Model for Predicting Changes in the Strengths and Moduli of Timber Exposed To Elevated Temperatures

A model is presented for predicting changes in the tensile, compressive, and shear strengths and moduli of timber exposed to high temperature. The strengths and moduli of southern pine exposed for predetermined lengths of time to either 100, 160, 245, 400, 600 or 800 °C were measured. The accuracy of the model was assessed by comparing the strengths and the moduli predicted by the model to the data.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68885/2/10.1177_073490418300100406.pd

Failure Time of Loaded Wooden Beams During Fire

A model is presented for predicting the failure time of loaded wooden beams of rectangular cross-section exposed to elevated temperatures or to fire. Failure times calculated by the model were compared to failure times measured in this study using 19.05 mm x 19.05 mm simply supported southern pine beams, and to failure times measured by the National Bureau of Standards during the fire of a full scale room. Reasonable agreements were found between the calculated failure times and the data.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69007/2/10.1177_073490418300100407.pd

Tollip, an early regulator of the acute inflammatory response in the substantia nigra.

Tollip is a ubiquitously expressed protein, originally described as a modulator of the IL-1R/TLR-NF-κB signaling pathways. Although this property has been well characterized in peripheral cells, and despite some evidence of its expression in the central nervous system, the role of Tollip in neuroinflammation remains poorly understood. The present study sought to explore the implication of Tollip in inflammation in the substantia nigra pars compacta, the structure affected in Parkinson's disease. We first investigated Tollip distribution in the midbrain by immunohistochemistry. Then, we addressed TLR4-mediated response by intra-nigral injections of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a TLR4 agonist, on inflammatory markers in Tollip knockout (KO) and wild-type (WT) mice. We report an unexpectedly high Tollip immunostaining in dopaminergic neurons of the mice brain. Second, intra-nigral injection of LPS led to increased susceptibility to neuroinflammation in Tollip KO compared to Tollip WT mice. This was demonstrated by a significant increase of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), interleukin 1 beta (IL-1β), interleukin 6 (IL-6), and interferon gamma (IFN-γ) messenger RNA (mRNA) in the midbrain of Tollip KO mice upon LPS injection. Consistently, brain rAAV viral vector transduction with a nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB)-inducible reporter gene confirmed increased NF-κB activation in Tollip KO mice. Lastly, Tollip KO mice displayed higher inducible NO synthase (iNOS) production, both at the messenger and protein level when compared to LPS-injected WT mice. Tollip deletion also aggravated LPS-induced oxidative and nitrosative damages, as indicated by an increase of 8-oxo-2'-deoxyguanosine and nitrotyrosine immunostaining, respectively. Altogether, these findings highlight a critical role of Tollip in the early phase of TLR4-mediated neuroinflammation. As brain inflammation is known to contribute to Parkinson's disease, Tollip may be a potential target for neuroprotection

Star Formation and Dynamics in the Galactic Centre

The centre of our Galaxy is one of the most studied and yet enigmatic places in the Universe. At a distance of about 8 kpc from our Sun, the Galactic centre (GC) is the ideal environment to study the extreme processes that take place in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole (SMBH). Despite the hostile environment, several tens of early-type stars populate the central parsec of our Galaxy. A fraction of them lie in a thin ring with mild eccentricity and inner radius ~0.04 pc, while the S-stars, i.e. the ~30 stars closest to the SMBH (<0.04 pc), have randomly oriented and highly eccentric orbits. The formation of such early-type stars has been a puzzle for a long time: molecular clouds should be tidally disrupted by the SMBH before they can fragment into stars. We review the main scenarios proposed to explain the formation and the dynamical evolution of the early-type stars in the GC. In particular, we discuss the most popular in situ scenarios (accretion disc fragmentation and molecular cloud disruption) and migration scenarios (star cluster inspiral and Hills mechanism). We focus on the most pressing challenges that must be faced to shed light on the process of star formation in the vicinity of a SMBH.Comment: 68 pages, 35 figures; invited review chapter, to be published in expanded form in Haardt, F., Gorini, V., Moschella, U. and Treves, A., 'Astrophysical Black Holes'. Lecture Notes in Physics. Springer 201

Impact of sulfamethoxazole on a riverine microbiome

The continued emergence of bacterial pathogens presenting antimicrobial resistance is widely recognised as a global health threat and recent attention focused on potential environmental reservoirs of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Freshwater environments such as rivers represent a potential hotspot for ARGs and antibiotic resistant bacteria as they are receiving systems for effluent discharges from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Effluent also contains low levels of different antimicrobials including antibiotics and biocides. Sulfonamides are antibacterial chemicals widely used in clinical, veterinary and agricultural settings and are frequently detected in sewage sludge and manure in addition to riverine ecosystems. The impact of such exposure on ARG prevalence and diversity is unknown, so the aim of this study was to investigate the release of a sub-lethal concentration of the sulfonamide compound sulfamethoxazole (SMX) on the river bacterial microbiome using a flume system. This system was a semi-natural in vitro flume using river water (30 L) and sediment (6 kg) with circulation to mimic river flow. A combination of ‘omics’ approaches were conducted to study the impact of SMX exposure on the microbiomes within the flumes. Metagenomic analysis showed that the addition of low concentrations of SMX (<4 μg L−1) had a limited effect on the bacterial resistome in the water fraction only, with no impact observed in the sediment. Metaproteomics did not show differences in ARGs expression with SMX exposure in water. Overall, the river bacterial community was resilient to short term exposure to sub-lethal concentrations of SMX which mimics the exposure such communities experience downstream of WWTPs throughout the year

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters