The Williams Scale of Attitude toward Paganism: development and application among British Pagans

This article builds on the tradition of attitudinal measures of religiosity established by Leslie Francis and colleagues with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (and reflected in the Sahin-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Islam, the Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism, and the Santosh-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Hinduism) by introducing a new measure to assess the attitudinal disposition of Pagans. A battery of items was completed by 75 members of a Pagan Summer Camp. These items were reduced to produce a 21-item scale that measured aspects of Paganism concerned with: the God/Goddess, worshipping, prayer, and coven. The scale recorded an alpha coefficient of 0.93. Construct validity of the Williams Scale of Attitude toward Paganism was demonstrated by the clear association with measures of participation in private rituals

The price of rapid exit in venture capital-backed IPOs

This paper proposes an explanation for two empirical puzzles surrounding initial public offerings (IPOs). Firstly, it is well documented that IPO underpricing increases during “hot issue” periods. Secondly, venture capital (VC) backed IPOs are less underpriced than non-venture capital backed IPOs during normal periods of activity, but the reverse is true during hot issue periods: VC backed IPOs are more underpriced than non-VC backed ones. This paper shows that when IPOs are driven by the initial investor’s desire to exit from an existing investment in order to finance a new venture, both the value of the new venture and the value of the existing firm to be sold in the IPO drive the investor’s choice of price and fraction of shares sold in the IPO. When this is the case, the availability of attractive new ventures increases equilibrium underpricing, which is what we observe during hot issue periods. Moreover, I show that underpricing is affected by the severity of the moral hazard problem between an investor and the firm’s manager. In the presence of a moral hazard problem the degree of equilibrium underpricing is more sensitive to changes in the value of the new venture. This can explain why venture capitalists, who often finance firms with more severe moral hazard problems, underprice IPOs less in normal periods, but underprice more strongly during hot issue periods. Further empirical implications relating the fraction of shares sold and the degree of underpricing are presented

Short-term changes observed in multi-parametric liver MRI following therapy with direct acting antivirals in chronic hepatitis C virus patients

Methods: We applied multiparametric MRI to assess changes in liver composition, perfusion and blood flow in 17 patients before DAA therapy and after treatment completion (within 12 weeks of last DAA tablet swallowed).Results: We observed changes in hepatic composition indicated by a reduction in both liver longitudinal relaxation time (T1, 35±4 ms), transverse relaxation time (T2, 2.5±0.8 ms; T2* 3.0±0.7 ms) and liver perfusion (28.1±19.7ml/100g/min) which we suggest are linked to reduced pro-inflammatory milieu, including interstitial oedema, within the liver. No changes were observed in liver or spleen blood flow, splenic perfusion, or SMA blood flow.Conclusion: For the first time, our study has shown that treatment of HCV with DAAs in patients with cirrhosis leads to an acute reduction in liver T1, T2, T2* and an increase in liver perfusion measured using MR parameters. The ability of MRI to characterise changes in the angio-architecture of patients with cirrhosis after intervention in the short term will enhance our understanding of the natural history of regression of liver disease and potentially influence clinical decision algorithms

Transitions between Inherent Structures in Water

The energy landscape approach has been useful to help understand the dynamic properties of supercooled liquids and the connection between these properties and thermodynamics. The analysis in numerical models of the inherent structure (IS) trajectories -- the set of local minima visited by the liquid -- offers the possibility of filtering out the vibrational component of the motion of the system on the potential energy surface and thereby resolving the slow structural component more efficiently. Here we report an analysis of an IS trajectory for a widely-studied water model, focusing on the changes in hydrogen bond connectivity that give rise to many IS separated by relatively small energy barriers. We find that while the system \emph{travels} through these IS, the structure of the bond network continuously modifies, exchanging linear bonds for bifurcated bonds and usually reversing the exchange to return to nearly the same initial configuration. For the 216 molecule system we investigate, the time scale of these transitions is as small as the simulation time scale ($\approx 1$ fs). Hence for water, the transitions between each of these IS is relatively small and eventual relaxation of the system occurs only by many of these transitions. We find that during IS changes, the molecules with the greatest displacements move in small ``clusters'' of 1-10 molecules with displacements of $\approx 0.02-0.2$ nm, not unlike simpler liquids. However, for water these clusters appear to be somewhat more branched than the linear ``string-like'' clusters formed in a supercooled Lennar d-Jones system found by Glotzer and her collaborators.Comment: accepted in PR

Localization of the human homolog of the yeast cell division control 27 gene (CDC27) proximal to ITGB3 on human chromosome 17q21.3

The human homolog of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell division control 27 gene (CDC27) was mapped to human chromosome 17q12-q21 using a panel of human/rodent somatic cell hybrids and localized distal to the breast cancer susceptibility gene, BRCA1 , using a panel of radiation hybrids. The radiation hybrid panel indicates that the most likely position of human CDC27 on human chromosome 17 is between the marker D17S409 and the beta 3 subunit of integrin (ITGB3). Further confirmation of this localization comes from the sequence tagged site (STS) mapping of human CDC27 to the same yeast artificial chromosomes (YACs) positive for ITGB3 . The estimated distance between ITGB3 and human CDC27 is less than 600 kb.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45546/1/11188_2005_Article_BF02257470.pd

Toward an internally consistent astronomical distance scale

Accurate astronomical distance determination is crucial for all fields in astrophysics, from Galactic to cosmological scales. Despite, or perhaps because of, significant efforts to determine accurate distances, using a wide range of methods, tracers, and techniques, an internally consistent astronomical distance framework has not yet been established. We review current efforts to homogenize the Local Group's distance framework, with particular emphasis on the potential of RR Lyrae stars as distance indicators, and attempt to extend this in an internally consistent manner to cosmological distances. Calibration based on Type Ia supernovae and distance determinations based on gravitational lensing represent particularly promising approaches. We provide a positive outlook to improvements to the status quo expected from future surveys, missions, and facilities. Astronomical distance determination has clearly reached maturity and near-consistency.Comment: Review article, 59 pages (4 figures); Space Science Reviews, in press (chapter 8 of a special collection resulting from the May 2016 ISSI-BJ workshop on Astronomical Distance Determination in the Space Age

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV

A search for a Higgs boson decaying into two photons is described. The analysis is performed using a dataset recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.8 inverse femtobarns. Limits are set on the cross section of the standard model Higgs boson decaying to two photons. The expected exclusion limit at 95% confidence level is between 1.4 and 2.4 times the standard model cross section in the mass range between 110 and 150 GeV. The analysis of the data excludes, at 95% confidence level, the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in the mass range 128 to 132 GeV. The largest excess of events above the expected standard model background is observed for a Higgs boson mass hypothesis of 124 GeV with a local significance of 3.1 sigma. The global significance of observing an excess with a local significance greater than 3.1 sigma anywhere in the search range 110-150 GeV is estimated to be 1.8 sigma. More data are required to ascertain the origin of this excess.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

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

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

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter