Measurements of normal inner ear on computed tomography in children with congenital sensorineural hearing loss

The objective of this study is to use standardized measurements of the inner ear to see whether there are subtle bony malformations in children with congenital sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) whose temporal bone computed tomography (CT) are grossly normal. The study includes 45 ears with congenital SNHL and grossly normal temporal bone CT scans and 45 ears with normal inner ear structures and normal hearing. Standardized measurements of the inner ear structures were made on axial temporal bone CT scans. Student's t test was performed to compare the measurements of the two groups. There were significant differences in the measurements of the bony island width of the superior semicircular canal, bony island width of the lateral semicircular canal and maximal height of cochlea between two groups (P < 0.05). In conclusion, standardized measurements of bony labyrinth of inner ear on temporal bone CT can identify subtle abnormalities of inner ear in patients with congenital SNHL having grossly normal radiological images

Using SPOT Data and FRAGSTAS to Analyze the Relationship between Plant Diversity and Green Space Landscape Patterns in the Tropical Coastal City of Zhanjiang, China

Urban green spaces provide a host of ecosystem services, the quantity and structure of which play an important role in human well-being. Rapid urbanization may modify urban green spaces, having various effects on plant diversity. Tropical coastal cities have urbanized rapidly in recent decades, but few studies have been conducted with a focus on their green spaces. We studied the responses of cultivated and spontaneous plants, both key components of urban flora, to the landscape structure of urban green spaces and possible social drivers. We analyzed existing relationships between plant diversity indices, urban green space landscape metrics (using Systeme Probatoire d’Observation de la Terre (SPOT) data,), and social factors, including the type, population density, construction age, and GPS coordinates of each Urban Functional Unit, or UFU. We found that UFUs with more green space patches had higher cultivated and spontaneous species richness than those with fewer green space patches. Spontaneous species richness decreased when green space patches became fragmented, and it increased when green space patches were more connected (e.g., via land bridges). Conversely, cultivated species richness increased with green space patch fragmentation. The phylogenetic diversity of both cultivated and spontaneous plants were weakly associated with green space structure, which was strongly driven by land use. Old UFUs and those with larger populations had more green space patches overall, although they tended to be small and fragmented. Green space patch density was found to increase as the UFU age increased. From the viewpoint of knowledge transfer, understanding the effects and drivers of landscape patterns of urban green spaces could inform the development of improved policies and management of urban green space areas.Peer Reviewe

Regulating C₂H₂/CO₂ adsorption selectivity by electronic-state manipulation of iron in metal-organic frameworks

The separation of C2H2 from C2H2/CO2 mixture is of great importance, yet highly challenging in the petrochemical industry due to their similar physicochemical properties. While open-metal sites (OMSs) in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are known to possess high affinity toward C2H2, its selective adsorption performance regulated by the electronic state of the same OMSs remains unexplored. Here, we report a metal electronic-state manipulation approach to construct a pair of isostructural Fe-MOFs, namely LIFM-26(Fe[II]/Fe[III]) and LIFM-27(Fe[III]) with different Fe[II] or Fe[III] oxidation states on the Fe centers, which display mixed-valent Fe[II]/Fe[III] centers in the former and sole Fe[III] centers in the latter. Remarkably, LIFM-26(Fe[II]/Fe[III]) shows significantly enhanced C2H2 uptake capacity than LIFM-27(Fe[III]), attested by adsorption isotherms and IAST calculations, as well as simulated and experimental breakthrough experiments. Furthermore, in situ infrared (IR) and molecular calculations unveil that the presence of Fe[II] in LIFM-26(Fe[II]/Fe[III]) results in stronger Fe[II]–C2H2 interactions than Fe[III]–C2H2, which plays a key role in the C2H2/CO2 separation

Search for strong gravity in multijet final states produced in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the LHC

A search is conducted for new physics in multijet final states using 3.6 inverse femtobarns of data from proton-proton collisions at √s = 13TeV taken at the CERN Large Hadron Collider with the ATLAS detector. Events are selected containing at least three jets with scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT) greater than 1TeV. No excess is seen at large HT and limits are presented on new physics: models which produce final states containing at least three jets and having cross sections larger than 1.6 fb with HT > 5.8 TeV are excluded. Limits are also given in terms of new physics models of strong gravity that hypothesize additional space-time dimensions

Measurement of the correlation between flow harmonics of different order in lead-lead collisions at √sNN = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Correlations between the elliptic or triangular flow coefficients vm (m=2 or 3) and other flow harmonics vn (n=2 to 5) are measured using √sNN=2.76 TeV Pb+Pb collision data collected in 2010 by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 7 μb−1. The vm−vn correlations are measured in midrapidity as a function of centrality, and, for events within the same centrality interval, as a function of event ellipticity or triangularity defined in a forward rapidity region. For events within the same centrality interval, v3 is found to be anticorrelated with v2 and this anticorrelation is consistent with similar anticorrelations between the corresponding eccentricities, ε2 and ε3. However, it is observed that v4 increases strongly with v2, and v5 increases strongly with both v2 and v3. The trend and strength of the vm−vn correlations for n=4 and 5 are found to disagree with εm−εn correlations predicted by initial-geometry models. Instead, these correlations are found to be consistent with the combined effects of a linear contribution to vn and a nonlinear term that is a function of v22 or of v2v3, as predicted by hydrodynamic models. A simple two-component fit is used to separate these two contributions. The extracted linear and nonlinear contributions to v4 and v5 are found to be consistent with previously measured event-plane correlations

The performance of the jet trigger for the ATLAS detector during 2011 data taking

The performance of the jet trigger for the ATLAS detector at the LHC during the 2011 data taking period is described. During 2011 the LHC provided proton–proton collisions with a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and heavy ion collisions with a 2.76 TeV per nucleon–nucleon collision energy. The ATLAS trigger is a three level system designed to reduce the rate of events from the 40 MHz nominal maximum bunch crossing rate to the approximate 400 Hz which can be written to offline storage. The ATLAS jet trigger is the primary means for the online selection of events containing jets. Events are accepted by the trigger if they contain one or more jets above some transverse energy threshold. During 2011 data taking the jet trigger was fully efficient for jets with transverse energy above 25 GeV for triggers seeded randomly at Level 1. For triggers which require a jet to be identified at each of the three trigger levels, full efficiency is reached for offline jets with transverse energy above 60 GeV. Jets reconstructed in the final trigger level and corresponding to offline jets with transverse energy greater than 60 GeV, are reconstructed with a resolution in transverse energy with respect to offline jets, of better than 4 % in the central region and better than 2.5 % in the forward direction

Search for vectorlike B quarks in events with one isolated lepton, missing transverse momentum, and jets at √s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search has been performed for pair production of heavy vectorlike down-type (B) quarks. The analysis explores the lepton-plus-jets final state, characterized by events with one isolated charged lepton (electron or muon), significant missing transverse momentum, and multiple jets. One or more jets are required to be tagged as arising from b quarks, and at least one pair of jets must be tagged as arising from the hadronic decay of an electroweak boson. The analysis uses the full data sample of pp collisions recorded in 2012 by the ATLAS detector at the LHC, operating at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb −1 . No significant excess of events is observed above the expected background. Limits are set on vectorlike B production, as a function of the B branching ratios, assuming the allowable decay modes are B → Wt/Zb/Hb. In the chiral limit with a branching ratio of 100% for the decay B → Wt, the observed (expected) 95% C.L. lower limit on the vectorlike B mass is 810 GeV (760 GeV). In the case where the vectorlike B quark has branching ratio values corresponding to those of an SU(2) singlet state, the observed (expected) 95% C.L. lower limit on the vectorlike B mass is 640 GeV (505 GeV). The same analysis, when used to investigate pair production of a colored, charge 5/3 exotic fermion T 5/3 , with subsequent decay T 5/3 → Wt, sets an observed (expected) 95% C.L. lower limit on the T 5/3 mass of 840 GeV (780 GeV)

Measurement of jet charge in dijet events from √s = 8 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

The momentum-weighted sum of the charges of tracks associated to a jet is sensitive to the charge of the initiating quark or gluon. This paper presents a measurement of the distribution of momentum-weighted sums, called jet charge, in dijet events using 20.3 fb−¹ of data recorded with the ATLAS detector at √s = 8 TeV in pp collisions at the LHC. The jet charge distribution is unfolded to remove distortions from detector effects and the resulting particle-level distribution is compared with several models. The pT dependence of the jet charge distribution average and standard deviation are compared to predictions obtained with several leading-order and next-to-leading-order parton distribution functions. The data are also compared to different Monte Carlo simulations of QCD dijet production using various settings of the free parameters within these models. The chosen value of the strong coupling constant used to calculate gluon radiation is found to have a significant impact on the predicted jet charge. There is evidence for a pT dependence of the jet charge distribution for a given jet flavor. In agreement with perturbative QCD predictions, the data show that the average jet charge of quark-initiated jets decreases in magnitude as the energy of the jet increases