Strangelets and the TeV-PeV cosmic-ray anisotropies

Several experiments (e.g., Milagro and IceCube) have reported the presence in the sky of regions with significant excess in the arrival direction distributions of Galactic cosmic rays in the TeV to PeV energy range. Here we study the possibility that these hotspots are a manifestation of the peculiar nature of these cosmic rays, and of the presence of molecular clouds near the sources. We propose that stable quark matter lumps or so-called "strangelets" can be emitted in the course of the transition of a neutron star to a more compact astrophysical object. A fraction of these massive particles would lose their charge by spallation or electron capture in molecular clouds located in the immediate neighborhood of their source, and propagate rectilinearly without decaying further, hence inducing anisotropies of the order of the cloud size. With reasonable astrophysical assumptions regarding the neutron star transition rate, strangelet injection and neutralization rates, we can reproduce successfully the observed hotspot characteristics and their distribution in the sky.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, submitted to PR

Non-canonical roles of Oligoadenylate Synthetase 1 during viral and bacterial infections

Interferons inhibit growth of several intracellular pathogens, including virus and bacteria, through the expression of interferon stimulated genes (ISGs). We have found that a specific isoform of one such ISG, Oligoadenylate Synthetase 1 (OAS1) enhances translation of a select set of mRNAs, thereby increases the steady state and induced levels of specific proteins with antiviral and antibacterial properties. This OAS1 isoform (OAS1 P46) in humans is generated due to an alternative splice acceptor site at the C-terminus of OAS1 gene. The SNP rs10774671 at this site has been associated with disease severity to West Nile Virus (WNV) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We show that human OAS1-KO cells have lower basal levels of cGAS protein and can be rescued by OAS1 P46 expression, independent of its enzyme activity. Inducible expression of OAS1 P46 in cGAS-KO cells does not suppress WNV replication, suggesting that the antiviral activity of OAS1 is mediated through cGAS. We also have established functional equivalence between OAS1 P46 and a mouse ortholog, Oas1b (no enzyme activity), which similarly affects WNV susceptibility. Through RNA-protein crosslinking experiments we have identified target mRNAs that bind to OAS1 and Oas1b. We have demonstrated increased sensitivity of WNV in OAS1/Oas1b RNA binding mutants. To define the antibacterial activity of OAS1, we screened OAS1-deficient THP1 cells for bacterial growth using the intracellular bacteria Listeria monocytogenes and Francisella novicida as model bacterial pathogens. Inducible expression of OAS1 P46 WT and enzymatically inactive mutant rescued this antibacterial activity of OAS1 in OAS1-KO cells. Further investigation of OAS1-KO cells indicated defective type II IFN signaling due to the reduced expression of IRF1. Like cGAS, OAS1 bound to IRF1 mRNA and enhanced protein synthesis of IRF1. Inducible expression of OAS1 P46 in IRF1-KO cells did not inhibit bacterial growth suggesting that antibacterial activity of OAS1 is mediated through IRF1. Lastly, we found that Oas1b knock-in (Oas1b-KI) mice showed improved survival with L. monocytogenes or F. novicida as compared to WT mice. These findings suggest a new mechanism of OAS1 in which it binds to target mRNAs, enhances the translation of these RNAs and limits virus and bacterial infections

Police Response To Mental Health-Related Calls for Service in the City of Watsonville: A Process Evaluation of the City of Watsonville’s Plan to Assist Their Officers When Responding to Citizens with Mental Health Issues

Police officers respond to a variety of calls for service 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including mental-health related emergencies. With deinstitutionalization of individuals with severe mental illness, officers are often the first to be called to contact these individuals when they are in crisis (DeCuir, Lamb & Weinberger, 2002). Yet, few law enforcement officers have adequate training to manage interactions with people in mental health crisis. Officers perceive mental health related calls as very unpredictable and dangerous, which without adequate training in de-escalation, could inadvertently cause them to approach in a manner which escalates the situation (Fulambarker & Watson, 2012). The City of Watsonville has offered the Crisis Intervention Training (CIBHS, 2015) and developed a partnership with Santa Cruz County Mental Health Department to improve their response to these individuals. This research is built on the question, “What are police agencies doing to assist their officers when responding to calls for service that involve individuals with a mental health condition?” This research will conduct a process evaluation of what the Watsonville Police Department is providing to assist its officers when responding to these types of calls for service. The research will focus on the newest training provided and evaluate the efficiency of the newly implemented program known as the Crisis Assessment Respond Engagement Team (C.A.R.E.)

Pulsar scintillation patterns and strangelets

We propose that interstellar extreme scattering events, usually observed as pulsar scintillations, may be caused by a coherent agent rather than the usually assumed turbulence of $\rm H_2$ clouds. We find that the penetration of a flux of ionizing, positively charged strangelets or quark nuggets into a dense interstellar hydrogen cloud may produce ionization trails. Depending on the specific nature and energy of the incoming droplets, diffusive propagation or even capture in the cloud are possible. As a result, enhanced electron densities may form and constitute a lens-like scattering screen for radio pulsars and possibly for quasars.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Probing Late Neutrino Mass Properties with Supernova Neutrinos

Models of late-time neutrino mass generation contain new interactions of the cosmic background neutrinos with supernova relic neutrinos (SRNs) through exchange of the on-shell light boson, leading to significant modification of the differential SRN flux observed at earth. We consider Abelian U(1) model for generating neutrino masses at low scales and we show that there is a large parameter space in this model for which the changes induced in the flux by the exchange of the light bosons might allow one to distinguish between neutrinos being Majorana or Dirac particles, the type of neutrino mass hierarchy (normal or inverted or quasi-degenerate), and could also possibly determine the absolute values of the neutrino masses. Measurements of the presence of these effects would be possible at the next-generation water Cerenkov detectors enriched with Gadolinium, or a large 100 kton liquid argon detector.Comment: 29 pages latex, 15 figures included. Version to be published in Phys. Rev. D., added discussion of signal detection for water Cerenkov and liquid argon detectors, and discussion of non-adiabatic vs adiabatic neutrino evolution, new figures added, references updated. Results unchange

[Arthur G. Pomeroy House]

This report describes the process of redeveloping the historic Pomeroy House in Hartford, Conn. (Library-derived description)Perez, J. E. (1984). Arthur G.Pomeroy House. Retrieved from http://academicarchive.snhu.eduMaster of Science (M.S.)School of Community Economic Developmen

The Effect of Fasted vs Fed High-Intensity Interval Exercise on Metabolism and Diet

The purpose of this study was to investigate immediate and delayed metabolic and dietary responses to a single bout of cycling high-intensity interval exercise (HIIE) performed in the fasted and fed state. Baseline values of 11 subjects (6 female, 5 male) for resting energy expenditure (REE), respiratory exchange ratio (RER), resting VO2, VO2max and appetite score (VAS) were measured on the first visit. Energy balance (EB) was determined using diet tracking and activity energy expenditure (paEE). Trials followed a day at net energy balance and began in a fasted state. A 240-kcal energy bar was consumed prior to (FED) or after (FST) a high-intensity interval exercise (HIIE) bout. Post-exercise VO2 was recorded for one hour (60 of 70 minutes) immediately following HIIE. Metabolic variables were measured before and 12 hours after exercise. Energy intake was not different between conditions the day before trials (mean ± SD: 2060 ± 613 kcal FED, 2154 ± 666 kcal FST) or the 12 hours after exercise (1695 ± 484 kcal FED, 1892 ± 822 kcal FST). Post-exercise VAS was greater than 12 hours later (p \u3c 0.01). Post-exercise EE (97.0 ± 15.2 kcal.hr-1 FED, 89.9 ± 17.2 kcal.hr-1 FST) was elevated from pre-exercise (70.8 ± 10.7 kcal.hr-1 FED; p \u3c 0.01, 67.9 ± 10.2 kcal.hr-1 FST; p = 0.01). Post-exercise VO2 (272.2 ± 25.8 mL.hr-1.kg-1 FED, 254.2 ± 33.5 mL.hr-1.kg-1 FST) was elevated from pre-exercise (203.4 ± 25.4 mL.hr-1.kg-1 FED; p \u3c 0.01, 195.6 ± 12.5 mL.hr-1.kg-1 FST; p \u3c 0.01). Excess EE (26.2 ± 10.6 kcal FED, 22.0 ± 11.8 kcal FST) and EPOC (68.8 ± 28.6 mL.kg-1 FED, 58.6 ± 32.5 mL.kg-1 FST) over 60 minutes did not differ between conditions. Appetite was blunted in the hours following HIIE supporting the transient effect of exercise on appetite. Excess EE and EPOC did occur in the hour following exercise. However, whether a 240-kcal meal replacement bar was consumed immediately before or shortly after morning HIIE did not significantly impact resulting EPOC, RER, EI or appetite

"Enabling us to face well the reality set before us:" A Response to Tartaglia's Proposal on Chaplaincy Education

Author responds to Tartaglia's proposal affirming his encouragement to keep looking at the training and education of chaplains

I-Line Resist Process Monitor

In order to confidently reproduce results obtained from experimentation or standard processing, the stability of the involved equipment’s performance must be understood. Therefore, it is important to monitor, on a regular basis, the outputs of an equipment set which are delivering a desired process. In this paper, a qualification test or qual” will be defined for RIT’s 150mm i-line photolithography process which utilizes a Canon FPA 2000-i1 exposure tool

Development of a minimally invasive molecular biomarker for early detection of lung cancer

The diagnostic evaluation of ever smokers with pulmonary nodules represents a growing clinical challenge due to the implementation of lung cancer screening. The high false-positive rate of screening frequently results in the use of unnecessary invasive procedures in patients who are ultimately diagnosed as benign, clearly highlighting the need for additional diagnostic approaches. We previously derived and validated a bronchial epithelial gene-expression biomarker to detect lung cancer in ever smokers. However, bronchoscopy is not always chosen as a diagnostic modality. Given that bronchial and nasal epithelial gene-expression are similarly altered by cigarette smoke exposure, we sought to determine if cancer-associated gene-expression might also be detectable in the more readily accessible nasal epithelium. Nasal epithelial brushings were prospectively collected from ever smokers undergoing diagnostic evaluation for lung cancer in the AEGIS-1 (n=375) and AEGIS-2 (n=130) clinical trials and gene-expression profiled using microarrays. The computational framework used to discover biomarkers in these data was formalized and implemented in an open-source R-package. We identified 535 genes in the nasal epithelium of AEGIS-1 patients whose expression was associated with lung cancer status. Using matched bronchial gene-expression data from a subset of these patients, we found significantly concordant cancer-associated gene-expression alterations between the two airway sites. A nasal lung cancer classifier derived in the AEGIS-1 cohort that combined clinical factors and nasal gene-expression had significantly higher AUC (0.81) and sensitivity (0.91) than the clinical-factor model alone in independent samples from the AEGIS-2 cohort. These results support that the airway epithelial field of lung cancer-associated injury extends to the nose and demonstrates the potential of using nasal gene-expression as a non-invasive biomarker for lung cancer detection. The framework for deriving this biomarker was generalized and implemented in an open-source R-package. The package provides a computational pipeline to compare biomarker development strategies using microarray data. The results from this pipeline can be used to highlight the optimal model development parameters for a given dataset leading to more robust and accurate models. This package provides the community with a novel and powerful tool to facilitate biomarker discovery in microarray data