Recommendations for the use of endoscopic lung volume reduction in South Africa: Role in the treatment of emphysema

Emphysema is a very common cause of morbidity and mortality in South Africa (SA). Therapeutic options in severe emphysema are limited. Endoscopic lung volume reduction (ELVR) is increasingly being used internationally for the treatment of advanced emphysema in a subset of patients with advanced disease, aiming to obtain the same functional advantages as surgical lung volume reduction while reducing risks and costs. In addition to endobronchial valves, ELVR using endobronchial coils is now available in SA. The high cost of these interventions underscores the need for careful patient selection to best identify those who may or may not benefit from ELVR-related procedures. The Assembly on Interventional Pulmonology of the South African Thoracic Society appointed a committee comprising both local and international experts to extensively review all relevant evidence and provide advice on the use of ELVR in SA based on published evidence, expert opinion and local access to the various devices

Is carbon dioxide pricing a driver in concrete mix design?

The global cement industry is responsible for 7% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and, as such, has a vital role to play in the transition to a low carbon dioxide economy. In recent years, this has been achieved by technological advances and increased use of supplementary cementitious materials, but the authors have recently shown that there are other means of achieving comparable carbon dioxide savings, for example, by reducing workability. However, price remains a considerable barrier to the widespread implementation of low carbon dioxide concrete. Using the same model for concrete mix design as was used to determine embodied carbon dioxide (ECD), variations in the cost of the components of concrete have now been considered. Considering 24 different mix designs, each spanning a range of characteristic strengths from 20 to 100 MPa, measures to reduce the carbon dioxide footprint were also found to reduce the material cost of the concrete. As such, it may be considered that the construction industry is already encouraged to reduce its ‘carbon footprint’. However, the concept of the carbon footprint was then considered in a more nuanced fashion, considering the ECD per unit strength. On such a basis, the cheapest mixes did not have the lowest ECD. Therefore, the impact of levying a charge on the carbon footprint was considered. To ensure low carbon dioxide concrete is also the cheapest, carbon dioxide emissions would have to be priced approximately one to two orders of magnitude higher than current market value. This would become the dominant factor in construction, with serious consequences for the industry. Furthermore, such charges may pose ethical problems, being viewed as a ‘licence to pollute’ and therefore undermining society's efforts to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of the construction industry

Assessing the impact of nitrogen supplementation in oats across multiple growth locations and years with targeted phenotyping and high-resolution metabolite profiling approaches

Oats (Avena sativa L.) are a healthy food, being high in dietary fibre (e.g. β-glucans), antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins. Understanding the effect of variety and crop management on nutritional quality is important. The response of four oat varieties to increased nitrogen levels was investigated across multiple locations and years with respect to yield, grain quality and metabolites (assessed via GC- and LC- MS). A novel high-resolution UHPLC-PDA-MS/MS method was developed, providing improved metabolite enrichment, resolution, and identification. The combined phenotyping approach revealed that, amino acid levels were increased by nitrogen supplementation, as were total protein and nitrogen containing lipid levels, whereas health-beneficial avenanthramides were decreased. Although nitrogen addition significantly increased grain yield and β-glucan content, supporting increasing the total nitrogen levels recommended within agricultural guidelines, oat varietal choice as well as negative impacts upon health beneficial secondary metabolites and the environmental burdens associated with nitrogen fertilisation, require further consideration

Eco-intelligent factories: Timescales for environmental decision support

Manufacturing decisions are currently made based on considerations of cost, time and quality. However there is increasing pressure to also routinely incorporate environmental considerations into the decision making processes. Despite the existence of a number of tools for environmental analysis of manu-facturing activities, there does not appear to be a structured approach for gener-ating relevant environmental information that can be fed into manufacturing decision making. This research proposes an overarching structure that leads to three approaches, pertaining to different timescales that enable the generation of environmental information, suitable for consideration during decision making. The approaches are demonstrated through three industrial case studies

Data-based analysis of speech and gesture: the Bielefeld Speech and Gesture Alignment corpus (SaGA) and its applications

Lücking A, Bergmann K, Hahn F, Kopp S, Rieser H. Data-based analysis of speech and gesture: the Bielefeld Speech and Gesture Alignment corpus (SaGA) and its applications. Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces. 2013;7(1-2):5-18.Communicating face-to-face, interlocutors frequently produce multimodal meaning packages consisting of speech and accompanying gestures. We discuss a systematically annotated speech and gesture corpus consisting of 25 route-and-landmark-description dialogues, the Bielefeld Speech and Gesture Alignment corpus (SaGA), collected in experimental face-to-face settings. We first describe the primary and secondary data of the corpus and its reliability assessment. Then we go into some of the projects carried out using SaGA demonstrating the wide range of its usability: on the empirical side, there is work on gesture typology, individual and contextual parameters influencing gesture production and gestures’ functions for dialogue structure. Speech-gesture interfaces have been established extending unification-based grammars. In addition, the development of a computational model of speech-gesture alignment and its implementation constitutes a research line we focus on

Measurement of the cross-section of high transverse momentum vector bosons reconstructed as single jets and studies of jet substructure in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a measurement of the cross-section for high transverse momentum W and Z bosons produced in pp collisions and decaying to all-hadronic final states. The data used in the analysis were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 7 TeV;{\rm Te}{\rm V}$and correspond to an integrated luminosity of$4.6\;{\rm f}{{{\rm b}}^{-1}}$. The measurement is performed by reconstructing the boosted W or Z bosons in single jets. The reconstructed jet mass is used to identify the W and Z bosons, and a jet substructure method based on energy cluster information in the jet centre-of-mass frame is used to suppress the large multi-jet background. The cross-section for events with a hadronically decaying W or Z boson, with transverse momentum${{p}_{{\rm T}}}\gt 320\;{\rm Ge}{\rm V}$and pseudorapidity$|\eta |\lt 1.9$, is measured to be${{\sigma }_{W+Z}}=8.5\pm 1.7$ pb and is compared to next-to-leading-order calculations. The selected events are further used to study jet grooming techniques

Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1. The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG + Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version published in European Physical Journal

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Jet energy measurement with the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at root s=7 TeV

The jet energy scale and its systematic uncertainty are determined for jets measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 7TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 38 pb-1. Jets are reconstructed with the anti-kt algorithm with distance parameters R=0. 4 or R=0. 6. Jet energy and angle corrections are determined from Monte Carlo simulations to calibrate jets with transverse momenta pT≥20 GeV and pseudorapidities {pipe}η{pipe}<4. 5. The jet energy systematic uncertainty is estimated using the single isolated hadron response measured in situ and in test-beams, exploiting the transverse momentum balance between central and forward jets in events with dijet topologies and studying systematic variations in Monte Carlo simulations. The jet energy uncertainty is less than 2. 5 % in the central calorimeter region ({pipe}η{pipe}<0. 8) for jets with 60≤pT<800 GeV, and is maximally 14 % for pT<30 GeV in the most forward region 3. 2≤{pipe}η{pipe}<4. 5. The jet energy is validated for jet transverse momenta up to 1 TeV to the level of a few percent using several in situ techniques by comparing a well-known reference such as the recoiling photon pT, the sum of the transverse momenta of tracks associated to the jet, or a system of low-pT jets recoiling against a high-pT jet. More sophisticated jet calibration schemes are presented based on calorimeter cell energy density weighting or hadronic properties of jets, aiming for an improved jet energy resolution and a reduced flavour dependence of the jet response. The systematic uncertainty of the jet energy determined from a combination of in situ techniques is consistent with the one derived from single hadron response measurements over a wide kinematic range. The nominal corrections and uncertainties are derived for isolated jets in an inclusive sample of high-pT jets. Special cases such as event topologies with close-by jets, or selections of samples with an enhanced content of jets originating from light quarks, heavy quarks or gluons are also discussed and the corresponding uncertainties are determined. © 2013 CERN for the benefit of the ATLAS collaboration

Search for R-parity-violating supersymmetry in events with four or more leptons in sqrt(s) =7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for new phenomena in final states with four or more leptons (electrons or muons) is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of $\sqrt{s}=7\;\mathrm{TeV}$ proton-proton collisions delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in two signal regions: one that requires moderate values of missing transverse momentum and another that requires large effective mass. The results are interpreted in a simplified model of R-parity-violating supersymmetry in which a 95% CL exclusion region is set for charged wino masses up to 540 GeV. In an R-parity-violating MSUGRA/CMSSM model, values of m 1/2 up to 820 GeV are excluded for 10 < tan β < 40