When size really does matter - providing PrEP across Queensland

Background: Providing universal access to PrEP across Queensland, the 2nd largest and 3rd most populous state in Australia has provided unique challenges. Queensland has 22.5% of Australia’s total land area, compared to the 14.4% of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania combined. Queensland is also less centralised with 50% of the population living outside the state capital and 25% outside of the south eastern region. Notably, this population distribution is reflected in HIV diagnoses with 24% of new diagnoses in 2015 coming from Health Service Areas outside of the south east. Method: The unique service models, buildings, personalities, communities and clinical capacity of regional services has required bespoke solutions to implement QPrEPd in these sites. Many sites have not taken part in clinical trials before and required additional support. Additionally, the barriers to access found in more conservative services and communities has required the implementation team to advocate and educate for universal PrEP provision. Protocol modification has enabled nurses to manage ongoing PrEP provision in services with limited medical officer support. Results: Eleven study sites are outside of the south east corner; 7 public sexual health services, 3 general practices in Cairns and one Aboriginal Medical Service in Toowoomba. These sites have enrolled 18.5% of the all participants. The remaining 11 sites in the south east corner are include 5 general practices, including one run through a community based organisation, 5 public sexual health clinics and one private hospital. Overall, nearly 63% of the participants have enrolled at general practice sites. Conclusions: While this project has provided access to PrEP throughout much of Queensland, gaps remain. The key limitation in regional areas where there is no public sexual health service is the lack of S100 prescribing general practitioners. In order to expand access other service delivery models are being explored

Scintillation and charge extraction from the tracks of energetic electrons in superfluid helium-4

An energetic electron passing through liquid helium causes ionization along its track. The ionized electrons quickly recombine with the resulting positive ions, which leads to the production of prompt scintillation light. By applying appropriate electric fields, some of the ionized electrons can be separated from their parent ions. The fraction of the ionized electrons extracted in a given applied field depends on the separation distance between the electrons and the ions. We report the determination of the mean electron-ion separation distance for charge pairs produced along the tracks of beta particles in superfluid helium at 1.5 K by studying the quenching of the scintillation light under applied electric fields. Knowledge of this mean separation parameter will aid in the design of particle detectors that use superfluid helium as a target material.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure

Magnetic trapping of ultracold neutrons

Three-dimensional magnetic confinement of neutrons is reported. Neutrons are loaded into an Ioffe-type superconducting magnetic trap through inelastic scattering of cold neutrons with 4He. Scattered neutrons with sufficiently low energy and in the appropriate spin state are confined by the magnetic field until they decay. The electron resulting from neutron decay produces scintillations in the liquid helium bath that results in a pulse of extreme ultraviolet light. This light is frequency downconverted to the visible and detected. Results are presented in which 500 +/- 155 neutrons are magnetically trapped in each loading cycle, consistent with theoretical predictions. The lifetime of the observed signal, 660 s +290/-170 s, is consistent with the neutron beta-decay lifetime.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Quantum computation with trapped polar molecules

We propose a novel physical realization of a quantum computer. The qubits are electric dipole moments of ultracold diatomic molecules, oriented along or against an external electric field. Individual molecules are held in a 1-D trap array, with an electric field gradient allowing spectroscopic addressing of each site. Bits are coupled via the electric dipole-dipole interaction. Using technologies similar to those already demonstrated, this design can plausibly lead to a quantum computer with $\gtrsim 10^4$ qubits, which can perform $\sim 10^5$ CNOT gates in the anticipated decoherence time of $\sim 5$ s.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX 4, 2 figures. Edited for length and converted to RevTeX, but no substantial changes from earlier pdf versio

Transit Timing and Duration Variations for the Discovery and Characterization of Exoplanets

Transiting exoplanets in multi-planet systems have non-Keplerian orbits which can cause the times and durations of transits to vary. The theory and observations of transit timing variations (TTV) and transit duration variations (TDV) are reviewed. Since the last review, the Kepler spacecraft has detected several hundred perturbed planets. In a few cases, these data have been used to discover additional planets, similar to the historical discovery of Neptune in our own Solar System. However, the more impactful aspect of TTV and TDV studies has been characterization of planetary systems in which multiple planets transit. After addressing the equations of motion and parameter scalings, the main dynamical mechanisms for TTV and TDV are described, with citations to the observational literature for real examples. We describe parameter constraints, particularly the origin of the mass/eccentricity degeneracy and how it is overcome by the high-frequency component of the signal. On the observational side, derivation of timing precision and introduction to the timing diagram are given. Science results are reviewed, with an emphasis on mass measurements of transiting sub-Neptunes and super-Earths, from which bulk compositions may be inferred.Comment: Revised version. Invited review submitted to 'Handbook of Exoplanets,' Exoplanet Discovery Methods section, Springer Reference Works, Juan Antonio Belmonte and Hans Deeg, Eds. TeX and figures may be found at https://github.com/ericagol/TTV_revie

Search for lepton-flavor violation at HERA

A search for lepton-flavor-violating interactions $e p \to \mu X$ and $e p\to \tau X$ has been performed with the ZEUS detector using the entire HERA I data sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 130 pb^{-1}. The data were taken at center-of-mass energies, $\sqrt{s}$, of 300 and 318 GeV. No evidence of lepton-flavor violation was found, and constraints were derived on leptoquarks (LQs) that could mediate such interactions. For LQ masses below $\sqrt{s}$, limits were set on $\lambda_{eq_1} \sqrt{\beta_{\ell q}}$, where $\lambda_{eq_1}$ is the coupling of the LQ to an electron and a first-generation quark $q_1$, and $\beta_{\ell q}$ is the branching ratio of the LQ to the final-state lepton $\ell$ ($\mu$ or $\tau$) and a quark $q$. For LQ masses much larger than $\sqrt{s}$, limits were set on the four-fermion interaction term $\lambda_{e q_\alpha} \lambda_{\ell q_\beta} / M_{\mathrm{LQ}}^2$ for LQs that couple to an electron and a quark $q_\alpha$ and to a lepton $\ell$ and a quark $q_\beta$, where $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are quark generation indices. Some of the limits are also applicable to lepton-flavor-violating processes mediated by squarks in $R$-Parity-violating supersymmetric models. In some cases, especially when a higher-generation quark is involved and for the process $e p\to \tau X$, the ZEUS limits are the most stringent to date.Comment: 37 pages, 10 figures, Accepted by EPJC. References and 1 figure (Fig. 6) adde

Beauty photoproduction measured using decays into muons in dijet events in ep collisions at s\sqrt{s}=318 GeV

The photoproduction of beauty quarks in events with two jets and a muon has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 110 pb$^{- 1}$. The fraction of jets containing b quarks was extracted from the transverse momentum distribution of the muon relative to the closest jet. Differential cross sections for beauty production as a function of the transverse momentum and pseudorapidity of the muon, of the associated jet and of $x_{\gamma}^{jets}$, the fraction of the photon's momentum participating in the hard process, are compared with MC models and QCD predictions made at next-to-leading order. The latter give a good description of the data.Comment: 32 pages, 6 tables, 7 figures Table 6 and Figure 7 revised September 200

An NLO QCD analysis of inclusive cross-section and jet-production data from the ZEUS experiment

The ZEUS inclusive differential cross-section data from HERA, for charged and neutral current processes taken with e+ and e- beams, together with differential cross-section data on inclusive jet production in e+ p scattering and dijet production in \gamma p scattering, have been used in a new NLO QCD analysis to extract the parton distribution functions of the proton. The input of jet data constrains the gluon and allows an accurate extraction of \alpha_s(M_Z) at NLO; \alpha_s(M_Z) = 0.1183 \pm 0.0028(exp.) \pm 0.0008(model) An additional uncertainty from the choice of scales is estimated as \pm 0.005. This is the first extraction of \alpha_s(M_Z) from HERA data alone.Comment: 37 pages, 14 figures, to be submitted to EPJC. PDFs available at http://durpdg.dur.ac.uk/hepdata in LHAPDFv

The dependence of dijet production on photon virtuality in ep collisions at HERA

The dependence of dijet production on the virtuality of the exchanged photon, Q^2, has been studied by measuring dijet cross sections in the range 0 < Q^2 < 2000 GeV^2 with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 38.6 pb^-1. Dijet cross sections were measured for jets with transverse energy E_T^jet > 7.5 and 6.5 GeV and pseudorapidities in the photon-proton centre-of-mass frame in the range -3 < eta^jet <0. The variable xg^obs, a measure of the photon momentum entering the hard process, was used to enhance the sensitivity of the measurement to the photon structure. The Q^2 dependence of the ratio of low- to high-xg^obs events was measured. Next-to-leading-order QCD predictions were found to generally underestimate the low-xg^obs contribution relative to that at high xg^obs. Monte Carlo models based on leading-logarithmic parton-showers, using a partonic structure for the photon which falls smoothly with increasing Q^2, provide a qualitative description of the data.Comment: 35 pages, 6 eps figures, submitted to Eur.Phys.J.