Thyroid hormones correlate with resting metabolic rate, not daily energy expenditure, in two charadriiform seabirds

K. Woo, M. Le Vaillant, T. van Nus, and especially A. Wesphal, J. Schultner and I. Dorresteijn, assisted with field work, often under unpleasant conditions. K. Wauthier was instrumental in wrestling the gamma counter into submission. P. Redman and C. Hambly conducted the isotopic analyses. K. Scott and K. Campbell provided the FoxBox. K.H.E. benefited from a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Vanier Scholarship, Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies Garfield Weston Northern Studies Award and the Arctic Institute of North America Jennifer Robinson Scholarship. Research support came from Bird Studies Canada/Society of Canadian Ornithologists James Baillie Award, Animal Behavior Society Research Grant, American Ornithologists’ Union Research Grant, Frank Chapman Research Grant, the Waterbird Society Nisbet Grant and NSERC Discovery Grants to J.F.H. and W.G.A. Any use of trade names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Elemental bio-imaging of thorium, uranium, and plutonium in tissues from occupationally exposed former nuclear workers

Internal exposure from naturally occurring radionuclides (including the inhaled long-lived actinides 232Th and 238U) is a component of the ubiquitous background radiation dose (National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. Ionizing radiation exposure of the population of the United States; NCRP Report No. 160; NCRP: Bethesda, MD, 2009). It is of interest to compare the concentration distribution of these natural ?-emitters in the lungs and respiratory lymph nodes with those resulting from occupational exposure, including exposure to anthropogenic plutonium and depleted and enriched uranium. This study examines the application of laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) to quantifying and visualizing the mass distribution of uranium and thorium isotopes from both occupational and natural background exposure in human respiratory tissues and, for the first time, extends this application to the direct imaging of plutonium isotopes. Sections of lymphatic and lung tissues taken from deceased former nuclear workers with a known history of occupational exposure to specific actinide elements (uranium, plutonium, or americium) were analyzed by LA-ICPMS. Using a previously developed LA-ICPMS protocol for elemental bio-imaging of trace elements in human tissue and a new software tool, we generated images of thorium (232Th), uranium (235U and 238U), and plutonium (239Pu and 240Pu) mass distributions in sections of tissue. We used a laboratory-produced matrix-matched standard to quantify the 232Th, 235U, and 238U concentrations. The plutonium isotopes 239Pu and 240Pu were detected by LA-ICPMS in 65 ?m diameter localized regions of both a paratracheal lymph node and a sample of lung tissue from a person who was occupationally exposed to refractory plutonium (plutonium dioxide). The average (overall) 239Pu concentration in the lymph node was 39.2 ng/g, measured by high purity germanium (HPGe) ?-spectrometry (Lynch, T. P.; Tolmachev, S. Y.; James, A. C. Radiat. Prot. Dosim. 2009, 134, 94?101). Localized mass concentrations of thorium (232Th) and uranium (238U) in lymph node tissue from a person not occupationally exposed to these elements (chronic natural background inhalation exposure) ranged up to 400 and 375 ng/g, respectively. In lung samples of occupationally nonexposed to thorium and uranium workers, 232Th and 238U concentrations ranged up to 200 and 170 ng/g, respectively. In a person occupationally exposed to air-oxidized uranium metal (Adley, F. E.; Gill, W. E.; Scott, R. H. Study of atmospheric contaminiation in the melt plant buiding. HW-23352(Rev.); United States Atomic Energy Commission: Oakridge, TN, 1952, p 1?97), the maximum 235U and 238U isotopic mass concentrations in a lymph node, measured at higher resolution (with a 30 ?m laser spot diameter), were 70 and 8500 ng/g, respectively. The ratio of these simultaneously measured mass concentrations signifies natural uranium. The current technique was not sufficiently sensitive, even with a 65 ?m laser spot diameter, to detect 241Am (at an overall tissue concentration of 0.024 ng/g, i.e., 3 Bq/g). © 2010 American Chemical Society

Diagnóstico situacional Hospital Gaspar García Laviana- Rivas y Ernesto Sequeira- Región Autónoma Atlántico Sur. Nicaragua. Año 2004.

Estudio de tipo descriptivo de corte transversal, en los Hospitales Ernesto Sequeira de la Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur y Gaspar García Laviana de Rivas durante el año 2004. Se encontró que en ambos Hospitales brindan atención general, de prioridad Materno-Infantil, ubicados en las cabeceras de los departamentos; pertenecen al Segundo nivel de atención, con un nivel de complejidad básico, de referencias departamental para los centros de salud, cuyo propietario es el Ministerio de Salud. Con poblaciones objetivos mayores de 175,000 habitantes donde el 65% de las personas son niños o mujeres en edad de procrear. La cartera de servicios que ofertan ambos hospitales es acorde a su complejidad en las que se encuentran las cuatro especialidades básicas Medicina Interna, Cirugía General, Pediatría y Gineco obstetricia y los servicios de apoyo tales como: Farmacia, Radiología, Laboratorio así como en su estructura física cuenta con consultorios para consulta externa, emergencia, quirófanos, salas de parto y camas censables. El número de recursos humanos en cada hospital es mayor a 300 personas, donde el 55 al 60% es asistencial. En los recursos financieros el 80% del presupuesto proviene de fondo fiscal y el mayor gasto es en el pago de recursos humanos. El equipamiento asistencial de los hospitales se encuentra desfasado y obsoleto, entre el 20 al 40% en regular y muy mal estado y tienen más de un año de estar sin funcionamiento y no han sido reparados. El modelo de gestión de ambos hospitales es tradicional, sin implementación de herramientas gerenciales, ni toma de decisiones. La producción de servicios es baja en relación a su capacidad instalada

Blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) do not spontaneously eavesdrop on red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) squeals to locate food

Organisms often eavesdrop on the cues and signals produced by other species to obtain information about their environment. Blue jays have dietary overlap with red squirrels, and learn to associate novel stimuli with food rewards in an experimental setting. Red squirrels produce “squeals†when contesting food resources with conspecifics. We tested whether blue jays eavesdrop on red squirrels by playing back red squirrel squeals, red squirrel rattles, white noise, and chick-a-dee calls to blue jays in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Additionally we examined the response of passerine birds in general to the playbacks, and attempted to condition free-living blue jays to respond to the playback of the squeal treatments. Results of the playbacks suggested that neither blue jays nor other passerines eavesdrop on vocalizations emitted in the context of red squirrel disputes over food. Conditioning trials did not produce any conditioned responses from blue jays; however, the limited number of trials performed does not constitute a robust test of the possible acquisition of a classically-conditioned response. Blue jays may also refrain from eavesdropping on red squirrel squeals as they are not reliable indicators of food resources, or because in an urban environment, blue jays readily learn the locations of bird feeders or other reliable food sources without eavesdropping on red squirrels

Multiple Mating Results in Multiple Paternity in Richardson's Ground Squirrels, Spermophilus richardsonii

Microsatellite DNA primers developed from Columbian Ground Squirrels (Spermophilus columbianus) were used to establish paternity in a Manitoba population of Richardson’s Ground Squirrels (Spermophilus richardsonii). Primers resolving variation at six microsatellite loci allowed ascription of paternity to 32 of 85 offspring born among litters of 15 breeding females sampled. While the failure to unambiguously document paternity for all juveniles precludes the use of these data to address questions of sperm competition and male mating success, the results do provide direct evidence that multiple mating by female Richardson’s Ground Squirrels results in multiple paternity within litters

Combined search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a bb pair using the full CDF data set

We combine the results of searches for the standard model Higgs boson based on the full CDF Run II data set obtained from sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV p-pbar collisions at the Fermilab Tevatron corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.45/fb. The searches are conducted for Higgs bosons that are produced in association with a W or Z boson, have masses in the range 90-150 GeV/c^2, and decay into bb pairs. An excess of data is present that is inconsistent with the background prediction at the level of 2.5 standard deviations (the most significant local excess is 2.7 standard deviations).Comment: To be published in Phys. Rev. Lett (v2 contains minor updates based on comments from PRL

Measurement of CP-violation asymmetries in D0 to Ks pi+ pi-

We report a measurement of time-integrated CP-violation asymmetries in the resonant substructure of the three-body decay D0 to Ks pi+ pi- using CDF II data corresponding to 6.0 invfb of integrated luminosity from Tevatron ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. The charm mesons used in this analysis come from D*+(2010) to D0 pi+ and D*-(2010) to D0bar pi-, where the production flavor of the charm meson is determined by the charge of the accompanying pion. We apply a Dalitz-amplitude analysis for the description of the dynamic decay structure and use two complementary approaches, namely a full Dalitz-plot fit employing the isobar model for the contributing resonances and a model-independent bin-by-bin comparison of the D0 and D0bar Dalitz plots. We find no CP-violation effects and measure an asymmetry of ACP = (-0.05 +- 0.57 (stat) +- 0.54 (syst))% for the overall integrated CP-violation asymmetry, consistent with the standard model prediction.Comment: 15 page

Measurements of branching fraction ratios and CP-asymmetries in suppressed B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)K^- and B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)pi^- decays

We report the first reconstruction in hadron collisions of the suppressed decays B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)K^- and B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)pi^-, sensitive to the CKM phase gamma, using data from 7 fb^-1 of integrated luminosity collected by the CDF II detector at the Tevatron collider. We reconstruct a signal for the B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)K^- suppressed mode with a significance of 3.2 standard deviations, and measure the ratios of the suppressed to favored branching fractions R(K) = [22.0 \pm 8.6(stat)\pm 2.6(syst)]\times 10^-3, R^+(K) = [42.6\pm 13.7(stat)\pm 2.8(syst)]\times 10^-3, R^-(K)= [3.8\pm 10.3(stat)\pm 2.7(syst]\times 10^-3, as well as the direct CP-violating asymmetry A(K) = -0.82\pm 0.44(stat)\pm 0.09(syst) of this mode. Corresponding quantities for B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)pi^- decay are also reported.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, accepted by Phys.Rev.D Rapid Communications for Publicatio

Measurement of the ttbar Production Cross Section in ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV

We present a measurement of the top quark pair production cross section in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV using 318 pb^{-1} of data collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We select ttbar decays into the final states e nu + jets and mu nu + jets, in which at least one b quark from the t-quark decays is identified using a secondary vertex-finding algorithm. Assuming a top quark mass of 178 GeV/c^2, we measure a cross section of 8.7 +-0.9 (stat) +1.1-0.9 (syst) pb. We also report the first observation of ttbar with significance greater than 5 sigma in the subsample in which both b quarks are identified, corresponding to a cross section of 10.1 +1.6-1.4(stat)+2.0-1.3 (syst) pb.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physics Review Letters, 7 page