The measurement of alpha from the B-factories

Significant progress toward measuring the CKM angle alpha has been made by the B-factories over the past decade. This work has culminated in a constraint on alpha with a precision of less than 4 degrees.Comment: Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on the Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics, San Diego, California, May 2009 (4 pages

The SuperB Experiment

In these proceedings I briefly introduce the project prior to discussing the physics programme of the SuperB high luminosity e+e- collider. By measuring the golden matrix SuperB will be able to elucidate and constrain the nature of physics beyond the Standard Model.Comment: Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on the Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics, San Diego, California, May 2009 (4 pages

Introduction to the Special Issue: Relationships in the Time of COVID-19

This introduction describes the background for the special issue entitled “Relationships in the Time of COVID-19: Examining the Effects of the Global Pandemic on Personal Relationships.” It also examines reasons for conducting interdisciplinary research on COVID-19 and personal relationships, and previews first articles published in the special issue

Capital structure and its determinants in the United Kingdom – a decompositional analysis

Prior research on capital structure by Rajan and Zingales (1995) suggests that the level of gearing in UK companies is positively related to size and tangibility, and negatively correlated with profitability and the level of growth opportunities. However, as argued by Harris and Raviv (1991), 'The interpretation of results must be tempered by an awareness of the difficulties involved in measuring both leverage and the explanatory variables of interest'. In this study the focus is on the difficulties of measuring gearing, and the sensitivity of Rajan and Zingales' results to variations in gearing measures are tested. Based on an analysis of the capital structure of 822 UK companies, Rajan and Zingales' results are found to be highly definitional-dependent. The determinants of gearing appear to vary significantly, depending upon which component of debt is being analysed. In particular, significant differences are found in the determinants of long- and short-term forms of debt. Given that trade credit and equivalent, on average, accounts for more than 62% of total debt, the results are particularly sensitive to whether such debt is included in the gearing measure. It is argued, therefore, that analysis of capital structure is incomplete without a detailed examination of all forms of corporate debt

Glacier dynamics over the last quarter of a century at Helheim, Kangerdlugssuaq and 14 other major Greenland outlet glaciers

The Greenland ice sheet is experiencing increasing rates of mass loss, the majority of which results from changes in discharge from tidewater glaciers. Both atmospheric and ocean drivers have been implicated in these dynamic changes, but understanding the nature of the response has been hampered by the lack of measurements of glacier flow rates predating the recent period of warming. Here, using Landsat-5 data from 1985 onwards, we extend back in time the record of surface velocities and ice-front position for 16 of Greenland's fastest-flowing tidewater glaciers, and compare these to more recent data from Landsat-7 and satellite-borne synthetic-aperture radar. Climate re-analysis data and sea surface temperatures from 1982 show that since 1995 most of Greenland and its surrounding oceans have experienced significant overall warming, and a switch to a warming trend. During the period from 1985 to 1995 when Greenland and the surrounding oceans were not warming, major tidewater outlet glaciers around Greenland, including Kangerdlugssuaq and Helheim, were dynamically stable. Since the mid-1990s, glacier discharge has consistently been both greater and more variable. Together, these observations support the hypothesis that recent dynamic change is a rapid response to climate forcing. Both air and ocean temperatures in this region are predicted to continue to warm, and will therefore likely drive further change in outlet glacier discharge

Compounds with a ‘stuffed’ anti-bixbyite-type structure, analysed in terms of the Zintl–Klemm and coordination-defect concepts

Compounds with a ‘stuffed anti-bixbyite’ structure, such as Li3AlN2, were analysed in terms of both the extended Zintl–Klemm concept and the coordination-defect concept. For the first time, inorganic crystal structures are seen as a set of ‘multiple resonance structures’ (Klemm pseudo-structures) which co-exist as the result of unexpected electron transfers between any species pair comprising either like or unlike atoms, cations or anions. If this is the driving force controlling crystal structures, the conventional oxidation states assigned to cations and anions lose some of their usefulness

Eighty years of targeting androgen receptor activity in prostate cancer: the fight goes on

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common cancer in men in the West, other than skin cancer, accounting for over a quarter of cancer diagnoses in US men. In a seminal paper from 1941, Huggins and Hodges demonstrated that prostate tumours and metastatic disease were sensitive to the presence or absence of androgenic hormones. The first hormonal therapy for PCa was thus castration. In the subsequent eighty years, targeting the androgen signalling axis, where possible using drugs rather than surgery, has been a mainstay in the treatment of advanced and metastatic disease. Androgens signal via the androgen receptor, a ligand-activated transcription factor, which is the direct target of many such drugs. In this review we discuss the role of the androgen receptor in PCa and how the combination of structural information and functional screenings is continuing to be used for the discovery of new drug to switch off the receptor or modify its function in cancer cells