A Measurement of Time-Averaged Aerosol Optical Depth using Air-Showers Observed in Stereo by HiRes

Air fluorescence measurements of cosmic ray energy must be corrected for attenuation of the atmosphere. In this paper we show that the air-showers themselves can yield a measurement of the aerosol attenuation in terms of optical depth, time-averaged over extended periods. Although the technique lacks statistical power to make the critical hourly measurements that only specialized active instruments can achieve, we note the technique does not depend on absolute calibration of the detector hardware, and requires no additional equipment beyond the fluorescence detectors that observe the air showers. This paper describes the technique, and presents results based on analysis of 1258 air-showers observed in stereo by the High Resolution Fly's Eye over a four year span.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication by Astroparticle Physics Journa

Replacement of soya bean meal with peas and faba beans in growing/finishing pig diets: effect on performance, carcass composition and nutrient excretion

There is now an increasing debate about the viability of using temperate-grown legumes in pig diets as a potential replacement for imported soya bean meal (SBM) and this is due to food security, sustainability and environmental concerns. Two trials were designed to examine nitrogen (N) retention, growth performance and carcass quality of grower and finisher pigs when fed nutritionally balanced SBM-free diets formulated to contain peas or faba beans at 300 g/kg, compared to an SBM-containing, pulse-free control diet. Trial 1 evaluated N digestibility/retention in four iso-energetic diets, comparing the SBM control with one diet formulated with peas and two with faba bean cultivars; a tannin-containing and a tannin-free variety. This trial employed a four by four Latin Square design with four male pigs housed in metabolism crates, fed twice daily at 0.9 of assumed ad libitum intake over four time periods during grower (30–55 kg) and finisher (55–95 kg) phases. Quantitative faecal and urine collection allowed determination of N coefficient of total tract apparent digestibility, coefficient of apparent metabolisability, and N balance. Results revealed that dietary treatment did not affect these N parameters (P > 0.05) during either the grower or finisher phase. Trial 2 evaluated growth performance (feed intake, daily live weight gain and feed conversion ratio) and carcass quality parameters. Five diets (based on SBM, peas and one of three faba bean cultivars) balanced for standard ileal digestible amino acids and net energy were each fed to eight replicates of individually housed entire male pigs over the same growth phases as Trial 1. The inclusion of three faba bean varieties allowed comparison of animal responses between tannin/tannin-free and spring vs. winter bean cultivars. At ∼95 kg, pigs were slaughtered and a comprehensive range of carcass measurements undertaken. Samples of shoulder backfat were also taken at slaughter to determine skatole and indole concentrations. As with N balance, feeding treatment did not affect performance data. Carcass parameters revealed pigs fed with the pea-based diet had a greater dressing percentage than those animals on faba bean-based diets. Pigs fed with the SBM or pea-based diets also had greater lean meat percentages than those on faba-bean diets. Mean skatole concentrations for all pigs were below the accepted maximum threshold level of 0.2 μg/g. In conclusion, it is suggested that peas and faba beans can be successfully fed in balanced pig diets throughout the grower/finisher periods as alternatives to SBM

Supermassive Black Hole Binaries: The Search Continues

Gravitationally bound supermassive black hole binaries (SBHBs) are thought to be a natural product of galactic mergers and growth of the large scale structure in the universe. They however remain observationally elusive, thus raising a question about characteristic observational signatures associated with these systems. In this conference proceeding I discuss current theoretical understanding and latest advances and prospects in observational searches for SBHBs.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures. To appear in the Proceedings of 2014 Sant Cugat Forum on Astrophysics. Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, ed. C.Sopuerta (Berlin: Springer-Verlag

Multi-parametric MR Imaging Biomarkers Associated to Clinical Outcomes in Gliomas: A Systematic Review

[EN] Purpose: To systematically review evidence regarding the association of multi-parametric biomarkers with clinical outcomes and their capacity to explain relevant subcompartments of gliomas. Materials and Methods: Scopus database was searched for original journal papers from January 1st, 2007 to February 20th , 2017 according to PRISMA. Four hundred forty-nine abstracts of papers were reviewed and scored independently by two out of six authors. Based on those papers we analyzed associations between biomarkers, subcompartments within the tumor lesion, and clinical outcomes. From all the articles analyzed, the twenty-seven papers with the highest scores were highlighted to represent the evidence about MR imaging biomarkers associated with clinical outcomes. Similarly, eighteen studies defining subcompartments within the tumor region were also highlighted to represent the evidence of MR imaging biomarkers. Their reports were critically appraised according to the QUADAS-2 criteria. Results: It has been demonstrated that multi-parametric biomarkers are prepared for surrogating diagnosis, grading, segmentation, overall survival, progression-free survival, recurrence, molecular profiling and response to treatment in gliomas. Quantifications and radiomics features obtained from morphological exams (T1, T2, FLAIR, T1c), PWI (including DSC and DCE), diffusion (DWI, DTI) and chemical shift imaging (CSI) are the preferred MR biomarkers associated to clinical outcomes. Subcompartments relative to the peritumoral region, invasion, infiltration, proliferation, mass effect and pseudo flush, relapse compartments, gross tumor volumes, and high-risk regions have been defined to characterize the heterogeneity. For the majority of pairwise cooccurrences, we found no evidence to assert that observed co-occurrences were significantly different from their expected co-occurrences (Binomial test with False Discovery Rate correction, alpha=0.05). The co-occurrence among terms in the studied papers was found to be driven by their individual prevalence and trends in the literature. Conclusion: Combinations of MR imaging biomarkers from morphological, PWI, DWI and CSI exams have demonstrated their capability to predict clinical outcomes in different management moments of gliomas. Whereas morphologic-derived compartments have been mostly studied during the last ten years, new multi-parametric MRI approaches have also been proposed to discover specific subcompartments of the tumors. MR biomarkers from those subcompartments show the local behavior within the heterogeneous tumor and may quantify the prognosis and response to treatment of gliomas.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry for Investigation, Development and Innovation project with identification number DPI2016-80054-R.Oltra-Sastre, M.; Fuster García, E.; Juan -Albarracín, J.; Sáez Silvestre, C.; Perez-Girbes, A.; Sanz-Requena, R.; Revert-Ventura, A.... (2019). 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A Likelihood Method for Measuring the Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Ray Composition

Air fluorescence detectors traditionally determine the dominant chemical composit ion of the ultrahigh energy cosmic ray flux by comparing the averaged slant depth of the shower maximum, $X_{max}$, as a function of energy to the slant depths expect ed for various hypothesized primaries. In this paper, we present a method to make a direct measurement of the expected mean number of protons and iron by comparing the shap es of the expected $X_{max}$ distributions to the distribution for data. The advantages of this method includes the use of information of the full distribution and its ability to calculate a flux for various cosmic ray compositi ons. The same method can be expanded to marginalize uncertainties due to choice of spectra, hadronic models and atmospheric parameters. We demonstrate the technique with independent simulated data samples from a parent sample of protons and iron. We accurately predict the number of protons and iron in the parent sample and show that the uncertainties are meaningful.Comment: 11 figures, 22 pages, accepted by Astroparticle Physic

Alternative Methods to Finding Patterns in HiRes Stereo Data

In this paper Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays UHECRs data observed by the HiRes fluorescence detector in stereo mode is analyzed to search for events in the sky with an arrival direction lying on a great circle. Such structure is known as the arc structure. The arc structure is expected when the charged cosmic rays pass through the galactic magnetic field. The arcs searched for could represent a broad or a small scale anisotropy depending on the proposed source model for the UHECRs. The Arcs in this paper are looked for using Hough transform were Hough transform is a technique used to looking for patterns in images. No statistically significant arcs were found in this study

Plasma lipid profiles discriminate bacterial from viral infection in febrile children

Fever is the most common reason that children present to Emergency Departments. Clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection ar

Search for heavy resonances decaying into a Z or W boson and a Higgs boson in final states with leptons and b-jets in 139 fb−1 of pp collisions at s√ = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This article presents a search for new resonances decaying into a Z or W boson and a 125 GeV Higgs boson h, and it targets the νν¯¯¯bb¯¯, ℓ+ℓ−bb¯¯, or ℓ±νbb¯¯ final states, where ℓ = e or μ, in proton-proton collisions at s√ = 13 TeV. The data used correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 collected by the ATLAS detector during Run 2 of the LHC at CERN. The search is conducted by examining the reconstructed invariant or transverse mass distributions of Zh or Wh candidates for evidence of a localised excess in the mass range from 220 GeV to 5 TeV. No significant excess is observed and 95% confidence-level upper limits between 1.3 pb and 0.3 fb are placed on the production cross section times branching fraction of neutral and charged spin-1 resonances and CP-odd scalar bosons. These limits are converted into constraints on the parameter space of the Heavy Vector Triplet model and the two-Higgs-doublet model

Search for single vector-like B quark production and decay via B → bH(b¯b) in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search is presented for single production of a vector-like B quark decaying into a Standard Model b-quark and a Standard Model Higgs boson, which decays into a b¯b pair. The search is carried out in 139 fb−1 of √s = 13 TeV proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC between 2015 and 2018. No significant deviation from the Standard Model background prediction is observed, and mass-dependent exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level are set on the resonance production cross-section in several theoretical scenarios determined by the couplings cW, cZ and cH between the B quark and the Standard Model W, Z and Higgs bosons, respectively. For a vector-like B occurring as an isospin singlet, the search excludes values of cW greater than 0.45 for a B resonance mass (mB) between 1.0 and 1.2 TeV. For 1.2 TeV < mB < 2.0 TeV, cW values larger than 0.50–0.65 are excluded. If the B occurs as part of a (B, Y) doublet, the smallest excluded cZ coupling values range between 0.3 and 0.5 across the investigated resonance mass range 1.0 TeV < mB < 2.0 TeV