Improved Nearside-Farside Decomposition of Elastic Scattering Amplitudes

A simple technique is described, that provides improved nearside-farside (NF) decompositions of elastic scattering amplitudes. The technique, involving the resummation of a Legendre partial wave series, reduces the importance of unphysical contributions to NF subamplitudes, which can arise in more conventional NF decompositions. Applications are made to a strong absorption model and to a $^{16}$O + $^{12}$C optical potential at $E_{\text{lab}} = 132$ MeV.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

ELM triggering conditions for the integrated modeling of H-mode plasmas

Recent advances in the integrated modeling of ELMy H-mode plasmas are presented. A model for the H-mode pedestal and for the triggering of ELMs predicts the height, width, and shape of the H-mode pedestal and the frequency and width of ELMs. Formation of the pedestal and the L-H transition is the direct result of ExB flow shear suppression of anomalous transport. The periodic ELM crashes are triggered by either the ballooning or peeling MHD instabilities. The BALOO, DCON, and ELITE ideal MHD stability codes are used to derive a new parametric expression for the peeling-ballooning threshold. The new dependence for the peeling-ballooning threshold is implemented in the ASTRA transport code. Results of integrated modeling of DIII-D like discharges are presented and compared with experimental observations. The results from the ideal MHD stability codes are compared with results from the resistive MHD stability code NIMROD.Comment: 12th International Congress on Plasma Physics, 25-29 October 2004, Nice (France

Novel Genetic Variants for Cartilage Thickness and Hip Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is one of the most frequent and disabling diseases of the elderly. Only few genetic variants have been identified for osteoarthritis, which is partly due to large phenotype heterogeneity. To reduce heterogeneity, we here examined cartilage thickness, one of the structural components of joint health. We conducted a genome-wide association study of minimal joint space width (mJSW), a proxy for cartilage thickness, in a discovery set of 13,013 participants from five different cohorts and replication in 8,227 individuals from seven independent cohorts. We identified five genome-wide significant (GWS, P≤5·0×10−8) SNPs annotated to four distinct loci. In addition, we found two additional loci that were significantly replicated, but results of combined meta-analysis fell just below the genome wide significance threshold. The four novel associated genetic loci were located in/near TGFA (rs2862851), PIK3R1 (rs10471753), SLBP/FGFR3 (rs2236995), and TREH/DDX6 (rs49654

Infectious aetiologies of neonatal illness in south Asia classified using WHO definitions: a primary analysis of the ANISA study

Background: Globally, neonatal mortality accounts for almost half of all deaths in children younger than 5 years. Aetiological agents of neonatal infection are difficult to identify because the clinical signs are non-specific. Using data from the Aetiology of Neonatal Infections in south Asia (ANISA) cohort, we aimed to describe the spectrum of infectious aetiologies of acute neonatal illness categorised post-hoc using the 2015 WHO case definitions of critical illness, clinical severe infection, and fast breathing only. Methods: Eligible infants were aged 0–59 days with possible serious bacterial infection and healthy infants enrolled in the ANISA study in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. We applied a partial latent class Bayesian model to estimate the prevalence of 27 pathogens detectable on PCR, pathogens detected by blood culture only, and illness not attributed to any infectious aetiology. Infants with at least one clinical specimen available were included in the analysis. We assessed the prevalence of these aetiologies according to WHO's case definitions of critically ill, clinical severe infection, and infants with late onset, isolated fast breathing. For the clinical severe definition, we compared the prevalence of signs by bacterial versus viral aetiology. Findings: There were 934 infants (992 episodes) in the critically ill category, 3769 (4000 episodes) in the clinical severe infection category, and 738 (771 episodes) in the late-onset isolated fast breathing category. We estimated the proportion of illness attributable to bacterial infection was 32·7% in infants in the critically ill group, 15·6% in the clinical severe infection group, and 8·8% among infants with late-onset isolated fast breathing group. An infectious aetiology was not identified in 58–82% of infants in these categories. Among 4000 episodes of clinical severe infection, those with bacterial versus viral attribution had higher proportions of hypothermia, movement only when stimulated, convulsions, and poor feeding. Interpretation: Our modelled results generally support the revised WHO case definitions, although a revision of the most severe case definition could be considered. Clinical criteria do not clearly differentiate between young infants with and without infectious aetiologies. Our results highlight the need for improved point-of-care diagnostics, and further study into neonatal deaths and episodes with no identified aetiology, to ensure antibiotic stewardship and targeted interventions. Funding: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Secular Trends in Breast Cancer Risk Among Women With HIV Initiating ART in North America

Background: Studies suggest lower risk of breast cancer in women with HIV versus without HIV. These estimates may be biased by lower life expectancy and younger age distribution of women with HIV. Our analysis evaluated this bias and characterized secular trends in breast cancer among women with HIV initiating antiretroviral therapy. We hypothesized breast cancer risk would increase over time as mortality decreased. Setting: Women with HIV prescribed antiretroviral therapy in the North American AIDS Cohort Collaboration on Research and Design (NA-ACCORD) from 1997 through 2016. Methods: We estimated breast cancer hazard (cause-specific hazard ratios) and cumulative incidence accounting for competing risks (subdistribution hazard ratios) to assess changes in breast cancer risk over time. This was assessed overall (1997-2016) and within/across calendar periods. Analyses were adjusted for race/ethnicity and inverse probability weighted for cohort. Cumulative incidence was graphically assessed by calendar period and race/ethnicity. Results: We observed 11,587 women during 1997-2016, contributing 63 incident breast cancer diagnoses and 1,353 deaths [73,445 person-years (median followup = 4.5 years)]. Breast cancer cumulative incidence was 3.2% for 1997-2016. We observed no secular trends in breast cancer hazard or cumulative incidence. There were annual declines in the hazard and cumulative incidence of death (cause-specific hazard ratios and subdistribution hazard ratios: 0.89, 95% confidence interval: 0.87 to 0.91) which remained within and across calendar periods. Conclusions: These findings contradict the hypothesis of increasing breast cancer risk with declining mortality over time among women with HIV, suggesting limited impact of changing mortality on breast cancer risk. Additional inquiry is merited as survival improves among women with HIV

Search for leptophobic Z ' bosons decaying into four-lepton final states in proton-proton collisions at root s=8 TeV

Peer reviewe

Search for black holes and other new phenomena in high-multiplicity final states in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

Peer reviewe