726 research outputs found

    Dental Caries, Fluorosis, and Fluoride Exposure in Michigan Schoolchildren

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    This study relates the prevalence of caries and fluorosis among Michigan children, residing in four different areas, to the various concentrations of F in the communities' water supplies. Demographic information, details of F history, and dental attendance data were collected by a questionnaire form filled out by parents. Children ages six to 12 were screened for caries by means of the NIDR criteria and for fluorosis by means of the TSIF index. Results pertain only to continuous residents and the permanent dentition. The prevalence of both caries and fluorosis was significantly associated with the F concentration in the community water supply. Approximately 65% of all children were caries-free, ranging from 55.1 % in fluoride-deficient Cadillac to 73.7% in Redford (1. 0 ppm F). About 36% of all children had dental fluorosis, ranging from 12.2 in Cadillac to 51.2 in Richmond (1.2 ppm). All of the fluorosis was very mild. From logistic regression, the prevalence of caries was significantly associated with age, dental attendance, and the use of a water supply fluoridated at 1.0 ppm. The odds of experiencing fluorosis increased at every F level above the baseline (Cadillac), with the use of topical F rinses, and with age. Results suggest that children in the four communities may be ingesting a similar level of F from sources such as dentifrices, dietary supplements, and professional applications, but the factor that differentiates them with respect to the prevalence of caries and fluorosis is the F concentration in the community water supply.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66926/2/10.1177_00220345880670050101.pd

    Lorentz breaking Effective Field Theory and observational tests

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    Analogue models of gravity have provided an experimentally realizable test field for our ideas on quantum field theory in curved spacetimes but they have also inspired the investigation of possible departures from exact Lorentz invariance at microscopic scales. In this role they have joined, and sometime anticipated, several quantum gravity models characterized by Lorentz breaking phenomenology. A crucial difference between these speculations and other ones associated to quantum gravity scenarios, is the possibility to carry out observational and experimental tests which have nowadays led to a broad range of constraints on departures from Lorentz invariance. We shall review here the effective field theory approach to Lorentz breaking in the matter sector, present the constraints provided by the available observations and finally discuss the implications of the persisting uncertainty on the composition of the ultra high energy cosmic rays for the constraints on the higher order, analogue gravity inspired, Lorentz violations.Comment: 47 pages, 4 figures. Lecture Notes for the IX SIGRAV School on "Analogue Gravity", Como (Italy), May 2011. V.3. Typo corrected, references adde

    The nuclear energy density functional formalism

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    The present document focuses on the theoretical foundations of the nuclear energy density functional (EDF) method. As such, it does not aim at reviewing the status of the field, at covering all possible ramifications of the approach or at presenting recent achievements and applications. The objective is to provide a modern account of the nuclear EDF formalism that is at variance with traditional presentations that rely, at one point or another, on a {\it Hamiltonian-based} picture. The latter is not general enough to encompass what the nuclear EDF method represents as of today. Specifically, the traditional Hamiltonian-based picture does not allow one to grasp the difficulties associated with the fact that currently available parametrizations of the energy kernel E[gâ€Č,g]E[g',g] at play in the method do not derive from a genuine Hamilton operator, would the latter be effective. The method is formulated from the outset through the most general multi-reference, i.e. beyond mean-field, implementation such that the single-reference, i.e. "mean-field", derives as a particular case. As such, a key point of the presentation provided here is to demonstrate that the multi-reference EDF method can indeed be formulated in a {\it mathematically} meaningful fashion even if E[gâ€Č,g]E[g',g] does {\it not} derive from a genuine Hamilton operator. In particular, the restoration of symmetries can be entirely formulated without making {\it any} reference to a projected state, i.e. within a genuine EDF framework. However, and as is illustrated in the present document, a mathematically meaningful formulation does not guarantee that the formalism is sound from a {\it physical} standpoint. The price at which the latter can be enforced as well in the future is eventually alluded to.Comment: 64 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Euroschool Lecture Notes in Physics Vol.IV, Christoph Scheidenberger and Marek Pfutzner editor

    Phosphorothioate antisense oligonucleotides induce the formation of nuclear bodies

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    Antisense oligonucleotides are powerful tools for the in vivo regulation of gene expression. We have characterized the intracellular distribution of fluorescently tagged phosphorothioate oligodeoxynucleotides (PS-ONs) at high resolution under conditions in which PS-ONs have the potential to display antisense activity. Under these conditions PS-ONs predominantly localized to the cell nucleus where they accumulated in 20-30 bright spherical foci designated phosphorothioate bodies (PS bodies), which were set against a diffuse nucleoplasmic population excluding nucleoli. PS bodies are nuclear structures that formed in cells after PS-ON delivery by transfection agents or microinjection but were observed irrespectively of antisense activity or sequence. Ultrastructurally, PS bodies corresponded to electron-dense structures of 150-300 nm diameter and resembled nuclear bodies that were found with lower frequency in cells lacking PS-ONs. The environment of a living cell was required for the de novo formation of PS bodies, which occurred within minutes after the introduction of PS-ONs. PS bodies were stable entities that underwent noticeable reorganization only during mitosis. Upon exit from mitosis, PS bodies were assembled de novo from diffuse PS-ON pools in the daughter nuclei. In situ fractionation demonstrated an association of PS-ONs with the nuclear matrix. Taken together, our data provide evidence for the formation of a nuclear body in cells after introduction of phosphorothioate oligodeoxynucleotides

    Measurements of long-range near-side angular correlations in sNN=5\sqrt{s_{\text{NN}}}=5TeV proton-lead collisions in the forward region

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    Two-particle angular correlations are studied in proton-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of sNN=5\sqrt{s_{\text{NN}}}=5TeV, collected with the LHCb detector at the LHC. The analysis is based on data recorded in two beam configurations, in which either the direction of the proton or that of the lead ion is analysed. The correlations are measured in the laboratory system as a function of relative pseudorapidity, Δη\Delta\eta, and relative azimuthal angle, Δϕ\Delta\phi, for events in different classes of event activity and for different bins of particle transverse momentum. In high-activity events a long-range correlation on the near side, Δϕ≈0\Delta\phi \approx 0, is observed in the pseudorapidity range 2.0<η<4.92.0<\eta<4.9. This measurement of long-range correlations on the near side in proton-lead collisions extends previous observations into the forward region up to η=4.9\eta=4.9. The correlation increases with growing event activity and is found to be more pronounced in the direction of the lead beam. However, the correlation in the direction of the lead and proton beams are found to be compatible when comparing events with similar absolute activity in the direction analysed.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2015-040.htm

    Study of the production of Λb0\Lambda_b^0 and B‟0\overline{B}^0 hadrons in pppp collisions and first measurement of the Λb0→J/ψpK−\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow J/\psi pK^- branching fraction

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    The product of the Λb0\Lambda_b^0 (B‟0\overline{B}^0) differential production cross-section and the branching fraction of the decay Λb0→J/ψpK−\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow J/\psi pK^- (B‟0→J/ψK‟∗(892)0\overline{B}^0\rightarrow J/\psi\overline{K}^*(892)^0) is measured as a function of the beauty hadron transverse momentum, pTp_{\rm T}, and rapidity, yy. The kinematic region of the measurements is pT<20 GeV/cp_{\rm T}<20~{\rm GeV}/c and 2.0<y<4.52.0<y<4.5. The measurements use a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 fb−13~{\rm fb}^{-1} collected by the LHCb detector in pppp collisions at centre-of-mass energies s=7 TeV\sqrt{s}=7~{\rm TeV} in 2011 and s=8 TeV\sqrt{s}=8~{\rm TeV} in 2012. Based on previous LHCb results of the fragmentation fraction ratio, fΛB0/fdf_{\Lambda_B^0}/f_d, the branching fraction of the decay Λb0→J/ψpK−\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow J/\psi pK^- is measured to be \begin{equation*} \mathcal{B}(\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow J/\psi pK^-)= (3.17\pm0.04\pm0.07\pm0.34^{+0.45}_{-0.28})\times10^{-4}, \end{equation*} where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is systematic, the third is due to the uncertainty on the branching fraction of the decay B‟0→J/ψK‟∗(892)0\overline{B}^0\rightarrow J/\psi\overline{K}^*(892)^0, and the fourth is due to the knowledge of fΛb0/fdf_{\Lambda_b^0}/f_d. The sum of the asymmetries in the production and decay between Λb0\Lambda_b^0 and Λ‟b0\overline{\Lambda}_b^0 is also measured as a function of pTp_{\rm T} and yy. The previously published branching fraction of Λb0→J/ψpπ−\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow J/\psi p\pi^-, relative to that of Λb0→J/ψpK−\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow J/\psi pK^-, is updated. The branching fractions of Λb0→Pc+(→J/ψp)K−\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow P_c^+(\rightarrow J/\psi p)K^- are determined.Comment: 29 pages, 19figures. All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2015-032.htm

    Evidence for the strangeness-changing weak decay Ξb−→Λb0π−\Xi_b^-\to\Lambda_b^0\pi^-

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    Using a pppp collision data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0~fb−1^{-1}, collected by the LHCb detector, we present the first search for the strangeness-changing weak decay Ξb−→Λb0π−\Xi_b^-\to\Lambda_b^0\pi^-. No bb hadron decay of this type has been seen before. A signal for this decay, corresponding to a significance of 3.2 standard deviations, is reported. The relative rate is measured to be fΞb−fΛb0B(Ξb−→Λb0π−)=(5.7±1.8−0.9+0.8)×10−4{{f_{\Xi_b^-}}\over{f_{\Lambda_b^0}}}{\cal{B}}(\Xi_b^-\to\Lambda_b^0\pi^-) = (5.7\pm1.8^{+0.8}_{-0.9})\times10^{-4}, where fΞb−f_{\Xi_b^-} and fΛb0f_{\Lambda_b^0} are the b→Ξb−b\to\Xi_b^- and b→Λb0b\to\Lambda_b^0 fragmentation fractions, and B(Ξb−→Λb0π−){\cal{B}}(\Xi_b^-\to\Lambda_b^0\pi^-) is the branching fraction. Assuming fΞb−/fΛb0f_{\Xi_b^-}/f_{\Lambda_b^0} is bounded between 0.1 and 0.3, the branching fraction B(Ξb−→Λb0π−){\cal{B}}(\Xi_b^-\to\Lambda_b^0\pi^-) would lie in the range from (0.57±0.21)%(0.57\pm0.21)\% to (0.19±0.07)%(0.19\pm0.07)\%.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2015-047.htm

    BB flavour tagging using charm decays at the LHCb experiment

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    An algorithm is described for tagging the flavour content at production of neutral BB mesons in the LHCb experiment. The algorithm exploits the correlation of the flavour of a BB meson with the charge of a reconstructed secondary charm hadron from the decay of the other bb hadron produced in the proton-proton collision. Charm hadron candidates are identified in a number of fully or partially reconstructed Cabibbo-favoured decay modes. The algorithm is calibrated on the self-tagged decay modes B+→J/ψ K+B^+ \to J/\psi \, K^+ and B0→J/ψ K∗0B^0 \to J/\psi \, K^{*0} using 3.0 fb−13.0\mathrm{\,fb}^{-1} of data collected by the LHCb experiment at pppp centre-of-mass energies of 7 TeV7\mathrm{\,TeV} and 8 TeV8\mathrm{\,TeV}. Its tagging power on these samples of B→J/ψ XB \to J/\psi \, X decays is (0.30±0.01±0.01)%(0.30 \pm 0.01 \pm 0.01) \%.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at http://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2015-027.htm

    Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

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    This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio
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