The host galaxies of luminous type 2 AGNs at z ∼ 0.3–0.4

ABSTRACT: We study the morphological and structural properties of the host galaxies associated with 57 optically selected luminous type 2 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at z ∼ 0.3–0.4: 16 high-luminosity Seyfert 2 [HLSy2, 8.0 ≤ log(L[oIII]/Lʘ) < 8.3] and 41 obscured [QSO2, log(L[O III]/Lʘ) ≥ 8.3] quasars. With this work, the total number of QSO2s at z < 1 with parametrized galaxies increases from ∼35 to 76. Our analysis is based on Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 and ACS images that we fit with GALFIT. HLSy2s and QSO2s show a wide diversity of galaxy hosts. The main difference lies in the higher incidence of highly disturbed systems among QSO2s. This is consistent with a scenario in which galaxy interactions are the dominant mechanism triggering nuclear activity at the highest AGN power. There is a strong dependence of galaxy properties with AGN power (assuming L[O III] is an adequate proxy). The relative contribution of the spheroidal component to the total galaxy light (B/T) increases with L[O III]. While systems dominated by the spheroidal component spread across the total range of L[O III], most disc-dominated galaxies concentrate at log(L[O III]/Lʘ)JUM and MVM acknowledge support from the Spanish former Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad through the grants AYA2012-32295 and AYA2015-64346-C2-2-P. FB also acknowledges support from grant AYA2016-77237-C3-1-P from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). JPL acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad through the grant AYA2017-85170-R. BRP acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through grant ESP2015-68964. F.J.C. acknowledges financial support through grant AYA2015-64346-C2-1-P (MINECO/FEDER)

Revealing full chemical forms of lead in wine with combined XRF-NMR technologies

Since 1953, The World Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) Member States have reduced the lead maximum limits (ML) in wines, down to 0.05 mg/L (2018). Evidently, this ML value is too restrictive for wine industry as it excludes from international market a significant portion of wine production. Currently, the Codex Committee on Contaminants in Foods and OIV had recognized the value of gathering robust and novel data to better assess the best lowest ML for wine industry. Currently, there is not a direct statement within international reference documents, of which chemical form of lead must be controlled and/ or reduced. This work presents for the first time a method combining Energy Dispersive X-Ray analysis (EDAX) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopies in order to determine presence and concentrations of major and trace elements of lead and other element moieties in wine that can allow to better redefine lead's ML. By identification of K, L, M, radiation shells with additional αβi labelling of lead's major and minor components with semi-quantitative XRF, combined with chemical-shift analysis of inorganic Pb4+, Pb2+ and/or organo-lead within wine samples, we propose a full discrimination framework to disentangle and quantify different chemical forms of lead

Common Variants of TLR1 Associate with Organ Dysfunction and Sustained Pro-Inflammatory Responses during Sepsis

Background: Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are critical components for host pathogen recognition and variants in genes participating in this response influence susceptibility to infections. Recently, TLR1 gene polymorphisms have been found correlated with whole blood hyper-inflammatory responses to pathogen-associated molecules and associated with sepsis-associated multiorgan dysfunction and acute lung injury (ALI). We examined the association of common variants of TLR1 gene with sepsis-derived complications in an independent study and with serum levels for four inflammatory biomarker among septic patients. Methodology/Principal Findings: Seven tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms of the TLR1 gene were genotyped in samples from a prospective multicenter case-only study of patients with severe sepsis admitted into a network of intensive care units followed for disease severity. Interleukin (IL)-1 b, IL-6, IL-10, and C-reactive protein (CRP) serum levels were measured at study entry, at 48 h and at 7th day. Alleles -7202G and 248Ser, and the 248Ser-602Ile haplotype were associated with circulatory dysfunction among severe septic patients (0.001<=p <= 0.022), and with reduced IL-10 (0.012<= p <=0.047) and elevated CRP (0.011<= p <=0.036) serum levels during the first week of sepsis development. Additionally, the -7202GG genotype was found to be associated with hospital mortality (p =0.017) and ALI (p =0.050) in a combined analysis with European Americans, suggesting common risk effects among studies Conclusions/Significance: These results partially replicate and extend previous findings, supporting that variants of TLR1 gene are determinants of severe complications during sepsis

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

North African Influences and Potential Bias in Case-Control Association Studies in the Spanish Population

BACKGROUND: Despite the limited genetic heterogeneity of Spanish populations, substantial evidences support that historical African influences have not affected them uniformly. Accounting for such population differences might be essential to reduce spurious results in association studies of genetic factors with disease. Using ancestry informative markers (AIMs), we aimed to measure the African influences in Spanish populations and to explore whether these might introduce statistical bias in population-based association studies. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We genotyped 93 AIMs in Spanish (from the Canary Islands and the Iberian Peninsula) and Northwest Africans, and conducted population and individual-based clustering analyses along with reference data from the HapMap, HGDP-CEPH, and other sources. We found significant differences for the Northwest African influence among Spanish populations from as low as ≈ 5% in Spanish from the Iberian Peninsula to as much as ≈ 17% in Canary Islanders, whereas the sub-Saharan African influence was negligible. Strikingly, the Northwest African ancestry showed a wide inter-individual variation in Canary Islanders ranging from 0% to 96%, reflecting the violent way the Islands were conquered and colonized by the Spanish in the XV century. As a consequence, a comparison of allele frequencies between Spanish samples from the Iberian Peninsula and the Canary Islands evidenced an excess of markers with significant differences. However, the inflation of p-values for the differences was adequately controlled by correcting for genetic ancestry estimates derived from a reduced number of AIMs. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Although the African influences estimated might be biased due to marker ascertainment, these results confirm that Northwest African genetic footprints are recognizable nowadays in the Spanish populations, particularly in Canary Islanders, and that the uneven African influences existing in these populations might increase the risk for false positives in association studies. Adjusting for population stratification assessed with a few dozen AIMs would be sufficient to control this effect

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of asthma exacerbations

Altres ajuts: European Regional Development Fund "ERDF A way of making Europe"; Allergopharma-EAACI award 2021; SysPharmPedia grant from the ERACoSysMed 1st Joint Transnational Call from the European Union under the Horizon 2020; Sandler Family Foundation; American Asthma Foundation; RWJF Amos Medical Faculty Development Program; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (R01HL117004, R01HL128439, R01HL135156, X01HL134589, R01HL141992, R01HL141845); National Institute of Health and Environmental Health Sciences (R01ES015794, R21ES24844); National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) (P60MD006902, R01MD010443, R56MD013312); National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) (RL5GM118984); Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (24RT-0025, 27IR-0030); National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) (U01HG009080); GlaxoSmithKline and Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences; Slovenian Research Agency (P3-0067); SysPharmPediA grant, co-financed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport Slovenia (MIZS) (C3330-16-500106); NHS Research Scotland; Wellcome Trust Biomedical Resource (099177/Z/12/Z); Genotyping National Centre (CeGEN) CeGen-PRB3-ISCIII (AC15/00015); UK Medical Research Council and Wellcome (102215/2/13/2); University of Bristol; Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, Swedish Research Council; Region Stockholm (ALF project and database maintenance); NHS Chair of Pharmacogenetics via the UK Department of Health; Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) (115010); European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA); Spanish National Cancer Research Centre; Fundación Canaria Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Canarias (PIFIISC19/17); Erasmus Medical Center; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Netherlands Organization for the Health Research and Development (ZonMw); the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (RIDE); Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sports; European Commission (DG XII); Municipality of Rotterdam; German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF); U.S. National Institutes of Health (HL07966); European Social Fund "ESF Investing in your future"; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades; Universidad de La Laguna (ULL); European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI); European Respiratory Society (ERS) (LTRF202101-00861); Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia (C3330-19-252012); Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund; Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN); National Medical Research Council (NMRC Singapore); Biomedical Research Council (BMRC Singapore); Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR Singapore, N-154-000-038-001, R-154-000-191-112, R-154-000-404-112, R-154-000-553-112, R-154-000-565-112, R-154-000-630-112, R-154-000-A08-592, R-154-000-A27-597, R-154-000-A91-592, R-154-000-A95-592, R-154-000-B99-114, BMRC/01/1/21/18/077, BMRC/04/1/21/19/315, SIgN-06-006, SIgN-08-020, NMRC/1150/2008, H17/01/a0/008); Sime Darby Technology Centre; First Resources Ltd; Genting Plantation; Olam International; U.S. National Institutes of Health (HL138098).Background: Asthma exacerbations are a serious public health concern due to high healthcare resource utilization, work/school productivity loss, impact on quality of life, and risk of mortality. The genetic basis of asthma exacerbations has been studied in several populations, but no prior study has performed a multi-ancestry meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (meta-GWAS) for this trait. We aimed to identify common genetic loci associated with asthma exacerbations across diverse populations and to assess their functional role in regulating DNA methylation and gene expression. Methods: A meta-GWAS of asthma exacerbations in 4989 Europeans, 2181 Hispanics/Latinos, 1250 Singaporean Chinese, and 972 African Americans analyzed 9.6 million genetic variants. Suggestively associated variants (p ≤ 5 × 10) were assessed for replication in 36,477 European and 1078 non-European asthma patients. Functional effects on DNA methylation were assessed in 595 Hispanic/Latino and African American asthma patients and in publicly available databases. The effect on gene expression was evaluated in silico. Results: One hundred and twenty-six independent variants were suggestively associated with asthma exacerbations in the discovery phase. Two variants independently replicated: rs12091010 located at vascular cell adhesion molecule-1/exostosin like glycosyltransferase-2 (VCAM1/EXTL2) (discovery: odds ratio (OR) = 0.82, p = 9.05 × 10 and replication: OR = 0.89, p = 5.35 × 10) and rs943126 from pantothenate kinase 1 (PANK1) (discovery: OR = 0.85, p = 3.10 × 10 and replication: OR = 0.89, p = 1.30 × 10). Both variants regulate gene expression of genes where they locate and DNA methylation levels of nearby genes in whole blood. Conclusions: This multi-ancestry study revealed novel suggestive regulatory loci for asthma exacerbations located in genomic regions participating in inflammation and host defense

Measurement of jet fragmentation in Pb+Pb and pp collisions at √s NN =5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a measurement of jet fragmentation functions in 0.49 nb −1 of Pb+Pb collisions and 25 pb −1 of pp collisions at √ sNN =5.02 TeV collected in 2015 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. These measurements provide insight into the jet quenching process in the quark-gluon plasma created in the aftermath of ultra-relativistic collisions between two nuclei. The modifications to the jet fragmentation functions are quantified by dividing the measurements in Pb+Pb collisions by baseline measurements in pp collisions. This ratio is studied as a function of the transverse momentum of the jet, the jet rapidity, and the centrality of the collision. In both collision systems, the jet fragmentation functions are measured for jets with transverse momentum between 126 GeV and 398 GeV and with an absolute value of jet rapidity less than 2.1. An enhancement of particles carrying a small fraction of the jet momentum is observed, which increases with centrality and with increasing jet transverse momentum. Yields of particles carrying a very large fraction of the jet momentum are also observed to be enhanced. Between these two enhancements of the fragmentation functions a suppression of particles carrying an intermediate fraction of the jet momentum is observed in Pb+Pb collisions. A small dependence of the modifications on jet rapidity is observed

Search for Higgs bosons produced via vector-boson fusion and decaying into bottom quark pairs in √s =13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the bb ¯ decay of the Standard Model Higgs boson produced through vector-boson fusion is presented. Three mutually exclusive channels are considered: two all-hadronic channels and a photon-associated channel. Results are reported from the analysis of up to 30.6 fb −1 of pp data at s √ =13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measured signal strength relative to the Standard Model prediction from the combined analysis is 2.5 +1.4 −1.3 for inclusive Higgs boson production and 3.0 +1.7 −1.6 for vector-boson fusion production only

Searches for exclusive Higgs and Z boson decays into J/ψγ,ψ(2S)γ,and Υ(nS)γ at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Searches for the exclusive decays of the Higgs and Z bosons into a J/ψ,ψ(2S), or Υ(nS)(n=1,2,3) meson and a photon are performed with a pp collision data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb −1 collected at √s =13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. No significant excess of events is observed above the expected backgrounds, and 95% confidence-level upper limits on the branching fractions of the Higgs boson decays to J/ψγ, ψ(2S)γ,and Υ(nS)γ of 3.5×10 −4, 2.0×10−3,and(4.9,5.9,5.7)×10 −4,respectively, are obtained assuming Standard Model production. The corresponding 95% confidence-level upper limits for the branching fractions of the Z boson decays are 2.3×10 −6, 4.5×10 −6 and (2.8,1.7,4.8)×10 −6, respectively

Measurements of long-range azimuthal anisotropies and associated Fourier coefficients for pp collisions at √s=5.02 and 13 TeV and p+Pb collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector

ATLAS measurements of two-particle correlations are presented for √s=5.02 and 13 TeV ppcollisions and for √sNN=5.02 TeV p+Pb collisions at the LHC. The correlation functions are measured as a function of relative azimuthal angle Δϕ, and pseudorapidity separation Δη, using charged particles detected within the pseudorapidity interval |η|2, is studied using a template fitting procedure to remove a “back-to-back” contribution to the correlation function that primarily arises from hard-scattering processes. In addition to the elliptic, cos (2Δϕ), modulation observed in a previous measurement, the pp correlation functions exhibit significant cos (3Δϕ) and cos (4Δϕ) modulation. The Fourier coefficients vn, n associated with the cos (nΔϕ) modulation of the correlation functions for n=2–4 are measured as a function of charged-particle multiplicity and charged-particle transverse momentum. The Fourier coefficients are observed to be compatible with cos (nϕ) modulation of per-event single-particle azimuthal angle distributions. The single-particle Fourier coefficients vn are measured as a function of charged-particle multiplicity, and charged-particle transverse momentum for n=2–4. The integrated luminosities used in this analysis are, 64nb−1 for the √s=13 TeV pp data, 170 nb−1 for the √ s = 5.02 TeV pp data, and 28 nb−1 for the √sNN = 5.02 TeV p+Pb data