Gray Whale Calls Recorded near Barrow, Alaska, throughout the Winter of 2003–04

Since the mid-1990s, gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) have been reported with increasing frequency near Barrow, Alaska, during summer and autumn months. In collaboration with a broad-scale oceanographic study, three autonomous acoustic recorders were moored northeast of Barrow in October 2003 to provide capability for year-round detection of calls. Two recorders were recovered in September 2004, one from the continental slope (water depth = 316 m) and one from near the base of the slope (water depth = 1258 m). The shallow instrument recorded for roughly 3 months (87 days), and the deeper instrument for roughly 7.3 months (222 days). Gray whale calls were recorded on both instruments throughout their periods of operation. The calling rate at the shallower instrument was higher than at the deeper recorder, but surprisingly, the deeper instrument detected calls throughout the 2003–04 winter, though the calling rate diminished as winter progressed. Low-frequency N1/S1 pulses, the most common of the calls produced by gray whales, were recorded from deployment through December 2003 on the shallower of the two instruments and from deployment through May 2004 on the deeper instrument. Because this is the first-ever winterlong acoustic study, we cannot be certain that gray whales have not overwintered in the Beaufort Sea in the past. However, a combination of increasing population size and habitat alteration associated with sea ice reduction and warming in the Alaskan Arctic may be responsible for the extra-seasonal gray whale occurrence near Barrow.Depuis le milieu des années 1990, des baleines grises (Eschrichtius robustus) ont été signalées de plus en plus souvent près de Barrow, en Alaska, pendant les mois d’été et d’automne. En collaboration avec une étude océanographique à grande échelle, trois enregistreurs acoustiques autonomes ont été amarrés au nord-est de Barrow en octobre 2003 afin de pouvoir détecter les cris de baleine à l’année. Deux enregistreurs ont été récupérés en septembre 2004, un de la pente continentale (à une profondeur d’eau de 316 m) et l’autre près de la base de la pente (à une profondeur de 1 258 m). L’instrument le moins profond a enregistré les sons pendant trois mois environ (87 jours), tandis que l’instrument le plus profond a enregistré les sons pendant environ 7, 3 mois (222 jours). Les cris de baleines grises ont été enregistrés au moyen des deux instruments. Le nombre de cris enregistrés à l’aide de l’instrument le moins profond était plus élevé qu’avec l’instrument le plus profond. Cependant, et fait étonnant, l’instrument le plus profond a détecté des cris pendant l’hiver 2003– 2004, bien que le nombre de cris ait diminué au fur et à mesure que l’hiver avançait. Les ondes pulsées de basse fréquence N1/S1, soit les cris les plus courants produits par les baleines grises, ont été enregistrées à partir de l’installation de l’instrument le moins profond en décembre en 2003 et de l’installation de l’instrument le plus profond jusqu’au mois de mai 2004. Puisqu’il s’agit de la première étude acoustique ayant duré pendant tout l’hiver, nous ne pouvons pas savoir avec certitude si les baleines grises n’ont pas hiverné dans la mer de Beaufort par le passé. Toutefois, l’augmentation de la population de baleines, alliée à la modification de l’habitat, à la diminution de la glace de mer et au réchauffement qui sévit dans la région arctique de l’Alaska, pourrait être responsable de la présence de baleines grises hors saison près de Barrow

Hi-C Observations of Penumbral Bright Dots

No abstract availabl

Beam Test of a Segmented Foil SEM Grid

A prototype Secondary-electron Emission Monitor (SEM) was installed in the 8 GeV proton transport line for the MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab. The SEM is a segmented grid made with 5 um Ti foils, intended for use in the 120 GeV NuMI beam at Fermilab. Similar to previous workers, we found that the full collection of the secondary electron signal requires a bias voltage to draw the ejected electrons cleanly off the foils, and this effect is more pronounced at larger beam intensity. The beam centroid and width resolutions of the SEM were measured at beam widths of 3, 7, and 8 mm, and compared to calculations. Extrapolating the data from this beam test, we expect a centroid and width resolutions of 20um and 25 um, respectively, in the NuMI beam which has 1 mm spot size.Comment: submitted to Nucl. Instr. Meth.

Development and validation of a NanoString BASE47 bladder cancer gene classifier

Background Recent molecular characterization of urothelial cancer (UC) has suggested potential pathways in which to direct treatment, leading to a host of targeted therapies in development for UC. In parallel, gene expression profiling has demonstrated that high-grade UC is a heterogeneous disease. Prognostic basal-like and luminal-like subtypes have been identified and an accurate transcriptome BASE47 classifier has been developed. However, these phenotypes cannot be broadly investigated due to the lack of a clinically viable diagnostic assay. We sought to develop and evaluate a diagnostic classifier of UC subtype with the goal of accurate classification from clinically available specimens. Methods Tumor samples from 52 patients with high-grade UC were profiled for BASE47 genes concurrently by RNAseq as well as NanoString. After design and technical validation of a BASE47 NanoString probeset, results from the RNAseq and NanoString were used to translate diagnostic criteria to the Nanostring platform. Evaluation of repeatability and accuracy was performed to derive a final Nanostring based classifier. Diagnostic classification resulting from the NanoString BASE47 classifier was validated on an independent dataset (n = 30). The training and validation datasets accurately classified 87% and 93% of samples, respectively. Results Here we have derived a NanoString-platform BASE47 classifier that accurately predicts basal-like and luminal-like subtypes in high grade urothelial cancer. We have further validated our new NanoString BASE47 classifier on an independent dataset and confirmed high accuracy when compared with our original Transcriptome BASE47 classifier. Conclusions The NanoString BASE47 classifier provides a faster turnaround time, a lower cost per sample to process, and maintains the accuracy of the original subtype classifier for better clinical implementation

Joint effects of ambient air pollution and maternal smoking on neonatal adiposity and childhood BMI trajectories in the Healthy Start study

Background: Coexposure to air pollution and tobacco smoke may influence early-life growth, but few studies have investigated their joint effects. We examined the interaction between fetal exposure to maternal smoking and ozone (O3) or fine particulate matter (PM2.5) on birth weight, neonatal adiposity, and body mass index (BMI) trajectories through age 3 years. Methods: Participants were 526 mother-child pairs, born ≥37 weeks. Cotinine was measured at ∼27 weeks gestation. Whole pregnancy and trimester-specific O3 and PM2.5 were estimated via. inverse-distance weighted interpolation from stationary monitors. Neonatal adiposity (fat mass percentage) was measured via. air displacement plethysmography. Child weight and length/height were abstracted from medical records. Interaction was assessed by introducing cotinine (<31.5 vs. ≥31.5 ng/mL [indicating active smoking]), O3/PM2.5 (low [tertiles 1-2] vs. high [tertile 3]), and their product term in linear regression models for birth weight and neonatal adiposity and mixed-effects models for BMI trajectories. Results: The rate of BMI growth among offspring jointly exposed to maternal smoking and high PM2.5 (between 8.1 and 12.7 μg/m3) in the third trimester was more rapid than would be expected due to the individual exposures alone (0.8 kg/m2 per square root year; 95% CI = 0.1, 1.5; P for interaction = 0.03). We did not detect interactions between maternal smoking and O3 or PM2.5 at any other time on birth weight, neonatal adiposity, or BMI trajectories. Conclusions: Although PM2.5 was generally below the EPA annual air quality standards of 12.0 μg/m3, exposure during the third trimester may influence BMI trajectories when combined with maternal smoking

In-utero exposure to the popular ‘recreational’ drugs MDMA (Ecstasy) and Methamphetamine (Ice, Crystal): preliminary findings

Review of preliminary evidence of the impact of MDMA and Methamphetamine on the developing infan

Trial to encourage adoption and maintenance of a Mediterranean diet (TEAM-MED): Protocol for a randomised feasibility trial of a peer support intervention for dietary behaviour change in adults at high cardiovascular disease risk

© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Adoption of a Mediterranean diet (MD) reduces cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. However, interventions to achieve dietary behaviour change are typically resource intensive. Peer support offers a potentially low-cost approach to encourage dietary change. The primary objective of this randomised controlled trial is to explore the feasibility of peer support versus a previously tested dietetic-led intervention to encourageMDbehaviour change, and to test recruitment strategies, retention and attrition in order to inform the design of a definitive trial. A total of 75 overweight adults at high CVD risk who do not follow a MD (Mediterranean Diet Score (MDS ≤3)) will be randomly assigned to either: a minimal intervention (written materials), a proven intervention (dietetic support, written materials and key MD foods), or a peer support intervention (group-based community programme delivered by lay peers) for 12 months. The primary end-point is change in MDS from baseline to 6 months (adoption of MD). Secondary end-points include: change in MDS from 6 to 12 months (maintenance of MD), effects on nutritional biomarkers and CVD risk factors, fidelity of implementation, acceptability and feasibility of the peer support intervention. This study will generate important data regarding the feasibility of peer support for ease of adoption of MD in an ‘at risk’ Northern European population. Data will be used to direct a larger scale trial, where the clinical efficacy and cost-effectiveness of peer support will be tested

Glassy Vortex State in a Two-Dimensional Disordered XY-Model

The two-dimensional XY-model with random phase-shifts on bonds is studied. The analysis is based on a renormalization group for the replicated system. The model is shown to have an ordered phase with quasi long-range order. This ordered phase consists of a glass-like region at lower temperatures and of a non-glassy region at higher temperatures. The transition from the disordered phase into the ordered phase is not reentrant and is of a new universality class at zero temperature. In contrast to previous approaches the disorder strength is found to be renormalized to larger values. Several correlation functions are calculated for the ordered phase. They allow to identify not only the transition into the glassy phase but also an additional crossover line, where the disconnected vortex correlation changes its behavior on large scales non-analytically. The renormalization group approach yields the glassy features without a breaking of replica symmetry.Comment: latex 12 pages with 3 figures, using epsf.sty and multicol.st

Spin instabilities and quantum phase transitions in integral and fractional quantum Hall states

The inter-Landau-level spin excitations of quantum Hall states at filling factors nu=2 and 4/3 are investigated by exact numerical diagonalization for the situation in which the cyclotron (hbar*omega_c) and Zeeman (E_Z) splittings are comparable. The relevant quasiparticles and their interactions are studied, including stable spin wave and skyrmion bound states. For nu=2, a spin instability at a finite value of epsilon=hbar*omega_c-E_Z leads to an abrupt paramagnetic to ferromagnetic transition, in agreement with the mean-field approximation. However, for nu=4/3 a new and unexpected quantum phase transition is found which involves a gradual change from paramagnetic to ferromagnetic occupancy of the partially filled Landau level as epsilon is decreased.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.Let