6,174 research outputs found
Impacts of citrus pulp addition and wilting on elephant grass silage quality.
The objective of this work was to evaluate the use of citrus pulp addition and wilting on fermentative characteristics, chemical composition as well as gas and effluent losses of elephant grass silage. The elephant grass (70 growth days) was collected manually; one portion was immediately chopped and another one was allowed to wilt in the sun for a period of 6 h and subsequently chopped for the production of silage. Experimental PVC silos (10 cm diameter x 30 cm height) were used and sand bags were placed at the bottom of the silos. Citrus pulp (80 g kg-1 of MN) was added at the beginning of ensilage. The ensiled material was manually compressed to provide a specific mass of approximately 600 kg m-3 of silage. After 60 days, the silos were opened; gas and effluent losses were calculated and we determined pH, dry matter (DM), crude protein(CP), neutral detergent fibre (NDF), lignin, ammonia nitrogen, ash and in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD). We added 0 or 80 g kg-1 of citrus pulp to wilted and un-wilted elephant grass. We used a completely randomised design with a 2 x 2 factorial arrangement (wilted or un-wilted) x (with or without citrus pulp), totalling treatments with five repetitions. Average values were compared using the F test with a probability of 5%. The addition of citrus pulp resulted in reduced levels of NDF, lignin, ash, N-NH3 and pH and in increased values of DM and IVDMD of silages. Wilting increased the DM, NDF and lignin values and reduced the concentrations of CP, IVDMD and N-NH3. Based on our results, citrus pulp addition improves the chemical composition of elephant grass silage and increases its in vitro dry matter digestibility
Comparison of established and emerging biodosimetry assays
Rapid biodosimetry tools are required to assist with triage in the case of a large-scale radiation incident. Here, we aimed to determine the dose-assessment accuracy of the well-established dicentric chromosome assay (DCA) and cytokinesis-block micronucleus assay (CBMN) in comparison to the emerging γ-H2AX foci and gene expression assays for triage mode biodosimetry and radiation injury assessment. Coded blood samples exposed to 10 X-ray doses (240 kVp, 1 Gy/min) of up to 6.4 Gy were sent to participants for dose estimation. Report times were documented for each laboratory and assay. The mean absolute difference (MAD) of estimated doses relative to the true doses was calculated. We also merged doses into binary dose categories of clinical relevance and examined accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the assays. Dose estimates were reported by the first laboratories within 0.3-0.4 days of receipt of samples for the γ-H2AX and gene expression assays compared to 2.4 and 4 days for the DCA and CBMN assays, respectively. Irrespective of the assay we found a 2.5-4-fold variation of interlaboratory accuracy per assay and lowest MAD values for the DCA assay (0.16 Gy) followed by CBMN (0.34 Gy), gene expression (0.34 Gy) and γ-H2AX (0.45 Gy) foci assay. Binary categories of dose estimates could be discriminated with equal efficiency for all assays, but at doses ≥1.5 Gy a 10% decrease in efficiency was observed for the foci assay, which was still comparable to the CBMN assay. In conclusion, the DCA has been confirmed as the gold standard biodosimetry method, but in situations where speed and throughput are more important than ultimate accuracy, the emerging rapid molecular assays have the potential to become useful triage tools
Efeito do emurchecimento e inclusão de polpa citrica sobre as caracteristicas quimicas de silagens de capim-elefante.
Determining Supersymmetric Parameters With Dark Matter Experiments
In this article, we explore the ability of direct and indirect dark matter
experiments to not only detect neutralino dark matter, but to constrain and
measure the parameters of supersymmetry. In particular, we explore the
relationship between the phenomenological quantities relevant to dark matter
experiments, such as the neutralino annihilation and elastic scattering cross
sections, and the underlying characteristics of the supersymmetric model, such
as the values of mu (and the composition of the lightest neutralino), m_A and
tan beta. We explore a broad range of supersymmetric models and then focus on a
smaller set of benchmark models. We find that by combining astrophysical
observations with collider measurements, mu can often be constrained far more
tightly than it can be from LHC data alone. In models in the A-funnel region of
parameter space, we find that dark matter experiments can potentially determine
m_A to roughly +/-100 GeV, even when heavy neutral MSSM Higgs bosons (A, H_1)
cannot be observed at the LHC. The information provided by astrophysical
experiments is often highly complementary to the information most easily
ascertained at colliders.Comment: 46 pages, 76 figure
High rate, fast timing Glass RPC for the high {\eta} CMS muon detectors
The HL-LHC phase is designed to increase by an order of magnitude the amount
of data to be collected by the LHC experiments. To achieve this goal in a
reasonable time scale the instantaneous luminosity would also increase by an
order of magnitude up to . The region of the forward
muon spectrometer () is not equipped with RPC stations. The
increase of the expected particles rate up to (including a
safety factor 3) motivates the installation of RPC chambers to guarantee
redundancy with the CSC chambers already present. The actual RPC technology of
CMS cannot sustain the expected background level. The new technology that will
be chosen should have a high rate capability and provides a good spatial and
timing resolution. A new generation of Glass-RPC (GRPC) using low-resistivity
(LR) glass is proposed to equip at least the two most far away of the four high
muon stations of CMS. First the design of small size prototypes and
studies of their performance in high-rate particles flux is presented. Then the
proposed designs for large size chambers and their fast-timing electronic
readout are examined and preliminary results are provided.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, Conference proceeding for the 2016 Resistive
Plate Chambers and Related Detector
A facility to Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP) at the CERN SPS
A new general purpose fixed target facility is proposed at the CERN SPS
accelerator which is aimed at exploring the domain of hidden particles and make
measurements with tau neutrinos. Hidden particles are predicted by a large
number of models beyond the Standard Model. The high intensity of the SPS
400~GeV beam allows probing a wide variety of models containing light
long-lived exotic particles with masses below (10)~GeV/c,
including very weakly interacting low-energy SUSY states. The experimental
programme of the proposed facility is capable of being extended in the future,
e.g. to include direct searches for Dark Matter and Lepton Flavour Violation.Comment: Technical Proposa
A Study of Time-Dependent CP-Violating Asymmetries and Flavor Oscillations in Neutral B Decays at the Upsilon(4S)
We present a measurement of time-dependent CP-violating asymmetries in
neutral B meson decays collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II
asymmetric-energy B Factory at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The data
sample consists of 29.7 recorded at the
resonance and 3.9 off-resonance. One of the neutral B mesons,
which are produced in pairs at the , is fully reconstructed in
the CP decay modes , , , () and , or in flavor-eigenstate
modes involving and (). The flavor of the other neutral B meson is tagged at the time of
its decay, mainly with the charge of identified leptons and kaons. The proper
time elapsed between the decays is determined by measuring the distance between
the decay vertices. A maximum-likelihood fit to this flavor eigenstate sample
finds . The value of the asymmetry amplitude is determined from
a simultaneous maximum-likelihood fit to the time-difference distribution of
the flavor-eigenstate sample and about 642 tagged decays in the
CP-eigenstate modes. We find , demonstrating that CP violation exists in the neutral B meson
system. (abridged)Comment: 58 pages, 35 figures, submitted to Physical Review
Blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer disease: mapping the road to the clinic.
Biomarker discovery and development for clinical research, diagnostics and therapy monitoring in clinical trials have advanced rapidly in key areas of medicine - most notably, oncology and cardiovascular diseases - allowing rapid early detection and supporting the evolution of biomarker-guided, precision-medicine-based targeted therapies. In Alzheimer disease (AD), breakthroughs in biomarker identification and validation include cerebrospinal fluid and PET markers of amyloid-β and tau proteins, which are highly accurate in detecting the presence of AD-associated pathophysiological and neuropathological changes. However, the high cost, insufficient accessibility and/or invasiveness of these assays limit their use as viable first-line tools for detecting patterns of pathophysiology. Therefore, a multistage, tiered approach is needed, prioritizing development of an initial screen to exclude from these tests the high numbers of people with cognitive deficits who do not demonstrate evidence of underlying AD pathophysiology. This Review summarizes the efforts of an international working group that aimed to survey the current landscape of blood-based AD biomarkers and outlines operational steps for an effective academic-industry co-development pathway from identification and assay development to validation for clinical use.I recieved an honorarium from Roche Diagnostics for my participation in the advisory panel meeting leading to this pape
Constraining Supersymmetry
We review constraints on the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard
Model (MSSM) coming from direct searches at accelerators such as LEP, indirect
measurements such as b -> s gamma decay and the anomalous magnetic moment of
the muon. The recently corrected sign of pole light-by-light scattering
contributions to the latter is taken into account. We combine these constraints
with those due to the cosmological density of stable supersymmetric relic
particles. The possible indications on the supersymmetric mass scale provided
by fine-tuning arguments are reviewed critically. We discuss briefly the
prospects for future accelerator searches for supersymmetry.Comment: 21 LaTeX pages, 9 eps figures, Invited Contribution to the New
Journal of Physics Focus Issue on Supersymmetr
Measurement of the Branching Fraction for B- --> D0 K*-
We present a measurement of the branching fraction for the decay B- --> D0
K*- using a sample of approximately 86 million BBbar pairs collected by the
BaBar detector from e+e- collisions near the Y(4S) resonance. The D0 is
detected through its decays to K- pi+, K- pi+ pi0 and K- pi+ pi- pi+, and the
K*- through its decay to K0S pi-. We measure the branching fraction to be
B.F.(B- --> D0 K*-)= (6.3 +/- 0.7(stat.) +/- 0.5(syst.)) x 10^{-4}.Comment: 7 pages, 1 postscript figure, submitted to Phys. Rev. D (Rapid
Communications
- …