Impact of biodiversity-climate futures on primary production and metabolism in a model benthic estuarine system

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Understanding the effects of anthropogenically-driven changes in global temperature, atmospheric carbon dioxide and biodiversity on the functionality of marine ecosystems is crucial for predicting and managing the associated impacts. Coastal ecosystems are important sources of carbon (primary production) to shelf waters and play a vital role in global nutrient cycling. These systems are especially vulnerable to the effects of human activities and will be the first areas impacted by rising sea levels. Within these coastal ecosystems, microalgal assemblages (microphytobenthos: MPB) are vital for autochthonous carbon fixation. The level of <it>in situ </it>production by MPB mediates the net carbon cycling of transitional ecosystems between net heterotrophic or autotrophic metabolism. In this study, we examine the interactive effects of elevated atmospheric CO₂concentrations (370, 600, and 1000 ppmv), temperature (6°C, 12°C, and 18°C) and invertebrate biodiversity on MPB biomass in experimental systems. We assembled communities of three common grazing invertebrates (<it>Hydrobia ulvae, Corophium volutator </it>and <it>Hediste diversicolor) </it>in monoculture and in all possible multispecies combinations. This experimental design specifically addresses interactions between the selected climate change variables and any ecological consequences caused by changes in species composition or richness.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The effects of elevated CO₂concentration, temperature and invertebrate diversity were not additive, rather they interacted to determine MPB biomass, and overall this effect was negative. Diversity effects were underpinned by strong species composition effects, illustrating the importance of individual species identity.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Overall, our findings suggest that in natural systems, the complex interactions between changing environmental conditions and any associated changes in invertebrate assemblage structure are likely to reduce MPB biomass. Furthermore, these effects would be sufficient to affect the net metabolic balance of the coastal ecosystem, with important implications for system ecology and sustainable exploitation.</p

How Do Brazilian Street Youth Experience ‘The Street’?: Analysis Of A Sentence Completion Task

This study investigated how homeless Brazilian youth experience the street and examined factors linked to positive and negative feelings about the street. An opportunity sample of 35 boys and 34 girls aged 10–18 completed a structured interview and sentence completion task aimed at eliciting open-ended responses in a standardized manner. Analyses revealed great diversity in youths’ views of the street; moreover, in analyses controlling for age and gender, youth reporting feeling positive on the street differed from those who felt negative in reasons for leaving home, family situation and daily survival. The findings support the value of the sentence completion task in exploring the subjective experiences of street youth

Cabergoline, prolactin and heart

Summary Introduction and aim:  Dopamine agonists have been reported to increase the risk of cardiac valve regurgitation in patients with Parkinson's disease. However, it is unknown whether these drugs might be harmful for patients with hyperprolactinaemia (HyperPRL). The aim of the study was to evaluate whether HyperPRL patients treated with dopamine agonists had a higher prevalence of cardiac valves regurgitation than that of general population. Methods and patients:  One hundred consecutive patients (79 women, 21 men, mean age 41 ± 13 years) with HyperPRL during treatment with cabergoline were enrolled in an observational case–control study and compared with 100 matched normal subjects (controls). Valve regurgitation was assessed by echocardiography according to the American Society of Echocardiography recommendations. Results:  Seven HyperPRL patients (7%) and six controls (6%) had moderate (grade 3) regurgitation in any valve (p = 0.980). All were asymptomatic and had no signs of cardiac disease. Mean duration of cabergoline treatment was 67 ± 39 months (range: 3–199 months). Mean cumulative dose of cabergoline was 279 ± 301 mg (range: 15–1327 mg). Moderate valve regurgitation was not associated with the duration of treatment (p = 0.359), with cumulative dose of cabergoline (p = 0.173), with age (p = 0.281), with previous treatment with bromocriptine (p = 0.673) or previous adenomectomy (p = 0.497) in patients with HyperPRL. Discussion:  In conclusion, treatment with cabergoline was not associated with increased prevalence of cardiac valves regurgitation in patients with HyperPRL. Mean cumulative dose of cabergoline was lower in patients with HyperPRL than that reported to be deleterious for patients with Parkinson's disease: hence, longer follow-up is necessary, particularly in patients receiving weekly doses > 3 mg

Turnover, account value and diversification of real traders: evidence of collective portfolio optimizing behavior

Despite the availability of very detailed data on financial market, agent-based modeling is hindered by the lack of information about real trader behavior. This makes it impossible to validate agent-based models, which are thus reverse-engineering attempts. This work is a contribution to the building of a set of stylized facts about the traders themselves. Using the client database of Swissquote Bank SA, the largest on-line Swiss broker, we find empirical relationships between turnover, account values and the number of assets in which a trader is invested. A theory based on simple mean-variance portfolio optimization that crucially includes variable transaction costs is able to reproduce faithfully the observed behaviors. We finally argue that our results bring into light the collective ability of a population to construct a mean-variance portfolio that takes into account the structure of transaction costsComment: 26 pages, 9 figures, Fig. 8 fixe

Design, status and perspective of the Mu2e crystal calorimeter

The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab will search for the charged lepton flavor violating process of neutrino-less $\mu \to e$ coherent conversion in the field of an aluminum nucleus. Mu2e will reach a single event sensitivity of about $2.5\cdot 10^{-17}$ that corresponds to four orders of magnitude improvements with respect to the current best limit. The detector system consists of a straw tube tracker and a crystal calorimeter made of undoped CsI coupled with Silicon Photomultipliers. The calorimeter was designed to be operable in a harsh environment where about 10 krad/year will be delivered in the hottest region and work in presence of 1 T magnetic field. The calorimeter role is to perform $\mu$/e separation to suppress cosmic muons mimiking the signal, while providing a high level trigger and a seeding the track search in the tracker. In this paper we present the calorimeter design and the latest R$\&$D results.Comment: 4 pages, conference proceeding for a presentation held at TIPP'2017. To be published on Springer Proceedings in Physic

MEG Upgrade Proposal

We propose the continuation of the MEG experiment to search for the charged lepton flavour violating decay (cLFV) \mu \to e \gamma, based on an upgrade of the experiment, which aims for a sensitivity enhancement of one order of magnitude compared to the final MEG result, down to the $6 \times 10^{-14}$ level. The key features of this new MEG upgrade are an increased rate capability of all detectors to enable running at the intensity frontier and improved energy, angular and timing resolutions, for both the positron and photon arms of the detector. On the positron-side a new low-mass, single volume, high granularity tracker is envisaged, in combination with a new highly segmented, fast timing counter array, to track positron from a thinner stopping target. The photon-arm, with the largest liquid xenon (LXe) detector in the world, totalling 900 l, will also be improved by increasing the granularity at the incident face, by replacing the current photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) with a larger number of smaller photosensors and optimizing the photosensor layout also on the lateral faces. A new DAQ scheme involving the implementation of a new combined readout board capable of integrating the diverse functions of digitization, trigger capability and splitter functionality into one condensed unit, is also under development. We describe here the status of the MEG experiment, the scientific merits of the upgrade and the experimental methods we plan to use.Comment: A. M. Baldini and T. Mori Spokespersons. Research proposal submitted to the Paul Scherrer Institute Research Committee for Particle Physics at the Ring Cyclotron. 131 Page

Nicotinamide Phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT) as a Therapeutic Target in BRAF-Mutated Metastatic Melanoma

Background: One of the effects of oncogenic signaling is metabolic reprogramming of tumor cells to support anabolic growth, opening the way to therapeutic targeting of metabolic pathways. Methods: We studied NAD biosynthesis in BRAF inhibitor (BRAFi)-resistant (BiR) melanoma cell lines. Data in cell lines were confirmed by immunohistochemistry in biopsies from 17 patients with metastatic melanoma (MM) before and after the acquisition of resistance to BRAFi. Therapeutic potential of NAD biosynthesis inhibitors was determined by in vitro monitoring cell growth and death and in mouse xenograft models. Mice (n=6-10 mice/group) were treated with nicotinamide phosphoribosyltranferase inhibitor (NAMPTi), BRAFi, or their combination, and tumor growth and survival were analyzed. All statistical tests were two-sided. Results: BiR cells had higher NAD levels compared with their BRAFi-sensitive counterparts (P < .001 and P = .001 for M14 and A375, respectively) and with normal melanocytes (P<.001), achieved through transcriptional upregulation of the enzyme NAMPT, which became the master regulator of NAD synthesis. Conversely, treatment with BRAFi or MEK inhibitors decreased NAMPT expression and cellular NAD levels. Robust NAMPT upregulation was documented in tissue biopsies from MM patients after development of resistance to BRAFi (P < .001). Treatment of melanoma cells with NAMPTi depleted NAD and ATP, depolarized mitochondrial membrane, and led to reactive oxygen species production, blocking cells in the G2/M phase and inducing apoptosis. Treatment of BiR xenografts with NAMPTi improved mouse survival (median survival of vehicletreated mice was 52 days vs 100 days for NAMPTi-treated ones in M14/BiR, while in A375/BiR median survival of vehicletreated mice was 23.5 days vs 43 days for NAMPTi-treated ones, P < .001). Conclusions: BiR melanoma cells overexpress NAMPT, which acts as a connecting element between BRAF oncogenic signaling and metabolism, becoming an actionable target for this subset of MM patients

Crises and collective socio-economic phenomena: simple models and challenges

Financial and economic history is strewn with bubbles and crashes, booms and busts, crises and upheavals of all sorts. Understanding the origin of these events is arguably one of the most important problems in economic theory. In this paper, we review recent efforts to include heterogeneities and interactions in models of decision. We argue that the Random Field Ising model (RFIM) indeed provides a unifying framework to account for many collective socio-economic phenomena that lead to sudden ruptures and crises. We discuss different models that can capture potentially destabilising self-referential feedback loops, induced either by herding, i.e. reference to peers, or trending, i.e. reference to the past, and account for some of the phenomenology missing in the standard models. We discuss some empirically testable predictions of these models, for example robust signatures of RFIM-like herding effects, or the logarithmic decay of spatial correlations of voting patterns. One of the most striking result, inspired by statistical physics methods, is that Adam Smith's invisible hand can badly fail at solving simple coordination problems. We also insist on the issue of time-scales, that can be extremely long in some cases, and prevent socially optimal equilibria to be reached. As a theoretical challenge, the study of so-called "detailed-balance" violating decision rules is needed to decide whether conclusions based on current models (that all assume detailed-balance) are indeed robust and generic.Comment: Review paper accepted for a special issue of J Stat Phys; several minor improvements along reviewers' comment

The MEG detector for μ+→e+γ{\mu}+\to e+{\gamma} decay search

The MEG (Mu to Electron Gamma) experiment has been running at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), Switzerland since 2008 to search for the decay \meg\ by using one of the most intense continuous $\mu^+$ beams in the world. This paper presents the MEG components: the positron spectrometer, including a thin target, a superconducting magnet, a set of drift chambers for measuring the muon decay vertex and the positron momentum, a timing counter for measuring the positron time, and a liquid xenon detector for measuring the photon energy, position and time. The trigger system, the read-out electronics and the data acquisition system are also presented in detail. The paper is completed with a description of the equipment and techniques developed for the calibration in time and energy and the simulation of the whole apparatus.Comment: 59 pages, 90 figure