1,114 research outputs found
Genome-wide association study of relative Telomere Length.
Abstract Telomere function is essential to maintaining the physical integrity of linear chromosomes and healthy human aging. The probability of forming proper telomere structures depends on the length of the telomeric DNA tract. We attempted to identify common genetic variants associated with log relative telomere length using genome-wide genotyping data on 3,554 individuals from the Nurses' Health Study and the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial that took part in the National Cancer Institute Cancer Genetic Markers of Susceptibility initiative for breast and prostate cancer. After genotyping 64 independent SNPs selected for replication in additional Nurses' Health Study and Women's Genome Health Study participants, we did not identify genome-wide significant loci; however, we replicated the inverse association of log relative telomere length with the minor allele variant [C] of rs16847897 at the TERC locus (per allele b = 20.03, P = 0.003) identified by a previous genome-wide association study. We did not find evidence for an association with variants at the OBFC1 locus or other loci reported to be associated with telomere length. With this sample size we had .80% power to detect b estimates as small as 60.10 for SNPs with minor allele frequencies of $0.15 at genome-wide significance. However, power is greatly reduced for b estimates smaller than 60.10, such as those for variants at the TERC locus. In general, common genetic variants associated with telomere length homeostasis have been difficult to detect. Potential biological and technical issues are discussed
High energy Coulomb-scattered electrons for relativistic particle beam diagnostics
A new system used for monitoring energetic Coulomb-scattered electrons as the
main diagnostic for accurately aligning the electron and ion beams in the new
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) electron lenses is described in detail.
The theory of electron scattering from relativistic ions is developed and
applied to the design and implementation of the system used to achieve and
maintain the alignment. Commissioning with gold and 3He beams is then described
as well as the successful utilization of the new system during the 2015 RHIC
polarized proton run. Systematic errors of the new method are then estimated.
Finally, some possible future applications of Coulomb-scattered electrons for
beam diagnostics are briefly discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 23 figure
Parametrization of the octupole degrees of freedom
A simple parametrization for the octupole collective variables is proposed
and the symmetries of the wave functions are discussed in terms of the
solutions corresponding to the vibrational limit. [PACS: 21.60Ev, 21.60.Fw,
21.10.Re]Comment: 14 page
Rapidity and centrality dependence of particle production for identified hadrons in Cu+Cu collisions at GeV
The BRAHMS collaboration has measured transverse momentum spectra of pions,
kaons, protons and antiprotons at rapidities 0 and 3 for Cu+Cu collisions at
GeV. As the collisions become more central the collective
radial flow increases while the temperature of kinetic freeze-out decreases.
The temperature is lower and the radial flow weaker at forward rapidity. Pion
and kaon yields with transverse momenta between 1.5 and 2.5 GeV/c are
suppressed for central collisions relative to scaled collisions. This
suppression, which increases as the collisions become more central is
consistent with jet quenching models and is also present with comparable
magnitude at forward rapidity. At such rapidities initial state effects may
also be present and persistence of the meson suppression to high rapidity may
reflect a combination of jet quenching and nuclear shadowing. The ratio of
protons to mesons increases as the collisions become more central and is
largest at forward rapidities.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures and 6 table
Rapidity dependence of deuteron production in Au+Au collisions at = 200 GeV
We have measured the distributions of protons and deuterons produced in high
energy heavy ion Au+Au collisions at RHIC over a very wide range of transverse
and longitudinal momentum. Near mid-rapidity we have also measured the
distribution of anti-protons and anti-deuterons. We present our results in the
context of coalescence models. In particular we extract the "volume of
homogeneity" and the average phase-space density for protons and anti-protons.
Near central rapidity the coalescence parameter and the space
averaged phase-space density are very similar for both protons and
anti-protons. For protons we see little variation of either or the
space averaged phase-space density as the rapidity increases from 0 to 3.
However both these quantities depend strongly on at all rapidities. These
results are in contrast to lower energy data where the proton and anti-proton
phase-space densities are different at =0 and both and depend
strongly on rapidity.Comment: Document updated after proofs received from PR
Evolution of the nuclear modification factors with rapidity and centrality in d+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200 GeV
We report on a study of the transverse momentum dependence of nuclear
modification factors for charged hadrons produced in deuteron + gold
collisions at GeV, as a function of collision centrality
and of the pseudorapidity () of the produced hadrons. We
find significant and systematic decrease of with increasing rapidity.
The midrapidity enhancement and the forward rapidity suppression are more
pronounced in central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. These
results are relevant to the study of the possible onset of gluon saturation at
RHIC energies.Comment: Four pages, four figures. Published in PRL. Figures 1 and 2 have been
updated, and several changes made to the tex
Tracing Sub-Structure in the European American Population with PCA-Informative Markers
Genetic structure in the European American population reflects waves of migration and recent gene flow among different populations. This complex structure can introduce bias in genetic association studies. Using Principal Components Analysis (PCA), we analyze the structure of two independent European American datasets (1,521 individuals–307,315 autosomal SNPs). Individual variation lies across a continuum with some individuals showing high degrees of admixture with non-European populations, as demonstrated through joint analysis with HapMap data. The CEPH Europeans only represent a small fraction of the variation encountered in the larger European American datasets we studied. We interpret the first eigenvector of this data as correlated with ancestry, and we apply an algorithm that we have previously described to select PCA-informative markers (PCAIMs) that can reproduce this structure. Importantly, we develop a novel method that can remove redundancy from the selected SNP panels and show that we can effectively remove correlated markers, thus increasing genotyping savings. Only 150–200 PCAIMs suffice to accurately predict fine structure in European American datasets, as identified by PCA. Simulating association studies, we couple our method with a PCA-based stratification correction tool and demonstrate that a small number of PCAIMs can efficiently remove false correlations with almost no loss in power. The structure informative SNPs that we propose are an important resource for genetic association studies of European Americans. Furthermore, our redundancy removal algorithm can be applied on sets of ancestry informative markers selected with any method in order to select the most uncorrelated SNPs, and significantly decreases genotyping costs
Recent Results from the BRAHMS Experiment
We present recent results obtained by the BRAHMS experiment at the
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) for the systems of Au + Au and Cu + Cu
at \rootsnn{200} and at 62.4 GeV, and p + p at \rootsnn{200}. Nuclear
modification factors for Au + Au and Cu + Cu collisions are presented. Analysis
of anti-particle to particle ratios as a function of rapidity and collision
energy reveal that particle populations at the chemical freeze-out stage for
heavy-ion reactions at and above SPS energies are controlled by the baryon
chemical potential. From the particle spectra we deduce significant radial
expansion ( 0.75), as expected for systems created with a large
initial energy density. We also measure the elliptic flow parameter
versus rapidity and \ptn. We present rapidity dependent ratios within
for Au + Au and Cu + Cu at \rootsnn{200}. \Raa is found to increase
with decreasing collision energy, decreasing system size, and when going
towards more peripheral collisions. However, \Raa shows only a very weak
dependence on rapidity (for ), both for pions and protons.Comment: 16 pages and 14 figures, proceedings for plenary talk at Quark Matter
2005, Budapest, Hungar
Nuclear Stopping in Au+Au Collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 200 GeV
Transverse momentum spectra and rapidity densities, dN/dy, of protons,
anti-protons, and net--protons (p-pbar) from central (0-5%) Au+Au collisions at
sqrt(sNN) = 200 GeV were measured with the BRAHMS experiment within the
rapidity range 0 < y < 3. The proton and anti-proton dN/dy decrease from
mid-rapidity to y=3. The net-proton yield is roughly constant for y<1 at
dN/dy~7, and increases to dN/dy~12 at y~3. The data show that collisions at
this energy exhibit a high degree of transparency and that the linear scaling
of rapidity loss with rapidity observed at lower energies is broken. The energy
loss per participant nucleon is estimated to be 73 +- 6 GeV.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
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