Sense and nonsense in sensors

Continuous subcutaneous glucose monitoring (CGM) is a developing technology in the treatment of diabetes mellitus. The first randomised controlled trials on its efficacy have been performed. In several studies, CGM lowered HbA1c in adult patients with suboptimally controlled type 1 diabetes mellitus, when selecting compliant patients who tolerate the device. However, as a preventive tool for hypoglycaemia, CGM has not fulfilled the great expectations. Increasing reimbursement of CGM is expected in the near future, awaiting studies on cost-effectiveness

Highly efficient and robust cathode materials for low-temperature solid oxide fuel cells: PrBa0.5Sr0.5Co2-xFexO5+delta

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) are the cleanest, most efficient, and cost-effective option for direct conversion to electricity of a wide variety of fuels. While significant progress has been made in anode materials with enhanced tolerance to coking and contaminant poisoning, cathodic polarization still contributes considerably to energy loss, more so at lower operating temperatures. Here we report a synergistic effect of co-doping in a cation-ordered double-perovskite material, PrBa 0.5 Sr 0.5 Co 2-x Fe x O 5+??, which has created pore channels that dramatically enhance oxygen ion diffusion and surface oxygen exchange while maintaining excellent compatibility and stability under operating conditions. Test cells based on these cathode materials demonstrate peak power densities ???2.2â�...W cm -2 at 600 C, representing an important step toward commercially viable SOFC technologies.open16

Observation of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering

The coherent elastic scattering of neutrinos off nuclei has eluded detection for four decades, even though its predicted cross-section is the largest by far of all low-energy neutrino couplings. This mode of interaction provides new opportunities to study neutrino properties, and leads to a miniaturization of detector size, with potential technological applications. We observe this process at a 6.7-sigma confidence level, using a low-background, 14.6-kg CsI[Na] scintillator exposed to the neutrino emissions from the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Characteristic signatures in energy and time, predicted by the Standard Model for this process, are observed in high signal-to-background conditions. Improved constraints on non-standard neutrino interactions with quarks are derived from this initial dataset

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

A Search for Dark Higgs Bosons

Recent astrophysical and terrestrial experiments have motivated the proposal of a dark sector with GeV-scale gauge boson force carriers and new Higgs bosons. We present a search for a dark Higgs boson using 516 fb-1 of data collected with the BABAR detector. We do not observe a significant signal and we set 90% confidence level upper limits on the product of the Standard Model-dark sector mixing angle and the dark sector coupling constant.Comment: 7 pages, 5 postscript figures, published version with improved plots for b/w printin

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Role of Portal Vein Embolization in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Management and Its Effect on Recurrence: A Case-control Study

Background Liver regeneration that occurs after portal vein embolization (PVE) may have adverse effects on the microscopic tumor foci in the residual liver mass in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods Fifty-four HCC patients with inadequate functional residual liver volume were offered PVE during a seven-year period. Among them, 34 (63%) patients underwent curative resection. They were compared with a matched control group (n = 102) who underwent surgery without PVE. Postoperative complications, pattern of recurrence, and survival were compared between groups. Results In the PVE group, a pre-embolization functional residual liver volume of 23% (12-33.5%) improved to 34% (20-54%) (p = 0.005) at the time of surgery. When the two groups were compared, minor (PVE, 24%; control, 29%; p = 0.651) and major (PVE, 18%; control, 15%; p = 0.784) complications were similar. After a follow-up period of 35 months (standard deviation 25 months), extrahepatic recurrences were detected in 10 PVE patients (29%) and 41 control patients (40%) (p = 0.310). Intrahepatic recurrences were seen in 10 (29%) and 47 (46%) cases (p = 0.109) in the PVE and control groups, respectively. In the PVE group, 41% (n = 14) of the recurrences were detected before one year, compared with 42% (n = 43) in the control group (p = 1). Disease-free survival rates at 1, 3, and 5 years were 57, 29, and 26% in the control group and 60, 42, and 42% in the PVE group (log-rank, p = 0.335). On multivariate analysis, PVE was not a factor affecting survival (p = 0.821). Conclusions Portal vein embolization increases the resectability of initially unresectable HCC due to inadequate functional residual liver volume, and it has no deleterious oncological effect after major resection of HCC. © The Author(s) 2012.published_or_final_versionSpringer Open Choice, 28 May 201

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium. The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurement of the Forward-Backward Asymmetry in the B -> K(*) mu+ mu- Decay and First Observation of the Bs -> phi mu+ mu- Decay

We reconstruct the rare decays $B^+ \to K^+\mu^+\mu^-$, $B^0 \to K^{*}(892)^0\mu^+\mu^-$, and $B^0_s \to \phi(1020)\mu^+\mu^-$ in a data sample corresponding to $4.4 {\rm fb^{-1}}$ collected in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=1.96 {\rm TeV}$ by the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. Using $121 \pm 16$ $B^+ \to K^+\mu^+\mu^-$ and $101 \pm 12$ $B^0 \to K^{*0}\mu^+\mu^-$ decays we report the branching ratios. In addition, we report the measurement of the differential branching ratio and the muon forward-backward asymmetry in the $B^+$ and $B^0$ decay modes, and the $K^{*0}$ longitudinal polarization in the $B^0$ decay mode with respect to the squared dimuon mass. These are consistent with the theoretical prediction from the standard model, and most recent determinations from other experiments and of comparable accuracy. We also report the first observation of the $B^0_s \to \phi\mu^+\mu^- decay and measure its branching ratio${\mathcal{B}}(B^0_s \to \phi\mu^+\mu^-) = [1.44 \pm 0.33 \pm 0.46] \times 10^{-6}$using$27 \pm 6$signal events. This is currently the most rare$B^0_s$ decay observed.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let