An experimental study to discriminate between the validity of diffraction theories for off-Bragg replay

We show that experiments clearly verify the assumptions made by the first-order two-wave coupling theory for one dimensional lossless unslanted planar volume holographic gratings using the beta-value method rather than Kogelnik's K-vector closure method. Apart from the fact that the diffraction process is elastic, a much more striking difference between the theories becomes apparent particularly in the direction of the diffracted beam in off-Bragg replay. We therefore monitored the direction of the diffracted beam as a function of the off-Bragg replay angle in two distinct cases: [a] the diffracted beam lies in the plane of incidence and [b] the sample surface normal, the grating vector and the incoming beam do not form a plane which calls for the vectorial theory and results in conical scattering.Comment: Corrected Eqs. (3) & (6); 14 pages, 8 figure

Search for composite and exotic fermions at LEP 2

A search for unstable heavy fermions with the DELPHI detector at LEP is reported. Sequential and non-canonical leptons, as well as excited leptons and quarks, are considered. The data analysed correspond to an integrated luminosity of about 48 pb^{-1} at an e^+e^- centre-of-mass energy of 183 GeV and about 20 pb^{-1} equally shared between the centre-of-mass energies of 172 GeV and 161 GeV. The search for pair-produced new leptons establishes 95% confidence level mass limits in the region between 70 GeV/c^2 and 90 GeV/c^2, depending on the channel. The search for singly produced excited leptons and quarks establishes upper limits on the ratio of the coupling of the excited fermio

Search for lightest neutralino and stau pair production in light gravitino scenarios with stau NLSP

Promptly decaying lightest neutralinos and long-lived staus are searched for in the context of light gravitino scenarios. It is assumed that the stau is the next to lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) and that the lightest neutralino is the next to NLSP (NNLSP). Data collected with the Delphi detector at centre-of-mass energies from 161 to 183 \GeV are analysed. No evidence of the production of these particles is found. Hence, lower mass limits for both kinds of particles are set at 95% C.L.. The mass of gaugino-like neutralinos is found to be greater than 71.5 GeV/c^2. In the search for long-lived stau, masses less than 70.0 to 77.5 \GeVcc are excluded for gravitino masses from 10 to 150 \eVcc . Combining this search with the searches for stable heavy leptons and Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model staus a lower limit of 68.5 \GeVcc may be set for the stau mas

Track E Implementation Science, Health Systems and Economics

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138412/1/jia218443.pd

The SEQC2 epigenomics quality control (EpiQC) study

BACKGROUND: Cytosine modifications in DNA such as 5-methylcytosine (5mC) underlie a broad range of developmental processes, maintain cellular lineage specification, and can define or stratify types of cancer and other diseases. However, the wide variety of approaches available to interrogate these modifications has created a need for harmonized materials, methods, and rigorous benchmarking to improve genome-wide methylome sequencing applications in clinical and basic research. Here, we present a multi-platform assessment and cross-validated resource for epigenetics research from the FDA's Epigenomics Quality Control Group. RESULTS: Each sample is processed in multiple replicates by three whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) protocols (TruSeq DNA methylation, Accel-NGS MethylSeq, and SPLAT), oxidative bisulfite sequencing (TrueMethyl), enzymatic deamination method (EMSeq), targeted methylation sequencing (Illumina Methyl Capture EPIC), single-molecule long-read nanopore sequencing from Oxford Nanopore Technologies, and 850k Illumina methylation arrays. After rigorous quality assessment and comparison to Illumina EPIC methylation microarrays and testing on a range of algorithms (Bismark, BitmapperBS, bwa-meth, and BitMapperBS), we find overall high concordance between assays, but also differences in efficiency of read mapping, CpG capture, coverage, and platform performance, and variable performance across 26 microarray normalization algorithms. CONCLUSIONS: The data provided herein can guide the use of these DNA reference materials in epigenomics research, as well as provide best practices for experimental design in future studies. By leveraging seven human cell lines that are designated as publicly available reference materials, these data can be used as a baseline to advance epigenomics research

Open data from the third observing run of LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO

The global network of gravitational-wave observatories now includes five detectors, namely LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO 600. These detectors collected data during their third observing run, O3, composed of three phases: O3a starting in 2019 April and lasting six months, O3b starting in 2019 November and lasting five months, and O3GK starting in 2020 April and lasting two weeks. In this paper we describe these data and various other science products that can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at https://gwosc.org. The main data set, consisting of the gravitational-wave strain time series that contains the astrophysical signals, is released together with supporting data useful for their analysis and documentation, tutorials, as well as analysis software packages

Aerosol decadal trends (II): In-situ aerosol particle number concentrations at GAW and ACTRIS stations

We have analysed the trends of total aerosol particle number concentrations (N) measured at long-term measurement stations involved either in the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) and/or EU infrastructure project ACTRIS. The sites are located in Europe, North America, Antarctica, and on Pacific Ocean islands. The majority of the sites showed clear decreasing trends both in the full-length time series, and in the intra-site comparison period of 2001–2010, especially during the winter months. Several potential driving processes for the observed trends were studied, and even though there are some similarities between N trends and air temperature changes, the most likely cause of many northern hemisphere trends was found to be decreases in the anthropogenic emissions of primary particles, SO2 or some coemitted species. We could not find a consistent agreement between the trends of N and particle optical properties in the few stations with long time series of all of these properties. The trends of N and the proxies for cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) were generally consistent in the few European stations where the measurements were available. This work provides a useful comparison analysis for modelling studies of trends in aerosol number concentrations

Characterization of the bacterial microflora on the skin of boreal toads, Anaxyrus (Bufo) boreas boreas, and Columbia spotted frogs, Rana luteiventris, in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming USA

Background: Cutaneous bacteria inhabiting the skin of boreal toads (Anaxyrus (Bufo) boreas boreas) and columbia spotted frogs (Rana luteiventris) from Grand Teton National Park were isolated and identified using their 16S SSU rRNA gene sequence. We also used a culture-independent method, Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (TRFLP) analysis of the 16S SSU rRNA gene sequence, to characterize and compare the bacterial microbiota of these two amphibian species within and between different collection sites in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, USA. Results: Bacterial isolates belonged to 5 major phylogenetic lineages: the Actinobacteria, the Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi Group, and the Alpha-, Beta-, and Gamma-Proteobacterial lineages. TRFLP analyses showed a high species richness between sites and between amphibian species, as well as a significant amount of diversity. All three measures of diversity used (Margalef Species Richness, the Shannon Index, and the Simpson Index) were higher for frog samples than toad samples, but varied between sites. Additive Main effects and Multiplicative Interaction (AMMI) analysis of the TRFLP results showed more variability in the 3’ fragments than in the 5’ fragments of the 16S SSU rRNA gene sequences amplified from metagenomic DNA extracted from amphibian skin surface samples. Furthermore, within the 3’ fragments one site was shown to be significantly different than the other four sites by AMMI analysis. Conclusions: This study illustrated the extensive phylogenetic diversity of microorganisms present on the skin of frogs and toads present in GTNP. The identification of some of the bacterial isolates present as belonging to lineages known to produce antifungal or antibiotic compounds (thereby enabling microbial antagonism) forms the basis for a plausible hypothesis for the disease resistance of amphibians to Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis in GTNP