Opportunities to create new general surgery residency programs to alleviate the shortage of general surgeons

Purpose To estimate the capacity for supporting new general surgery residency programs among U.S. hospitals that currently do not have such programs. Method The authors compiled 2011 American Hospital Association data regarding the characteristics of hospitals with and without a general surgery residency program and 2012 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education data regarding existing general surgery residencies. They performed an ordinary least squares regression to model the number of residents who could be trained at existing programs on the basis of residency program-level variables. They identified candidate hospitals on the basis of a priori defined criteria for new general surgery residency programs and an out-of-sample prediction of resident capacity among the candidate hospitals. Results The authors found that 153 hospitals in 39 states could support a general surgery residency program. The characteristics of these hospitals closely resembled the characteristics of hospitals with existing programs. They identified 435 new residency positions: 40 hospitals could support 2 residents per year, 99 hospitals could support 3 residents, 12 hospitals could support 4 residents, and 2 hospitals could support 5 residents. Accounting for progressive specialization, new residency programs could add 287 additional general surgeons to the workforce annually (after an initial five- to seven-year lead time). Conclusions By creating new general surgery residency programs, hospitals could increase the number of general surgeons entering the workforce each year by 25%. A challenge to achieving this growth remains finding new funding mechanisms within and outside Medicare. Such changes are needed to mitigate projected workforce shortages

Consciousness and cortical responsiveness: a within-state study during non-rapid eye movement sleep.

When subjects become unconscious, there is a characteristic change in the way the cerebral cortex responds to perturbations, as can be assessed using transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography (TMS-EEG). For instance, compared to wakefulness, during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep TMS elicits a larger positive-negative wave, fewer phase-locked oscillations, and an overall simpler response. However, many physiological variables also change when subjects go from wake to sleep, anesthesia, or coma. To avoid these confounding factors, we focused on NREM sleep only and measured TMS-evoked EEG responses before awakening the subjects and asking them if they had been conscious (dreaming) or not. As shown here, when subjects reported no conscious experience upon awakening, TMS evoked a larger negative deflection and a shorter phase-locked response compared to when they reported a dream. Moreover, the amplitude of the negative deflection-a hallmark of neuronal bistability according to intracranial studies-was inversely correlated with the length of the dream report (i.e., total word count). These findings suggest that variations in the level of consciousness within the same physiological state are associated with changes in the underlying bistability in cortical circuits

Measurements of Six-Body Hadronic Decays of the D^0 Charmed Meson

Using data collected by the FOCUS experiment at Fermilab, we report the discovery of the decay modes D^0 --> K- pi+ pi+ pi+ pi- pi- and D^0 --> pi+ pi+ pi+ pi- pi- pi-. With a sample of 48 +/- 10 reconstructed D^0 --> K- pi+ pi+ pi+ pi- pi- decays and 149 +/- 17 reconstructed D^0 --> pi+ pi+ pi+ pi- pi- pi- decays, we measure the following relative branching ratios: ${\Gamma (D^0 \to K^- \pi^+ \pi^+ \pi^+ \pi^- \pi^-) / \Gamma (D^0 \to K^- \pi^+ \pi^+ \pi^-)} = (2.70 \pm 0.58 \pm 0.38) \times 10^{-3}$ ${\Gamma (D^0 \to \pi^+ \pi^+ \pi^+ \pi^- \pi^- \pi^-) / \Gamma (D^0 \to K^- \pi^+ \pi^+ \pi^-)} = (5.23 \pm 0.59 \pm 1.35) \times 10^{-3}$ ${\Gamma (D^0 \to \pi^+ \pi^+ \pi^+ \pi^- \pi^- \pi^-) / \Gamma (D^0 \to K^- \pi^+ \pi^+ \pi^+ \pi^- \pi^-)} = 1.93 \pm 0.47 \pm 0.48$ The first errors are statistical and the second are systematic. The branching fraction of the Cabibbo suppressed six-body decay mode is measured to be a factor of two higher than the branching fraction of the Cabibbo favored six-body decay mode.Comment: To be submitted to Phys. Lett.

Measurement of the Ratio of the Vector to Pseudoscalar Charm Semileptonic Decay Rate \Gamma(D+ > ANTI-K*0 mu+ nu)/\Gamma(D+ > ANTI-K0 mu+ nu)

Using a high statistics sample of photo-produced charm particles from the FOCUS experiment at Fermilab, we report on the measurement of the ratio of semileptonic rates \Gamma(D+ > ANTI-K pi mu+ nu)/\Gamma(D+ > ANTI-K0 mu+ nu)= 0.625 +/- 0.045 +/- 0.034. Allowing for the K pi S-wave interference measured previously by FOCUS, we extract the vector to pseudoscalar ratio \Gamma(D+ > ANTI-K*0 mu+ nu)/\Gamma(D+ > ANTI-K0 mu+ nu)= 0.594 +/- 0.043 +/- 0.033 and the ratio \Gamma(D+ > ANTI-K0 mu+ nu)/\Gamma(D+ > K- pi+ pi+)= 1.019 +/- 0.076 +/- 0.065. Our results show a lower ratio for \Gamma(D > K* \ell nu})/\Gamma(D > K \ell nu) than has been reported recently and indicate the current world average branching fractions for the decays D+ >ANTI-K0(mu+, e+) nu are low. Using the PDG world average for B(D+ > K- pi+ pi+) we extract B(D+ > ANIT-K0 mu+ nu)=(9.27 +/- 0.69 +/- 0.59 +/- 0.61)%.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur

Study of the doubly and singly Cabibbo suppressed decays D+ --> K+ pi+ pi- and Ds+ --> K+ pi+ pi-

Using data collected by the high energy photoproduction experiment FOCUS at Fermilab we study the doubly and singly Cabibbo suppressed decays D+ and Ds+ --> K+ pi+ pi-. Branching ratios and Dalitz plot analyses are performed.Comment: 14 pages, paper to be submitted to Phys.Lett.

Measurements of differential production cross sections for a Z boson in association with jets in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV

Peer reviewe

Search for the associated production of the Higgs boson with a top-quark pair

A search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a top-quark pair t t ¯ H (tt¯H) is presented, using data samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 5.1 fb −1 and 19.7 fb −1 collected in pp collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 TeV and 8 TeV respectively. The search is based on the following signatures of the Higgs boson decay: H → hadrons, H → photons, and H → leptons. The results are characterized by an observed t t ¯ H tt¯H signal strength relative to the standard model cross section, μ = σ/σ SM ,under the assumption that the Higgs boson decays as expected in the standard model. The best fit value is μ = 2.8 ± 1.0 for a Higgs boson mass of 125.6 GeV

Search for jet extinction in the inclusive jet-pT spectrum from proton-proton collisions at s=8 TeV

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.The first search at the LHC for the extinction of QCD jet production is presented, using data collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.7  fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The extinction model studied in this analysis is motivated by the search for signatures of strong gravity at the TeV scale (terascale gravity) and assumes the existence of string couplings in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, the string model predicts the suppression of all high-transverse-momentum standard model processes, including jet production, beyond a certain energy scale. To test this prediction, the measured transverse-momentum spectrum is compared to the theoretical prediction of the standard model. No significant deficit of events is found at high transverse momentum. A 95% confidence level lower limit of 3.3 TeV is set on the extinction mass scale

Measurements of the t(t)Overbar charge asymmetry using the dilepton decay channel in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

The tt¯ charge asymmetry in proton-proton collisions at s√ = 7 TeV is measured using the dilepton decay channel (ee, e μ , or μμ ). The data correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb −1 , collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The tt and lepton charge asymmetries, defined as the differences in absolute values of the rapidities between the reconstructed top quarks and antiquarks and of the pseudorapidities between the positive and negative leptons, respectively, are measured to be A C = −0 . 010 ± 0 . 017 (stat . ) ± 0 . 008 (syst . ) and AlepC = 0 . 009 ± 0 . 010 (stat . ) ± 0 . 006 (syst . ). The lepton charge asymmetry is also measured as a function of the invariant mass, rapidity, and transverse momentum of the tt¯ system. All measurements are consistent with the expectations of the standard model

Measurement of prompt Jψ\psi pair production in pp collisions at \sqrt s = 7 Tev

Production of prompt J/ ψ meson pairs in proton-proton collisions at s s√ = 7 TeV is measured with the CMS experiment at the LHC in a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 4.7 fb −1 . The two J/ ψ mesons are fully reconstructed via their decays into μ + μ − pairs. This observation provides for the first time access to the high-transverse-momentum region of J/ ψ pair production where model predictions are not yet established. The total and differential cross sections are measured in a phase space defined by the individual J/ ψ transverse momentum ( p T J/ ψ ) and rapidity (| y J/ ψ |): | y J/ ψ | 6.5 GeV/ c ; 1.2 4.5 GeV/ c . The total cross section, assuming unpolarized prompt J/ ψ pair production is 1.49 ± 0.07 (stat) ±0.13 (syst) nb. Different assumptions about the J/ ψ polarization imply modifications to the cross section ranging from −31% to +27%