Survival of Staphylococcus aureus ST398 in the human nose after artificial inoculation.

There is evidence that MRSA ST398 of animal origin is only capable of temporarily occupying the human nose, and it is therefore, often considered a poor human colonizer.We inoculated 16 healthy human volunteers with a mixture of the human MSSA strain 1036 (ST931, CC8) and the bovine MSSA strain 5062 (ST398, CC398), 7 weeks after a treatment with mupirocin and chlorhexidine-containing soap. Bacterial survival was studied by follow-up cultures over 21 days. The human strain 1036 was eliminated faster (median 14 days; range 2-21 days) than the bovine strain 5062 (median 21 days; range 7-21 days) but this difference was not significant (p = 0.065). The bacterial loads were significantly higher for the bovine strain on day 7 and day 21. 4/14 volunteers (28.6%) showed elimination of both strains within 21 days. Of the 10 remaining volunteers, 5 showed no differences in bacterial counts between both strains, and in the other 5 the ST398 strain far outnumbered the human S. aureus strain. Within the 21 days of follow-up, neither human strain 1036 nor bovine strain 5062 appeared to acquire or lose any mobile genetic elements. In conclusion, S. aureus ST398 strain 5062 is capable of adequately competing for a niche with a human strain and survives in the human nose for at least 21 days

Low-impulse blast behaviour of fibre-metal laminates

This paper presents three dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) models of the low-impulse localised blast loading response of fibre-metal laminates (FMLs) based on an 2024-O aluminium alloy and a woven glass-fibre/polypropylene composite (GFPP). A vectorized user material subroutine (VUMAT) is developed to define the mechanical constitutive behaviour and Hashin’s 3D failure criteria incorporating strain-rate effects in the GFPP. In order to apply localised blast loading, a user subroutine VDLOAD is used to model the pressure distribution over the exposed area of the plate. These subroutines are implemented into the commercial finite element code ABAQUS/Explicit to model the deformation and failure mechanisms in FMLs. The FE models consider FMLs based on various stacking configurations. Both the transient and permanent displacements of the laminates are investigated. Good correlation is obtained between the measured experimental and numerical displacements, the panel deformations and failure modes. By using the validated models, parametric studies can be carried out to optimise the blast resistance of FMLs based on a range of stacking sequences and layer thicknesses

Modelling of the low-impulse blast behaviour of fibre–metal laminates based on different aluminium alloys

A parametric study has been undertaken in order to investigate the influence of the properties of the aluminium alloy on the blast response of fibre–metal laminates (FMLs). The finite element (FE) models have been developed and validated using experimental data from tests on FMLs based on a 2024-O aluminium alloy and a woven glass–fibre/polypropylene composite (GFPP). A vectorized user material subroutine (VUMAT) was employed to define Hashin’s 3D rate-dependant damage constitutive model of the GFPP. Using the validated models, a parametric study has been carried out to investigate the blast resistance of FML panels based on the four aluminium alloys, namely 2024-O, 2024-T3, 6061-T6 and 7075-T6. It has been shown that there is an approximation linear relationship between the dimensionless back face displacement and the dimensionless impulse for all aluminium alloys investigated here. It has also shown that the residual displacement of back surface of the FML panels and the internal debonding are dependent on the yield strength of the aluminium alloy

Charge-Symmetry Violation in Pion Scattering from Three-Body Nuclei

We discuss the experimental and theoretical status of charge-symmetry violation (CSV) in the elastic scattering of pi+ and pi- on 3H and 3He. Analysis of the experimental data for the ratios r1, r2, and R at Tpi = 142, 180, 220, and 256 MeV provides evidence for the presence of CSV. We describe pion scattering from the three-nucleon system in terms of single- and double-scattering amplitudes. External and internal Coulomb interactions as well as the Delta-mass splitting are taken into account as sources of CSV. Reasonable agreement between our theoretical calculations and the experimental data is obtained for Tpi = 180, 220, and 256 MeV. For these energies, it is found that the Delta-mass splitting and the internal Coulomb interaction are the most important contributions for CSV in the three-nucleon system. The CSV effects are rather sensitive to the choice of pion-nuclear scattering mechanisms, but at the same time, our theoretical predictions are much less sensitive to the choice of the nuclear wave function. It is found, however, that data for r2 and R at Tpi = 142 MeV do not agree with the predictions of our model, which may indicate that there are additional mechanisms for CSV which are important only at lower energies.Comment: 26 pages of RevTeX, 16 postscript figure

Elastic Scattering of Pions From the Three-nucleon System

We examine the scattering of charged pions from the trinucleon system at a pion energy of 180 MeV. The motivation for this study is the structure seen in the experimental angular distribution of back-angle scattering for pi+ 3He and pi- 3H but for neither pi- 3He nor pi+ 3H. We consider the addition of a double spin flip term to an optical model treatment and find that, though the contribution of this term is non-negligible at large angles for pi+ 3He and pi- 3H, it does not reproduce the structure seen in the experiment.Comment: 15 pages + 5 figure

Observation of exclusive DVCS in polarized electron beam asymmetry measurements

We report the first results of the beam spin asymmetry measured in the reaction e + p -> e + p + gamma at a beam energy of 4.25 GeV. A large asymmetry with a sin(phi) modulation is observed, as predicted for the interference term of Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering and the Bethe-Heitler process. The amplitude of this modulation is alpha = 0.202 +/- 0.028. In leading-order and leading-twist pQCD, the alpha is directly proportional to the imaginary part of the DVCS amplitude.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

A Kinematically Complete Measurement of the Proton Structure Function F2 in the Resonance Region and Evaluation of Its Moments

We measured the inclusive electron-proton cross section in the nucleon resonance region (W < 2.5 GeV) at momentum transfers Q**2 below 4.5 (GeV/c)**2 with the CLAS detector. The large acceptance of CLAS allowed for the first time the measurement of the cross section in a large, contiguous two-dimensional range of Q**2 and x, making it possible to perform an integration of the data at fixed Q**2 over the whole significant x-interval. From these data we extracted the structure function F2 and, by including other world data, we studied the Q**2 evolution of its moments, Mn(Q**2), in order to estimate higher twist contributions. The small statistical and systematic uncertainties of the CLAS data allow a precise extraction of the higher twists and demand significant improvements in theoretical predictions for a meaningful comparison with new experimental results.Comment: revtex4 18 pp., 12 figure

Study of the production of Λb0\Lambda_b^0 and B‾0\overline{B}^0 hadrons in pppp collisions and first measurement of the Λb0→J/ψpK−\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow J/\psi pK^- branching fraction

The product of the $\Lambda_b^0$ ($\overline{B}^0$) differential production cross-section and the branching fraction of the decay $\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow J/\psi pK^-$ ($\overline{B}^0\rightarrow J/\psi\overline{K}^*(892)^0$) is measured as a function of the beauty hadron transverse momentum, $p_{\rm T}$, and rapidity, $y$. The kinematic region of the measurements is $p_{\rm T}<20~{\rm GeV}/c$ and $2.0<y<4.5$. The measurements use a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $3~{\rm fb}^{-1}$ collected by the LHCb detector in $pp$ collisions at centre-of-mass energies $\sqrt{s}=7~{\rm TeV}$ in 2011 and $\sqrt{s}=8~{\rm TeV}$ in 2012. Based on previous LHCb results of the fragmentation fraction ratio, $f_{\Lambda_B^0}/f_d$, the branching fraction of the decay $\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow J/\psi pK^-$ is measured to be \begin{equation*} \mathcal{B}(\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow J/\psi pK^-)= (3.17\pm0.04\pm0.07\pm0.34^{+0.45}_{-0.28})\times10^{-4}, \end{equation*} where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is systematic, the third is due to the uncertainty on the branching fraction of the decay $\overline{B}^0\rightarrow J/\psi\overline{K}^*(892)^0$, and the fourth is due to the knowledge of $f_{\Lambda_b^0}/f_d$. The sum of the asymmetries in the production and decay between $\Lambda_b^0$ and $\overline{\Lambda}_b^0$ is also measured as a function of $p_{\rm T}$ and $y$. The previously published branching fraction of $\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow J/\psi p\pi^-$, relative to that of $\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow J/\psi pK^-$, is updated. The branching fractions of $\Lambda_b^0\rightarrow P_c^+(\rightarrow J/\psi p)K^-$ are determined.Comment: 29 pages, 19figures. All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2015-032.htm

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