Novae Ejecta as Colliding Shells

Following on our initial absorption-line analysis of fifteen novae spectra we present additional evidence for the existence of two distinct components of novae ejecta having different origins. As argued in Paper I one component is the rapidly expanding gas ejected from the outer layers of the white dwarf by the outburst. The second component is pre-existing outer, more slowly expanding circumbinary gas that represents ejecta from the secondary star or accretion disk. We present measurements of the emission-line widths that show them to be significantly narrower than the broad P Cygni profiles that immediately precede them. The emission profiles of novae in the nebular phase are distinctly rectangular, i.e., strongly suggestive of emission from a relatively thin, roughly spherical shell. We thus interpret novae spectral evolution in terms of the collision between the two components of ejecta, which converts the early absorption spectrum to an emission-line spectrum within weeks of the outburst. The narrow emission widths require the outer circumbinary gas to be much more massive than the white dwarf ejecta, thereby slowing the latter's expansion upon collision. The presence of a large reservoir of circumbinary gas at the time of outburst is suggestive that novae outbursts may sometime be triggered by collapse of gas onto the white dwarf, as occurs for dwarf novae, rather than steady mass transfer through the inner Lagrangian point.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures; Revised manuscript; Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

Circulating prolactin levels and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer

Purpose: Indirect evidence from experimental and epidemiological studies suggests that prolactin may be involved in ovarian cancer development. However, the relationship between circulating prolactin levels and risk of ovarian cancer is unknown. Methods: We conducted a nested case-control study of 230 cases and 432 individually matched controls within three prospective cohorts to evaluate whether pre-diagnostic circulating prolactin is associated with subsequent risk of ovarian cancer. We also assessed whether lifestyle and reproductive factors are associated with circulating prolactin among controls. Results: Prolactin levels were significantly lower among post- versus pre-menopausal women, parous versus nulliparous women, and past versus never users of oral contraceptives in our cross-sectional analysis of controls. In our nested case-control study, we observed a non-significant positive association between circulating prolactin and ovarian cancer risk (ORQ4vsQ1 1.56, 95 % CI 0.94, 2.63, p trend 0.15). Our findings were similar in multivariate-adjusted models and in the subgroup of women who donated blood 655 years prior to diagnosis. We observed a significant positive association between prolactin and risk for the subgroup of women with BMI 6525 kg/m2 (ORQ4vsQ1 3.10, 95 % CI 1.39, 6.90), but not for women with BMI <25 kg/m2 (OR Q4vsQ1 0.81, 95 % CI 0.40, 1.64). Conclusions: Our findings suggest that prolactin may be associated with increased risk of ovarian cancer, particularly in overweight/obese women. Factors associated with reduced risk of ovarian cancer, such as parity and use of oral contraceptives, were associated with lower prolactin levels, which suggests that modulation of prolactin may be a mechanism underlying their association with risk

Pinch Technique and the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism

In this paper we take the first step towards a non-diagrammatic formulation of the Pinch Technique. In particular we proceed into a systematic identification of the parts of the one-loop and two-loop Feynman diagrams that are exchanged during the pinching process in terms of unphysical ghost Green's functions; the latter appear in the standard Slavnov-Taylor identity satisfied by the tree-level and one-loop three-gluon vertex. This identification allows for the consistent generalization of the intrinsic pinch technique to two loops, through the collective treatment of entire sets of diagrams, instead of the laborious algebraic manipulation of individual graphs, and sets up the stage for the generalization of the method to all orders. We show that the task of comparing the effective Green's functions obtained by the Pinch Technique with those computed in the background field method Feynman gauge is significantly facilitated when employing the powerful quantization framework of Batalin and Vilkovisky. This formalism allows for the derivation of a set of useful non-linear identities, which express the Background Field Method Green's functions in terms of the conventional (quantum) ones and auxiliary Green's functions involving the background source and the gluonic anti-field; these latter Green's functions are subsequently related by means of a Schwinger-Dyson type of equation to the ghost Green's functions appearing in the aforementioned Slavnov-Taylor identity.Comment: 45 pages, uses axodraw; typos corrected, one figure changed, final version to appear in Phys.Rev.

State of the field: What can political ethnography tell us about anti-politics and democratic disaffection?

This article adopts and reinvents the ethnographic approach to uncover what governing elites do, and how they respond to public disaffection. Although there is significant work on the citizens’ attitudes to the governing elite (the demand side) there is little work on how elites interpret and respond to public disaffection (the supply side). We argue that ethnography is the best available research method for collecting data on the supply side. In doing so, we tackle long-standing stereotypes in political science about the ethnographic method and what it is good for. We highlight how the innovative and varied practices of contemporary ethnography are ideally suited to shedding light into the ‘black box’ of elite politics. We demonstrate the potential pay-off with reference to important examples of elite ethnography from the margins of political science scholarship. The implications from these rich studies, we argue, suggest a reorientation of how we understand the drivers of public disaffection and the role that political elites play in exacerbating cynicism and disappointment. We conclude by pointing to the benefits to the discipline in embracing elite ethnography both to diversify the methodological toolkit in explaining the complex dynamics of disaffection,and to better enable engagement in renewed public debate about the political establishment

The Two-Loop Pinch Technique in the Electroweak Sector

The generalization of the two-loop Pinch Technique to the Electroweak Sector of the Standard Model is presented. We restrict ourselves to the case of conserved external currents, and provide a detailed analysis of both the charged and neutral sectors. The crucial ingredient for this construction is the identification of the parts discarded during the pinching procedure with well-defined contributions to the Slavnov-Taylor identity satisfied by the off-shell one-loop gauge-boson vertices; the latter are nested inside the conventional two-loop self-energies. It is shown by resorting to a set of powerful identities that the two-loop effective Pinch Technique self-energies coincide with the corresponding ones computed in the Background Feynman gauge. The aforementioned identities are derived in the context of the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism, a fact which enables the individual treatment of the self-energies of the photon and the $Z$-boson. Some possible phenomenological applications are briefly discussed.Comment: 50 pages, uses axodra

Realising the Olympic dream: vision, support and challenge

The sporting arena is replete with examples and anecdotes of great inspirational coaches that have led teams to success, often in the face of adversity and against seemingly better opponents. The role of the coach in developing and motivating athletes has also been the focus of much research in sport psychology (e.g., Challaduria 1990; Smith & Smoll, 2007). Despite the ease with which one readily accepts that coaches can be inspirational, the sport coaching literature is somewhat devoid of research on inspirational coaches and the effects of such coaches on athletic success. The purpose of the current paper is to theoretically delineate the inspirational effects of coaches in sport. Given the relative paucity of inspiration-related research in sport we draw upon contemporary theories of leadership from organisational and military psychology (e.g., transformational and charismatic leadership theories). We propose a sport-specific model of leadership that centres around the vision, support, and challenge meta-cognitive model developed by Arthur and Hardy in military contexts. The model posits that �great� coaches inspire their athletes by: (a) creating an inspirational vision of the future; (b) providing the necessary support to achieve the vision; and (c) providing the challenge to achieve the vision. The underlying proposition is that the vision provides meaning and direction for followers� effort. That is, the vision serves as the beacon around which all the sweat, pain and sacrifice involved in achieving success at the highest level in sport is directed. At the heart of this model is the notion that athletes can achieve their dreams provided they are inspired to do so; this is because all other things being equal the person who is motivated to practice longer and train harder will ultimately be the best. The current paper will delineate the coach�s role in inspiring the athlete to train harder and longer

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

Role of genetic testing for inherited prostate cancer risk: Philadelphia prostate cancer consensus conference 2017

Purpose: Guidelines are limited for genetic testing for prostate cancer (PCA). The goal of this conference was to develop an expert consensus-dri

Future and potential spending on health 2015-40: Development assistance for health, and government, prepaid private, and out-of-pocket health spending in 184 countries

Background: The amount of resources, particularly prepaid resources, available for health can affect access to health care and health outcomes. Although health spending tends to increase with economic development, tremendous variation exists among health financing systems. Estimates of future spending can be beneficial for policy makers and planners, and can identify financing gaps. In this study, we estimate future gross domestic product (GDP), all-sector government spending, and health spending disaggregated by source, and we compare expected future spending to potential future spending. Methods: We extracted GDP, government spending in 184 countries from 1980-2015, and health spend data from 1995-2014. We used a series of ensemble models to estimate future GDP, all-sector government spending, development assistance for health, and government, out-of-pocket, and prepaid private health spending through 2040. We used frontier analyses to identify patterns exhibited by the countries that dedicate the most funding to health, and used these frontiers to estimate potential health spending for each low-income or middle-income country. All estimates are inflation and purchasing power adjusted. Findings: We estimated that global spending on health will increase from US$9.21 trillion in 2014 to$24.24 trillion (uncertainty interval [UI] 20.47-29.72) in 2040. We expect per capita health spending to increase fastest in upper-middle-income countries, at 5.3% (UI 4.1-6.8) per year. This growth is driven by continued growth in GDP, government spending, and government health spending. Lower-middle income countries are expected to grow at 4.2% (3.8-4.9). High-income countries are expected to grow at 2.1% (UI 1.8-2.4) and low-income countries are expected to grow at 1.8% (1.0-2.8). Despite this growth, health spending per capita in low-income countries is expected to remain low, at $154 (UI 133-181) per capita in 2030 and$195 (157-258) per capita in 2040. Increases in national health spending to reach the level of the countries who spend the most on health, relative to their level of economic development, would mean $321 (157-258) per capita was available for health in 2040 in low-income countries. Interpretation: Health spending is associated with economic development but past trends and relationships suggest that spending will remain variable, and low in some low-resource settings. Policy change could lead to increased health spending, although for the poorest countries external support might remain essential

Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1), IGF binding protein 3 (IGFBP3), and breast cancer risk: Pooled individual data analysis of 17 prospective studies

Background: Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) stimulates mitosis and inhibits apoptosis. Some published results have shown an association between circulating IGF1 and breast-cancer risk, but it has been unclear whether this relationship is consistent or whether it is modified by IGF binding protein 3 (IGFBP3), menopausal status, oestrogen receptor status or other factors. The relationship of IGF1 (and IGFBP3) with breast-cancer risk factors is also unclear. The Endogenous Hormones and Breast Cancer Collaborative Group was established to analyse pooled individual data from prospective studies to increase the precision of the estimated associations of endogenous hormones with breast-cancer risk. Methods: Individual data on prediagnostic IGF1 and IGFBP3 concentrations were obtained from 17 prospective studies in 12 countries. The associations of IGF1 with risk factors for breast cancer in controls were examined by calculating geometric mean concentrations in categories of these factors. The odds ratios (ORs) with 95% CIs of breast cancer associated with increasing IGF1 concentrations were estimated by conditional logistic regression in 4790 cases and 9428 matched controls, with stratification by study, age at baseline, and date of baseline. All statistical tests were two-sided, and a p value of less than 0\ub705 was considered significant. Findings: IGF1 concentrations, adjusted for age, were positively associated with height and age at first pregnancy, inversely associated with age at menarche and years since menopause, and were higher in moderately overweight women and moderate alcohol consumers than in other women. The OR for breast cancer for women in the highest versus the lowest fifth of IGF1 concentration was 1\ub728 (95% CI 1\ub714-1\ub744; p<0\ub70001). This association was not altered by adjusting for IGFBP3, and did not vary significantly by menopausal status at blood collection. The ORs for a difference in IGF1 concentration between the highest and lowest fifth were 1\ub738 (95% CI 1\ub714-1\ub768) for oestrogen-receptor-positive tumours and 0\ub780 (0\ub757-1\ub713) for oestrogen-receptor-negative tumours (p for heterogeneity=0\ub7007). Interpretation: Circulating IGF1 is positively associated with breast-cancer risk. The association is not substantially modified by IGFBP3, and does not differ markedly by menopausal status, but seems to be confined to oestrogen-receptor-positive tumours