Relationship between target organ damage and blood pressure, retinal vessel calibre, oxidative stress and polymorphisms in VAV-2 and VAV-3 genes in patients with hypertension: a case-control study protocol (LOD- Hipertensión)

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0) license.[Introduction]: Target organ damage (TOD) is associated with increased cardiovascular risk. The study objectives were to analyse the relationship of TOD to blood pressure, size of retinal arteries and veins, oxidative stress and different polymorphisms in the VAV-2 and VAV-3 genes in participants with hypertension. [Methods and analysis]: A case-control study to analyse the relationship between clinical, biochemical and genetic parameters and presence of cardiac, vascular and renal TOD in 486 patients with hypertension. Participants with TOD will be considered as cases, and those without TOD will be enrolled as controls. This will be a collaborative study conducted by the groups of Primary Care, Cardiovascular and Metabolic and Degenerative Diseases of the Instituto de Investigación Biomédica of Salamanca (IBSAL). Assessment of cardiac, renal and vascular TOD. Measurement of peripheral and central blood pressure, size of eye fundus arteries and veins, and oxidative stress, and polymorphisms in the VAV-2 and VAV-3 genes. [Ethics and dissemination]: The study will be conducted after approval is obtained from the Ethics Committee of Hospital Clínico Universitario of Salamanca. All study participants will sign an informed consent to agree to participate in the study, and another consent to agree on the genetic study, in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki and the WHO standards for observational studies. The results of this study will allow for an understanding of the relationship of the different TODs with blood pressure, retinal artery and vein diameters, oxidative stress and polymorphisms in VAV-2 and VAV-3 genes. [Trial registration number]: Clinical Trials. gov Identifier: NCT02022618.This project has been supported by the Castilla y León Health Service (BIO/SA05/13), Carlos III Institute of Health of the Spanish Ministry of Health (RETICS RD12/0005, RedIAPP, and RD12/0021, RedinRen), and Infosalud Foundation.Peer Reviewe

Induction of Engineered Residual Stresses Fields and Associate Surface Properties Modification by Short Pulse Laser Shock Processing

Laser shock processing (LSP) is consolidating as an effective technology for the improvement of metallic materials surface properties involving their fatigue life. The main acknowledged advantage of the LSP technique consists on its capability of inducing a relatively deep compression residual stresses field into metallic alloy pieces allowing an improved mechanical behaviour, explicitly the life improvement of the treated specimens against wear, crack growth and stress corrosion cracking. Progress accomplished by the authors in the line of practical development of the LSP technique at an experimental level, aiming its integral assessment from an interrelated theoretical and experimental point of view, is presented in this paper. Concretely, experimental results on the residual stress profiles and associated surface properties modification successfully reached in typical materials (especially Al and Ti alloys) under different LSP irradiation conditions are presented, a correlated analysis of the residual stress profiles obtained under different irradiation strategies and the evaluation of the corresponding induced surface properties as roughness and wear resistance being also presented. Through a coupled theoretical- experimental analysis the real possibilities of the LSP technique as a possible substitutive of related traditional surface modification techniques as, for example, shot peening

Do Clinical Trials Meet Current Care Needs? Views of Digestive Oncology Specialists in Galicia (Spain) Using the Delphi Method

Background: In recent years, abundant scientific evidence has been generated based on clinical trials (CT) in the field of oncology. The general objective of this paper is to find out the extent to which decision making is based on knowledge of the most recent CT. Its specific objectives are to pinpoint difficulties with decision making based on the CT performed and find out the motivations patients and clinicians have when taking part in a CT. Methodology: Combined, prospective study, based on the Delphi method. A lack of correspondence between the people who take part in CT and patients who come for consultation has been identified. A need for training in analysing and interpreting CT has also been identified and a lack of trust in the results of CT financed by the pharmaceutical industry itself has been perceived. Conclusions: There is a difficulty in selecting oncological treatment due to the lack of correspondence between the patients included in the CT and patients seen in consultation. In this process, real world data studies may be highly useful, as they may provide this group with greater training in interpreting CT and their results.S

The influence of semantic and phonological factors on syntactic decisions: An event-related brain potential study

During language production and comprehension, information about a word's syntactic properties is sometimes needed. While the decision about the grammatical gender of a word requires access to syntactic knowledge, it has also been hypothesized that semantic (i.e., biological gender) or phonological information (i.e., sound regularities) may influence this decision. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while native speakers of German processed written words that were or were not semantically and/or phonologically marked for gender. Behavioral and ERP results showed that participants were faster in making a gender decision when words were semantically and/or phonologically gender marked than when this was not the case, although the phonological effects were less clear. In conclusion, our data provide evidence that even though participants performed a grammatical gender decision, this task can be influenced by semantic and phonological factors

Search for neutral long-lived particles in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV that decay into displaced hadronic jets in the ATLAS calorimeter

A search for decays of pair-produced neutral long-lived particles (LLPs) is presented using 139 fb of proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2015–2018 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. Dedicated techniques were developed for the reconstruction of displaced jets produced by LLPs decaying hadronically in the ATLAS hadronic calorimeter. Two search regions are defined for different LLP kinematic regimes. The observed numbers of events are consistent with the expected background, and limits for several benchmark signals are determined. For a SM Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV, branching ratios above 10% are excluded at 95% confidence level for values of c times LLP mean proper lifetime in the range between 20 mm and 10 m depending on the model. Upper limits are also set on the cross-section times branching ratio for scalars with a mass of 60 GeV and for masses between 200 GeV and 1 TeV. [Figure not available: see fulltext.

Search for light long-lived neutral particles that decay to collimated pairs of leptons or light hadrons in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for light long-lived neutral particles with masses in the O(MeV–GeV) range is presented. The analysis targets the production of long-lived dark photons in the decay of a Higgs boson produced via gluon–gluon fusion or in association with a W boson. Events that contain displaced collimated Standard Model fermions reconstructed in the calorimeter or muon spectrometer are selected in 139 fb of s = 13 TeV pp collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Background estimates for contributions from Standard Model processes and instrumental effects are extracted from data. The observed event yields are consistent with the expected background. Exclusion limits are reported on the production cross-section times branching fraction as a function of the mean proper decay length cτ of the dark photon, or as a function of the dark-photon mass and kinetic mixing parameter that quantifies the coupling between the Standard Model and potential hidden (dark) sectors. A Higgs boson branching fraction above 1% is excluded at 95% CL for a Higgs boson decaying into two dark photons for dark-photon mean proper decay lengths between 10 mm and 250 mm and dark photons with masses between 0.4 GeV and 2 GeV. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Test of CP Invariance in Higgs Boson Vector-Boson-Fusion Production Using the H→γγ Channel with the ATLAS Detector

A test of CP invariance in Higgs boson production via vector-boson fusion has been performed in the H→γγ channel using 139  fb^{-1} of proton-proton collision data at sqrt[s]=13  TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The optimal observable method is used to probe the CP structure of interactions between the Higgs boson and electroweak gauge bosons, as described by an effective field theory. No sign of CP violation is observed in the data. Constraints are set on the parameters describing the strength of the CP-odd component in the coupling between the Higgs boson and the electroweak gauge bosons in two effective field theory bases: d[over ˜] in the HISZ basis and c_{HW[over ˜]} in the Warsaw basis. The results presented are the most stringent constraints on CP violation in the coupling between Higgs and weak bosons. The 95% C.L. constraint on d[over ˜] is derived for the first time and the 95% C.L. constraint on c_{HW[over ˜]} has been improved by a factor of 5 compared to the previous measurement

Observation of the γγ→ττ Process in Pb+Pb Collisions and Constraints on the τ-Lepton Anomalous Magnetic Moment with the ATLAS Detector

This Letter reports the observation of τ-lepton-pair production in ultraperipheral lead-lead collisions Pb+Pb→Pb(γγ→ττ)Pb and constraints on the τ-lepton anomalous magnetic moment a_{τ}. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.44  nb^{-1} of LHC Pb+Pb collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02  TeV recorded by the ATLAS experiment in 2018. Selected events contain one muon from a τ-lepton decay, an electron or charged-particle track(s) from the other τ-lepton decay, little additional central-detector activity, and no forward neutrons. The γγ→ττ process is observed in Pb+Pb collisions with a significance exceeding 5 standard deviations and a signal strength of μ_{ττ}=1.03_{-0.05}^{+0.06} assuming the standard model value for a_{τ}. To measure a_{τ}, a template fit to the muon transverse-momentum distribution from τ-lepton candidates is performed, using a dimuon (γγ→μμ) control sample to constrain systematic uncertainties. The observed 95% confidence-level interval for a_{τ} is -0.057<a_{τ}<0.024

Observation of Single-Top-Quark Production in Association with a Photon Using the ATLAS Detector

This Letter reports the observation of single top quarks produced together with a photon, which directly probes the electroweak coupling of the top quark. The analysis uses 139  fb^{-1} of 13 TeV proton-proton collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Requiring a photon with transverse momentum larger than 20 GeV and within the detector acceptance, the fiducial cross section is measured to be 688±23(stat) _{-71}^{+75}(syst)  fb, to be compared with the standard model prediction of 515_{-42}^{+36}  fb at next-to-leading order in QCD

Search for flavour-changing neutral tqH interactions with H -> gamma gamma in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV using the ATLAS detector

A search for flavour-changing neutral interactions involving the top quark, the Higgs boson and an up-type quark q ( q = c, u) is presented. The proton-proton collision data set used, with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1), was collected at root s = 13TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Both the decay process t -> qH in tt production and the production process pp. tH, with the Higgs boson decaying into two photons, are investigated. No significant excess is observed and upper limits are set on the t. cH and the t. uH branching ratios of 4.3x10(-4) and 3.8x10(-4), respectively, at the 95% confidence level, while the expected limits in the absence of signal are 4.7x10(-4) and 3.9x10(-4). Combining this search with ATLAS searches in the H. t+ t- and H. b b final states yields observed (expected) upper limits on the t -> cH branching ratio of 5.8 x 10(-4) (3.0 x 10(-4)) at the 95% confidence level. The corresponding observed (expected) upper limit on the t -> uH branching ratio is 4.0 x 10(-4) (2.4 x 10(-4))