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Climate change, agriculture and Fairtrade: identifying the challenges and opportunities
This paper presents the findings of a study commissioned by the UK's Fairtrade Foundation on the implications of climate change for agricultural producers in Fairtrade value chains
Longitudinal Spin Asymmetry and Cross Section of Inclusive pi0 Production in Polarized p+p Collisions at RHIC
We present the first measurement of the cross section and the double
longitudinal spin asymmetry of inclusive pi0 production in polarized p+p
collisions at Sqrt(s) = 200 GeV at mid-rapidity with the STAR detector, using
the barrel electromagnetic calorimeter. The measured cross section is compared
to NLO pQCD calculations and can provide constraints on the pion fragmentation
functions. Fragmentation is studied directly by measuring the momentum fraction
of pi0 in jets, a quantity that is affected by the fragmentation process and
jet reconstruction effects. The double longitudinal spin asymmetry is compared
to NLO pQCD calculations based on different assumptions for the gluon
polarization in the nucleon to provide constraints on delta g/g. At the present
level of statistics the measured asymmetry disfavors a large positive gluon
polarization, but can not yet distinguish between other scenarios.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to the proceedings of the 17th
International Spin Physics Symposium (SPIN2006), Kyoto, Japan, October 2 to
7, 200
Proteomic analysis of heart failure hospitalization among patients with chronic kidney disease: The Heart and Soul Study.
BACKGROUND:Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at increased risk for heart failure (HF). We aimed to investigate differences in proteins associated with HF hospitalizations among patients with and without CKD in the Heart and Soul Study. METHODS AND RESULTS:We measured 1068 unique plasma proteins from baseline samples of 974 participants in The Heart and Soul Study who were followed for HF hospitalization over a median of 7 years. We sequentially applied forest regression and Cox survival analyses to select prognostic proteins. Among participants with CKD, four proteins were associated with HF at Bonferroni-level significance (p<2.5x10(-4)): Angiopoietin-2 (HR[95%CI] 1.45[1.33, 1.59]), Spondin-1 (HR[95%CI] 1.13 [1.06, 1.20]), tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase type 5 (HR[95%CI] 0.65[0.53, 0.78]) and neurogenis locus notch homolog protein 1 (NOTCH1) (HR[95%CI] 0.67[0.55, 0.80]). These associations persisted at p<0.01 after adjustment for age, estimated glomerular filtration and history of HF. CKD was a significant interaction term in the associations of NOTCH1 and Spondin-1 with HF. Pathway analysis showed a trend for higher representation of the Cardiac Hypertrophy and Complement/Coagulation pathways among proteins prognostic of HF in the CKD sub-group. CONCLUSIONS:These results suggest that markers of heart failure differ between patients with and without CKD. Further research is needed to validate novel markers in cohorts of patients with CKD and adjudicated HF events
An Integrated Tracker for STAR
The STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider RHIC studies the
new state of matter produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions and the spin
structure of the nucleon in collisions of polarized protons. In order to
improve the capabilities for heavy flavor measurements and the reconstruction
of charged vector bosons an upgrade of the tracking system both in the central
and the forward region is pursued. The integrated system providing high
resolution tracking and secondary vertex reconstruction capabilities will use
silicon pixel, strip and GEM technology.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to be published in the Proceedings of the 9th
Conference on the Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics (CIPANP
2006), Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, May 30 - June 3, 200
Inclusive Hadron Production in p+p Collisions at STAR
The STAR experiment at RHIC has measured a variety of inclusive hadron cross
sections in collisions at Sqrt(s) = 200 GeV. Measurements of the
differential cross section for inclusive charged pion production at mid
rapidity and for inclusive neutral pion production at forward rapidity (3.0 <
eta < 4.2) as well as the first preliminary result from STAR for the
differential cross section for inclusive neutral pion production near mid
rapidity are presented. These cross sections are compared to next-to-leading
order perturbative QCD calculations and can provide constraints on the pion
fragmentation functions. Good agreement between data and pQCD has been found
for all three cross sections.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, to be published in the Proceedings of the 9th
Conference on the Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics (CIPANP
2006), Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, May 30 - June 3, 2006, v2 with updated
reference
Cosmology without inflation
We propose a new cosmological paradigm in which our observed expanding phase
is originated from an initially large contracting Universe that subsequently
experienced a bounce. This category of models, being geodesically complete, is
non-singular and horizon-free, and can be made to prevent any relevant scale to
ever have been smaller than the Planck length. In this scenario, one can find
new ways to solve the standard cosmological puzzles. One can also obtain scale
invariant spectra for both scalar and tensor perturbations: this will be the
case, for instance, if the contracting Universe is dust-dominated at the time
at which large wavelength perturbations get larger than the curvature scale. We
present a particular example based on a dust fluid classically contracting
model, where a bounce occurs due to quantum effects, in which these features
are explicit.Comment: 8 pages, no figur
Translational energy dependence of cross sections for reactions of OH− (H2O) n with CO2 and SO2
This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jcp/80/10/10.1063/1.446510.A tandem mass spectrometer has been used to measure cross sections for reactions of the solvated negative ions OH−(H2O) n , where 0≤n≤3, with the neutral molecules CO2 and SO2 over the range of reactant translational energy 0.15–25.0 eV (LAB). The reactions observed include solvent switching, collisional dissociation, and charge transfer. The exoergic solvent switching reactions are very rapid, having cross sections which exceed a hundred square Angstroms at low energies. These cross sections decrease approximately as (energy)−0.5 up to 1 eV and then decrease much more rapidly at higher collision energies. Estimates of bond dissociation energies for the cluster ions are derived from the measured translational energy thresholds for the endothermic collisional dissociationreactions
Hexatic Order and Surface Ripples in Spherical Geometries
In flat geometries, two dimensional hexatic order has only a minor effect on
capillary waves on a liquid substrate and on undulation modes in lipid
bilayers. However, extended bond orientational order alters the long wavelength
spectrum of these ripples in spherical geometries. We calculate this frequency
shift and suggest that it might be detectable in lipid bilayer vesicles, at the
surface of liquid metals and in multielectron bubbles in liquid helium at low
temperatures. Hexatic order also leads to a shift in the threshold for the
fission instability induced in the later two systems by an excess of electric
charge.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; revised version; to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Tensor Perturbations in Quantum Cosmological Backgrounds
In the description of the dynamics of tensor perturbations on a homogeneous
and isotropic background cosmological model, it is well known that a simple
Hamiltonian can be obtained if one assumes that the background metric satisfies
Einstein classical field equations. This makes it possible to analyze the
quantum evolution of the perturbations since their dynamics depends only on
this classical background. In this paper, we show that this simple Hamiltonian
can also be obtained from the Einstein-Hilbert lagrangian without making use of
any assumption about the dynamics of the background metric. In particular, it
can be used in situations where the background metric is also quantized, hence
providing a substantial simplification over the direct approach originally
developed by Halliwell and Hawking.Comment: 24 pages, JHEP forma
Performance of PCA3 and TMPRSS2:ERG urinary biomarkers in prediction of biopsy outcome in the Canary Prostate Active Surveillance Study (PASS).
BackgroundFor men on active surveillance for prostate cancer, biomarkers may improve prediction of reclassification to higher grade or volume cancer. This study examined the association of urinary PCA3 and TMPRSS2:ERG (T2:ERG) with biopsy-based reclassification.MethodsUrine was collected at baseline, 6, 12, and 24 months in the multi-institutional Canary Prostate Active Surveillance Study (PASS), and PCA3 and T2:ERG levels were quantitated. Reclassification was an increase in Gleason score or ratio of biopsy cores with cancer to ≥34%. The association of biomarker scores, adjusted for common clinical variables, with short- and long-term reclassification was evaluated. Discriminatory capacity of models with clinical variables alone or with biomarkers was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and decision curve analysis (DCA).ResultsSeven hundred and eighty-two men contributed 2069 urine specimens. After adjusting for PSA, prostate size, and ratio of biopsy cores with cancer, PCA3 but not T2:ERG was associated with short-term reclassification at the first surveillance biopsy (OR = 1.3; 95% CI 1.0-1.7, p = 0.02). The addition of PCA3 to a model with clinical variables improved area under the curve from 0.743 to 0.753 and increased net benefit minimally. After adjusting for clinical variables, neither marker nor marker kinetics was associated with time to reclassification in subsequent biopsies.ConclusionsPCA3 but not T2:ERG was associated with cancer reclassification in the first surveillance biopsy but has negligible improvement over clinical variables alone in ROC or DCA analyses. Neither marker was associated with reclassification in subsequent biopsies
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