Ovarian and cervical cancer awareness: development of two validated measurement tools.

The aim of the study was to develop and validate measures of awareness of symptoms and risk factors for ovarian and cervical cancer (Ovarian and Cervical Cancer Awareness Measures)

Accuracy of the LEP Spectrometer Beam Orbit Monitors

At the LEP e+/e- collider, a spectrometer is used to determine the beam energy with a target accuracy of 10-4. The spectrometer measures the lattice dipole bending angle of the beam using six beam position monitors (BPMs). The required calibration error imposes a BPM accuracy of a 10-6 m corresponding to a relative electrical signal variation of 2. 10-5. The operating parameters have been compared with beam simulator results and non-linearBPM response simulations. The relative beam current variations between 0.02 and 0.03 and position changes of 0.1 mm during the fills of last year lead to uncertainties in the orbit measurements of well below 10-6 m. For accuracy tests absolute beam currents were varied by a factor of three. The environment magnetical field is introduced to correct orbit readings. The BPM linearity and calibration was checked using moveable supports and wire position sensors. The BPM triplet quantity is used to determine the orbit position monitors accuracy. The BPM triplet changed during the fills between 1 and 2 10-6 m RMS, which indicates a single BPM orbit determination accuracy between 1 and 1.5 10-6 m

Performance of BPM Electronics for the LEP Spectrometer

At the LEP e+/e- collider at CERN, Geneva, a Spectrometer is used to determine the beam energy with a relative accuracy of 10-4. The Spectrometer measures the change in bending angle in a well-characterised dipole magnet as LEP is ramped. The beam trajectory is obtained using three beam position monitors (BPMs) on each side of the magnet. The error on each BPM measurement should not exceed 1 micron if the desired accuracy on the bending angle is to be reached. The BPMs used consist of an aluminium block with an elliptical aperture and four capacitive button pickup electrodes. The button signals are fed to customised electronics supplied by Bergoz. The electronics use time multiplexing of individual button signals through a single processing chain to optimise for long-term stability. We report on our experience of the performance of these electronics, describing measurements made with test signals and with beam. We have implemented a beam-based calibration procedure and have monitored the reproducibility of the measurements obtained over time. Measurements show that a relative accuracy better than 300 nm is achievable over a period of 1 hr

Spectroscopy of High-Redshift Supernovae from the ESSENCE Project: The First Four Years

We present the results of spectroscopic observations from the ESSENCE high-redshift supernova (SN) survey during its first four years of operation. This sample includes spectra of all SNe Ia whose light curves were presented by Miknaitis et al. (2007) and used in the cosmological analyses of Davis et al. (2007) and Wood-Vasey et al. (2007). The sample represents 273 hours of spectroscopic observations with 6.5 - 10-m-class telescopes of objects detected and selected for spectroscopy by the ESSENCE team. We present 174 spectra of 156 objects. Combining this sample with that of Matheson et al. (2005), we have a total sample of 329 spectra of 274 objects. From this, we are able to spectroscopically classify 118 Type Ia SNe. As the survey has matured, the efficiency of classifying SNe Ia has remained constant while we have observed both higher-redshift SNe Ia and SNe Ia farther from maximum brightness. Examining the subsample of SNe Ia with host-galaxy redshifts shows that redshifts derived from only the SN Ia spectra are consistent with redshifts found from host-galaxy spectra. Moreover, the phases derived from only the SN Ia spectra are consistent with those derived from light-curve fits. By comparing our spectra to local templates, we find that the rate of objects similar to the overluminous SN 1991T and the underluminous SN 1991bg in our sample are consistent with that of the local sample. We do note, however, that we detect no object spectroscopically or photometrically similar to SN 1991bg. Although systematic effects could reduce the high-redshift rate we expect based on the low-redshift surveys, it is possible that SN 1991bg-like SNe Ia are less prevalent at high redshift.Comment: 21 pages, 17 figures, accepted to A

Photometry and spectroscopy of faint candidate spectrophotometric standard DA white dwarfs

We present precise photometry and spectroscopy for 23 candidate spectrophotometric standard white dwarfs. The selected stars are distributed in the Northern hemisphere and around the celestial equators and are all fainter than r ~ 16.5 mag. This network of stars, when established as standards, together with the three Hubble Space Telescope primary CALSPEC white dwarfs, will provide a set of spectrophotometric standards to directly calibrate data products to better than 1%. These new faint standard white dwarfs will have enough signal-to-noise ratio in future deep photometric surveys and facilities to be measured accurately while still avoiding saturation in such surveys. They will also fall within the dynamic range of large telescopes and their instruments for the foreseeable future. This paper discusses the provenance of the observational data for our candidate standard stars. The comparison with models, reconciliation with reddening, and the consequent derivation of the full spectral energy density distributions for each of them is reserved for a subsequent paper.Comment: 31 pages, 17 figures, 10 tables, ApJ in press (accepted on December 23rd, 2018

Calibration of centre-of-mass energies at LEP 2 for a precise measurement of the W boson mass

The determination of the centre-of-mass energies for all LEP 2 running is presented. Accurate knowledge of these energies is of primary importance to set the absolute energy scale for the measurement of the W boson mass. The beam energy between 80 and 104 GeV is derived from continuous measurements of the magnetic bending field by 16 NMR probes situated in a number of the LEP dipoles. The relationship between the fields measured by the probes and the beam energy is defined in the NMR model, which is calibrated against precise measurements of the average beam energy between 41 and 61 GeV made using the resonant depolarisation technique. The validity of the NMR model is verified by three independent methods: the flux-loop, which is sensitive to the bending field of all the dipoles of LEP; the spectrometer, which determines the energy through measurements of the deflection of the beam in a magnet of known integrated field; and an analysis of the variation of the synchrotron tune with the total RF voltage. To obtain the centre-of-mass energies, corrections are then applied to account for sources of bending field external to the dipoles, and variations in the local beam energy at each interaction point. The relative error on the centre-of-mass energy determination for the majority of LEP 2 running is 1.2 x 10^{-4}, which is sufficiently precise so as not to introduce a dominant uncertainty on the W mass measurement.Comment: 79 pages, 45 figures, submitted to EPJ

Exploring the Structure of Distant Galaxies with Adaptive Optics on the Keck-II Telescope

We report on the first observation of cosmologically distant field galaxies with an high order Adaptive Optics (AO) system on an 8-10 meter class telescope. Two galaxies were observed at 1.6 microns at an angular resolution as high as 50 milliarcsec using the AO system on the Keck-II telescope. Radial profiles of both objects are consistent with those of local spiral galaxies and are decomposed into a classic exponential disk and a central bulge. A star-forming cluster or companion galaxy as well as a compact core are detected in one of the galaxies at a redshift of 0.37+/-0.05. We discuss possible explanations for the core including a small bulge, a nuclear starburst, or an active nucleus. The same galaxy shows a peak disk surface brightness that is brighter than local disks of comparable size. These observations demonstrate the power of AO to reveal details of the morphology of distant faint galaxies and to explore galaxy evolution.Comment: 5 pages, Latex, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in P.A.S.

Neighbourhood labour structure, lockdown policies, and the uneven spread of COVID‐19: within‐city evidence from England

We estimate the importance of local labour structure in the spread of COVID-19 during the first year of the pandemic. We build a unique dataset across 6791 English neighbourhoods that distinguishes between people living (residents) and people working (workers) in a neighbourhood, and differentiate between jobs that can be done from home (homeworkers), jobs that likely continued on-site (keyworkers), and non-essential on-site jobs. We find that a 10 percentage points increase in keyworker jobs among residents is associated with 3.15 more cases per 1000 (4.8% relative to the mean), while a 10 percentage points increase in homeworker jobs among residents is associated with a decrease of 7.74 cases per 1000 (11.8% relative to the mean). Results for the composition of workers show the same sign, but smaller magnitudes. A dynamic analysis of the monthly incidence of reported cases shows that these relationships are particularly strong during lockdown periods. These results are heterogeneous across neighbourhoods, with larger positive effect of keyworkers, and lower protective effect of homeworkers, in higher deprivation areas. We explore the role of occupation skill intensity in driving these neighbourhood differences. These findings highlight important asymmetries in the distributional impact of the policy response to COVID-19