Tranexamic acid for the prevention of postpartum bleeding in women with anaemia: study protocol for an international, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) is responsible for about 100,000 maternal deaths every year, most of which occur in low- and middle-income countries. Tranexamic acid (TXA) reduces bleeding by inhibiting the enzymatic breakdown of fibrin blood clots. TXA decreases blood loss in surgery and reduces death due to bleeding after trauma. When given within 3 h of birth, TXA reduces deaths due to bleeding in women with PPH. However, for many women, treatment of PPH is too late to prevent death. Over one third of pregnant women in the world are anaemic and many are severely anaemic. These women have an increased risk of PPH and suffer more severe outcomes if PPH occurs. There is an urgent need to identify a safe and effective way to reduce postpartum bleeding in anaemic women. METHODS/DESIGN: The WOMAN-2 trial is an international, multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to quantify the effects of TXA on postpartum bleeding in women with moderate or severe anaemia. Ten thousand women with moderate or severe anaemia who have given birth vaginally will be randomised to receive 1 g of TXA or matching placebo by intravenous injection immediately (within 15 min) after the umbilical cord is cut or clamped. The primary outcome is the proportion of women with a clinical diagnosis of primary PPH. The cause of PPH will be described. Data on maternal health and wellbeing, maternal blood loss and its consequences, and other health outcomes will be collected as secondary outcomes. The main analyses will be on an 'intention-to-treat' basis, irrespective of whether the allocated treatment was received. Results will be presented as appropriate effect estimates with a measure of precision (95% confidence intervals). Subgroup analyses will be based on the severity of anaemia (moderate versus severe) and type of labour (induced or augmented versus spontaneous). A study with 10,000 patients will have over 90% power to detect a 25% relative reduction from 10 to 7.5% in PPH. The trial will be conducted in hospitals in Africa and Asia. DISCUSSION: The WOMAN-2 trial should provide reliable evidence for the effects of TXA for preventing postpartum bleeding in women with anaemia. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN, ISRCTN62396133 . Registered on 7 December 2017; ClincalTrials.gov, ID: NCT03475342 . Registered on 23 March 2018

Fertilization with beneficial microorganisms decreases tomato defenses against insect pests

International audienceThe adverse effects of chemical fertilizers on agricultural fields and the environment are compelling society to move toward more sustainable farming techniques. “Effective microorganisms” is a beneficial microbial mixture that has been developed to improve soil quality and crop yield while simultaneously dramatically reducing organic chemical application. Additional indirect benefits of beneficial microorganisms application may include increased plant resistance to herbivore attack, though this has never been tested till now. Tomato plants were grown in controlled greenhouse conditions in a full-factorial design with beneficial microorganisms inoculation and commercial chemical fertilizer application as main factors. We measured plant yield and growth parameters, as well as resistance against the generalist pest Spodoptera littoralis moth larval attack. Additionally, we measured plant defensive chemistry to underpin resistance mechanisms. Overall, we found that, comparable to chemical fertilizer, beneficial microorganisms increased plant growth fruit production by 35 and 61 %, respectively. Contrary to expectations, plants inoculated with beneficial microorganisms sustained 25 % higher insect survival and larvae were in average 41 % heavier than on unfertilized plants. We explain these results by showing that beneficial microorganism-inoculated plants were impaired in the induction of the toxic glycoalkaloid molecule tomatine and the defense-related phytohormone jasmonic acid after herbivore attack. For the first time, we therefore show that biofertilizer application might endure unintended, pest-mediated negative effects, and we thus suggest that biofertilizer companies should incorporate protection attributes in their studies prior to commercialization

Search for CP violation in D0 → KS0KS0 decays in proton-proton collisions at √s=13TeV

A search is reported for charge-parity CP violation in D0 → K0 SK0 S decays, using data collected in proton– proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV recorded by the CMS experiment in 2018. The analysis uses a dedicated data set that corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 41.6 fb−1 , which consists of about 10 billion events containing a pair of b hadrons, nearly all of which decay to charm hadrons. The flavor of the neutral D meson is determined by the pion charge in the reconstructed decays D∗+ → D0 π+ and D∗− → D0 π−. The CP asymmetry in D0 → K0 SK0 S is measured to be ACP(K0 SK0 S) = (6.2 ± 3.0 ± 0.2 ± 0.8)%, where the three uncertainties represent the statistical uncertainty, the systematic uncertainty, and the uncertainty in the measurement of theCP asymmetry in the D0 → K0 Sπ+π− decay. This is the first CP asymmetry measurement by CMS in the charm sector as well as the first to utilize a fully hadronic final state

Search for central exclusive production of top quark pairs in proton-proton collisions at √s=13 TeV with tagged protons

A search for the central exclusive production of top quark-antiquark pairs (tt) is performed for the frst time using proton-tagged events in proton-proton collisions at the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 29.4 fb−1 . The tt decay products are reconstructed using the central CMS detector, while forward protons are measured in the CMS-TOTEM precision proton spectrometer. An observed (expected) upper bound on the production cross section of 0.59 (1.14) pb is set at 95% confdence level, for collisions of protons with fractional momentum losses between 2 and 20%

Measurement of the inclusive and differential Higgs boson production cross sections in the decay mode to a pair of τ Leptons in pp collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV

Measurements of the inclusive and differential fiducial cross sections of the Higgs boson are presented, using the τ lepton decay channel. The differential cross sections are measured as functions of the Higgs boson transverse momentum, jet multiplicity, and transverse momentum of the leading jet in the event, if any. The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data collected with the CMS detector at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 13  TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138  fb^{-1}. These are the first differential measurements of the Higgs boson cross section in the final state of two τ leptons. In final states with a large jet multiplicity or with a Lorentz-boosted Higgs boson, these measurements constitute a significant improvement over measurements performed in other final states

Search for strongly interacting massive particles generating trackless jets in proton-proton collisions at s = 13 TeV

A search for dark matter in the form of strongly interacting massive particles (SIMPs) using the CMS detector at the LHC is presented. The SIMPs would be produced in pairs that manifest themselves as pairs of jets without tracks. The energy fraction of jets carried by charged particles is used as a key discriminator to suppress efficiently the large multijet background, and the remaining background is estimated directly from data. The search is performed using proton-proton collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 16.1 fb - 1 , collected with the CMS detector in 2016. No significant excess of events is observed above the expected background. For the simplified dark matter model under consideration, SIMPs with masses up to 100 GeV are excluded and further sensitivity is explored towards higher masses

The Drosophila melanogaster Genetic Reference Panel

A major challenge of biology is understanding the relationship between molecular genetic variation and variation in quantitative traits, including fitness. This relationship determines our ability to predict phenotypes from genotypes and to understand how evolutionary forces shape variation within and between species. Previous efforts to dissect the genotype–phenotype map were based on incomplete genotypic information. Here, we describe the Drosophila melanogaster Genetic Reference Panel (DGRP), a community resource for analysis of population genomics and quantitative traits. The DGRP consists of fully sequenced inbred lines derived from a natural population. Population genomic analyses reveal reduced polymorphism in centromeric autosomal regions and the X chromosome, evidence for positive and negative selection, and rapid evolution of the X chromosome. Many variants in novel genes, most at low frequency, are associated with quantitative traits and explain a large fraction of the phenotypic variance. The DGRP facilitates genotype–phenotype mapping using the power of Drosophila genetics

Search for a heavy resonance decaying into a top quark and a W boson in the lepton+jets final state at √ s = 13 TeV

A preprint version of the article is available at arXiv 2111.10216: https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.10216.Copyright © CERN, for the benefit of the CMS Collaboration 2022. A search for a heavy resonance decaying into a top quark and a W boson in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV is presented. The data analyzed were recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb−1. The top quark is reconstructed as a single jet and the W boson, from its decay into an electron or muon and the corresponding neutrino. A top quark tagging technique based on jet clustering with a variable distance parameter and simultaneous jet grooming is used to identify jets from the collimated top quark decay. The results are interpreted in the context of two benchmark models, where the heavy resonance is either an excited bottom quark b∗ or a vector-like quark B. A statistical combination with an earlier search by the CMS Collaboration in the all-hadronic final state is performed to place upper cross section limits on these two models. The new analysis extends the lower range of resonance mass probed from 1.4 down to 0.7 TeV. For left-handed, right-handed, and vector-like couplings, b∗ masses up to 3.0, 3.0, and 3.2 TeV are excluded at 95% confidence level, respectively. The observed upper limits represent the most stringent constraints on the b∗ model to date.SCOAP3

CMS pythia 8 colour reconnection tunes based on underlying-event data

A preprint version of the article is available at arXiv (https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.02905).Copyright © CERN for the benefit of the CMS collaboration 2023. New sets of parameter tunes for two of the colour reconnection models, quantum chromodynamics-inspired and gluon-move, implemented in the PYTHIA 8 event generator, are obtained based on the default CMS PYTHIA 8 underlying-event tune, CP5. Measurements sensitive to the underlying event performed by the CMS experiment at centre-of-mass energies s√=7 and 13TeV , and by the CDF experiment at 1.96TeV are used to constrain the parameters of colour reconnection models and multiple-parton interactions simultaneously. The new colour reconnection tunes are compared with various measurements at 1.96, 7, 8, and 13TeV including measurements of the underlying-event, strange-particle multiplicities, jet substructure observables, jet shapes, and colour flow in top quark pair (tt¯) events. The new tunes are also used to estimate the uncertainty related to colour reconnection modelling in the top quark mass measurement using the decay products of tt¯ events in the semileptonic channel at 13TeV.SCOAP3