Testing the ALP-photon coupling with polarization measurements of Sagittarius A*

Ultra-light bosons such as axions or axion-like particles (ALPs), are promising candidates to solve the dark matter problem. A unique way to detect such ALPs is to search for the periodic oscillation feature of the position angles of linearly polarized photons emitted from the regions where ALP dark matter forms a solitonic core. In this work, we use the high-resolution polarimetric measurements of the radiation near the super-massive black hole (SMBH) in the center of the Milky Way, i.e., Sagittarius A$^\star$ (Sgr A$^\star$), by a sub-array of the Event Horizon Telescope to search for the ultra-light ALPs. We derive upper limits on the ALP-photon coupling of $\sim 10^{-12}{\rm GeV^{-1}}$ for ALP masses of $m\sim (10^{-19}-10^{-18})$eV. Our results are stronger than that derived from the observations of SN1987A and a population of supernovae in the mass window of ($10^{-19}-10^{-17}$)eV. Improved polarimetric measurements with the full Event Horizon Telescope can further strengthen the constraints.Comment: Accepted for publication in JCAP. 13 pages, 2 figure

Experimental Investigation of the Matching Relationship between Asphalt Particle and Reservoir Pore in Profile Control Process

Modified sulfonated asphalt particles have a bright application prospect of the profile control of thick reservoirs due to the low cost, extensive sources, and good compatibility with reservoir. Nevertheless, the matching relationship between asphalt particles and reservoir pore has seldom been investigated till now. Oversized particles always block the near-wellbore area, which causes high injection pressures, while undersized particles cannot plug large pores. We designed a core for this experiment which has a high permeability zone in front of it and many pressure measuring points. We could quantitatively assess the matching relationship by measuring the on-way resistance coefficient, residual resistance factor, and relative change of permeability of man-made cores after injecting asphalt. Experimental results indicate that asphalt particles with sizes of 0.02 mm, 0.02–0.06 mm, and 0.08–0.1 mm match with reservoir permeability of 500 mD, 1000 mD, and 2000 mD, respectively. Undersized or oversized particles can reduce the conformance control effect, and the concentration of asphalt particles in the injectant can limit their migration ability. When the concentration of asphalt particles increases to 3000 mg/L, accumulations of asphalt particles can be caused in the formation, in which a scheme with asphalt particles alternative water injection is proposed to avoid the accumulation

Combined QTL and Genome Scan Analyses With the Help of 2b-RAD Identify Growth-Associated Genetic Markers in a New Fast-Growing Carp Strain

Common carp is one of the oldest and most popular cultured freshwater fish species both globally and in China. In a previous study, we used a carp strain with a long breeding tradition in China, named Huanghe, to create a new fast-growing strain by selection for fast growth for 6 years. The growth performance at 8 months of age has been improved by 20.84%. To achieve this, we combined the best linear unbiased prediction with marker-assisted selection techniques. Recent progress in genome-wide association studies and genomic selection in livestock breeding inspired common carp breeders to consider genome-based breeding approaches. In this study, we developed a 2b-RAD sequence assay as a means of investigating the quantitative trait loci in common carp. A total of 4,953,017,786 clean reads were generated for 250 specimens (average reads/specimen = 19,812,071) with BsaXI Restriction Enzyme. From these, 56,663 SNPs were identified, covering 50 chromosomes and 3,377 scaffolds. Principal component analysis indicated that selection and control groups are relatively clearly distinct. Top 1% of Fst values was selected as the threshold signature of artificial selection. Among the 244 identified loci, genes associated with sex-related factors and nutritional metabolism (especially fat metabolism) were annotated. Eighteen QTL were associated with growth parameters. Body length at 3 months of age and body weight (both at 3 and 8 months) were controlled by polygenic effects, but body size (length, depth, width) at 8 months of age was controlled mainly by several loci with major effects. Importantly, a single shared QTL (IGF2 gene) partially controlled the body length, depth, and width. By merging the above results, we concluded that mainly the genes related to neural pathways, sex and fatty acid metabolism contributed to the improved growth performance of the new Huanghe carp strain. These findings are one of the first investigations into the potential use of genomic selection in the breeding of common carp. Moreover, our results show that combining the Fst, QTL mapping and CRISPR–Cas9 methods can be an effective way to identify important novel candidate molecular markers in economic breeding programs

Integrative Analysis of Clinicopathological Features Defines Novel Prognostic Models for Mantle Cell Lymphoma in the Immunochemotherapy Era: A Report from The North American Mantle Cell Lymphoma Consortium

BACKGROUND: Patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) exhibit a wide variation in clinical presentation and outcome. However, the commonly used prognostic models are outdated and inadequate to address the needs of the current multidisciplinary management of this disease. This study aims to investigate the clinical and pathological features of MCL in the immunochemotherapy era and improve the prognostic models for a more accurate prediction of patient outcomes. METHODS: The North American Mantle Cell Lymphoma Project is a multi-institutional collaboration of 23 institutions across North America to evaluate and refine prognosticators for front-line therapy. A total of 586 MCL cases diagnosed between 2000 and 2012 are included in this study. A comprehensive retrospective analysis was performed on the clinicopathological features, treatment approaches, and outcomes of these cases. The establishment of novel prognostic models was based on in-depth examination of baseline parameters, and subsequent validation in an independent cohort of MCL cases. RESULTS: In front-line strategies, the use of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation was the most significant parameter affecting outcomes, for both overall survival (OS, p \u3c 0.0001) and progression-free survival (PFS, p \u3c 0.0001). P53 positive expression was the most significant pathological parameter correlating with inferior outcomes (p \u3c 0.0001 for OS and p = 0.0021 for PFS). Based on the baseline risk factor profile, we developed a set of prognostic models incorporating clinical, laboratory, and pathological parameters that are specifically tailored for various applications. These models, when tested in the validation cohort, exhibited strong predictive power for survival and showed a stratification resembling the training cohort. CONCLUSIONS: The outcome of patients with MCL has markedly improved over the past two decades, and further enhancement is anticipated with the evolution of clinical management. The innovative prognostic models developed in this study would serve as a valuable tool to guide the selection of more suitable treatment strategies for patients with MCL

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO

Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO

Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before (pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30$M_{\odot}$ for the case of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert, can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

MONITORING THE CHANGES OF LAKES IN THE SOURCE REGION OF THREE RIVERS WITH REMOTE SENSING DATA FROM 1976 TO 2009

As the birthplace of Yangtze River, the Yellow River and Lancang Rive, Source Region of Three Rivers (SRTR) is an important resource for fresh water supplement in China. SRTR also has very obvious ecological function which forms ecological security barrier for China's Qinghai-Tibet plateau. The inland lakes here play an important role for the water cycle in the plateau. The monitoring results were extracted with TM data from 1976 to 2009. The results show that from 1976 to 2009 the lakes' area in SRTR dropped first and then expanded with 2000 as sector. The lakes area was 6778 km2 in 2009, about 1.90% of the whole region, and increased than 1976 by 133.15 km2. Most of the large lakes above 80 km2 have the same change trend. The expanded lakes increased in number gradually, while the changes in the amplitude and time characteristics were different. From 1976 to 2000, the number of new lakes increased while died lakes dropped; and from 2000 to 2009 it is just on the contrary. In the study the index of lake change trend (ILCT) was adopted to contrast lake atrophy condition. With ILCT 24.55 there is an expansion trend for the lakes in SRTR during the last 35 years. The lakes with ILCT's absolute value greater than 1 were those merged with or disconnected from surrounding smaller lakes. Here the precipitation and snow melt are main supplies for the lakes. The change of lakes' area has well correlated with precipitation, and weak correlated with temperature from 1976 to 2009. But from 2000 to 2009, there has a strong correlation with precipitation, temperature. All these show from the side that the precipitation and snow melt are important factors to influence the lakes’ change. The lakes have the coordination function for the good ecological environment in the region. The conclusions from the study can provide references in response to climate change research and rational utilization of water resources in SRTR