Anisotropy studies around the galactic centre at EeV energies with the Auger Observatory

Data from the Pierre Auger Observatory are analyzed to search for anisotropies near the direction of the Galactic Centre at EeV energies. The exposure of the surface array in this part of the sky is already significantly larger than that of the fore-runner experiments. Our results do not support previous findings of localized excesses in the AGASA and SUGAR data. We set an upper bound on a point-like flux of cosmic rays arriving from the Galactic Centre which excludes several scenarios predicting sources of EeV neutrons from Sagittarius $A$. Also the events detected simultaneously by the surface and fluorescence detectors (the `hybrid' data set), which have better pointing accuracy but are less numerous than those of the surface array alone, do not show any significant localized excess from this direction.Comment: Matches published versio

Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set

We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity. We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2, -1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012

Species abundance distributions: moving beyond single prediction theories to integration within an ecological framework

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75247/1/j.1461-0248.2007.01094.x.pd

Quantitative trait locus mapping associated with earliness and fruit weight in tomato

ABSTRACT The flowering time is regarded as an important factor that affects yield in various crops. In order to understand how the molecular basis controlling main components of earliness in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.), and to deduce whether the correlation between fruit weight, days to flowering and seed weight, is caused by pleiotropic effects or genetic linkage, a QTLs analysis was carried out using an F2 interspecific population derived from the cross of S. lycopersicum and S. pimpinellifolium. The analysis revealed that most of the components related to earliness were independent due to the absence of phenotypic correlation and lack of co-localization of their QTLs. QTLs affecting the flowering time showed considerable variation over time in values of explained phenotypic variation and average effects, which suggested dominance becomes more evident over time. The path analysis showed that traits such as days to flowering, seed weight, and length of the first leaf had a significant effect on the expression of fruit weight, confirming that their correlations were due to linkage. This result was also confirmed in two genomic regions located on chromosomes 1 and 4, where despite showing high co-localization of QTLs associated to days to flowering, seed weight and fruit weight, the presence and absence of epistasis in dfft1.1 × dftt4.1 and fw1.1 × fw4.1, suggested that the linkage was the main cause of the co-localization

Characterization of human embryonic stem cell immunogenicity in allogeneic humanized mice

Vascular Surger