COVID-19 as a turning point in the need for specialized units for the sense of smell

Coronavirus infections; Olfaction disorders; OtolaryngologistsInfecciones por coronavirus; Trastornos del olfato; OtorrinolaringólogosInfeccions per coronavirus; Trastorns olfactius; OtorinolaringologiaThe high prevalence of olfactory dysfunction (OD) by SARS-CoV-2 has revealed the lack of specialized units [1,2]. The main objective is to know the new olfactory units (OU) since the COVID-19 pandemic, and to evaluate the tests used for diagnosis, management and treatment of OD and providing up-to-date data on the current practice in Spain. Due to the increase in COVID-19 and other diseases related to OD, the creation of new OUs is necessary, considering that OD is a predictive symptom of these diseases that affects all ages [3]. To our knowledge this is the first study on OU and no studies were found in other countries. A prospective cross-sectional study, carried out by means of a survey that contains 17 items (supplementary file 1). The survey was developed by 6 experts and was distributed to all members of Spanish ENT and Allergy societies through the Google platform. We considered the "OU" to be a team (ENT or Allergist) with the infrastructure and staff to perform the assigned functions (validated test, well ventilated cabin with controlled humidity and temperature). Statistical analysis was performed with STATA using Shapiro Wilk test, chi-2 test and Spearman correlation analysis. Finally, 136 facilities were included (112/82.4% otolaryngologist and 24/17.6% allergists)

Spatial ecology of jaguars, pumas, and ocelots: a review of the state of knowledge

Knowledge of the spatial ecology of mammalian carnivores is critical for understanding species’ biology and designing effective conservation and management interventions. We reviewed the available information about the spatial ecology of jaguars Panthera onca, pumas Puma concolor, and ocelots Leopardus pardalis, and we examined how sex and extrinsic variables affect their spatial behaviour. Sixty-one articles addressing home range, home range overlap, daily net displacement (straight-line distance between two locations on consecutive days), and/or distance of dispersal of the three species were included. Meta-analysis, ANOVA, ANCOVA, and beta regression tests were run to analyse differences among species and sexes and to elucidate the influence of other variables, such as latitude and ecoregion, on spatial behaviour. Pumas had on average larger home ranges (mean ± SE: 281.87 ± 35.76 km) than jaguars (128.61 ± 49.5 km) and ocelots (12.46 ± 3.39 km). Intersexual range overlap was higher than intrasexual range overlap in jaguars and pumas. Sex affected the home range size of all three species, but only influenced daily net displacement in ocelots. Ecoregion affected the home range size of all three species but did not significantly affect either the daily net displacement or the dispersal distance of pumas. Latitude affected the home range size of jaguars and pumas. It did not affect daily net displacement or dispersal distance in jaguars and pumas, but did affect daily net displacement in ocelots. Although there was a lack of studies in most countries for the three species, information was particularly lacking in the Neotropics for jaguars and pumas and in North America for ocelots. Researchers usually presented low sample sizes and used different methods to examine the ecological issues considered here. Homogenisation of methods is needed to clarify the ecology of these species and to allow a better understanding of the threats to their populations.Peer Reviewe

X-ray Absorption and Reflection in Active Galactic Nuclei

X-ray spectroscopy offers an opportunity to study the complex mixture of emitting and absorbing components in the circumnuclear regions of active galactic nuclei, and to learn about the accretion process that fuels AGN and the feedback of material to their host galaxies. We describe the spectral signatures that may be studied and review the X-ray spectra and spectral variability of active galaxies, concentrating on progress from recent Chandra, XMM-Newton and Suzaku data for local type 1 AGN. We describe the evidence for absorption covering a wide range of column densities, ionization and dynamics, and discuss the growing evidence for partial-covering absorption from data at energies > 10 keV. Such absorption can also explain the observed X-ray spectral curvature and variability in AGN at lower energies and is likely an important factor in shaping the observed properties of this class of source. Consideration of self-consistent models for local AGN indicates that X-ray spectra likely comprise a combination of absorption and reflection effects from material originating within a few light days of the black hole as well as on larger scales. It is likely that AGN X-ray spectra may be strongly affected by the presence of disk-wind outflows that are expected in systems with high accretion rates, and we describe models that attempt to predict the effects of radiative transfer through such winds, and discuss the prospects for new data to test and address these ideas.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astronomy and Astrophysics Review. 58 pages, 9 figures. V2 has fixed an error in footnote

Forward-Backward Asymmetry in Top Quark Production in ppbar Collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

Reconstructable final state kinematics and charge assignment in the reaction ppbar->ttbar allows tests of discrete strong interaction symmetries at high energy. We define frame dependent forward-backward asymmetries for the outgoing top quark in both the ppbar and ttbar rest frames, correct for experimental distortions, and derive values at the parton-level. Using 1.9/fb of ppbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV recorded with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron, we measure forward-backward top quark production asymmetries in the ppbar and ttbar rest frames of A_{FB,pp} = 0.17 +- 0.08 and A_{FB,tt} = 0.24 +- 0.14.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.Lett, corrected references and change of tex

Studying the Underlying Event in Drell-Yan and High Transverse Momentum Jet Production at the Tevatron

We study the underlying event in proton-antiproton collisions by examining the behavior of charged particles (transverse momentum pT > 0.5 GeV/c, pseudorapidity |\eta| < 1) produced in association with large transverse momentum jets (~2.2 fb-1) or with Drell-Yan lepton-pairs (~2.7 fb-1) in the Z-boson mass region (70 < M(pair) < 110 GeV/c2) as measured by CDF at 1.96 TeV center-of-mass energy. We use the direction of the lepton-pair (in Drell-Yan production) or the leading jet (in high-pT jet production) in each event to define three regions of \eta-\phi space; toward, away, and transverse, where \phi is the azimuthal scattering angle. For Drell-Yan production (excluding the leptons) both the toward and transverse regions are very sensitive to the underlying event. In high-pT jet production the transverse region is very sensitive to the underlying event and is separated into a MAX and MIN transverse region, which helps separate the hard component (initial and final-state radiation) from the beam-beam remnant and multiple parton interaction components of the scattering. The data are corrected to the particle level to remove detector effects and are then compared with several QCD Monte-Carlo models. The goal of this analysis is to provide data that can be used to test and improve the QCD Monte-Carlo models of the underlying event that are used to simulate hadron-hadron collisions.Comment: Submitted to Phys.Rev.

Precision measurement of the top quark mass from dilepton events at CDF II

We report a measurement of the top quark mass, M_t, in the dilepton decay channel of $t\bar{t}\to b\ell'^{+}\nu_{\ell'}\bar{b}\ell^{-}\bar{\nu}_{\ell}$ using an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb^{-1} of p\bar{p} collisions collected with the CDF II detector. We apply a method that convolutes a leading-order matrix element with detector resolution functions to form event-by-event likelihoods; we have enhanced the leading-order description to describe the effects of initial-state radiation. The joint likelihood is the product of the likelihoods from 78 candidate events in this sample, which yields a measurement of M_{t} = 164.5 \pm 3.9(\textrm{stat.}) \pm 3.9(\textrm{syst.}) \mathrm{GeV}/c^2, the most precise measurement of M_t in the dilepton channel.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, version includes changes made prior to publication by journa

Measurement of the Ratios of Branching Fractions B(Bs -> Ds pi pi pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi pi pi) and B(Bs -> Ds pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi)

Using 355 pb^-1 of data collected by the CDF II detector in \ppbar collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron, we study the fully reconstructed hadronic decays B -> D pi and B -> D pi pi pi. We present the first measurement of the ratio of branching fractions B(Bs -> Ds pi pi pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi pi pi) = 1.05 pm 0.10 (stat) pm 0.22 (syst). We also update our measurement of B(Bs -> Ds pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi) to 1.13 pm 0.08 (stat) pm 0.23 (syst) improving the statistical uncertainty by more than a factor of two. We find B(Bs -> Ds pi) = [3.8 pm 0.3 (stat) pm 1.3 (syst)] \times 10^{-3} and B(Bs -> Ds pi pi pi) = [8.4 pm 0.8 (stat) pm 3.2 (syst)] \times 10^{-3}.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Cross Section Measurements of High-pTp_T Dilepton Final-State Processes Using a Global Fitting Method

We present a new method for studying high-$p_T$ dilepton events ($e^{\pm}e^{\mp}$, $\mu^{\pm}\mu^{\mp}$, $e^{\pm}\mu^{\mp}$) and simultaneously extracting the production cross sections of $p\bar{p} \to t\bar{t}$, $p\bar{p} \to W^+W^-$, and p\bar{p} \to \ztt at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 1.96$ TeV. We perform a likelihood fit to the dilepton data in a parameter space defined by the missing transverse energy and the number of jets in the event. Our results, which use $360 {\rm pb^{-1}}$ of data recorded with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, are $\sigma(t\bar{t}) = 8.5_{-2.2}^{+2.7}$ pb, $\sigma(W^+W^-) = 16.3^{+5.2}_{-4.4}$ pb, and \sigma(\ztt) =291^{+50}_{-46} pb.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, to be submitted to PRD-R

Measurement of the Lambda_b Lifetime in Lambda_b --> J/psi Lambda0 in p-pbar Collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV

We report a measurement of the Lambda_b lifetime in the exclusive decay Lambda_b --> J/psi Lambda0 in p-pbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV using an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb^{-1} of data collected by the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. Using fully reconstructed decays, we measure tau(Lambda_b) = 1.593 ^{+0.083}_{-0.078} (stat.) +- 0.033 (syst.) ps. This is the single most precise measurement of tau(Lambda_b) and is 3.2 sigma higher than the current world average.Comment: 7 Pages, 2 Figures, 1 Table. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Measurement of Lifetime and Decay-Width Difference in B0s -> J/psi phi Decays

We measure the mean lifetime, tau=2/(Gamma_L+Gamma_H), and the width difference, DeltaGamma=Gamma_L-Gamma_H, of the light and heavy mass eigenstates of the B0s meson, B0sL and B0sH, in B0s -> J/psi phi decays using 1.7 fb^-1 of data collected with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron ppbar collider. Assuming CP conservation, a good approximation for the B0s system in the Standard Model, we obtain DeltaGamma = 0.076^+0.059_-0.063 (stat.) +- 0.006 (syst.) ps^-1 and tau = 1.52 +- 0.04 (stat.) +- 0.02 (syst.) ps, the most precise measurements to date. Our constraints on the weak phase and DeltaGamma are consistent with CP conservation. Dedicated to the memory of our dear friend and colleague, Michael P. Schmid