587 research outputs found
The foraging ecology of greyheaded mollymawks at Marion Island: in relation to known longline fishing activity
Incidental mortality due to longline fishing has been implicated as the main cause for the global population decline in grey-headed mollymawks (Thalassarche chrysostoma). Two of these fisheries, within the potential foraging range of grey-headed mollymawks breeding on Marion Island, have increased drastically over the past 5â10 years. In order to understand the impacts of these fisheries on the grey-headed mollymawk population breeding on Marion Island, we studied their foraging ecology by tracking their foraging trips and sampling their diets. During the incubation stage, birds made long foraging trips, mostly towards the subtropical convergence and sub-Antarctic zones, bringing them into contact with areas of intense southern blue-fin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) longline fishing. Females spent a higher proportion of their time within these areas than males, thus exposing themselves to a higher risk of incidental mortality from this fishery. During the early chick-rearing stage, foraging trips were shorter and to the southwest of the island in the Polar frontal and Antarctic zones, thus avoiding any contact with the southern blue-fin tuna industry. However, short foraging trips (<2 days) were made within the boundary of known Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) longline sets around Marion Island. Males made a higher proportion of short foraging trips and spent more time within the boundaries of the toothfish fishery than females. These differences may account for the male-biased mortality of grey-headed mollymawks observed in the toothfish fishery around Marion Island. Although a decrease in the annual breeding population has not been detected on Marion Island as yet, we warn that the methods used to detect these changes are inaccurate in measuring short term population changes (<10 years) and that the impacts of these fisheries may already have altered the demographic structure of this population
Identifying patient-important outcomes in polycystic kidney disease: An international nominal group technique study
AIM: Patients with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) are at increased risk of premature mortality, morbidities and complications, which severely impair quality of life. However, patient-centered outcomes are not consistently reported in trials in ADPKD, which can limit shared decision-making. We aimed to identify outcomes important to patients and caregivers and the reasons for their priorities. METHODS: Nominal group technique was adopted involving patients with ADPKD and caregivers who were purposively selected from eight centres across Australia, France and the Republic of Korea. Participants identified, ranked and discussed outcomes for trials in ADPKD. We calculated an importance score (0-1) for each outcome and conducted thematic analyses. RESULTS: Across 17 groups, 154 participants (121 patients, 33 caregivers) aged 19 to 78 (mean 54.5âyears) identified 55 outcomes. The 10 highest ranked outcomes were: kidney function (importance score 0.36), end-stage kidney disease (0.32), survival (0.21), cyst size/growth (0.20), cyst pain/bleeding (0.18), blood pressure (0.17), ability to work (0.16), cerebral aneurysm/stroke (0.14), mobility/physical function (0.12), and fatigue (0.12). Three themes were identified: threatening semblance of normality, inability to control and making sense of diverse risks. CONCLUSION: For patients with ADPKD and their caregivers, kidney function, delayed progression to end-stage kidney disease and survival were the highest priorities, and were focused on achieving normality, and maintaining control over health and lifestyle. Implementing these patient-important outcomes may improve the meaning and relevance of trials to inform clinical care in ADPKD
Effect of restricted feeding and realimentation on feed performance and carcass characteristics of growing lambs
Origins of the Ambient Solar Wind: Implications for Space Weather
The Sun's outer atmosphere is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees,
and solar plasma flows out into interplanetary space at supersonic speeds. This
paper reviews our current understanding of these interrelated problems: coronal
heating and the acceleration of the ambient solar wind. We also discuss where
the community stands in its ability to forecast how variations in the solar
wind (i.e., fast and slow wind streams) impact the Earth. Although the last few
decades have seen significant progress in observations and modeling, we still
do not have a complete understanding of the relevant physical processes, nor do
we have a quantitatively precise census of which coronal structures contribute
to specific types of solar wind. Fast streams are known to be connected to the
central regions of large coronal holes. Slow streams, however, appear to come
from a wide range of sources, including streamers, pseudostreamers, coronal
loops, active regions, and coronal hole boundaries. Complicating our
understanding even more is the fact that processes such as turbulence,
stream-stream interactions, and Coulomb collisions can make it difficult to
unambiguously map a parcel measured at 1 AU back down to its coronal source. We
also review recent progress -- in theoretical modeling, observational data
analysis, and forecasting techniques that sit at the interface between data and
theory -- that gives us hope that the above problems are indeed solvable.Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Special issue
connected with a 2016 ISSI workshop on "The Scientific Foundations of Space
Weather." 44 pages, 9 figure
Measurement of (anti)deuteron and (anti)proton production in DIS at HERA
The first observation of (anti)deuterons in deep inelastic scattering at HERA
has been made with the ZEUS detector at a centre-of-mass energy of 300--318 GeV
using an integrated luminosity of 120 pb-1. The measurement was performed in
the central rapidity region for transverse momentum per unit of mass in the
range 0.3<p_T/M<0.7. The particle rates have been extracted and interpreted in
terms of the coalescence model. The (anti)deuteron production yield is smaller
than the (anti)proton yield by approximately three orders of magnitude,
consistent with the world measurements.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables, submitted to Nucl. Phys.
Measurement of beauty production in deep inelastic scattering at HERA
The beauty production cross section for deep inelastic scattering events with
at least one hard jet in the Breit frame together with a muon has been
measured, for photon virtualities Q^2 > 2 GeV^2, with the ZEUS detector at HERA
using integrated luminosity of 72 pb^-1. The total visible cross section is
sigma_b-bbar (ep -> e jet mu X) = 40.9 +- 5.7 (stat.) +6.0 -4.4 (syst.) pb. The
next-to-leading order QCD prediction lies about 2.5 standard deviations below
the data. The differential cross sections are in general consistent with the
NLO QCD predictions; however at low values of Q^2, Bjorken x, and muon
transverse momentum, and high values of jet transverse energy and muon
pseudorapidity, the prediction is about two standard deviations below the data.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure
Observation of isolated high-E_T photons in deep inelastic scattering
First measurements of cross sections for isolated prompt photon production in
deep inelastic ep scattering have been made using the ZEUS detector at the HERA
electron-proton collider using an integrated luminosity of 121 pb^-1. A signal
for isolated photons in the transverse energy and rapidity ranges 5 < E_T^gamma
< 10 GeV and -0.7 < eta^gamma < 0.9 was observed for virtualities of the
exchanged photon of Q^2 > 35 GeV^2. Cross sections are presented for inclusive
prompt photons and for those accompanied by a single jet in the range E_T^jet
\geq 6 GeV and -1.5 \leq eta^jet < 1.8. Calculations at order alpha^3alpha_s
describe the data reasonably well.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure
Forward jet production in deep inelastic ep scattering and low-x parton dynamics at HERA
Differential inclusive jet cross sections in neutral current deep inelastic
ep scattering have been measured with the ZEUS detector. Three phase-space
regions have been selected in order to study parton dynamics where the effects
of BFKL evolution might be present. The measurements have been compared to the
predictions of leading-logarithm parton shower Monte Carlo models and
fixed-order perturbative QCD calculations. In the forward region, QCD
calculations at order alpha_s^1 underestimate the data up to an order of
magnitude at low x. An improved description of the data in this region is
obtained by including QCD corrections at order alpha_s^2, which account for the
lowest-order t-channel gluon-exchange diagrams, highlighting the importance of
such terms in parton dynamics at low x.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figure
Hadrons at high temperature: An update from the FASTSUM collaboration
We present the most recent results from the FASTSUM collaboration for hadron properties at high temperature. This includes the temperature dependence of the light and charmed meson and baryon spectrum, as well as properties of heavy quarkonia. The results are obtained using anisotropic lattices with a fixed scale approach. We also present the status of our next generation gauge ensembles
Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset
corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected
during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV.
The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the
couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and
right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary
mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b,
leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing
transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W'
boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to
the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for
masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC
data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed
coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant
improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe
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