X-ray emission from the Sombrero galaxy: discrete sources

We present a study of discrete X-ray sources in and around the bulge-dominated, massive Sa galaxy, Sombrero (M104), based on new and archival Chandra observations with a total exposure of ~200 ks. With a detection limit of L_X = 1E37 erg/s and a field of view covering a galactocentric radius of ~30 kpc (11.5 arcminute), 383 sources are detected. Cross-correlation with Spitler et al.'s catalogue of Sombrero globular clusters (GCs) identified from HST/ACS observations reveals 41 X-rays sources in GCs, presumably low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). We quantify the differential luminosity functions (LFs) for both the detected GC and field LMXBs, whose power-low indices (~1.1 for the GC-LF and ~1.6 for field-LF) are consistent with previous studies for elliptical galaxies. With precise sky positions of the GCs without a detected X-ray source, we further quantify, through a fluctuation analysis, the GC LF at fainter luminosities down to 1E35 erg/s. The derived index rules out a faint-end slope flatter than 1.1 at a 2 sigma significance, contrary to recent findings in several elliptical galaxies and the bulge of M31. On the other hand, the 2-6 keV unresolved emission places a tight constraint on the field LF, implying a flattened index of ~1.0 below 1E37 erg/s. We also detect 101 sources in the halo of Sombrero. The presence of these sources cannot be interpreted as galactic LMXBs whose spatial distribution empirically follows the starlight. Their number is also higher than the expected number of cosmic AGNs (52+/-11 [1 sigma]) whose surface density is constrained by deep X-ray surveys. We suggest that either the cosmic X-ray background is unusually high in the direction of Sombrero, or a distinct population of X-ray sources is present in the halo of Sombrero.Comment: 11 figures, 5 tables, ApJ in pres

ICAR: endoscopic skull‐base surgery

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Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe

Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs) can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e. iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference

Long-range and short-range dihadron angular correlations in central PbPb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV

This is the pre-print version of the Published Article, which can be accessed from the link below.First measurements of dihadron correlations for charged particles are presented for central PbPb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76TeV over a broad range in relative pseudorapidity ( ) and the full range of relative azimuthal angle ( ). The data were collected with the CMS detector, at the LHC. A broadening of the away-side ( ) azimuthal correlation is observed at all , as compared to the measurements in pp collisions. Furthermore, long-range dihadron correlations in are observed for particles with similar values. This phenomenon, also known as the \ridge", persists up to at least j j = 4. For particles with transverse momenta (pT) of 2-4 GeV/c, the ridge is found to be most prominent when these particles are correlated with particles of pT = 2-6 GeV/c, and to be much reduced when paired with particles of pT = 10-12 GeV/c

Search for supersymmetry in pp collisions at 7 TeV in events with jets and missing transverse energy

This is the Pre-print version of the Article. The official published version of the paper can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 ElsevierA search for supersymmetry with R-parity conservation in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 35 inverse picobarns collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The search is performed in events with jets and significant missing transverse energy, characteristic of the decays of heavy, pair-produced squarks and gluinos. The primary background, from standard model multijet production, is reduced by several orders of magnitude to a negligible level by the application of a set of robust kinematic requirements. With this selection, the data are consistent with the standard model backgrounds, namely t t-bar, W + jet and Z + jet production, which are estimated from data control samples. Limits are set on the parameters of the constrained minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model. These limits extend those set previously by experiments at the Tevatron and LEP colliders.This work is supported by FMSR (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); Academy of Sciences and NICPB (Estonia); Academy of Finland, ME, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NKTH (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); NRF and WCU (Korea); LAS (Lithuania); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); PAEC (Pakistan); SCSR (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); MST and MAE (Russia); MSTD (Serbia); MICINN and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); NSC (Taipei); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA)

Search for dijet resonances in 7 TeV pp collisions at CMS

This is the Pre-print version of the Article. The official published version of the paper can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2010 APSA search for narrow resonances in the dijet mass spectrum is performed using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.9  pb-1 collected by the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Upper limits at the 95% confidence level are presented on the product of the resonance cross section, branching fraction into dijets, and acceptance, separately for decays into quark-quark, quark-gluon, or gluon-gluon pairs. The data exclude new particles predicted in the following models at the 95% confidence level: string resonances, with mass less than 2.50 TeV, excited quarks, with mass less than 1.58 TeV, and axigluons, colorons, and E6 diquarks, in specific mass intervals. This extends previously published limits on these models.This work is supported by FMSR (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); Academy of Sciences and NICPB (Estonia); Academy of Finland, ME, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NKTH (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); NRF and WCU (Korea); LAS (Lithuania); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); PAEC (Pakistan); SCSR (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); MST and MAE (Russia); MSTD (Serbia); MICINN and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); NSC (Taipei); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA)

Measurement of the inclusive jet cross section in pp collisions at √s = 7TeV

This is the pre-print version of the Published Article which can be accessed from the link below.The inclusive jet cross section is measured in pp collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider using the CMS experiment. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 34  pb-1. The measurement is made for jet transverse momenta in the range 18–1100 GeV and for absolute values of rapidity less than 3. The measured cross section extends to the highest values of jet pT ever observed and, within the experimental and theoretical uncertainties, is generally in agreement with next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD predictions

Search for supersymmetry in pp collisions at 7 TeV in events with jets and missing transverse energy

A search for supersymmetry with R-parity conservation in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 35 pb(-1) collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The search is performed in events with jets and significant missing transverse energy, characteristic of the decays of heavy, pair-produced squarks and gluinos. The primary background, from standard model multijet production, is reduced by several orders of magnitude to a negligible level by the application of a set of robust kinematic requirements. With this selection, the data are consistent with the standard model backgrounds, namely t (t) over bar, W + jet and Z + jet production, which are estimated from data control samples. Limits are set on the parameters of the constrained minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model. These limits extend those set previously by experiments at the Tevatron and LEP colliders. (C) 2011 CMS Collaboration

Search for same-sign top-quark pair production at root s=7 TeV and limits on flavour changing neutral currents in the top sector

An inclusive search for same-sign top-quark pair production in pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV is performed using a data sample recorded with the CMS detector in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35 pb(-1). This analysis is motivated by recent studies of p (p) over bar -> t (t) over bar reporting mass-dependent forward-backward asymmetries larger than expected from the standard model. These asymmetries could be due to Flavor Changing Neutral Currents (FCNC) in the top sector induced by t -channel exchange of a massive neutral vector boson (Z'). Models with such a Z' also predict enhancement of same-sign top-pair production in pp or pp collisions. Limits are set as a function of the Z' mass and its couplings to u and t quarks. These limits disfavour the FCNC interpretation of the Tevatron results