Ocean Cooling Pattern at the Last Glacial Maximum

Ocean temperature and ocean heat content change are analyzed based on four PMIP3 model results at the Last Glacial Maximum relative to the prehistorical run. Ocean cooling mostly occurs in the upper 1000 m depth and varies spatially in the tropical and temperate zones. The Atlantic Ocean experiences greater cooling than the rest of the ocean basins. Ocean cooling is closely related to the weakening of meridional overturning circulation and enhanced intrusion of Antarctic Bottom Water into the North Atlantic

Influence of Tap Water Quality and Household Water Use Activities on Indoor Air and Internal Dose Levels of Trihalomethanes

Individual exposure to trihalomethanes (THMs) in tap water can occur through ingestion, inhalation, or dermal exposure. Studies indicate that activities associated with inhaled or dermal exposure routes result in a greater increase in blood THM concentration than does ingestion. We measured blood and exhaled air concentrations of THM as biomarkers of exposure to participants conducting 14 common household water use activities, including ingestion of hot and cold tap water beverages, showering, clothes washing, hand washing, bathing, dish washing, and indirect shower exposure. We conducted our study at a single residence in each of two water utility service areas, one with relatively high and the other low total THM in the residence tap water. To maintain a consistent exposure environment for seven participants, we controlled water use activities, exposure time, air exchange, water flow and temperature, and nonstudy THM sources to the indoor air. We collected reference samples for water supply and air (pre–water use activity), as well as tap water and ambient air samples. We collected blood samples before and after each activity and exhaled breath samples at baseline and postactivity. All hot water use activities yielded a 2-fold increase in blood or breath THM concentrations for at least one individual. The greatest observed increase in blood and exhaled breath THM concentration in any participant was due to showering (direct and indirect), bathing, and hand dishwashing. Average increase in blood THM concentration ranged from 57 to 358 pg/mL due to these activities. More research is needed to determine whether acute and frequent exposures to THM at these concentrations have public health implications. Further research is also needed in designing epidemiologic studies that minimize data collection burden yet maximize accuracy in classification of dermal and inhalation THM exposure during hot water use activities

Composite Higgs Sketch

The coupling of a composite Higgs to the standard model fields can deviate substantially from the standard model values. In this case perturbative unitarity might break down before the scale of compositeness is reached, which would suggest that additional composites should lie well below this scale. In this paper we account for the presence of an additional spin 1 custodial triplet of rhos. We examine the implications of requiring perturbative unitarity up to the compositeness scale and find that one has to be close to saturating certain unitarity sum rules involving the Higgs and the rho couplings. Given these restrictions on the parameter space we investigate the main phenomenological consequences of the spin 1 triplet. We find that they can substantially enhance the Higgs di-photon rate at the LHC even with a reduced Higgs coupling to gauge bosons. The main existing LHC bounds arise from di-boson searches, especially in the experimentally clean channel where the charged rhos decay to a W-boson and a Z, which then decay leptonically. We find that a large range of interesting parameter space with 700 GeV < m(rho) < 2 TeV is currently experimentally viable.Comment: 37 pages, 12 figures; v4: sum rule corrected, conclusions unchange

Global Analysis of the Higgs Candidate with Mass ~ 125 GeV

We analyze the properties of the Higgs candidate with mass ~ 125 GeV discovered by the CMS and ATLAS Collaborations, constraining the possible deviations of its couplings from those of a Standard Model Higgs boson. The CMS, ATLAS and Tevatron data are compatible with Standard Model couplings to massive gauge bosons and fermions, and disfavour several types of composite Higgs models unless their couplings resemble those in the Standard Model. We show that the couplings of the Higgs candidate are consistent with a linear dependence on particle masses, scaled by the electroweak scale ~ 246 GeV, the power law and the mass scale both having uncertainties ~ 20%.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, v2 incorporates experimental data released during July 2012 and corrected (and improved) treatment of mass dependence of coupling

Concerns About Exercise Are Related to Walk Test Results in Pulmonary Rehabilitation for Patients with COPD

# The Author(s). This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com 2010 Background Although international guidelines on pulmonary rehabilitation acknowledge that psychological factors contribute to exercise intolerance in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the few empirical studies investigating this association have found inconsistent results. Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate whether negative affect and beliefs about exercise of patients with COPD would be related to baseline 6-min walk (6-MW) test results in a pulmonary rehabilitation setting, after correction for physical variables (sex, age, height, weight, and lung function). A second aim was to examine whethe

Precision Unification in \lambda SUSY with a 125 GeV Higgs

It is challenging to explain the tentative 125 GeV Higgs signal in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) without introducing excessive fine-tuning, and this motivates the study of non-minimal implementations of low energy supersymmetry (SUSY). A term \lambda SH_uH_d involving a Standard Model (SM) singlet state S leads to an additional source for the quartic interaction raising the mass of the lightest SM-like Higgs. However, in order to achieve m_h \approx 125 GeV with light stops and small stop mixing, it is necessary for \lambda \gtrsim 0.7 and consequently \lambda may become non-perturbative before the unification scale. Moreover, as argued by Barbieri, Hall, et al. low fine-tuning prefers the region \lambda~1-2, leading to new or non-perturbative physics involving S below the GUT scale (`\lambda SUSY' models). This raises the concern that precision gauge coupling unification, the prime piece of indirect experimental evidence for low energy SUSY, may be upset. Using the NSVZ exact \beta-function along with well motivated assumptions on the strong coupling dynamics we show that this is not necessarily the case, but rather there exist classes of UV completions where the strong-coupling effects can naturally correct for the present ~3% discrepancy in the two-loop MSSM unification prediction for \alpha_s. Moreover, we argue that in certain scenarios a period of strong coupling can also be beneficial for t-b unification, while maintaining the small to moderate values of tan\beta preferred by the Higgs mass.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, v2. Discussion regarding evolution of Yukawa couplings and t-b unification added, accepted for publication in JHE

Complete Higgs sector constraints on dimension-6 operators

Constraints on the full set of Standard Model dimension-6 operators have previously used triple-gauge couplings to complement the constraints obtainable from Higgs signal strengths. Here we extend previous analyses of the Higgs sector constraints by including information from the associated production of Higgs and massive vector bosons (H+V production), which excludes a direction of limited sensitivity allowed by partial cancellations in the triple-gauge sector measured at LEP. Kinematic distributions in H+V production provide improved sensitivity to dimension-6 operators, as we illustrate here with simulations of the invariant mass and pT distributions measured by D0 and ATLAS, respectively. We provide bounds from a global fit to a complete set of CP-conserving operators affecting Higgs physics

The effective Standard Model after LHC Run I

We treat the Standard Model as the low-energy limit of an effective field theory that incorporates higher-dimensional operators to capture the effects of decoupled new physics. We consider the constraints imposed on the coefficients of dimension-6 operators by electroweak precision tests (EWPTs), applying a framework for the effects of dimension- 6 operators on electroweak precision tests that is more general than the standard S, T formalism, and use measurements of Higgs couplings and the kinematics of associated Higgs production at the Tevatron and LHC, as well as triple-gauge couplings at the LHC. We highlight the complementarity between EWPTs, Tevatron and LHC measurements in obtaining model-independent limits on the effective Standard Model after LHC Run 1. We illustrate the combined constraints with the example of the two-Higgs doublet model

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London

Planck pre-launch status : The Planck-LFI programme

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