How Promising Are "Ultraprocessed" Front-of-Package Labels? A Formative Study with US Adults

High levels of food processing can have detrimental health effects independent of nutrient content. Experts and advocates have proposed adding information about food processing status to front-of-package labeling schemes, which currently exclusively focus on nutrient content. How consumers would perceive "ultraprocessed" labels has not yet been examined. To address this gap, we conducted a within-subjects online experiment with a convenience sample of 600 US adults. Participants viewed a product under three labeling conditions (control, "ultraprocessed" label, and "ultraprocessed" plus "high in sugar" label) in random order for a single product. The "ultraprocessed" label led participants to report thinking more about the risks of eating the product and discouraging them from wanting to buy the product more than the control, despite not grabbing more attention than the control. The "ultraprocessed" plus "high in sugar" labels grabbed more attention, led participants to think more about the risks of eating the product, and discouraged them from wanting to buy the product more than the "ultraprocessed" label alone. "Ultraprocessed" labels may constitute promising messages that could work in tandem with nutrient labels, and further research should examine how they would influence consumers' actual intentions and behaviors

Caracterización de una fuente UV-C de bajo costo y alta eficiencia germicida para la esterilización de superficies e implementos de uso crítico diario: impacto en la salud pública

Mediante la modificación y caracterización de una lámpara comercial de mercurio halogenado de bajo costo, se diseñó una fuente UV-C altamente eficiente que posee un poder germicida igual o superior a fuentes UV-C comerciales diseñadas para tal fin. Desde un punto de vista físico, la ventaja de usar este tipo de lámparas es que presentan un amplio espectro de radiación UV: UV-A, UV-B y UV-C. Este último caso, en particular, la denominada zona germicida presenta un espectro de emisión con múltiples líneas, con longitudes de onda que van desde los 220 hasta los 280 nm; en particular, presentan máximos de emisión de las líneas espectrales con longitudes de onda entre 235 y 260 nm que destruyen tanto el ADN como las proteínas. Los resultados que se presentan son el resultado de estudios preliminares desarrollados en el laboratorio, en los cuales se irradiaron muestras que contenían bacterias in vitro, y se encontró una esterilización efectiva para tiempo de exposición por debajo de los 60 s para una distancia fuente-muestra de 35 cm y con una densidad de energía UV-C estimada de 1 W.s/m 2 . Los resultados obtenidos indican que el dispositivo construido con elementos de muy bajo costo y de fácil implementación es apto para la desinfección de superficies y recuperación de material descartable

New limits on nucleon decays into invisible channels with the BOREXINO Counting Test Facility

The results of background measurements with the second version of the BOREXINO Counting Test Facility (CTF-II), installed in the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory, were used to obtain limits on the instability of nucleons, bounded in nuclei, for decays into invisible channels ($inv$): disappearance, decays to neutrinos, etc. The approach consisted of a search for decays of unstable nuclides resulting from $N$ and $NN$ decays of parents $^{12}$C, $^{13}$C and $^{16}$O nuclei in the liquid scintillator and the water shield of the CTF. Due to the extremely low background and the large mass (4.2 ton) of the CTF detector, the most stringent (or competitive) up-to-date experimental bounds have been established: $\tau(n \to inv) > 1.8 \cdot 10^{25}$ y, $\tau(p \to inv) > 1.1 \cdot 10^{26}$ y, $\tau(nn \to inv) > 4.9 \cdot 10^{25}$ y and $\tau(pp \to inv) > 5.0 \cdot 10^{25}$ y, all at 90% C.L.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures,submitted to Phys.Lett.

Measurements of extremely low radioactivity levels in BOREXINO

The techniques researched, developed and applied towards the measurement of radioisotope concentrations at ultra-low levels in the real-time solar neutrino experiment BOREXINO at Gran Sasso are presented and illustrated with specific results of widespread interest. We report the use of low-level germanium gamma spectrometry, low-level miniaturized gas proportional counters and low background scintillation detectors developed in solar neutrino research. Each now sets records in its field. We additionally describe our techniques of radiochemical ultra-pure, few atom manipulations and extractions. Forefront measurements also result from the powerful combination of neutron activation and low-level counting. Finally, with our techniques and commercially available mass spectrometry and atomic absorption spectroscopy, new low-level detection limits for isotopes of interest are obtained.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures. Submitted to Astroparticle Physics (17 Sep 2001). Spokesperson of the Borexino Collaboration: G. Bellini. Corresponding author: W. Hampe

Erratum: "A Gravitational-wave Measurement of the Hubble Constant Following the Second Observing Run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo" (2021, ApJ, 909, 218)

[no abstract available

Genetic differentiation of Artemia franciscana (Kellogg, 1906) in Kenyan coastal saltworks

The nature of genetic divergence between the Artemia population native to San Francisco Bay, (SFB) USA and those from the introductions of SFB material in the Kenyan coast two decades ago were investigated using the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) gene molecular markers. The DNA was extracted from 80 single Artemia cysts using the Chelex protocol. The 1,500 bp fragment of the 12S - 16S region of the mtDNA and a 1,935 bp fragment of the Hsp70 gene were amplified through Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) followed by Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) digestion using appropriate endonucleases. The mtDNA analysis indicated higher haplotype diversity (0.76 ± 0.07) in Artemia from Fundisha saltworks while the rest of the samples were monomorphic. A private haplotype (AAABBA) in Fundisha samples confirmed a molecular evidence of a systematic genetic differentiation albeit in an insignificant manner (P > 0.05). There was molecular evidence of coexistence of SFB and GSL Artemia strains in Fundisha saltworks. The monomorphic DNA fingerprint in Kensalt Artemia cysts was probably caused by non-sequential Artemia culture system and limited mtDNA fragment size analysed. The Hsp70 gene RFLP fingerprint did not show any unique gene signatures in the Kenyan Artemia samples suggesting that other factors other than Hsp70 were involved in their superior thermotolerance. Further genetical studies based on the larger mtDNA fragment using robust genetic markers are recommended. Ecological studies of the heat shock protein family and the stress response would be more relevant than the qualitative RFLP technique

Search for gravitational-wave transients associated with magnetar bursts in advanced LIGO and advanced Virgo data from the third observing run

Gravitational waves are expected to be produced from neutron star oscillations associated with magnetar giant f lares and short bursts. We present the results of a search for short-duration (milliseconds to seconds) and longduration (∼100 s) transient gravitational waves from 13 magnetar short bursts observed during Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo, and KAGRA’s third observation run. These 13 bursts come from two magnetars, SGR1935 +2154 and SwiftJ1818.0−1607. We also include three other electromagnetic burst events detected by FermiGBM which were identified as likely coming from one or more magnetars, but they have no association with a known magnetar. No magnetar giant flares were detected during the analysis period. We find no evidence of gravitational waves associated with any of these 16 bursts. We place upper limits on the rms of the integrated incident gravitational-wave strain that reach 3.6 × 10−²³ Hz at 100 Hz for the short-duration search and 1.1 ×10−²² Hz at 450 Hz for the long-duration search. For a ringdown signal at 1590 Hz targeted by the short-duration search the limit is set to 2.3 × 10−²² Hz. Using the estimated distance to each magnetar, we derive upper limits upper limits on the emitted gravitational-wave energy of 1.5 × 1044 erg (1.0 × 1044 erg) for SGR 1935+2154 and 9.4 × 10^43 erg (1.3 × 1044 erg) for Swift J1818.0−1607, for the short-duration (long-duration) search. Assuming isotropic emission of electromagnetic radiation of the burst fluences, we constrain the ratio of gravitational-wave energy to electromagnetic energy for bursts from SGR 1935+2154 with the available fluence information. The lowest of these ratios is 4.5 × 103

Open data from the third observing run of LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO

The global network of gravitational-wave observatories now includes five detectors, namely LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO 600. These detectors collected data during their third observing run, O3, composed of three phases: O3a starting in 2019 April and lasting six months, O3b starting in 2019 November and lasting five months, and O3GK starting in 2020 April and lasting two weeks. In this paper we describe these data and various other science products that can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at https://gwosc.org. The main data set, consisting of the gravitational-wave strain time series that contains the astrophysical signals, is released together with supporting data useful for their analysis and documentation, tutorials, as well as analysis software packages