Blood thicker than water: Kinship, disease prevalence and group size drive divergent patterns of infection risk in a social mammal

The importance of social- and kin-structuring of populations for the transmission of wildlife disease is widely assumed but poorly described. Social structure can help dilute risks of transmission for group members, and is relatively easy to measure, but kin-association represents a further level of population sub-structure that is harder to measure, particularly when association behaviours happen underground. Here, using epidemiological and molecular genetic data from a wild, high-density population of the European badger (Meles meles), we quantify the risks of infection with Mycobacterium bovis (the causative agent of tuberculosis) in cubs. The risk declines with increasing size of its social group, but this net dilution effect conceals divergent patterns of infection risk. Cubs only enjoy reduced risk when social groups have a higher proportion of test-negative individuals. Cubs suffer higher infection risk in social groups containing resident infectious adults, and these risks are exaggerated when cubs and infectious adults are closely related. We further identify key differences in infection risk associated with resident infectious males and females. We link our results to parent– offspring interactions and other kin-biased association, but also consider the possibility that susceptibility to infection is heritable. These patterns of infection risk help to explain the observation of a herd immunity effect in badgers following low-intensity vaccination campaigns. They also reveal kinship and kin-association to be important, and often hidden, drivers of disease transmission in social mammals

5’-Deoxy-5’-hydrazinylguanosine as an initiator of T7 RNA polymerase-catalyzed transcriptions for the preparation of labeling-ready RNAs

5′-deoxy-5′-hydrazinylguanosine was incorporated into the 5′-termini of RNA transcripts using T7 RNA polymerase. Transcriptions provided 5′-hydrazinyl-RNA that was readily labeled and purified. The use of fluorophore-labeled material was validated in an endoribonuclease activity assay

World Workshop on Oral Medicine VII : Relative frequency of oral mucosal lesions in children, a scoping review

Objective: To detail a scoping review on the global and regional relative frequencies of oral mucosal disorders in the children based on both clinical studies and those reported from biopsy records. Materials and Methods: A literature search was completed from 1 January 1990 to 31 December 2018 using PubMed and EMBASE. Results: Twenty clinical studies (sample size: 85,976) and 34 studies from biopsy services (40,522 biopsies) were included. Clinically, the most frequent conditions were aphthous ulcerations (1.82%), trauma-associated lesions (1.33%) and herpes simplex virus (HSV)-associated lesions (1.33%). Overall, the most commonly biopsied lesions were mucoceles (17.12%), fibrous lesions (9.06%) and pyogenic granuloma (4.87%). By WHO geographic region, the pooled relative frequencies of the most common oral lesions were similar between regions in both clinical and biopsy studies. Across regions, geographic tongue (migratory glossitis), HSV lesions, fissured tongue and trauma-associated ulcers were the most commonly reported paediatric oral mucosal lesions in clinical studies, while mucoceles, fibrous lesions and pyogenic granuloma were the most commonly biopsied lesions. Conclusions: The scoping review suggests data from the clinical studies and biopsy records shared similarities in the most commonly observed mucosal lesions in children across regions. In addition, the majority of lesions were benign in nature

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon cross-section in pp collisions at sqrt(s)= 7 TeV using 35 pb-1 of ATLAS data

A measurement of the differential cross-section for the inclusive production of isolated prompt photons in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 7 TeV is presented. The measurement covers the pseudorapidity ranges |eta|<1.37 and 1.52<=|eta|<2.37 in the transverse energy range 45<=E_T<400GeV. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 35 pb-1, collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The yields of the signal photons are measured using a data-driven technique, based on the observed distribution of the hadronic energy in a narrow cone around the photon candidate and the photon selection criteria. The results are compared with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations and found to be in good agreement over four orders of magnitude in cross-section.Comment: 7 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 4 tables, final version published in Physics Letters

Reducing heterotic M-theory to five dimensional supergravity on a manifold with boundary

This paper constructs the reduction of heterotic $M$-theory in eleven dimensions to a supergravity model on a manifold with boundary in five dimensions using a Calabi-Yau three-fold. New results are presented for the boundary terms in the action and for the boundary conditions on the bulk fields. Some general features of dualisation on a manifold with boundary are used to explain the origin of some topological terms in the action. The effect of gaugino condensation on the fermion boundary conditions leads to a `twist' in the chirality of the gravitino which can provide an uplifting mechanism in the vacuum energy to cancel the cosmological constant after moduli stabilisation.Comment: 16 pages, RevTe