UV-B absorbing pigments in spores: biochemical responses to shade in a high-latitude birch forest and implications for sporopollenin-based proxies of past environmental change

Current attempts to develop a proxy for Earth’s surface ultraviolet-B (UV-B) flux focus on the organic chemistry of pollen and spores because their constituent biopolymer, sporopollenin, contains UV-B absorbing pigments whose relative abundance may respond to the ambient UV-B flux. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) microspectroscopy provides a useful tool for rapidly determining the pigment content of spores. In this paper, we use FTIR to detect a chemical response of spore wall UV-B absorbing pigments that correspond with levels of shade beneath the canopy of a high-latitude Swedish birch forest. A 27% reduction in UV-B flux beneath the canopy leads to a significant (p<0.05) 7.3% reduction in concentration of UV-B absorbing compounds in sporopollenin. The field data from this natural flux gradient in UV-B further support our earlier work on sporopollenin-based proxies derived from sedimentary records and herbaria collections

Polarization phenomena in open charm photoproduction processes

We analyze polarization effects in associative photoproduction of pseudoscalar ($\bar{D}$) charmed mesons in exclusive processes $\gamma+ N\to Y_c +\bar{D}$, $Y_c=\Lambda_c^+$, $\Sigma_c$. Circularly polarized photons induce nonzero polarization of the $Y_c$-hyperon with $x$- and $z$-components (in the reaction plane) and non vanishing asymmetries ${\cal A}_x$ and ${\cal A}_z$ for polarized nucleon target. These polarization observables can be predicted in model-independent way for exclusive $\bar{D}$-production processes in collinear kinematics. The T-even $Y_c$-polarization and asymmetries for non-collinear kinematics can be calculated in framework of an effective Lagrangian approach. The depolarization coefficients $D_{ab}$, characterizing the dependence of the $Y_c$-polarization on the nucleon polarization are also calculated.Comment: 36 pages 13 figure

Development of a discrete element model with moving realistic geometry to simulate particle motion in a Mi-Pro granulator

This paper presents the implementation of a methodology incorporating a 3D CAD geometry into a 3D Discrete Element Method (DEM) code; discussing some of the issues which were experienced. The 3D CAD model was discretised into a finite element mesh and the finite wall method was employed for contact detection between the elements and the spherical particles. The geometry was based on a lab scale Mi-Pro granulator. Simulations were performed to represent dry particle motion in this piece of equipment. The model was validated by high speed photography of the particle motion at the surface of the Mi-Pro�s clear bowl walls. The results indicated that the particle motion was dominated by the high speed impeller and that a roping regime exists. The results from this work give a greater insight into the particle motion and can be used to understand the complex interactions which occur within this equipment

Gluon polarization in the nucleon from quasi-real photoproduction of high-pT hadron pairs

We present a determination of the gluon polarization Delta G/G in the nucleon, based on the helicity asymmetry of quasi-real photoproduction events, Q^2<1(GeV/c)^2, with a pair of large transverse-momentum hadrons in the final state. The data were obtained by the COMPASS experiment at CERN using a 160 GeV polarized muon beam scattered on a polarized 6-LiD target. The helicity asymmetry for the selected events is = 0.002 +- 0.019(stat.) +- 0.003(syst.). From this value, we obtain in a leading-order QCD analysis Delta G/G=0.024 +- 0.089(stat.) +- 0.057(syst.) at x_g = 0.095 and mu^2 =~ 3 (GeV}/c)^2.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Are biological systems poised at criticality?

Many of life's most fascinating phenomena emerge from interactions among many elements--many amino acids determine the structure of a single protein, many genes determine the fate of a cell, many neurons are involved in shaping our thoughts and memories. Physicists have long hoped that these collective behaviors could be described using the ideas and methods of statistical mechanics. In the past few years, new, larger scale experiments have made it possible to construct statistical mechanics models of biological systems directly from real data. We review the surprising successes of this "inverse" approach, using examples form families of proteins, networks of neurons, and flocks of birds. Remarkably, in all these cases the models that emerge from the data are poised at a very special point in their parameter space--a critical point. This suggests there may be some deeper theoretical principle behind the behavior of these diverse systems.Comment: 21 page

Improving Genetic Prediction by Leveraging Genetic Correlations Among Human Diseases and Traits

Genomic prediction has the potential to contribute to precision medicine. However, to date, the utility of such predictors is limited due to low accuracy for most traits. Here theory and simulation study are used to demonstrate that widespread pleiotropy among phenotypes can be utilised to improve genomic risk prediction. We show how a genetic predictor can be created as a weighted index that combines published genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics across many different traits. We apply this framework to predict risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in the Psychiatric Genomics consortium data, finding substantial heterogeneity in prediction accuracy increases across cohorts. For six additional phenotypes in the UK Biobank data, we find increases in prediction accuracy ranging from 0.7 for height to 47 for type 2 diabetes, when using a multi-trait predictor that combines published summary statistics from multiple traits, as compared to a predictor based only on one trait. © 2018 The Author(s)

A muon-track reconstruction exploiting stochastic losses for large-scale Cherenkov detectors

IceCube is a cubic-kilometer Cherenkov telescope operating at the South Pole. The main goal of IceCube is the detection of astrophysical neutrinos and the identification of their sources. High-energy muon neutrinos are observed via the secondary muons produced in charge current interactions with nuclei in the ice. Currently, the best performing muon track directional reconstruction is based on a maximum likelihood method using the arrival time distribution of Cherenkov photons registered by the experiment\u27s photomultipliers. A known systematic shortcoming of the prevailing method is to assume a continuous energy loss along the muon track. However at energies >1 TeV the light yield from muons is dominated by stochastic showers. This paper discusses a generalized ansatz where the expected arrival time distribution is parametrized by a stochastic muon energy loss pattern. This more realistic parametrization of the loss profile leads to an improvement of the muon angular resolution of up to 20% for through-going tracks and up to a factor 2 for starting tracks over existing algorithms. Additionally, the procedure to estimate the directional reconstruction uncertainty has been improved to be more robust against numerical errors

A Targeted Search for Point Sources of EeV Photons with the Pierre Auger Observatory

Simultaneous measurements of air showers with the fluorescence and surface detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory allow a sensitive search for EeV photon point sources. Several Galactic and extragalactic candidate objects are grouped in classes to reduce the statistical penalty of many trials from that of a blind search and are analyzed for a significant excess above the background expectation. The presented search does not find any evidence for photon emission at candidate sources, and combined p-values for every class are reported. Particle and energy flux upper limits are given for selected candidate sources. These limits significantly constrain predictions of EeV proton emission models from non-transient Galactic and nearby extragalactic sources, as illustrated for the particular case of the Galactic center region