Probing exotic phenomena at the interface of nuclear and particle physics with the electric dipole moments of diamagnetic atoms: A unique window to hadronic and semi-leptonic CP violation

The current status of electric dipole moments of diamagnetic atoms which involves the synergy between atomic experiments and three different theoretical areas -- particle, nuclear and atomic is reviewed. Various models of particle physics that predict CP violation, which is necessary for the existence of such electric dipole moments, are presented. These include the standard model of particle physics and various extensions of it. Effective hadron level combined charge conjugation (C) and parity (P) symmetry violating interactions are derived taking into consideration different ways in which a nucleon interacts with other nucleons as well as with electrons. Nuclear structure calculations of the CP-odd nuclear Schiff moment are discussed using the shell model and other theoretical approaches. Results of the calculations of atomic electric dipole moments due to the interaction of the nuclear Schiff moment with the electrons and the P and time-reversal (T) symmetry violating tensor-pseudotensor electron-nucleus are elucidated using different relativistic many-body theories. The principles of the measurement of the electric dipole moments of diamagnetic atoms are outlined. Upper limits for the nuclear Schiff moment and tensor-pseudotensor coupling constant are obtained combining the results of atomic experiments and relativistic many-body theories. The coefficients for the different sources of CP violation have been estimated at the elementary particle level for all the diamagnetic atoms of current experimental interest and their implications for physics beyond the standard model is discussed. Possible improvements of the current results of the measurements as well as quantum chromodynamics, nuclear and atomic calculations are suggested.Comment: 46 pages, 19 tables and 16 figures. A review article accepted for EPJ

The effect of autonomy, training opportunities, age and salaries on job satisfaction in the South East Asian retail petroleum industry

South East Asian petroleum retailers are under considerable pressure to improve service quality by reducing turnover. An empirical methodology from this industry determined the extent to which job characteristics, training opportunities, age and salary influenced the level of job satisfaction, an indicator of turnover. Responses are reported on a random sample of 165 site employees (a 68% response rate) of a Singaporean retail petroleum firm. A restricted multivariate regression model of autonomy and training opportunities explained the majority (35.4%) of the variability of job satisfaction. Age did not moderate these relationships, except for employees >21 years of age, who reported enhanced job satisfaction with additional salary. Human Capital theory, Life Cycle theory and Job Enrichment theory are invoked and explored in the context of these findings in the South East Asian retail petroleum industry. In the South East Asian retail petroleum industry, jobs providing employees with the opportunity to undertake a variety of tasks that enhanced the experienced meaningfulness of work are likely to promote job satisfaction, reduce turnover and increase the quality of service

No evidence that protein truncating variants in BRIP1 are associated with breast cancer risk: implications for gene panel testing.

BACKGROUND: BRCA1 interacting protein C-terminal helicase 1 (BRIP1) is one of the Fanconi Anaemia Complementation (FANC) group family of DNA repair proteins. Biallelic mutations in BRIP1 are responsible for FANC group J, and previous studies have also suggested that rare protein truncating variants in BRIP1 are associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. These studies have led to inclusion of BRIP1 on targeted sequencing panels for breast cancer risk prediction. METHODS: We evaluated a truncating variant, p.Arg798Ter (rs137852986), and 10 missense variants of BRIP1, in 48 144 cases and 43 607 controls of European origin, drawn from 41 studies participating in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC). Additionally, we sequenced the coding regions of BRIP1 in 13 213 cases and 5242 controls from the UK, 1313 cases and 1123 controls from three population-based studies as part of the Breast Cancer Family Registry, and 1853 familial cases and 2001 controls from Australia. RESULTS: The rare truncating allele of rs137852986 was observed in 23 cases and 18 controls in Europeans in BCAC (OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.58 to 2.03, p=0.79). Truncating variants were found in the sequencing studies in 34 cases (0.21%) and 19 controls (0.23%) (combined OR 0.90, 95% CI 0.48 to 1.70, p=0.75). CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that truncating variants in BRIP1, and in particular p.Arg798Ter, are not associated with a substantial increase in breast cancer risk. Such observations have important implications for the reporting of results from breast cancer screening panels.The COGS project is funded through a European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme grant (agreement number 223175 - HEALTH-F2-2009-223175). BCAC is funded by Cancer Research UK [C1287/A10118, C1287/A12014] and by the European Community´s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement number 223175 (grant number HEALTH-F2-2009-223175) (COGS). Funding for the iCOGS infrastructure came from: the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement n° 223175 (HEALTH-F2-2009-223175) (COGS), Cancer Research UK (C1287/A10118, C1287/A 10710, C12292/A11174, C1281/A12014, C5047/A8384, C5047/A15007, C5047/A10692, C8197/A16565), the National Institutes of Health (CA128978) and Post-Cancer GWAS initiative (1U19 CA148537, 1U19 16 CA148065 and 1U19 CA148112 - the GAME-ON initiative), the Department of Defense (W81XWH-10-1- 0341), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for the CIHR Team in Familial Risks of Breast Cancer, Komen Foundation for the Cure, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. This study made use of data generated by the Wellcome Trust Case Control consortium. Funding for the project was provided by the Wellcome Trust under award 076113. The results published here are in part based upon data generated by The Cancer Genome Atlas Project established by the National Cancer Institute and National Human Genome Research Institute.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from BMJ Group at http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jmedgenet-2015-103529

Evidence for differences in MT2 cell tropism according to genetic subtypes of HIV-1 : syncytium-inducing variants seem rare among subtype C HIV-1 viruses

Non-syncytium-inducing (NSI) variants seem to be more readily transmitted than syncytium-inducing (SI) variants, and the switch from NSI to SI during HIV-1 infection seems to be a key determinant to the evolution of AIDS. We investigated eventual differences in the SI capacity on MT-2 cells according to genetic subtypes of HIV-1 and correlated this observation with CD4 counts and duration of HIV infection. In total, 86 patients, most with known date of HIV contamination and infected with different genetic subtypes, have been studied : 11 subtype A, 46 subtype B, 22 subtype C, and 7 subtype E. Multivariate analysis used a Cox's proportional hazards regression. The number and percentage of patients infected with an SI strain were as follows : 3 of 11 (27%) for subtype A, 15 of 46 (33%) for subtype B, 0 of 22 (0%) for subtype C, and 5 of 7 (71%) for subtype E. After adjustment for time after seroconversion and CD4 counts, significantly fewer SI variants were observed in patients infected with subtype C (p is less than .002) and it was found that subjects infected with subtype E had a higher risk of being infected with an SI strain (rate ratio (RR) = 12.39% ; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.55-98.67 ; p is less than .001). Most of the subtype E-infected patients from our study switched from an NSI to SI phenotype early after serconversion (less than 4 years). To predict the in vitro presence of SI variants, we scanned V3-loop sequences for mutations at positions 11 and/or 25. Overall, 54 of 55 (98.2%) NSI strains in vitro were predicted NSI, and only 4 of 12 (33.3%) of SI viruses were predicted SI. For patients in whom a switch from an NSI to an SI virus was observed, the SI phenotype could be detected earlier in vitro than by the corresponding V3-loop sequence... (Résumé d'auteur

MiCODetect : vers le cahier des charges d’un Capteur Optique de Détection présymptomatique de Septoria tritici pour la lutte intégrée contre la septoriose du blé

Ce volume rassemble l'ensemble des travaux de recherche conduits dans le cadre des appels à projets soutenus par le plan Ecophyto, et présentés à l'occasion du colloque Ecophyto Recherche des 13 et 14 octobre 2015National audienceSeptoria tritici blotch (STB) caused by the fungus Zymoseptoria tritici is the most important disease in wheat, and the first contributor to fungicide use in France and Europe. Adjusting sprayings to the specific requirements of the crop can lead to significant reductions in fungicide use without compromising yield. It has been shown that presymptomatic quantification of the pathogen could be key to achieve this. We hypothesized that the production of fluorescent secondary metabolites by the infected wheat crop could be used as biomarkers of the transition to necrotrophy, to quantify the pathogen, via an adapted sensor. We set up a metabolomic and transcriptomic screening of the wheatseptoria interaction and identified different upregulated metabolic pathways. Specifically, three metabolites from the tryptophan pathway are produced during infection, and emit UV-UV fluorescence. In the field, these metabolites are predictive of ulterior symptom dynamics, and modify the UV-UV spectrum of wheat leaves. Additional experiments will be necessary to determine which emission wavelengths are the most predictive, and to assess how specific and robust this fluorescence is.La septoriose provoquée par le champignon phytopathogène Zymoseptoria tritici est la 1ère maladie contributrice aux traitements fongicides sur blé en France et en Europe. Le raisonnement de son traitement au plus proche des besoins réels peut apporter des économies significatives de produit sans perte de performance technique. Pour cela, la quantification du champignon pendant sa phase asymptomatique d’incubation a été identifiée comme un point clef. Nous faisons l’hypothèse que des métabolites secondaires fluorescents produits par la plante en réponse à l’infection, servant de biomarqueurs de la transition biotrophie-nécrotrophie pourraient être quantifiés par un capteur ad hoc. Nous avons mis en place un protocole d’analyse métabolomique et transcriptomique de l’interaction blé- septoriose, et identifié plusieurs voies métaboliques induites. En particulier, trois métabolites secondaires issus de la voie du tryptophane sont produits lors de l’infection, et émettent une fluorescence dans l'ultra-violet (UV-UV). Au champ, la production de ces métabolites s’avère effectivement prédictive du développement ultérieur des symptômes, et modifie le spectre UV-UV des feuilles de blé. Des expérimentations complémentaires sont à effectuer pour préciser les longueurs d’onde d’émission les plus prédictives et établir le degré de spécificité et de robustesse de ce signal fluorescent

Direct Imaging of Chiral Domain Walls and Neel Type Skyrmionium in Ferrimagnetic Alloys

The evolution of chiral spin structures is studied in ferrimagnetic Ta Ir Fe GdFeCo Pt multilayers as a function of temperature using scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis SEMPA . The GdFeCo ferrimagnet exhibits pure right handed N el type domain wall DW spin textures over a large temperature range. This indicates the presence of a negative Dzyaloshinskii Moriya interaction that can originate from both the top Fe Pt and the Co Pt interfaces. From measurements of the DW width, as well as complementary magnetic characterization, the exchange stiffness as a function of temperature is ascertained. The exchange stiffness is surprisingly more or less constant, which is explained by theoretical predictions. Beyond single skyrmions, it is identified by direct imaging a pure N el type skyrmionium, which due to the expected vanishing skyrmion Hall angle, is a promising topological spin structure to enable applications by next generation of spintronic device