MesonNet Workshop on Meson Transition Form Factors

The mini-proceedings of the Workshop on Meson Transition Form Factors held in Cracow from May 29th to 30th, 2012 introduce the meson transition form factor project with special emphasis on the interrelations between the various form factors (on-shell, single off-shell, double off-shell). Short summaries of the talks presented at the workshop follow.Comment: 69 pages, 14 figures; all talks can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/mesonnetwork/home/activities/form-factor-workshop-2012; v2: workshop link updated (as the page had to be moved to a commercial server), table 6 correcte

Anthropocene history of rich fen acidification in W Poland: Causes and indicators of change

In the time of the global climate crisis, it is vital to protect and restore peatlands to maintain their functioning as carbon sinks. Otherwise, their transformations may trigger a shift to a carbon source state and further contribute to global warming. In this study, we focused on eutrophication, which resulted in its transition from rich fen to poor fen conditions. The prior aim was to decipher how i) climate, ii) human, and iii) autogenic processes influenced the pathway of peatland changes in the last ca. 250 years. We applied a high-resolution palaeoecological analysis, based mainly on testate amoebae (TA) and plant macroremains. Our results imply that before ca. 1950 CE, dry shifts on the Kazanie fen were generally climate-induced. Later, autogenic processes, human pressure and climate warming synergistically affected the fen, contributing to its transition to poor fen within ca. 30 years. Its establishment not only caused changes in vegetation but also altered TA taxonomic content and resulted in a lower diversity of TA. According to our research M. patella is an incredibly sensitive testate amoeba that after ca. 200 years of presence, disappeared within 2 years due to changes in water and nutrient conditions. As a whole, our study provides a long-term background that is desired in modern conservation studies and might be used to define future restoration targets. It also confirms the already described negative consequences connected with the Anthropocene and not sustainable exploitation of nature.1. Introduction 2. Material and methods 2.1. State of art 2.1.1. Study site 2.1.2. Core retrieval and chronology 2.1.3. Plant macrofossils 2.2. Testate amoebae (TA) 2.3. Statistical analyses and visualization 3. Results and interpretation 3.1. Mire succession: plant macrofossils, testate amoebae, water table and conductivity 3.1.1. Phase I – rich fen; 91–35.5 cm; ca. 1767±45–1982±3 CE 3.1.2. Phase II – poor fen; 35.5–0 cm; ca. 1982±3–2017 CE 3.2. Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) 4. Discussion 4.1. An abrupt rich to poor fen transition – causes of change 4.2. Quality of testate amoebae indicators of the rich-poor fen transformatio

Anthropocene history of rich fen acidification in W Poland: causes and indicators of change

In the time of the global climate crisis, it is vital to protect and restore peatlands to maintain their functioning as carbon sinks. Otherwise, their transformations may trigger a shift to a carbon source state and further contribute to global warming. In this study, we focused on eutrophication, which resulted in its transition from rich fen to poor fen conditions. The prior aim was to decipher how i) climate, ii) human, and iii) autogenic processes influenced the pathway of peatland changes in the last ca. 250 years. We applied a high-resolution palaeoecological analysis, based mainly on testate amoebae (TA) and plant macroremains. Our results imply that before ca. 1950 CE, dry shifts on the Kazanie fen were generally climate-induced. Later, autogenic processes, human pressure and climate warming synergistically affected the fen, contributing to its transition to poor fen within ca. 30 years. Its establishment not only caused changes in vegetation but also altered TA taxonomic content and resulted in a lower diversity of TA. According to our research M. patella is an incredibly sensitive testate amoeba that after ca. 200 years of presence, disappeared within 2 years due to changes in water and nutrient conditions. As a whole, our study provides a long-term background that is desired in modern conservation studies and might be used to define future restoration targets. It also confirms the already described negative consequences connected with the Anthropocene and not sustainable exploitation of nature.1. Introduction 2. Material and methods 2.1. State of art 2.1.1. Study site 2.1.2. Core retrieval and chronology 2.1.3. Plant macrofossils 2.2. Testate amoebae (TA) 2.3. Statistical analyses and visualization 3. Results and interpretation 3.1. Mire succession: plant macrofossils, testate amoebae, water table and conductivity 3.1.1. Phase I – rich fen; 91–35.5 cm; ca. 1767±45–1982±3 CE 3.1.2. Phase II – poor fen; 35.5–0 cm; ca. 1982±3–2017 CE 3.2. Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) 4. Discussion 4.1. An abrupt rich to poor fen transition – causes of change 4.2. Quality of testate amoebae indicators of the rich-poor fen transformatio

Kaon physics with the KLOE detector

In this paper we discuss the recent finalized analyses by the KLOE experiment at DA$\Phi$NE: the CPT and Lorentz invariance test with entangled $K^0 \bar{K}^0$ pairs, and the precision measurement of the branching fraction of the decay ${ K^+} \rightarrow \pi^+\pi^-\pi^+(\gamma)$. We also present the status of an ongoing analysis aiming to precisely measure the $K^{\pm}$ mass

Poly(3-alkylthiophenes): new sorption materials for solid phase microextraction of drugs isolated from human plasma

A novel sorbent in solid phase microextraction (SPME) method based on poly(3-alkylthiophenes) was used in the isolation of linezolid from human plasma samples following liquid chromatography determination. The effect of extraction time on the sorption capacity of the SPME process was studied and pointed at 10 min both for adsorption and desorption. Poly(3-methylthiophene) and poly(3-nonylthiophene) were applied for the extraction of linezolid from water solutions. In plasma samples, four coatings including polythiophene and poly(3-penthylthiophene) were investigated. With these measurements, correlation coefficients were calculated in the range from 0.9820 to 0.9995, and the relative standard deviations were below 15%. That allowed claiming that the synthesized and described materials can be successfully applied in the analysis of linezolid also from other matrices such as urine or blood

Characterization of Microbial Communities in Subsurface Nuclear Blast Cavities of the Nevada Test Site

This U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Remediation Sciences Project (ERSP) was designed to test fundamental hypotheses concerning the existence and nature of indigenous microbial populations of Nevada Test Site subsurface nuclear test/detonation cavities. Now called Subsurface Biogeochemical Research (SBR), this program’s Exploratory Research (ER) element, which funded this research, is designed to support high risk, high potential reward projects. Here, five cavities (GASCON, CHANCELLOR, NASH, ALEMAN, and ALMENDRO) and one tunnel (U12N) were sampled using bailers or pumps. Molecular and cultivation-based techniques revealed bacterial signatures at five sites (CHANCELLOR may be lifeless). SSU rRNA gene libraries contained diverse and divergent microbial sequences affiliated with known metal- and sulfur-cycling microorganisms, organic compound degraders, microorganisms from deep mines, and bacteria involved in selenate reduction and arsenite oxidation. Close relatives of Desulforudis audaxviator, a microorganism thought to subsist in the terrestrial deep subsurface on H2 and SO42- produced by radiochemical reactions, was detected in the tunnel waters. NTS-specific media formulations were used to culture and quantify nitrate-, sulfate-, iron-reducing, fermentative, and methanogenic microorganisms. Given that redox manipulations mediated by microorganisms can impact the mobility of DOE contaminants, our results should have implications for management strategies at this and other DOE sites

Intensity-Based Registration of Freehand 3D Ultrasound and CT-scan Images of the Kidney

This paper presents a method to register a pre-operative Computed-Tomography (CT) volume to a sparse set of intra-operative Ultra-Sound (US) slices. In the context of percutaneous renal puncture, the aim is to transfer planning information to an intra-operative coordinate system. The spatial position of the US slices is measured by optically localizing a calibrated probe. Assuming the reproducibility of kidney motion during breathing, and no deformation of the organ, the method consists in optimizing a rigid 6 Degree Of Freedom (DOF) transform by evaluating at each step the similarity between the set of US images and the CT volume. The correlation between CT and US images being naturally rather poor, the images have been preprocessed in order to increase their similarity. Among the similarity measures formerly studied in the context of medical image registration, Correlation Ratio (CR) turned out to be one of the most accurate and appropriate, particularly with the chosen non-derivative minimization scheme, namely Powell-Brent's. The resulting matching transforms are compared to a standard rigid surface registration involving segmentation, regarding both accuracy and repeatability. The obtained results are presented and discussed

Determination of the eta'-proton scattering length in free space

Taking advantage of both the high mass resolution of the COSY-11 detector and the high energy resolution of the low-emittance proton-beam of the Cooler Synchrotron COSY we determine the excitation function for the pp --> pp eta' reaction close-to-threshold. Combining these data with previous results we extract the scattering length for the eta'-proton potential in free space to be Re(a_{p eta'}) = 0+-0.43 fm and Im(a_{p eta'}) = 0.37(+0.40)(-0.16) fm.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let