1,110 research outputs found
Vitamin K status, supplementation and vascular disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Objectives: Vascular stiffness (VS) and vascular calcification (VC) are surrogate markers of vascular health associated with cardiovascular events. Vitamin K-dependent proteins (VKDP) are associated with VS and VC and require vitamin K for activity. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of: (1) the effect of vitamin K supplementation on VS and VC and (2) association of inactive VKDP levels with incident cardiovascular disease and mortality.
Methods: Two authors searched MEDLINE and Embase databases and Cochrane and ISRCTN registries for studies of vitamin K clinical trials that measured effects on VC, VS or VKDP and longitudinal studies assessing effect of VKDP on incident CVD or mortality. Random effects meta-analyses were performed.
Results: Thirteen controlled clinical trials (n=2162) and 14 longitudinal studies (n=10â726) met prespecified inclusion criteria. Vitamin K supplementation was associated with significant reduction in VC (â9.1% (95% CI â17.7 to â0.5); p=0.04) and VKDP (desphospho-uncarboxylated matrix Gla protein; â44.7% (95% CI â65.1 to â24.3), p<0.0001) and uncarboxylated osteocalcin; â12.0% (95% CI â16.7 to â7.2), p<0.0001) compared with control, with a non-significant improvement in VS. In longitudinal studies with median follow-up of 7.8 (IQR 4.9â11.3)âyears, VKDP levels were associated with a combined endpoint of CVD or mortality (HR 0.45 (95% CI 0.07 to 0.83), p=0.02).
Conclusions: Supplementation with vitamin K significantly reduced VC, but not VS, compared with control. The conclusions drawn are limited by small numbers of studies with substantial heterogeneity. VKDP was associated with combined endpoint of CVD or mortality. Larger clinical trials of effect of vitamin K supplementation to improve VC, VS and long-term cardiovascular health are warranted.
Trial registration number: CRD42017060344
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Near-Earth asteroid sample return missions
The rate of discovery of new NEAs and the success of D-S 1 and NEAR-Shoemaker, suggest that sample return from NEAs is now technically feasible. Here we present a summary of a recent workshop on the topic
Antihydrogen formation dynamics in a multipolar neutral anti-atom trap
Antihydrogen production in a neutral atom trap formed by an octupole-based
magnetic field minimum is demonstrated using field-ionization of weakly bound
anti-atoms. Using our unique annihilation imaging detector, we correlate
antihydrogen detection by imaging and by field-ionization for the first time.
We further establish how field-ionization causes radial redistribution of the
antiprotons during antihydrogen formation and use this effect for the first
simultaneous measurements of strongly and weakly bound antihydrogen atoms.
Distinguishing between these provides critical information needed in the
process of optimizing for trappable antihydrogen. These observations are of
crucial importance to the ultimate goal of performing CPT tests involving
antihydrogen, which likely depends upon trapping the anti-atom
Liquid-Solid Transition of Hard Spheres Under Gravity
We investigate the liquid-solid transition of two dimensional hard spheres in
the presence of gravity. We determine the transition temperature and the
fraction of particles in the solid regime as a function of temperature via
Even-Driven molecular dynamics simulations and compare them with the
theoretical predictions. We then examine the configurational statistics of a
vibrating bed from the view point of the liquid-solid transition by explicitly
determining the transition temperature and the effective temperature, T, of the
bed, and present a relation between T and the vibration strength.Comment: 14 total pages, 4 figure
Search For Trapped Antihydrogen
We present the results of an experiment to search for trapped antihydrogen
atoms with the ALPHA antihydrogen trap at the CERN Antiproton Decelerator.
Sensitive diagnostics of the temperatures, sizes, and densities of the trapped
antiproton and positron plasmas have been developed, which in turn permitted
development of techniques to precisely and reproducibly control the initial
experimental parameters. The use of a position-sensitive annihilation vertex
detector, together with the capability of controllably quenching the
superconducting magnetic minimum trap, enabled us to carry out a
high-sensitivity and low-background search for trapped synthesised antihydrogen
atoms. We aim to identify the annihilations of antihydrogen atoms held for at
least 130 ms in the trap before being released over ~30 ms. After a three-week
experimental run in 2009 involving mixing of 10^7 antiprotons with 1.3 10^9
positrons to produce 6 10^5 antihydrogen atoms, we have identified six
antiproton annihilation events that are consistent with the release of trapped
antihydrogen. The cosmic ray background, estimated to contribute 0.14 counts,
is incompatible with this observation at a significance of 5.6 sigma. Extensive
simulations predict that an alternative source of annihilations, the escape of
mirror-trapped antiprotons, is highly unlikely, though this possibility has not
yet been ruled out experimentally.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure
Comparison of some Reduced Representation Approximations
In the field of numerical approximation, specialists considering highly
complex problems have recently proposed various ways to simplify their
underlying problems. In this field, depending on the problem they were tackling
and the community that are at work, different approaches have been developed
with some success and have even gained some maturity, the applications can now
be applied to information analysis or for numerical simulation of PDE's. At
this point, a crossed analysis and effort for understanding the similarities
and the differences between these approaches that found their starting points
in different backgrounds is of interest. It is the purpose of this paper to
contribute to this effort by comparing some constructive reduced
representations of complex functions. We present here in full details the
Adaptive Cross Approximation (ACA) and the Empirical Interpolation Method (EIM)
together with other approaches that enter in the same category
Navier-Stokes transport coefficients of -dimensional granular binary mixtures at low density
The Navier-Stokes transport coefficients for binary mixtures of smooth
inelastic hard disks or spheres under gravity are determined from the Boltzmann
kinetic theory by application of the Chapman-Enskog method for states near the
local homogeneous cooling state. It is shown that the Navier-Stokes transport
coefficients are not affected by the presence of gravity. As in the elastic
case, the transport coefficients of the mixture verify a set of coupled linear
integral equations that are approximately solved by using the leading terms in
a Sonine polynomial expansion. The results reported here extend previous
calculations [V. Garz\'o and J. W. Dufty, Phys. Fluids {\bf 14}, 1476 (2002)]
to an arbitrary number of dimensions. To check the accuracy of the
Chapman-Enskog results, the inelastic Boltzmann equation is also numerically
solved by means of the direct simulation Monte Carlo method to evaluate the
diffusion and shear viscosity coefficients for hard disks. The comparison shows
a good agreement over a wide range of values of the coefficients of restitution
and the parameters of the mixture (masses and sizes).Comment: 6 figures, to be published in J. Stat. Phy
Single-neutron transfer from 11Be gs via the (p,d) reaction with a radioactive beam
The 11Be(p,d)10Be reaction has been performed in inverse kinematics with a
radioactive 11Be beam of E/A = 35.3 MeV. Angular distributions for the 0+
ground state, the 2+, 3.37 MeV state and the multiplet of states around 6 MeV
in 10Be were measured at angles up to 16 deg CM by detecting the 10Be in a
dispersion-matched spectrometer and the coincident deuterons in a silicon
array. Distorted wave and coupled-channels calculations have been performed to
investigate the amount of 2+ core excitation in 11Be gs. The use of "realistic"
11Be wave functions is emphasised and bound state form factors have been
obtained by solving the particle-vibration coupling equations. This calculation
gives a dominant 2s component in the 11Be gs wave function with a 16% [2+ x 1d]
core excitation admixture. Cross sections calculated with these form factors
are in good agreement with the present data. The Separation Energy prescription
for the bound state wave function also gives satisfactory fits to the data, but
leads to a significantly larger [2 x 1d] component in 11Be gs.Comment: 39 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in Nuclear Physics A.
Added minor corrections made in proof to pages 26 and 3
Multimessenger astronomy with the Einstein Telescope
Gravitational waves (GWs) are expected to play a crucial role in the
development of multimessenger astrophysics. The combination of GW observations
with other astrophysical triggers, such as from gamma-ray and X-ray satellites,
optical/radio telescopes, and neutrino detectors allows us to decipher science
that would otherwise be inaccessible. In this paper, we provide a broad review
from the multimessenger perspective of the science reach offered by the third
generation interferometric GW detectors and by the Einstein Telescope (ET) in
particular. We focus on cosmic transients, and base our estimates on the
results obtained by ET's predecessors GEO, LIGO, and Virgo.Comment: 26 pages. 3 figures. Special issue of GRG on the Einstein Telescope.
Minor corrections include
The SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey: ALMA resolves the bright-end of the submillimeter number counts
We present high-resolution 870 ÎŒm Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) continuum maps of 30 bright sub-millimeter sources in the UKIDSS UDS field. These sources are selected from deep, 1 degree2 850 ÎŒm maps from the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey, and are representative of the brightest sources in the field (median = 8.7 ± 0.4 mJy). We detect 52 sub-millimeter galaxies (SMGs) at >4Ï significance in our 30 ALMA maps. In of the ALMA maps the single-dish source comprises a blend of â„2 SMGs, where the secondary SMGs are Ultra-luminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs) with 1012 . The brightest SMG contributes on average of the single-dish flux density, and in the ALMA maps containing â„2 SMGs the secondary SMG contributes of the integrated ALMA flux. We construct source counts and show that multiplicity boosts the apparent single-dish cumulative counts by 20% at S870 > 7.5 mJy, and by 60% at S870 > 12 mJy. We combine our sample with previous ALMA studies of fainter SMGs and show that the counts are well-described by a double power law with a break at 8.5 ± 0.6 mJy. The break corresponds to a luminosity of ~6 Ă 1012 or a star formation rate (SFR) of ~103 . For the typical sizes of these SMGs, which are resolved in our ALMA data with = 1.2 ± 0.1 kpc, this yields a limiting SFR density of ~100 yrâ1 kpcâ2 Finally, the number density of S870 2 mJy SMGs is 80 ± 30 times higher than that derived from blank-field counts. An over-abundance of faint SMGs is inconsistent with line-of-sight projections dominating multiplicity in the brightest SMGs, and indicates that a significant proportion of these high-redshift ULIRGs are likely to be physically associated
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