Three-Flavour Neutrino-Mixing Implications of the LSND Result

The LSND result is shown to fit into a minimal three-flavour neutrino-mixing scenario capable of describing all known experimental facts provided the large Delta M^2 = m_3^2 - m_2^2 \sim m_3^2 - m_1^2 lies in the range 2.5 x 10^{-1} < Delta M^2 < 3.0 eV^2. In this range the value of P_{\mu\tau} is expected to be about 5% or larger.Comment: 10 pages, 2 eps figures, LaTeX 2.09, revised for Physics Letters

U.S. congressional district cancer death rates

BACKGROUND: Geographic patterns of cancer death rates in the U.S. have customarily been presented by county or aggregated into state economic or health service areas. Herein, we present the geographic patterns of cancer death rates in the U.S. by congressional district. Many congressional districts do not follow state or county boundaries. However, counties are the smallest geographical units for which death rates are available. Thus, a method based on the hierarchical relationship of census geographic units was developed to estimate age-adjusted death rates for congressional districts using data obtained at county level. These rates may be useful in communicating to legislators and policy makers about the cancer burden and potential impact of cancer control in their jurisdictions. RESULTS: Mortality data were obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) for 1990–2001 for 50 states, the District of Columbia, and all counties. We computed annual average age-adjusted death rates for all cancer sites combined, the four major cancers (lung and bronchus, prostate, female breast, and colorectal cancer) and cervical cancer. Cancer death rates varied widely across congressional districts for all cancer sites combined, for the four major cancers, and for cervical cancer. When examined at the national level, broad patterns of mortality by sex, race and region were generally similar with those previously observed based on county and state economic area. CONCLUSION: We developed a method to generate cancer death rates by congressional district using county-level mortality data. Characterizing the cancer burden by congressional district may be useful in promoting cancer control and prevention programs, and persuading legislators to enact new cancer control programs and/or strengthening existing ones. The method can be applied to state legislative districts and other analyses that involve data aggregation from different geographic units

Rofecoxib and cardiovascular adverse events in adjuvant treatment of colorectal cancer

Background Selective cyclooxygenase inhibitors may retard the progression of cancer, but they have enhanced thrombotic potential. We report on cardiovascular adverse events in patients receiving rofecoxib to reduce rates of recurrence of colorectal cancer. Methods All serious adverse events that were cardiovascular thrombotic events were reviewed in 2434 patients with stage II or III colorectal cancer participating in a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of rofecoxib, 25 mg daily, started after potentially curative tumor resection and chemotherapy or radiotherapy as indicated. The trial was terminated prematurely owing to worldwide withdrawal of rofecoxib. To examine possible persistent risks, we examined cardiovascular thrombotic events reported up to 24 months after the trial was closed. Results The median duration of active treatment was 7.4 months. The 1167 patients receiving rofecoxib and the 1160 patients receiving placebo were well matched, with a median follow-up period of 33.0 months (interquartile range, 27.6 to 40.1) and 33.4 months (27.7 to 40.4), respectively. Of the 23 confirmed cardiovascular thrombotic events, 16 occurred in the rofecoxib group during or within 14 days after the treatment period, with an estimated relative risk of 2.66 (from the Cox proportional-hazards model; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03 to 6.86; P = 0.04). Analysis of the Antiplatelet Trialists’ Collaboration end point (the combined incidence of death from cardiovascular, hemorrhagic, and unknown causes; of nonfatal myocardial infarction; and of nonfatal ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke) gave an unadjusted relative risk of 1.60 (95% CI, 0.57 to 4.51; P = 0.37). Fourteen more cardiovascular thrombotic events, six in the rofecoxib group, were reported within the 2 years after trial closure, with an overall unadjusted relative risk of 1.50 (95% CI, 0.76 to 2.94; P = 0.24). Four patients in the rofecoxib group and two in the placebo group died from thrombotic causes during or within 14 days after the treatment period, and during the follow-up period, one patient in the rofecoxib group and five patients in the placebo group died from cardiovascular causes. Conclusions Rofecoxib therapy was associated with an increased frequency of adverse cardiovascular events among patients with a median study treatment of 7.4 months’ duration. (Current Controlled Trials number, ISRCTN98278138.

Detecting the (Quasi-)Two-Body Decays of τ\tau Leptons in Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Experiments

Novel detector schemes are proposed for the short-baseline neutrino experiments of next generation, aimed at exploring the large-$\Delta m^2$ domain of \omutau oscillations in the appearance mode. These schemes emphasize good spectrometry for charged particles and for electromagnetic showers and efficient reconstruction of \ypi_gg decays. The basic elements are a sequence of relatively thin emulsion targets, immersed in magnetic field and interspersed with electronic trackers, and a fine-grained electromagnetic calorimeter built of lead glass. These elements act as an integral whole in reconstructing the electromagnetic showers. This conceptual scheme shows good performance in identifying the $\tau$ (quasi-)two-body decays by their characteristic kinematics and in selecting the electronic decays of the $\tau$.Comment: 34 pages, 8 figure

Harmonization and standardization of data for a pan-European cohort on SARS- CoV-2 pandemic

The European project ORCHESTRA intends to create a new pan-European cohort to rapidly advance the knowledge of the effects and treatment of COVID-19. Establishing processes that facilitate the merging of heterogeneous clusters of retrospective data was an essential challenge. In addition, data from new ORCHESTRA prospective studies have to be compatible with earlier collected information to be efficiently combined. In this article, we describe how we utilized and contributed to existing standard terminologies to create consistent semantic representation of over 2500 COVID-19-related variables taken from three ORCHESTRA studies. The goal is to enable the semantic interoperability of data within the existing project studies and to create a common basis of standardized elements available for the design of new COVID-19 studies. We also identified 743 variables that were commonly used in two of the three prospective ORCHESTRA studies and can therefore be directly combined for analysis purposes. Additionally, we actively contributed to global interoperability by submitting new concept requests to the terminology Standards Development Organizations

Spallation Neutron Production by 0.8, 1.2 and 1.6 GeV Protons on various Targets

Spallation neutron production in proton induced reactions on Al, Fe, Zr, W, Pb and Th targets at 1.2 GeV and on Fe and Pb at 0.8, and 1.6 GeV measured at the SATURNE accelerator in Saclay is reported. The experimental double-differential cross-sections are compared with calculations performed with different intra-nuclear cascade models implemented in high energy transport codes. The broad angular coverage also allowed the determination of average neutron multiplicities above 2 MeV. Deficiencies in some of the models commonly used for applications are pointed out.Comment: 20 pages, 32 figures, revised version, accepted fpr publication in Phys. Rev.