Beam Dynamics Studies and Design Optimisation of New Low Energy Antiproton Facilities

Antiprotons, stored and cooled at low energies in a storage ring or at rest in traps, are highly desirable for the investigation of a large number of basic questions on fundamental interactions. This includes the static structure of antiprotonic atomic systems and the time-dependent quantum dynamics of correlated systems. The Antiproton Decelerator (AD) at CERN is currently the worlds only low energy antiproton factory dedicated to antimatter experiments. New antiproton facilities, such as the Extra Low ENergy Antiproton ring (ELENA) at CERN and the Ultra-low energy Storage Ring (USR) at FLAIR, will open unique possibilities. They will provide cooled, high quality beams of extra-low energy antiprotons at intensities exceeding those achieved presently at the AD by factors of ten to one hundred. These facilities, operating in the energy regime between 100 keV down to 20 keV, face several design and beam dynamics challenges, for example nonlinearities, space charge and scattering effects limiting beam life time. Detailed investigations into the low energy and long term beam dynamics have been carried out to address many of those challenges towards the design optimisation. Results from these studies are presented in this contribution, showing some examples for ELENA.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 12th International Conference on Low Energy Antiproton Physics, LEAP 2016. Submitted to JPS Conference Proceeding

The “New” Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program: Enhancing Economic Self-Sufficiency of Beneficiaries through Work Opportunities and Public/Private Partnership

Discusses the history of the Social Security Administration’s Vocational Rehabilitation and describes the intents and functioning of the Ticket to Work and work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999. This publication is based on federal Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) laws, regulations and policy. Following Sections I and II pertaining to historical context and evolution of SSA and the Ticket, information presented regarding the operations and structure of the Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program is based exclusively on the new 2008 regulations

Supporting Career Development and Employment: A Skill Development Practicum

This practicum workbook was designed to aid benefits planners and advocates in supporting the employment decision making process for individuals with disabilities. The first portion of the workbook discusses approaches for understanding interests, preferences, abilities and support needs; impact of choices on financial well-being and independence; supporting the service provider selection process; developing comprehensive work plans; and, quality assurance strategies to evaluate services and supports provided. The workbook concludes with a case application

Developmental Continuity and Change in Responses to Social and Nonsocial Categories in Human Extrastriate Visual Cortex

It is well known that adult human extrastriate visual cortex contains areas that respond in a selective fashion to specific categories of visual stimuli. Three regions have been identified with particular regularity: the fusiform face area (FFA), which responds to faces more than to other objects; the parahippocampal place area (PPA), which responds selectively to images of houses, places, and visual scenes; and the extrastriate body area (EBA), which responds specifically to images of bodies and body parts. While the presence of these regions in the mature human brain is well-established, the degree to which children possess these areas and the degree of functional specialization of these areas in children of various ages has thus far remained unclear. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined the development of the FFA, EBA, and PPA in healthy, typically developing 7- to 11-year-old children and adults. Our results revealed a right FFA and a bilateral EBA and PPA in the children that were localized in a way consistent with these same regions in adults. In addition, the response profiles of these regions were very similar in adults and children with comparable levels of functional specificity at all of the ages tested. We discuss the implications of this research for understanding abnormal regional specialization for social and nonsocial object categories in individuals with autism spectrum disorders

Damage-induced phosphorylation of Sld3 is important to block late origin firing.

Origins of replication are activated throughout the S phase of the cell cycle such that some origins fire early and others fire late to ensure that each chromosome is completely replicated in a timely fashion. However, in response to DNA damage or replication fork stalling, eukaryotic cells block activation of unfired origins. Human cells derived from patients with ataxia telangiectasia are deficient in this process due to the lack of a functional ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) kinase and elicit radioresistant DNA synthesis after γ-irradiation(2). This effect is conserved in budding yeast, as yeast cells lacking the related kinase Mec1 (ATM and Rad3-related (ATR in humans)) also fail to inhibit DNA synthesis in the presence of DNA damage. This intra-S-phase checkpoint actively regulates DNA synthesis by inhibiting the firing of late replicating origins, and this inhibition requires both Mec1 and the downstream checkpoint kinase Rad53 (Chk2 in humans). However, the Rad53 substrate(s) whose phosphorylation is required to mediate this function has remained unknown. Here we show that the replication initiation protein Sld3 is phosphorylated by Rad53, and that this phosphorylation, along with phosphorylation of the Cdc7 kinase regulatory subunit Dbf4, blocks late origin firing in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Upon exposure to DNA-damaging agents, cells expressing non-phosphorylatable alleles of SLD3 and DBF4 (SLD3-m25 and dbf4-m25, respectively) proceed through the S phase faster than wild-type cells by inappropriately firing late origins of replication. SLD3-m25 dbf4-m25 cells grow poorly in the presence of the replication inhibitor hydroxyurea and accumulate multiple Rad52 foci. Moreover, SLD3-m25 dbf4-m25 cells are delayed in recovering from transient blocks to replication and subsequently arrest at the DNA damage checkpoint. These data indicate that the intra-S-phase checkpoint functions to block late origin firing in adverse conditions to prevent genomic instability and maximize cell survival

Alpha-1 Antitrypsin is Markedly Decreased Following Pulmonary F. tularensis Challenge

Neutrophils form the first line of defense during infection and are indispensable in this function. The neutrophil elastase is a key effector molecule of the innate immune system with potent antimicrobial activity against Gram-negative bacteria, spirochaetes, and fungi. However, the release of neutrophil elastase during bacterial infection must be checked otherwise its release in the extracellular milieu will result in damage to surrounding tissues. Alpha-1 antitrypsin is a small glycoprotein clade A serpine serine protease inhibitor and has been shown to increase in humans following bacterial and viral infection. Francisella tularensis is a Gram-negative facultative intracellular bacterium and the causative agent of tularemia. Type A strains are the most virulent with an infectious dose as low as 10 colony forming units and a mortality rate of 30–60% among untreated cases of pneumonic tularemia. We report here significant reduction of this major inhibitor of the neutrophil elastase in plasma of F. tularensis LVS and F. tularensis (type A) SCHU S4 infected animals following pulmonary challenge. Associated with an imbalance of protease–antiprotease function at the alveolar level in lungs of infected animals, increased elastase activity was observed in lung lavage fluids accompanied by decrease lung function, i.e., loss of lung elastance with concomitant increase of pulmonary hysteresivity. Consistent with a competent acute phase response following F. tularensis LVS and F. tularensis (type A) SCHU S4 pulmonary challenge and proposed up-regulation of plasma haptoglobin during the course of the acute phase reaction, haptoglobin was observed significantly increased. These data suggest that unchecked neutrophil serine protease activity may arise from F. tularensis targeted reduction of plasma α(1)-antitrysin promoting lung tissue damage facilitating increased dissemination of this bacterium in infected animals

A low-mass planet candidate orbiting Proxima Centauri at a distance of 1.5 AU

Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).Our nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, hosts a temperate terrestrial planet. We detected in radial velocities evidence of a possible second planet with minimum mass m c sin i c = 5.8 ± 1.9 M ⊕ and orbital period P c = 5.21 - 0.22 + 0.26 years. The analysis of photometric data and spectro-scopic activity diagnostics does not explain the signal in terms of a stellar activity cycle, but follow-up is required in the coming years for confirming its planetary origin. We show that the existence of the planet can be ascertained, and its true mass can be determined with high accuracy, by combining Gaia astrometry and radial velocities. Proxima c could become a prime target for follow-up and characterization with next-generation direct imaging instrumentation due to the large maximum angular separation of ~1 arc second from the parent star. The candidate planet represents a challenge for the models of super-Earth formation and evolution.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Social Studies Students’ Motivation in Online Learning during COVID-19 Pandemic

This study described the experiences of social studies students as well as how they managed to stay inclined to learn given the struggles, they faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, it looked at how social studies students have faced challenges but are still actively pursuing their own dreams during the pandemic. This research employed a qualitative-narrative approach, involving five (5) social studies students. As data collection techniques, students were asked to write narratively using Gibbs reflective cycle. The findings revealed that students' motivation to continue learning during the COVID-19 pandemic was divided into three main themes, each with its own set of categories and subcategories. The three themes and categories described were: (a) personal, with categories of challenges, self-determination, satisfaction and religious commitment; (b) social, with categories of relationships, inspiration, and well-being; and (c) environmental, with categories of breaking in/conditioning and amenities. The themes and categories showed that these social studies students got their inspiration to learn during the pandemic. According to the findings, these students were intrinsically and extrinsically motivated and dedicated to their studies. The majority of these students were spurred by their individual goals, not by a controlled motive, an incentive, a consequence, or a regulation. This study proposes that students be prepared to be more resilient and to build the ability to be hopeful and motivated to succeed and transcend any of life's hardships by defining how they achieved to motivate themselves

Quantitative Criticism of Literary Relationships

Authors often convey meaning by referring to or imitating prior works of literature, a process that creates complex networks of literary relationships (“intertextuality”) and contributes to cultural evolution. In this paper, we use techniques from stylometry and machine learning to address subjective literary critical questions about Latin literature, a corpus marked by an extraordinary concentration of intertextuality. Our work, which we term “quantitative criticism,” focuses on case studies involving two influential Roman authors, the playwright Seneca and the historian Livy. We find that four plays related to but distinct from Seneca’s main writings are differentiated from the rest of the corpus by subtle but important stylistic features. We offer literary interpretations of the significance of these anomalies, providing quantitative data in support of hypotheses about the use of unusual formal features and the interplay between sound and meaning. The second part of the paper describes a machine-learning approach to the identification and analysis of citational material that Livy loosely appropriated from earlier sources. We extend our approach to map the stylistic topography of Latin prose, identifying the writings of Caesar and his near-contemporary Livy as an inflection point in the development of Latin prose style. In total, our results reflect the integration of computational and humanistic methods to investigate a diverse range of literary questions