Laser spectroscopy of hyperfine structure in highly-charged ions: a test of QED at high fields

An overview is presented of laser spectroscopy experiments with cold, trapped, highly-charged ions, which will be performed at the HITRAP facility at GSI in Darmstadt (Germany). These high-resolution measurements of ground state hyperfine splittings will be three orders of magnitude more precise than previous measurements. Moreover, from a comparison of measurements of the hyperfine splittings in hydrogen- and lithium-like ions of the same isotope, QED effects at high electromagnetic fields can be determined within a few percent. Several candidate ions suited for these laser spectroscopy studies are presented.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, 1 table. accepted for Canadian Journal of Physics (2006

GLBTIQQ Symposium Meeting Minutes 11/16/2007

This post contains the GLBTIQQ Symposium Meeting Minutes 11/16/2007; Pankaj L Ahire; Proposals 1. From someone in Library in Bridgewater – Deliver us: How censors target GLBT materials. 2. Woman Spirit Rising. 3. PFlag – Bonettis are chair for South county chapter. Coming out to your family. Coming Monday meeting. 4. Ron – prolific in writing about bi issues and bears. 60th Anniversary of Kinsey Report. Looking at Kinsey. 5. Sabrina at Bridgewater… Sociology Professor… Dynamics of discrimination. 6. Jodie Glass – Lifelines (Transgender groups). Group called “Women of a certain age”; Possibility of getting someone from athletics department to talk about GLBTIQQ people in athletics. Different people from different department. International perspective – Perspective of different ethnicities. Invite people from tribal nation. Invite people from different universities. Couple of interesting topics on which possibility of student panel. Subject to availability of funds: Stonewall plays. Kick off on Wednesday night – some good program.; Install and uninstall it – Thursday and Sunday respectively. Bob weisboard willing to serve on the panel. Showing the film – Cabaret, Bent. RI Holocaust education center… Meeting on the 28th? Youth pride directory.; The exhibit is a wonderful opportunity to spread the word around. Exhibit could be a marker to the start of symposium programs. Opening of the center Ordered movies – cabaret, bent and Paragraph 175

Undisturbed Posidonia oceanica meadows maintain the epiphytic bacterial community in different environments

Seagrasses harbour different and rich epiphytic bacterial communities. These microbes may establish intimate and symbiotic relationships with the seagrass plants and change according to host species, environmental conditions, and/or ecophysiological status of their seagrass host. Although Posidonia oceanica is one of the most studied seagrasses in the world, and bacteria associated with seagrasses have been studied for over a decade, P. oceanica’s microbiome remains hitherto little explored. Here, we applied 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing to explore the microbiome associated with the leaves of P. oceanica growing in two geomorphologically different meadows (e.g. depth, substrate, and turbidity) within the Limassol Bay (Cyprus). The morphometric (leaf area, meadow density) and biochemical (pigments, total phenols) descriptors highlighted the healthy conditions of both meadows. The leaf-associated bacterial communities showed similar structure and composition in the two sites; core microbiota members were dominated by bacteria belonging to the Thalassospiraceae, Microtrichaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Saprospiraceae, and Hyphomonadaceae families. This analogy, even under different geomorphological conditions, suggest that in the absence of disturbances, P. oceanica maintains characteristic-associated bacterial communities. This study provides a baseline for the knowledge of the P. oceanica microbiome and further supports its use as a putative seagrass descriptor

The seagrass holobiont: What we know and what we still need to disclose for its possible use as an ecological indicator

Microbes and seagrass establish symbiotic relationships constituting a functional unit called the holobiont that reacts as a whole to environmental changes. Recent studies have shown that the seagrass microbial associated community varies according to host species, environmental conditions and the host’s health status, suggesting that the microbial communities respond rapidly to environmental disturbances and changes. These changes, dynamics of which are still far from being clear, could represent a sensitive monitoring tool and ecological indicator to detect early stages of seagrass stress. In this review, the state of art on seagrass holobiont is discussed in this perspective, with the aim of disentangling the influence of different factors in shaping it. As an example, we expand on the widely studied Halophila stipulacea’s associated microbial community, highlighting the changing and the constant components of the associated microbes, in different environmental conditions. These studies represent a pivotal contribution to understanding the holobiont’s dynamics and variability pattern, and to the potential development of ecological/ecotoxicological indices. The influences of the host’s physiological and environmental status in changing the seagrass holobiont, alongside the bioinformatic tools for data analysis, are key topics that need to be deepened, in order to use the seagrass-microbial interactions as a source of ecological information

Comparison of Destructive Wind Forces of Hurricane Irma and Other Hurricanes Impacting NASA Kennedy Space Center, 2004-2017

Hurricane Irma produced sustained hurricane force winds (lowest altitude occurrence at 54-ft) resulting in facility damage at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on September 10-11, 2017. Irma's large destructive wind footprint also caused significant wind damage across the adjacent communities within Brevard County. Wind damage was augmented by frequent gusts of higher magnitude, along with several embedded tornadoes. Hurricanes have previously impacted and produced significant wind damage to infrastructure at KSC as a result of kinetic energy dissipated, in part, through contact with man-made structures. This paper is intended to provide information specific to the destructive force of Hurricane Irma's sustained winds and previous hurricanes of 2004, 2005 and 2016 as calculated from sustained 10 meters per second wind speeds measured from wind towers at KSC for the onset and cessation of destructive forces. Other factors such as pre-existing condition of impacted infrastructure, upstream structures causing turbulent wind patterns, and associated severe convective weather, are contributing factors but are not analyzed here

Pure rotational spectra of TiO and TiO_2 in VY Canis Majoris

We report the first detection of pure rotational transitions of TiO and TiO_2 at (sub-)millimeter wavelengths towards the red supergiant VY CMa. A rotational temperature, T_rot, of about 250 K was derived for TiO_2. Although T_rot was not well constrained for TiO, it is likely somewhat higher than that of TiO_2. The detection of the Ti oxides confirms that they are formed in the circumstellar envelopes of cool oxygen-rich stars and may be the "seeds" of inorganic-dust formation, but alternative explanations for our observation of TiO and TiO_2 in the cooler regions of the envelope cannot be ruled out at this time. The observations suggest that a significant fraction of the oxides is not converted to dust, but instead remains in the gas phase throughout the outflow.Comment: to appear in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Population trends in emergency cancer diagnoses: The role of changing patient case-mix.

BACKGROUND: Diagnosis of cancer through an emergency presentation is associated with worse clinical and patient experience outcomes. The proportion of patients with cancer who are diagnosed through emergency presentations has consequently been introduced as a routine cancer surveillance measure in England. Welcome reductions in this metric have been reported over more than a decade but whether reductions reflect true changes in how patients are diagnosed rather than the changing case-mix of incident cohorts in unknown. METHODS: We analysed 'Routes to Diagnosis' data on cancer patients (2006-2015) and used logistic regression modelling to determine the contribution of changes in four case-mix variables (sex, age, deprivation, cancer site) to time-trends in emergency presentations. RESULTS: Between 2006 and 2015 there was an absolute 4.7 percentage point reduction in emergency presentations (23.8%-19.2%). Changing distributions of the four case-mix variables explained 19.0% of this reduction, leaving 81.0% unexplained. Changes in cancer site case-mix alone explained 16.0% of the total reduction. CONCLUSION: Changes in case-mix (particularly that of cancer sites) account for about a fifth of the overall reduction in emergency presentations. This would support the use of adjustment/standardisation of reported statistics to support their interpretation and help appreciate the influence of case-mix, particularly regarding cancer sites with changing incidence. However, most of the reduction in emergency presentations remains unaccounted for, and likely reflects genuine changes during the study period in how patients were being diagnosed

Cancer diagnoses after emergency GP referral or A&E attendance in England: determinants and time trends in Routes to Diagnosis data, 2006-2015

This is the final version. Available on open access from the Royal College of General Practitioners via the DOI in this recordBACKGROUND: Diagnosis of cancer as an emergency is associated with poor outcomes but has a complex aetiology. Examining determinants and time trends in diagnostic routes can help to appreciate the critical role of general practice over time in diagnostic pathways for patients with cancer. AIM: To examine sociodemographic, cancer site, and temporal associations with type of presentation among patients with cancer diagnosed as emergencies. DESIGN AND SETTING: Analysis of Routes to Diagnosis data, 2006-2015, for patients with cancer in England. METHOD: The authors estimated adjusted proportions of emergency presentation after emergency GP referral (GP-EP) or presentation to accident and emergency (AE-EP), by patient sex, age, deprivation group, and year of diagnosis using multivariable regression. RESULTS: Among 554 621 patients presenting as emergencies, 24% (n = 130 372) presented as GP-EP, 62% as AE-EP (n = 346 192), and 14% (n = 78 057) through Other-EP sub-routes. Patients presenting as emergencies were more likely to have been GP-referred if they lived in less deprived areas or were subsequently diagnosed with pancreatic, gallbladder, or ovarian cancer, or acute leukaemia. During the study period the proportion and number of GP-EPs nearly halved (31%, n = 17 364, in 2006; 17%, n = 9155 in 2015), while that of AE-EP increased (55%, n = 31 049 to 68%, n = 36 868). CONCLUSION: Patients presenting as emergencies with cancers characterised by symptoms/signs tolerable by patients but appropriately alarming to doctors (for example, pancreatic cancer manifesting as painless jaundice) are over-represented among cases whose emergency presentation involved GP referral. Reductions in diagnoses of cancer through an emergency presentation likely reflect both the continually increasing use of 2-week-wait GP referrals during the study period and reductions in emergency GP referrals.Cancer Research U

Are inequalities in cancer diagnosis through emergency presentation narrowing, widening or remaining unchanged? Longitudinal analysis of English population-based data 2006-2013

This is the final version. Available on open access from BMJ Publishing Group via the DOI in this recordThis project involves data derived from patient-level information collected by the NHS, as part of the care and support of patients with cancer. The data are collated, maintained and quality assured by the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service, which is part of Public Health England (PHE). Access to the data was facilitated by the PHE Office for Data Release (release ODR_2014_252).Background Diagnosis of cancer through emergency presentation is associated with poorer prognosis. While reductions in emergency presentations have been described, whether known sociodemographic inequalities are changing is uncertain. Methods We analysed 'Routes to Diagnosis' data on patients aged ≥25 years diagnosed in England during 2006-2013 with any of 33 common or rarer cancers. Using binary logistic regression we determined time-Trends in diagnosis through emergency presentation by age, deprivation and cancer site. Results Overall adjusted proportions of emergency presentations decreased during the study period (2006: 23%, 2013: 20%). Substantial baseline (2006) inequalities in emergency presentation risk by age and deprivation remained largely unchanged. There was evidence (p<0.05) of reductions in the risk of emergency presentations for most (28/33) cancer sites, without apparent associations between the size of reduction and baseline risk (p=0.26). If there had been modest reductions in age inequalities (ie, patients in each age group acquiring the same percentage of emergency presentations as the adjacent group with lower risk), in the last study year we could have expected around 11 000 fewer diagnoses through emergency presentation (ie, a nationwide percentage of 16% rather than the observed 20%). For similarly modest reductions in deprivation inequalities, we could have expected around 3000 fewer (ie, 19%). Conclusion The proportion of cancer diagnoses through emergency presentation is decreasing but age and deprivation inequalities prevail, indicating untapped opportunities for further improvements by reducing these inequalities. The observed reductions in proportions across nearly all cancer sites are likely to reflect both earlier help-seeking and improvements in diagnostic healthcare pathways, across both easier-To-suspect and harder-To-suspect cancers.Cancer Research U