Competition between static gear of the small-scale fisheries in Algarve waters (southern Portugal)

Parallel fishing trials with 0.30 mm diameter monofilament gill nets and longlines using small hooks were carried out in the Algarve (southern Portugal) over a one-year period, 1997-1998, with the objective of comparing species composition, catch rates, discards and size ranges. Four hook sizes of 'Mustad' brand, round bent, flatted sea hooks (numbers 15, 13, 12 and 11) and four mesh sizes of 25, 30, 35 and 40 mm (nominal bar length) of gill nets were used in the trials. Overall, 84 species were caught, with gill nets taking 71 species and longlines 54 species and with 41 species caught by both gears. The amount of discarding was higher for gill nets than for longlines. The catch species composition differed between the two gears, with the commercially valuable sea breams dominating the longline catches whereas small pelagics were relatively more important in the gill nets. Multivariate analysis showed a clear separation between the different sizes of the two gears both in terms of numbers and weights per species. Algarve gill netters and longliners fish the same species assemblage on the same fishing grounds, but have clearly different impacts in terms of catch species composition, catch rates and sizes. This information will be useful for the improved management of these small-scale, multi-species, multi-gear fisheries, where different gears compete for scarce resources. In particular this study provides a basis for a more rational allocation of licenses and control of fishing effort

C-Reactive Protein and B-Type Natriuretic Peptide Yield Either a Non-Significant or a Modest Incremental Value to Traditional Risk Factors in Predicting Long-Term Overall Mortality in Older Adults

Background:New biomarkers may aid in preventive and end-of-life decisions in older adults if they enhance the prognostic ability of traditional risk factors. We investigated whether C-reactive protein (CRP) and/or B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) improve the ability to predict overall mortality among the elderly of the Bambuí, Brazil Study of Aging when added to traditional risk factors.Methods:From 1997 to 2007, 1,470 community-dwelling individuals (≥60 years) were followed-up. Death was ascertained by continuous verification of death certificates. We calculated hazard ratios per 1 standard deviation change (HR) of death for traditional risk factors only (old model), and traditional risk factors plus CRP and/or BNP (new models) and assessed calibration of the models. Subsequently, we compared c-statistic of each of the new models to the old one, and calculated integrated discriminative improvement (IDI) and net reclassification improvement (NRI).Results:544 (37.0%) participants died in a mean follow-up time of 9.0 years. CRP (HR 1.28, 95% CI 1.17-1.40), BNP (HR 1.31 95% CI 1.19-1.45), and CRP plus BNP (HR 1.26, 95% CI 1.15-1.38, and HR 1.29, 95% CI 1.16-1.42, respectively) were independent determinants of mortality. All models were well-calibrated. Discrimination was similar among the old (c-statistic 0.78 [0.78-0.81]) and new models (p=0.43 for CRP; p=0.57 for BNP; and p=0.31 for CRP plus BNP). Compared to the old model, CRP, BNP, and CRP plus BNP models led to an IDI of 0.009 (p<0.001), -0.005 (p<0.001) and -0.003 (p=0.84), and a NRI of 0.04 (p=0.24), 0.07 (p=0.08) and 0.06 (p=0.10), respectively.Conclusions:Despite being independent predictors of long-term risk of death, compared to traditional risk factors CRP and/or BNP led to either a modest or non-significant improvement in the ability of predicting all-cause mortality in older adults

A biphotons double slit experiment

In this paper we present a double slit experiment where two undistinguishable photons produced by type I PDC are sent each to a well defined slit. Data about the diffraction and interference patterns for coincidences are presented and discussed. An analysis of these data allows a first test of standard quantum mechanics against de Broglie-Bohm theory

A Mach-Zehnder Interferometer for a Two-Photon Wave Packet

We propose an experiment that permits observation of the de Broglie two-photon wave packet behavior for a pair of photons, using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. It is based on the use of pulsed lasers to generate pairs of photons via spontaneous parametric down-conversion and the post-selection of events. It differs from previous realizations by the use of a third time-correlated photon to engineer the state of the photons. The same technique can give us which-path information via an ``interaction-free'' experiment and can be used in other experiments on the foundations of quantum mechanics related to wave-particle duality and to nonlocality.Comment: Submmited for publication in Physical Review

Testing Container Classes: Random or Systematic?

Container classes such as lists, sets, or maps are elementary data struc-tures common to many programming languages. Since they are a part of stan-dard libraries, they are important to test, which led to research on advanced testing techniques targeting such containers and research on comparing testing techniques using such containers. However, these techniques have not been thor-oughly compared to simpler techniques such as random testing. We present the results of a larger case study in which we compare random testing with shape ab-straction, a systematic technique that showed the best results in a previous study. Our experiments show that random testing is about as effective as shape abstrac-tion for testing these containers, which raises the question whether containers are well suited as a benchmark for comparing advanced testing techniques

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV

A search for a Higgs boson decaying into two photons is described. The analysis is performed using a dataset recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.8 inverse femtobarns. Limits are set on the cross section of the standard model Higgs boson decaying to two photons. The expected exclusion limit at 95% confidence level is between 1.4 and 2.4 times the standard model cross section in the mass range between 110 and 150 GeV. The analysis of the data excludes, at 95% confidence level, the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in the mass range 128 to 132 GeV. The largest excess of events above the expected standard model background is observed for a Higgs boson mass hypothesis of 124 GeV with a local significance of 3.1 sigma. The global significance of observing an excess with a local significance greater than 3.1 sigma anywhere in the search range 110-150 GeV is estimated to be 1.8 sigma. More data are required to ascertain the origin of this excess.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe

Measurement of isolated photon production in pp and PbPb collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 2.76 TeV

Isolated photon production is measured in proton-proton and lead-lead collisions at nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energies of 2.76 TeV in the pseudorapidity range |eta|<1.44 and transverse energies ET between 20 and 80 GeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. The measured ET spectra are found to be in good agreement with next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD predictions. The ratio of PbPb to pp isolated photon ET-differential yields, scaled by the number of incoherent nucleon-nucleon collisions, is consistent with unity for all PbPb reaction centralities.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters