Opioid misuse among persons with HIV engaged in care in the Southeastern US

The prevalence of opioid misuse by people living with HIV (PLWH) during the current US opioid epidemic has not been fully described. Among a cohort of persons engaged in HIV care in North Carolina, we examined the prevalence of and risk factors for opioid misuse, defined as self-reported “street” opioid use (e.g., heroin) or nonmedical prescription opioid use on a patient reported outcomes survey. Recent (past three-month) opioid misuse among 1,440 PLWH in care 2012–2017 was 2% (95% CI 2-3%) and lifetime misuse 15% (13-16%). Persons reporting lifetime or recent misuse more commonly had hepatitis C and reported injecting drugs. In multivariable logistic regression models, male-to-male sexual contact was inversely associated with recent or lifetime misuse. White/non-Hispanic race/ethnicity was associated with lifetime misuse and CD4 count and viral load were not associated with opioid misuse. Among 32 persons reporting recent misuse, 81% had a contemporaneous viral load <50 copies/mL. In this cohort of PLWH engaged in care, recent opioid misuse prevalence was similar to general population estimates. Assessments of opioid misuse among PLWH not in care are urgently needed to fully characterize the impact of opioids on all PLWH

Associated production of H^{\pm} and W^{\mp} in high-energy e+e- collisions in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model

We study the associated production of the charged Higgs boson and W^{\pm} gauge boson in high energy e+e- collisions in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). This associated production, which first arises at the one loop level, offers the possibility of producing the charged Higgs boson at the e+e- collider with mass more than half the center-of-mass energy, when the charged Higgs pair production is kinematically forbidden. We present analytic and numerical results for the cross section for e+e- --> W+ H- in the full MSSM, taking into account the previously uncalculated contributions from supersymmetric (SUSY) particles. We find that the contributions of the SUSY particles enhance the cross section over most of SUSY parameter space, especially when the SUSY particles are light, ~200 GeV. With favorable SUSY parameters, at small tan beta, this process can yield more than ten W^{\pm}H^{\mp} events for m_{H^{\pm}} <~ 350 GeV in 500 fb-1 at a 500 GeV e+e- collider, or m_{H^{\pm}} <~ 600 GeV in 1000 fb-1 at a 1000 GeV collider. 80% left-handed polarization of the e- beam improves these reaches to m_{H^{\pm}} <~ 375 GeV and m_{H^{\pm}} <~ 670 GeV, respectively.Comment: v2: 21 pages, 9 figures, comments on Higgs search bounds and new references added, and minor changes; v3: 23 pages, 11 figures, review of literature moved from introduction to new Sec.5 and 2 plots added, references added, typos corrected; v4: bug fixed in nu nubar H0 cross section (Fig.11), version to appear in PR

The 9<i>H</i>-fluoren vinyl ether derivative SAM461 inhibits bacterial luciferase activity and protects <i>Artemia franciscana</i> from luminescent vibriosis

Vibrio campbellii is a major pathogen in aquaculture. It is a causative agent of the so-called “luminescent vibriosis,” a life-threatening condition caused by bioluminescent Vibrio spp. that often involves mass mortality of farmed shrimps. The emergence of multidrug resistant Vibrio strains raises a concern and poses a challenge for the treatment of this infection in the coming years. Inhibition of bacterial cell-to-cell communication or quorum sensing (QS) has been proposed as an alternative to antibiotic therapies. Aiming to identify novel QS disruptors, the 9H-fluroen-9yl vinyl ether derivative SAM461 was found to thwart V. campbellii bioluminescence, a QS-regulated phenotype. Phenotypic and gene expression analyses revealed, however, that the mode of action of SAM461 was unrelated to QS inhibition. Further evaluation with purified Vibrio fischeri and NanoLuc luciferases revealed enzymatic inhibition at micromolar concentrations. In silico analysis by molecular docking suggested binding of SAM461 in the active site cavities of both luciferase enzymes. Subsequent in vivo testing of SAM461 with gnotobiotic Artemia franciscana nauplii demonstrated naupliar protection against V. campbellii infection at low micromolar concentrations. Taken together, these findings suggest that suppression of luciferase activity could constitute a novel paradigm in the development of alternative anti-infective chemotherapies against luminescent vibriosis, and pave the ground for the chemical synthesis and biological characterization of derivatives with promising antimicrobial prospects

Cell-based Approaches to Joint Surface Repair : A Research Perspective

The authors are grateful for support to their research from Arthritis Research UK (grants 19271, 19429, 19667, 20050). None of the authors received any funding related to the writing of this manuscript, and the funding bodies did not play any role in the writing of the manuscript or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Measurement of the Hadronic Photon Structure Function F_2^gamma at LEP2

The hadronic structure function of the photon F_2^gamma is measured as a function of Bjorken x and of the factorisation scale Q^2 using data taken by the OPAL detector at LEP. Previous OPAL measurements of the x dependence of F_2^gamma are extended to an average Q^2 of 767 GeV^2. The Q^2 evolution of F_2^gamma is studied for average Q^2 between 11.9 and 1051 GeV^2. As predicted by QCD, the data show positive scaling violations in F_2^gamma. Several parameterisations of F_2^gamma are in agreement with the measurements whereas the quark-parton model prediction fails to describe the data.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of Photon 2001, Ascona, Switzerlan

A measurement of the tau mass and the first CPT test with tau leptons

We measure the mass of the tau lepton to be 1775.1+-1.6(stat)+-1.0(syst.) MeV using tau pairs from Z0 decays. To test CPT invariance we compare the masses of the positively and negatively charged tau leptons. The relative mass difference is found to be smaller than 3.0 10^-3 at the 90% confidence level.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, Submitted to Phys. Letts.

Measurement of the B0 Lifetime and Oscillation Frequency using B0->D*+l-v decays

The lifetime and oscillation frequency of the B0 meson has been measured using B0->D*+l-v decays recorded on the Z0 peak with the OPAL detector at LEP. The D*+ -> D0pi+ decays were reconstructed using an inclusive technique and the production flavour of the B0 mesons was determined using a combination of tags from the rest of the event. The results t_B0 = 1.541 +- 0.028 +- 0.023 ps, Dm_d = 0.497 +- 0.024 +- 0.025 ps-1 were obtained, where in each case the first error is statistical and the second systematic.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.

WW Production Cross Section and W Branching Fractions in e+e- Collisions at 189 GeV

From a data sample of 183 pb^-1 recorded at a center-of-mass energy of roots = 189 GeV with the OPAL detector at LEP, 3068 W-pair candidate events are selected. Assuming Standard Model W boson decay branching fractions, the W-pair production cross section is measured to be sigmaWW = 16.30 +- 0.34(stat.) +- 0.18(syst.) pb. When combined with previous OPAL measurements, the W boson branching fraction to hadrons is determined to be 68.32 +- 0.61(stat.) +- 0.28(syst.) % assuming lepton universality. These results are consistent with Standard Model expectations.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Genuine Correlations of Like-Sign Particles in Hadronic Z0 Decays

Correlations among hadrons with the same electric charge produced in Z0 decays are studied using the high statistics data collected from 1991 through 1995 with the OPAL detector at LEP. Normalized factorial cumulants up to fourth order are used to measure genuine particle correlations as a function of the size of phase space domains in rapidity, azimuthal angle and transverse momentum. Both all-charge and like-sign particle combinations show strong positive genuine correlations. One-dimensional cumulants initially increase rapidly with decreasing size of the phase space cells but saturate quickly. In contrast, cumulants in two- and three-dimensional domains continue to increase. The strong rise of the cumulants for all-charge multiplets is increasingly driven by that of like-sign multiplets. This points to the likely influence of Bose-Einstein correlations. Some of the recently proposed algorithms to simulate Bose-Einstein effects, implemented in the Monte Carlo model PYTHIA, are found to reproduce reasonably well the measured second- and higher-order correlations between particles with the same charge as well as those in all-charge particle multiplets.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figures, Submitted to Phys. Lett.

Strange particle production in proton-proton collisions at s=0.9\sqrt{s}=0.9 TeV with ALICE at the LHC

The production of mesons containing strange quarks (K$^0_s$, $\phi$) and both singly and doubly strange baryons ($\Lambda$, Anti-$\Lambda$, and $\Xi$+Anti-$\Xi$) are measured at central rapidity in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 0.9 TeV with the ALICE experiment at the LHC. The results are obtained from the analysis of about 250 k minimum bias events recorded in 2009. Measurements of yields (dN/dy) and transverse momentum spectra at central rapidities for inelastic pp collisions are presented. For mesons, we report yields () of 0.184 $\pm$ 0.002 stat. $\pm$ 0.006 syst. for K$^0_s$ and 0.021 $\pm$ 0.004 stat. $\pm$ 0.003 syst. for $\phi$. For baryons, we find = 0.048 $\pm$ 0.001 stat. $\pm$ 0.004 syst. for $\Lambda$, 0.047 $\pm$ 0.002 stat. $\pm$ 0.005 syst. for Anti-$\Lambda$ and 0.0101 $\pm$ 0.0020 stat. $\pm$ 0.0009 syst. for $\Xi$+Anti-$\Xi$. The results are also compared with predictions for identified particle spectra from QCD-inspired models and provide a baseline for comparisons with both future pp measurements at higher energies and heavy-ion collisions.Comment: 33 pages, 21 captioned figures, 10 tables, authors from page 28, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/387