The B(s)→D(s)lνB_{(s)} \to D_{(s)}l\nu Decay with Highly Improved Staggered Quarks and NRQCD

We report on progress of a lattice QCD calculation of the $B\to Dl\nu$ and $B_s\to D_s l\nu$ semileptonic form factors. We use a relativistic staggered action (HISQ) for light and charm quarks, and an improved non-relativistic (NRQCD) action for bottom, on the second generation MILC ensembles.Comment: Presented at Lattice 2017, the 35th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory at Granada, Spain (18-24 June 2017

"You Don't Realize That You Feel Safe Until You Don't": Women's Stories of Dating Violence

Despite decades of activism and research concerning violence against women, young women continue to be victimized in both public and private domains. Movements such as #MeToo show the widespread and pervasive nature of gender-based violence, as well as the utility of sharing stories of trauma to connect and empower victims. Victims of gender-based violence (forms of which include dating violence and sexual assault) often hesitate to seek much-needed support for fear that their experiences will be dismissed or devalued by loved ones and social systems alike. As part of a larger study on the use of Digital Storytelling to empower survivors of dating violence, individual narrative interviews were conducted with 5 women exposed to wide-ranging forms of dating violence, such as severe physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, as well as stalking. Using thematic analysis, four overarching themes were found: Experiences of Dating Violence, Trying to Understand the Partner and the Relationship, Outside Responses and Systemic Barriers, and finally, Mental Health, Identity, and Long-Term Impacts of Dating Violence. Within these overarching themes, subthemes included topics such as control and insidious abuse, social media as a site of power and control tactics, sexual coercion and abuse, safety and triggers, PTSD and depression, and making meaning of experiences of dating violence. The content of these narratives will be useful for service providers and community members seeking to understand the many dimensions and far-reaching impacts of dating violence, a topic which is inherently difficult to study (Snyder, 2019)

Efficacy Beliefs are Related to Task Cohesion: Communication is a Mediator

Efficacy beliefs and communication are key constructs which have been targeted to develop task cohesion. This study’s purpose was to: (1) examine whether collective efficacy, team-focused other-efficacy, and team-focused relation-inferred self-efficacy (RISE) are predictive of task cohesion, and (2) evaluate the possibility that communication mediates efficacy-task cohesion relationships. British university team-sport athletes (n = 250) completed questionnaires assessing efficacy beliefs, communication (i.e., positive conflict, negative conflict, and acceptance communication), and task cohesion (i.e., attractions to group; ATG-T, group integration; GI-T). Data were subjected to a multi-group path analysis to test mediation hypotheses while also addressing potential differences across males and females. Across all athletes, collective efficacy and team-focused other-efficacy significantly predicted ATG-T and GI-T directly. Positive conflict and acceptance communication significantly mediated relationships between efficacy (team-focused other-efficacy, collective efficacy) and cohesion (ATG-T, GI-T). Findings suggest enhancing athletes’ collective efficacy and team-focused efficacy beliefs will encourage communication factors affecting task cohesion

Anisotropic material properties of the human uterus

The mechanical function of the uterus is crucial for the protection of the fetus during a healthy pregnancy. Early contractile activation of uterine tissue can lead to preterm labor and birth (PTB). In 2014, 9.56 percent of pregnancies ended in PTB; it is also the leading cause of death in children under five years of age. Characterizing the material properties of uterine tissue is important for understanding the mechanical failures of the uterus and the causes of PTB. In this study, a workflow of experiments and data processing techniques were employed. 78 uterine specimens were collected from consenting 28 patients who underwent hysterectomy. A four-level ramp-hold indentation test was performed. IFEA was performed to fit four material parameters to the experimental data: Young's Modulus E, Poisson’s ratio v, the fiber stiffness factor ksi, and the fiber angle concentration b. Within each uterus, significant differences in Young’s Modulus E and Poisson’s ratio n were observed at different locations and different layers, indicating the heterogeneity of the human uterine material properties. However, the fitted values for fiber stiffness x and angle concentration b exhibited a wide spread with no significant differences observed across comparison groups. There were also no obvious differences between patients with different parities, as suggested in previous studies

Explainable AI for ML jet taggers using expert variables and layerwise relevance propagation

A framework is presented to extract and understand decision-making information from a deep neural network (DNN) classifier of jet substructure tagging techniques. The general method studied is to provide expert variables that augment inputs ("eXpert AUGmented" variables, or XAUG variables), then apply layerwise relevance propagation (LRP) to networks both with and without XAUG variables. The XAUG variables are concatenated with the intermediate layers after network-specific operations (such as convolution or recurrence), and used in the final layers of the network. The results of comparing networks with and without the addition of XAUG variables show that XAUG variables can be used to interpret classifier behavior, increase discrimination ability when combined with low-level features, and in some cases capture the behavior of the classifier completely. The LRP technique can be used to find relevant information the network is using, and when combined with the XAUG variables, can be used to rank features, allowing one to find a reduced set of features that capture part of the network performance. In the studies presented, adding XAUG variables to low-level DNNs increased the efficiency of classifiers by as much as 30-40\%. In addition to performance improvements, an approach to quantify numerical uncertainties in the training of these DNNs is presented.Comment: 38 pages, 30 figure

Epitope mapping of antibodies induced with a conserved rhinovirus protein generating protective anti-rhinovirus immunity

Human rhinovirus (RV) infections are the principle cause of common colds and precipitate asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. Currently there is no vaccine for RV which is largely due to the existence of ~160 serotypes/strains. We demonstrated previously that immunising mice with highly conserved VP4 and VP2 regions of the RV polyprotein (RV-A16 VP0) generated cross-reactive immunity to RV in vivo. The current study investigated and mapped the epitopes of RV-A16 VP0 that are targets for antibodies in serum samples from VP0 immunisation and RV challenge studies in mice. Recombinant capsid proteins, peptide pools and individual peptides spanning the immunogen sequence (RV-A16 VP0) were assessed for IgG binding sites to identify epitopes. We found that peptide pools covering the C-terminus of VP4, the N-terminus of VP2 and the neutralising NIm-II site within VP2 were bound by serum IgG from immunised mice. The NIm-II site peptide pool blocked IgG binding to the immunogen RV-A16 VP0 and individual peptides within the pool binding IgG were further mapped. Thus, we have identified immunodominant epitopes of RV vaccine candidate RV-A16 VP0, noting that strong IgG binding antibodies were observed that target a key neutralising epitope that is highly variable amongst RV serotypes

Reviews

Reviews of Workers' participation in decisions within undertakings, Industrial democracy in Europe, European industrial relations, Australian Unions: an Industrial relations perspective, The history of the A.C.T.U., Tackling discrimination at the workplace: an analysis of sex discrimination in Britain, Brothers: male dominance and technological change, Microelectronics and office jobs: women's employment, Women at Work, Married to the job: wives' incorporation in men's work, The future of work, Safety at work and the unions, The system of industrial relations in New Zealand, and The economics of Australian labour market

A high-fat diet induces rapid changes in the mouse hypothalamic proteome

Funding LMW, FMC, CG, ACM and C-DM were funded by the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS). FHM was supported by an EASTBIO DTP BBSRC studentship. DS was supported by a SULSA studentship. CR was supported by the HOTSTART Scholarship Programme from the School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition, University of Aberdeen. Availability of data and materials All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its Supplementary information files].Peer reviewedPublisher PD