Lizards Cooperatively Tunnel to Construct a Long-Term Home for Family Members

Constructing a home to protect offspring while they mature is common in many vertebrate groups, but has not previously been reported in lizards. Here we provide the first example of a lizard that constructs a long-term home for family members, and a rare case of lizards behaving cooperatively. The great desert skink, Liopholis kintorei from Central Australia, constructs an elaborate multi-tunnelled burrow that can be continuously occupied for up to 7 years. Multiple generations participate in construction and maintenance of burrows. Parental assignments based on DNA analysis show that immature individuals within the same burrow were mostly full siblings, even when several age cohorts were present. Parents were always captured at burrows containing their offspring, and females were only detected breeding with the same male both within- and across seasons. Consequently, the individual investments made to construct or maintain a burrow system benefit their own offspring, or siblings, over several breeding seasons

Meta-ethnography of experiences of early discharge, with a focus on paediatric febrile neutropenia

PURPOSE (STATING THE MAIN PURPOSES AND RESEARCH QUESTION): Many children have no significant sequelae of febrile neutropenia. A systematic review of clinical studies demonstrated patients at low risk of septic complications can be safely treated as outpatients using oral antibiotics with low rates of treatment failure. Introducing earlier discharge may improve quality of life, reduce hospital acquired infection and reduce healthcare service pressures. However, the review raised concerns that this might not be acceptable to patients, families and healthcare professionals. METHODS: This qualitative synthesis explored experiences of early discharge in paediatric febrile neutropenia, including reports from studies of adult febrile neutropenia and from other paediatric conditions. Systematic literature searching preceded meta-ethnographic analysis, including reading the studies and determining relationships between studies, translation of studies and synthesis of these translations. RESULTS: Nine papers were included. The overarching experience of early discharge is that decision-making is complex and difficult and influenced by fear, timing and resources. From this background, we identified two distinct themes. First, participants struggled with practical consequences of treatment regimens, namely childcare, finances and follow-up. A second theme identified social and emotional issues, including isolation, relational and environmental challenges. Linking these, participants considered continuity of care and the need for information important. CONCLUSIONS: Trust and confidence appeared interdependent with resources available to families-both are required to manage early discharge. Socially informed resilience is relevant to facilitating successful discharge strategies. Interventions which foster resilience may mediate the ability and inclination of families to accept early discharge. Services have an important role in recognising and enhancing resilience

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment

We describe the design and assembly of the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment, a direct detection search for cosmic WIMP dark matter particles. The centerpiece of the experiment is a large liquid xenon time projection chamber sensitive to low energy nuclear recoils. Rejection of backgrounds is enhanced by a Xe skin veto detector and by a liquid scintillator Outer Detector loaded with gadolinium for efficient neutron capture and tagging. LZ is located in the Davis Cavern at the 4850' level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, USA. We describe the major subsystems of the experiment and its key design features and requirements

LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Technical Design Report

In this Technical Design Report (TDR) we describe the LZ detector to be built at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF). The LZ dark matter experiment is designed to achieve sensitivity to a WIMP-nucleon spin-independent cross section of three times ten to the negative forty-eighth square centimeters

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) radioactivity and cleanliness control programs

LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) is a second-generation direct dark matter experiment with spin-independent WIMP-nucleon scattering sensitivity above 1.4×10−48cm2 for a WIMP mass of 40GeV/c2 and a 1000days exposure. LZ achieves this sensitivity through a combination of a large 5.6t fiducial volume, active inner and outer veto systems, and radio-pure construction using materials with inherently low radioactivity content. The LZ collaboration performed an extensive radioassay campaign over a period of six years to inform material selection for construction and provide an input to the experimental background model against which any possible signal excess may be evaluated. The campaign and its results are described in this paper. We present assays of dust and radon daughters depositing on the surface of components as well as cleanliness controls necessary to maintain background expectations through detector construction and assembly. Finally, examples from the campaign to highlight fixed contaminant radioassays for the LZ photomultiplier tubes, quality control and quality assurance procedures through fabrication, radon emanation measurements of major sub-systems, and bespoke detector systems to assay scintillator are presented

LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Technical Design Report

In this Technical Design Report (TDR) we describe the LZ detector to be built at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF). The LZ dark matter experiment is designed to achieve sensitivity to a WIMP-nucleon spin-independent cross section of three times ten to the negative forty-eighth square centimeters