Cross-cultural adaptation and clinical validation of the neonatal skin condition score to Brazilian Portuguese

Objective: to describe the process of cross-cultural adaptation and clinical validation of the Neonatal Skin Condition Score. Methods: this methodological cross-cultural adaptation study included five steps: initial translation, synthesis of the initial translation, back translation, review by an Committee of Specialists and testing of the pre-final version, and an observational cross-sectional study with analysis of the psychometric properties using the Adjusted Kappa, Intraclass Correlation Coefficient, and Bland- Altman Method statistical tests. A total of 38 professionals were randomly recruited to review the clarity of the adapted instrument, and 47 newborns hospitalized in the Neonatology Unit of the Clinical Hospital of Porto Alegre were selected by convenience for the clinical validation of the instrument. Results: the adapted scale showed approximately 85% clarity. The statistical tests showed moderate to strong intra and interobserver item to item reliability and from strong to very strong in the total score, with a variation of less than 2 points among the scores assigned by the nurses to the patients. Conclusions: the scale was adapted and validated to Brazilian Portuguese. The psychometric properties of the Brazilian version of the Neonatal Skin Condition Score instrument were similar to the validation results of the original scale

Bigger, Better, Faster, More at the LHC

Multijet plus missing energy searches provide universal coverage for theories that have new colored particles that decay into a dark matter candidate and jets. These signals appear at the LHC further out on the missing energy tail than two-to-two scattering indicates. The simplicity of the searches at the LHC contrasts sharply with the Tevatron where more elaborate searches are necessary to separate signal from background. The searches presented in this article effectively distinguish signal from background for any theory where the LSP is a daughter or granddaughter of the pair-produced colored parent particle without ever having to consider missing energies less than 400 GeV.Comment: 26 pages, 8 Figures. Minor textual changes, typos fixed and references adde

Common SNPs explain some of the variation in the personality dimensions of neuroticism and extraversion

The personality traits of neuroticism and extraversion are predictive of a number of social and behavioural outcomes and psychiatric disorders. Twin and family studies have reported moderate heritability estimates for both traits. Few associations have been reported between genetic variants and neuroticism/extraversion, but hardly any have been replicated. Moreover, the ones that have been replicated explain only a small proportion of the heritability (<∼2%). Using genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data from ∼12 000 unrelated individuals we estimated the proportion of phenotypic variance explained by variants in linkage disequilibrium with common SNPs as 0.06 (s.e.=0.03) for neuroticism and 0.12 (s.e.=0.03) for extraversion. In an additional series of analyses in a family-based sample, we show that while for both traits ∼45% of the phenotypic variance can be explained by pedigree data (that is, expected genetic similarity) one third of this can be explained by SNP data (that is, realized genetic similarity). A part of the so-called ‘missing heritability' has now been accounted for, but some of the reported heritability is still unexplained. Possible explanations for the remaining missing heritability are that: (i) rare variants that are not captured by common SNPs on current genotype platforms make a major contribution; and/ or (ii) the estimates of narrow sense heritability from twin and family studies are biased upwards, for example, by not properly accounting for nonadditive genetic factors and/or (common) environmental factors

Variant rs9939609 in the FTO gene is associated with body mass index among Chinese children

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Fat-mass and obesity-associated (<it>FTO</it>) gene is a gene located in chromosome region 16q12.2. Genetic variants in <it>FTO </it>are associated with the obesity phenotype in European and Hispanic populations. However, this association still remains controversial in Asian population. We aimed to test the association of <it>FTO </it>genetic variants with obesity and obesity-related metabolic traits among children living in Beijing, China.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We genotyped <it>FTO </it>variants rs9939609 in 670 children (332 girls and 338 boys) aged 8-11 years living in Beijing, and analyzed its association with obesity and obesity-related metabolic traits. Overweight and obesity were defined by age- and sex-specific BMI reference for Chinese children. Obesity-related metabolic traits included fasting plasma glucose, lipid profiles, leptin, ghrelin, adiponectin and blood pressures.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The frequency of rs9939609 A allele was 12.2%, which was 21.9% for the heterozygote and 1.2% for the homozygote of the A allele. The obesity prevalence among the carriers of AA/AT genotypes was significantly higher than that among those with TT genotype (36.4% <it>vs</it>. 22.6%, <it>P </it>= 0.004). Compared to the carrier of TT genotype, the likelihood of obesity was 1.79 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.20-2.67, <it>P </it>= 0.004) for the carrier of AA/AT genotype, after adjustment of sex, age and puberty stages. The BMI Z-score of children with AA/AT genotype were significantly higher than that of their counterparts with the TT genotype (1.1 ± 0.1 <it>vs</it>. 0.8 ± 0.1, <it>P </it>= 0.02). The concentration of triglyceride was 1.03 ± 0.52 mmol/L among TT carrier and 1.13 ± 0.68 mmol/L among AA/AT carrier (<it>P </it>= 0.045). While, the concentrations of adiponectin were 18.0 ± 0.4 μg/ml among carriers of TT and 16.2 ± 0.7 μg/ml among subjects with AA/AT genotype (<it>P </it>= 0.03). The level of glucose marginally increased in the AA/AT genotype subjects (4.67 ± 0.40 mmol/L <it>vs</it>. 4.60 ± 0.35 mmol/L, <it>P </it>= 0.08). The evidence of association was reduced after adjustment for BMI (<it>P </it>= 0.38 for triglyceride, <it>P </it>= 0.20 for adiponectin and glucose). There was weak evidence of association between rs9939609 and other obesity-related metabolic traits including total cholesterol (3.92 ± 0.03 mmol/L <it>vs</it>. 4.02 ± 0.05 mmol/L, <it>P </it>= 0.10), insulin (2.69 ± 1.77 ng/ml <it>vs</it>. 3.12 ± 2.91 ng/ml, <it>P </it>= 0.14), and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR 0.56 ± 0.03 <it>vs</it>. 0.66 ± 0.05, <it>P </it>= 0.10).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Genetic variation in the <it>FTO </it>gene associates with obesity in Chinese children.</p

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Compressed representation of a partially defined integer function over multiple arguments

In OLAP (OnLine Analitical Processing) data are analysed in an n-dimensional cube. The cube may be represented as a partially defined function over n arguments. Considering that often the function is not defined everywhere, we ask: is there a known way of representing the function or the points in which it is defined, in a more compact manner than the trivial one

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium. The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Search for new physics with same-sign isolated dilepton events with jets and missing transverse energy

A search for new physics is performed in events with two same-sign isolated leptons, hadronic jets, and missing transverse energy in the final state. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.98 inverse femtobarns produced in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. This constitutes a factor of 140 increase in integrated luminosity over previously published results. The observed yields agree with the standard model predictions and thus no evidence for new physics is found. The observations are used to set upper limits on possible new physics contributions and to constrain supersymmetric models. To facilitate the interpretation of the data in a broader range of new physics scenarios, information on the event selection, detector response, and efficiencies is provided.Comment: Published in Physical Review Letter

X-ray emission from the Sombrero galaxy: discrete sources

We present a study of discrete X-ray sources in and around the bulge-dominated, massive Sa galaxy, Sombrero (M104), based on new and archival Chandra observations with a total exposure of ~200 ks. With a detection limit of L_X = 1E37 erg/s and a field of view covering a galactocentric radius of ~30 kpc (11.5 arcminute), 383 sources are detected. Cross-correlation with Spitler et al.'s catalogue of Sombrero globular clusters (GCs) identified from HST/ACS observations reveals 41 X-rays sources in GCs, presumably low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). We quantify the differential luminosity functions (LFs) for both the detected GC and field LMXBs, whose power-low indices (~1.1 for the GC-LF and ~1.6 for field-LF) are consistent with previous studies for elliptical galaxies. With precise sky positions of the GCs without a detected X-ray source, we further quantify, through a fluctuation analysis, the GC LF at fainter luminosities down to 1E35 erg/s. The derived index rules out a faint-end slope flatter than 1.1 at a 2 sigma significance, contrary to recent findings in several elliptical galaxies and the bulge of M31. On the other hand, the 2-6 keV unresolved emission places a tight constraint on the field LF, implying a flattened index of ~1.0 below 1E37 erg/s. We also detect 101 sources in the halo of Sombrero. The presence of these sources cannot be interpreted as galactic LMXBs whose spatial distribution empirically follows the starlight. Their number is also higher than the expected number of cosmic AGNs (52+/-11 [1 sigma]) whose surface density is constrained by deep X-ray surveys. We suggest that either the cosmic X-ray background is unusually high in the direction of Sombrero, or a distinct population of X-ray sources is present in the halo of Sombrero.Comment: 11 figures, 5 tables, ApJ in pres