Shallow stratigraphic control on pockmark distribution in north temperate estuaries

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Marine Geology 329-331 (2012): 34-45, doi:10.1016/j.margeo.2012.09.006.Pockmark fields occur throughout northern North American temperate estuaries despite the absence of extensive thermogenic hydrocarbon deposits typically associated with pockmarks. In such settings, the origins of the gas and triggering mechanism(s) responsible for pockmark formation are not obvious. Nor is it known why pockmarks proliferate in this region but do not occur south of the glacial terminus in eastern North America. This paper tests two hypotheses addressing these knowledge gaps: 1) the region's unique sea-level history provided a terrestrial deposit that sourced the gas responsible for pockmark formation; and 2) the region's physiography controls pockmarks distribution. This study integrates over 2500 km of high-resolution swath bathymetry, Chirp seismic reflection profiles and vibracore data acquired in three estuarine pockmark fields in the Gulf of Maine and Bay of Fundy. Vibracores sampled a hydric paleosol lacking the organic-rich upper horizons, indicating that an organic-rich terrestrial deposit was eroded prior to pockmark formation. This observation suggests that the gas, which is presumably responsible for the formation of the pockmarks, originated in Holocene estuarine sediments (loss on ignition 3.5–10%), not terrestrial deposits that were subsequently drowned and buried by mud. The 7470 pockmarks identified in this study are non-randomly clustered. Pockmark size and distribution relate to Holocene sediment thickness (r2 = 0.60), basin morphology and glacial deposits. The irregular underlying topography that dictates Holocene sediment thickness may ultimately play a more important role in temperate estuarine pockmark distribution than drowned terrestrial deposits. These results give insight into the conditions necessary for pockmark formation in nearshore coastal environments.Graduate support for Brothers came from a Maine Economic Improvement Fund Dissertation Fellowship

The effect of hypothermia on influx of leukocytes in the digital lamellae of horses with oligofructose-induced laminitis

Sepsis-related laminitis (SRL) is a common complication in the septic/endotoxemic critically-ill equine patient, in which lamellar injury and failure commonly lead to crippling distal displacement of the distal phalanx. Similar to organ injury in human sepsis, lamellar injury in SRL has been associated with inflammatory events, including the influx of leukocytes into the lamellar tissue and markedly increased expression of a wide array of inflammatory mediators at the onset of Obel grade 1 (OG1) laminitis. The only treatment reported both clinically and experimentally to protect the lamellae in SRL, local hypothermia (“cryotherapy”), has been demonstrated to effectively inhibit lamellar expression of multiple inflammatory mediators when initiated at the time of administration of a carbohydrate overload in experimental models of SRL. However, the effect of hypothermia on leukocyte influx into affected tissue has not been assessed. We hypothesized that cryotherapy inhibits leukocyte emigration into the digital lamellae in SRL. Immunohistochemical staining using leukocyte markers MAC387 (marker of neutrophils, activated monocytes) and CD163 (monocyte/macrophage-specific marker) was performed on archived lamellar tissue samples from an experimental model of SRL in which one forelimb was maintained at ambient temperature (AMB) and one forelimb was immersed in ice water (ICE) immediately following enteral oligofructose administration (10\ua0g/kg, n\ua0=\ua014 horses). Lamellae were harvested at 24\ua0h post-oligofructose administration (DEV, n\ua0=\ua07) or at the onset of OG1 laminitis (OG1, n\ua0=\ua07). Both MAC387-positive and CD163-positive cells were counted by a single blinded investigator on images [n\ua0=\ua010 (40× fields/digit for MAC387 and 20\ua0x fields/digit for CD163)] obtained using Aperio microscopy imaging analysis software. Data were assessed for normality and analyzed with a paired t-test and one-way ANOVA with significance set at p\ua

Search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu decay channel, where l = e or mu, in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data were collected at the LHC, with the CMS detector, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 inverse femtobarns. No significant excess is observed above the background expectation, and upper limits are set on the Higgs boson production cross section. The presence of the standard model Higgs boson with a mass in the 270-440 GeV range is excluded at 95% confidence level.Comment: Submitted to JHE

Combined search for the quarks of a sequential fourth generation

Results are presented from a search for a fourth generation of quarks produced singly or in pairs in a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 inverse femtobarns recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2011. A novel strategy has been developed for a combined search for quarks of the up and down type in decay channels with at least one isolated muon or electron. Limits on the mass of the fourth-generation quarks and the relevant Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements are derived in the context of a simple extension of the standard model with a sequential fourth generation of fermions. The existence of mass-degenerate fourth-generation quarks with masses below 685 GeV is excluded at 95% confidence level for minimal off-diagonal mixing between the third- and the fourth-generation quarks. With a mass difference of 25 GeV between the quark masses, the obtained limit on the masses of the fourth-generation quarks shifts by about +/- 20 GeV. These results significantly reduce the allowed parameter space for a fourth generation of fermions.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurements of branching fraction ratios and CP-asymmetries in suppressed B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)K^- and B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)pi^- decays

We report the first reconstruction in hadron collisions of the suppressed decays B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)K^- and B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)pi^-, sensitive to the CKM phase gamma, using data from 7 fb^-1 of integrated luminosity collected by the CDF II detector at the Tevatron collider. We reconstruct a signal for the B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)K^- suppressed mode with a significance of 3.2 standard deviations, and measure the ratios of the suppressed to favored branching fractions R(K) = [22.0 \pm 8.6(stat)\pm 2.6(syst)]\times 10^-3, R^+(K) = [42.6\pm 13.7(stat)\pm 2.8(syst)]\times 10^-3, R^-(K)= [3.8\pm 10.3(stat)\pm 2.7(syst]\times 10^-3, as well as the direct CP-violating asymmetry A(K) = -0.82\pm 0.44(stat)\pm 0.09(syst) of this mode. Corresponding quantities for B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)pi^- decay are also reported.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, accepted by Phys.Rev.D Rapid Communications for Publicatio

'Prove me the bam!': victimization and agency in the lives of young women who commit violent offences

This article reviews the evidence regarding young women’s involvement in violent crime and, drawing on recent research carried out in HMPYOI Cornton Vale in Scotland, provides an overview of the characteristics, needs and deeds of young women sentenced to imprisonment for violent offending. Through the use of direct quotations, the article suggests that young women’s anger and aggression is often related to their experiences of family violence and abuse, and the acquisition of a negative worldview in which other people are considered as being 'out to get you' or ready to 'put one over on you'. The young women survived in these circumstances, not by adopting discourses that cast them as exploited victims, but by drawing on (sub)cultural norms and values which promote pre-emptive violence and the defence of respect. The implications of these findings for those who work with such young women are also discussed

Symmetry of Brans-Dicke gravity as a novel solution-generating technique

A symmetry of Brans-Dicke gravity in (electro) vacuo or in the presence of conformally invariant matter is presented and used as a solution-generating technique starting from a known solution as a seed. This novel technique is applied to generate, as examples, new spatially homogeneous and isotropic cosmologies, a 3-parameter family of spherical time-dependent spacetimes conformal to a Campanelli-Lousto geometry, and a family of cylindrically symmetric geometries.Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK)Turkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Arastirma Kurumu (TUBITAK) [BIDEB-2219]; Namik Kemal UniversityNamik Kemal University; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of CanadaNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)CGIAR [201603803]We are grateful to Nathalie Deruelle for a discussion and to a referee for useful comments. D. K. C. thanks the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) for a postdoctoral fellowship through the Programme BIDEB-2219 and Namik Kemal University for support. V. F. is supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Grant No. 201603803), and all authors thank Bishop's University

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO