Breakup coupling effects on near-barrier ⁶Li, ⁷Be and ⁸B + ⁵⁸Ni elastic scattering compared

New data for near-barrier 6Li, 7Be and 8B + 58Ni elastic scattering enable a comparison of breakup coupling effects for these loosely-bound projectiles. Coupled Discretised Continuum Channels (CDCC) calculations suggest that the large total reaction cross sections for 8B + 58Ni are dominated by breakup at near-barrier energies, unlike 6Li and 7Be where breakup makes a small contribution. In spite of this, the CDCC calculations show a small coupling influence due to breakup for 8B, in contrast to the situation for 6Li and 7Be. An examination of the S matrices gives a clue to this counter-intuitive behaviour

Climate Ready Estuaries - COAST in Action: 2012 Projects from Maine and New Hampshire

In summer 2011 the US EPA’s Climate Ready Estuaries program awarded funds to the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership (CBEP) in Portland, Maine, and the Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership (PREP) in coastal New Hampshire, to further develop and use COAST (COastal Adaptation to Sea level rise Tool) in their sea level rise adaptation planning processes. The New England Environmental Finance Center worked with municipal staff, elected officials, and other stakeholders to select specific locations, vulnerable assets, and adaptation actions to model using COAST. The EFC then collected the appropriate base data layers, ran the COAST simulations, and provided visual, numeric, and presentation-based products in support of the planning processes underway in both locations. These products helped galvanize support for the adaptation planning efforts. Through facilitated meetings they also led to stakeholders identifying specific action steps and begin to determine how to implement them

Development of Prognosis in Palliative care Study (PiPS) predictor models to improve prognostication in advanced cancer: prospective cohort study

OBJECTIVE: To develop a novel prognostic indicator for use in patients with advanced cancer that is significantly better than clinicians' estimates of survival. DESIGN: Prospective multicentre observational cohort study. SETTING: 18 palliative care services in the UK (including hospices, hospital support teams, and community teams). PARTICIPANTS: 1018 patients with locally advanced or metastatic cancer, no longer being treated for cancer, and recently referred to palliative care services. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Performance of a composite model to predict whether patients were likely to survive for "days" (0-13 days), "weeks" (14-55 days), or "months+" (>55 days), compared with actual survival and clinicians' predictions. RESULTS: On multivariate analysis, 11 core variables (pulse rate, general health status, mental test score, performance status, presence of anorexia, presence of any site of metastatic disease, presence of liver metastases, C reactive protein, white blood count, platelet count, and urea) independently predicted both two week and two month survival. Four variables had prognostic significance only for two week survival (dyspnoea, dysphagia, bone metastases, and alanine transaminase), and eight variables had prognostic significance only for two month survival (primary breast cancer, male genital cancer, tiredness, loss of weight, lymphocyte count, neutrophil count, alkaline phosphatase, and albumin). Separate prognostic models were created for patients without (PiPS-A) or with (PiPS-B) blood results. The area under the curve for all models varied between 0.79 and 0.86. Absolute agreement between actual survival and PiPS predictions was 57.3% (after correction for over-optimism). The median survival across the PiPS-A categories was 5, 33, and 92 days and survival across PiPS-B categories was 7, 32, and 100.5 days. All models performed as well as, or better than, clinicians' estimates of survival. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with advanced cancer no longer being treated, a combination of clinical and laboratory variables can reliably predict two week and two month survival

Cluster Model for Near-barrier Fusion Induced by Weakly Bound and Halo Nuclei

The influence on the fusion process of coupling transfer/breakup channels is investigated for the medium weight $^{6,7}$Li+$^{59}$Co systems in the vicinity of the Coulomb barrier. Coupling effects are discussed within a comparison of predictions of the Continuum Discretized Coupled-Channels model. Applications to $^{6}$He+$^{59}$Co induced by the borromean halo nucleus $^{6}$He are also proposed.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, FINUSTAR2 Conference, Aghios Nikolaus, Crete, Greece. 10-14 September 200

Simultaneous Optical Model Analyses of Elastic Scattering, Breakup, and Fusion Cross Section Data for the 6^{6}He + 209^{209}Bi System at Near-Coulomb-Barrier Energies

Based on an approach recently proposed by us, simultaneous $\chi^{2}$-analyses are performed for elastic scattering, direct reaction (DR) and fusion cross sections data for the $^{6}$He+$^{209}$Bi system at near-Coulomb-barrier energies to determine the parameters of the polarization potential consisting of DR and fusion parts. We show that the data are well reproduced by the resultant potential, which also satisfies the proper dispersion relation. A discussion is given of the nature of the threshold anomaly seen in the potential

Reaction mechanisms for weakly-bound, stable nuclei and unstable, halo nuclei on medium-mass targets

An experimental overview of reactions induced by the stable, but weakly-bound nuclei 6Li, 7Li and 9Be, and by the exotic, halo nuclei 6He, 8B, 11Be and 17F on medium-mass targets, such as 58Ni, 59Co or 64Zn, is presented. Existing data on elastic scattering, total reaction cross sections, fusion processes, breakup and transfer channels are discussed in the framework of a CDCC approach taking into account the breakup degree of freedom.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, Invited Talk given by C. Beck to the 10th International Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions, August 16-21, 2009 Beijing, China; Paper submitted to the NN2009 Proceedings, Nuclear Physics A (to be published

Structure of unbound neutron-rich 9^{9}He studied using single-neutron transfer

The 8He(d,p) reaction was studied in inverse kinematics at 15.4A MeV using the MUST2 Si-CsI array in order to shed light on the level structure of 9He. The well known 16O(d,p)17O reaction, performed here in reverse kinematics, was used as a test to validate the experimental methods. The 9He missing mass spectrum was deduced from the kinetic energies and emission angles of the recoiling protons. Several structures were observed above the neutron-emission threshold and the angular distributions were used to deduce the multipolarity of the transitions. This work confirms that the ground state of 9He is located very close to the neutron threshold of 8He and supports the occurrence of parity inversion in 9He.Comment: Exp\'erience GANIL/SPIRAL1/MUST

The development and validation of the LIMPRINT methodology

The acronym Limprint stands for Lymphoedema IMpact and Prevalence-INTernational and was run under the auspices of the International Lymphoedema Framework (ILF) a charity dedicated to improving provision of care globally. The primary aim was to identify the number of people with chronic oedema (chronic oedema present for > 3months and due to a range of underlying aetiologies and associated risk factors) within diverse health services in 9 participating countries and to determine its impact using validated methods. An international protocol and sampling framework, online data capture system and standard operating procedures were adopted. An international consensus was used to create a core data tool that covered 13 domains. Specialist data on demographics and disability, details of swelling, wounds, cancer and health related quality of life were also available for sites. The study protocol was designed to allow flexibility in the types of studies undertaken within complex health care systems. All cases were confirmed using the modified pitting test. Sensitivity and specificity for this method were determined in Japanese and European populations. Following confirmation of a chronic oedema case Lymphologists defined whether it was a primary of secondary form. The study was designed to provide robust evidence that chronic oedema is an important and unrecognised public health problem in health services with significant morbidity. Without evidence of the size and complexity it will remain considered a rare phenomenon and people affected will be denied access to appropriate treatment that would allow them to have fulfilled and productive lives

Climate model configurations of the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System (ECMWF-IFS cycle 43r1) for HighResMIP

This paper presents atmosphere-only and coupled climate model configurations of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Integrated Forecasting System (ECMWF-IFS) for different combinations of ocean and atmosphere resolution. These configurations are used to perform multi-decadal ensemble experiments following the protocols of the High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP) and phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). These experiments are used to evaluate the sensitivity of major biases in the atmosphere, ocean, and cryosphere to changes in atmosphere and ocean resolution. All configurations successfully reproduce the observed long-term trends in global mean surface temperature. Furthermore, following an adjustment to account for drift in the subsurface ocean, coupled configurations of ECMWF-IFS realistically reproduce observation-based estimates of ocean heat content change since 1950. Climatological surface biases in ECMWF-IFS are relatively insensitive to an increase in atmospheric resolution from  ∼ 50 to  ∼ 25&thinsp;km. However, increasing the horizontal resolution of the atmosphere while maintaining the same vertical resolution enhances the magnitude of a cold bias in the lower stratosphere. In coupled configurations, there is a strong sensitivity to an increase in ocean model resolution from 1 to 0.25°. However, this sensitivity to ocean resolution takes many years to fully manifest and is less apparent in the first year of integration. This result has implications for the ECMWF coupled model development strategy that typically relies on the analysis of biases in short ( &lt; 1 year) ensemble (re)forecast data sets. The impacts of increased ocean resolution are particularly evident in the North Atlantic and Arctic, where they are associated with an improved Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, increased meridional ocean heat transport, and more realistic sea-ice cover. In the tropical Pacific, increased ocean resolution is associated with improvements to the magnitude and asymmetry of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability and better representation of non-linear sea surface temperature (SST)–radiation feedbacks during warm events. However, increased ocean model resolution also increases the magnitude of a warm bias in the Southern Ocean. Finally, there is tentative evidence that both ocean coupling and increased atmospheric resolution can improve teleconnections between tropical Pacific rainfall and geopotential height anomalies in the North Atlantic.</p