducted. Follow-up lasted 30 days. RESULTS: 4546 patients from 52 countries underwent appendectomy (2499 high-, 1540 middle-, and 507 low-HDI groups). Surgical site infection (SSI) rates were higher in low-HDI (OR 2.57, 95% CI 1.33-4.99, p = 0.005) but not middle-HDI countries (OR 1.38, 95% CI 0.76-2.52, p = 0.291), compared with high-HDI countries after adjustment. A laparoscopic approach was common in high-HDI countries (1693/2499, 67.7%), but infrequent in low-HDI (41/507, 8.1%) and middle-HDI (132/1540, 8.6%) groups. After accounting for case-mix, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.42-0.71, p < 0.001) and SSIs (OR 0.22, 95% CI 0.14-0.33, p < 0.001). In propensity-score matched groups within low-/middle-HDI countries, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.23 95% CI 0.11-0.44) and SSI (OR 0.21 95% CI 0.09-0.45). CONCLUSION: A laparoscopic approach is associated with better outcomes and availability appears to differ by country HDI. Despite the profound clinical, operational, and financial barriers to its widespread introduction, laparoscopy could significantly improve outcomes for patients in low-resource environments. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT02179112