Preliminary investigation of an additive approach to the fabrication of precision aspheres

We report progress in the aspherization of precision optical substrates via deposition of graded period Mo/Si multilayer coatings using a masking technique. These preliminary results show good agreement between the measured and desired thickness profiles over 85% of the sample, however, thickness deviations of up to 7 % are observed in the central area. The errors are attributed to misalignments of the mask relative to the substrate during deposition

Magnetic force microscopy of single-domain cobalt dots patterned using interference lithography

We have fabricated arrays of Co dots of diameters 100 and 70 nm using interference lithography. Density of these arrays is 7.2x10{sup 9}/in{sup 2}. Magnetic force microscopy indicate that the Co dots are single domain with moments that can be controlled to point either in-plane or out-of-plane. Interference lithography is a process that is easily scaled to large areas and is potentially capable of high throughput. Large, uniform arrays of single-domain structures are potentially useful for high-density, low-noise data storage

Supersymmetry discovery potential of the LHC at s=\sqrt{s}=10 and 14 TeV without and with missing ETE_T

We examine the supersymmetry (SUSY) reach of the CERN LHC operating at $\sqrt{s}=10$ and 14 TeV within the framework of the minimal supergravity model. We improve upon previous reach projections by incorporating updated background calculations including a variety of $2\to n$ Standard Model (SM) processes. We show that SUSY discovery is possible even before the detectors are understood well enough to utilize either $E_T^{\rm miss}$ or electrons in the signal. We evaluate the early SUSY reach of the LHC at $\sqrt{s}=10$ TeV by examining multi-muon plus $\ge4$ jets and also dijet events with {\it no} missing $E_T$ cuts and show that the greatest reach in terms of $m_{1/2}$ occurs in the dijet channel. The reach in multi-muons is slightly smaller in $m_{1/2}$, but extends to higher values of $m_0$. We find that an observable multi-muon signal will first appear in the opposite-sign dimuon channel, but as the integrated luminosity increases the relatively background-free but rate-limited same-sign dimuon, and ultimately the trimuon channel yield the highest reach. We show characteristic distributions in these channels that serve to distinguish the signal from the SM background, and also help to corroborate its SUSY origin. We then evaluate the LHC reach in various no-lepton and multi-lepton plus jets channels {\it including} missing $E_T$ cuts for $\sqrt{s}=10$ and 14 TeV, and plot the reach for integrated luminosities ranging up to 3000 fb$^{-1}$ at the SLHC. For $\sqrt{s}=10$ TeV, the LHC reach extends to $m_{gluino}=1.9, 2.3, 2.8$ and 2.9 TeV for $m_{squark}\sim m_{gluino}$ and integrated luminosities of 10, 100, 1000 and 3000 fb$^{-1}$, respectively. For $\sqrt{s}=14$ TeV, the LHC reach for the same integrated luminosities is to m_{gluino}=2.4,\3.1, 3.7 and 4.0 TeV.Comment: 34 pages, 25 figures. Revised projections for the SUSY reach for ab^-1 integrated luminosities, with minor corrections of references and text. 2 figures added. To appear in JHE

Genome-wide association meta-analysis of corneal curvature identifies novel loci and shared genetic influences across axial length and refractive error.

Corneal curvature, a highly heritable trait, is a key clinical endophenotype for myopia - a major cause of visual impairment and blindness in the world. Here we present a trans-ethnic meta-analysis of corneal curvature GWAS in 44,042 individuals of Caucasian and Asian with replication in 88,218 UK Biobank data. We identified 47 loci (of which 26 are novel), with population-specific signals as well as shared signals across ethnicities. Some identified variants showed precise scaling in corneal curvature and eye elongation (i.e. axial length) to maintain eyes in emmetropia (i.e. HDAC11/FBLN2 rs2630445, RBP3 rs11204213); others exhibited association with myopia with little pleiotropic effects on eye elongation. Implicated genes are involved in extracellular matrix organization, developmental process for body and eye, connective tissue cartilage and glycosylation protein activities. Our study provides insights into population-specific novel genes for corneal curvature, and their pleiotropic effect in regulating eye size or conferring susceptibility to myopia

Large-scale genome-wide analysis identifies genetic variants associated with cardiac structure and function

BACKGROUND: Understanding the genetic architecture of cardiac structure and function may help to prevent and treat heart disease. This investigation sought to identify common genetic variations associated with inter-individual variability in cardiac structure and function. METHODS: A GWAS meta-analysis of echocardiographic traits was performed, including 46,533 individuals from 30 studies (EchoGen consortium). The analysis included 16 traits of left ventricular (LV) structure, and systolic and diastolic function. RESULTS: The discovery analysis included 21 cohorts for structural and systolic function traits (n = 32,212) and 17 cohorts for diastolic function traits (n = 21,852). Replication was performed in 5 cohorts (n = 14,321) and 6 cohorts (n = 16,308), respectively. Besides 5 previously reported loci, the combined meta-analysis identified 10 additional genome-wide significant SNPs: rs12541595 near MTSS1 and rs10774625 in ATXN2 for LV end-diastolic internal dimension; rs806322 near KCNRG, rs4765663 in CACNA1C, rs6702619 near PALMD, rs7127129 in TMEM16A, rs11207426 near FGGY, rs17608766 in GOSR2, and rs17696696 in CFDP1 for aortic root diameter; and rs12440869 in IQCH for Doppler transmitral A-wave peak velocity. Findings were in part validated in other cohorts and in GWAS of related disease traits. The genetic loci showed associations with putative signaling pathways, and with gene expression in whole blood, monocytes, and myocardial tissue. CONCLUSION: The additional genetic loci identified in this large meta-analysis of cardiac structure and function provide insights into the underlying genetic architecture of cardiac structure and warrant follow-up in future functional studies. FUNDING: For detailed information per study, see Acknowledgments.This work was supported by a grant from the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (N01-HL-25195; R01HL 093328 to RSV), a MAIFOR grant from the University Medical Center Mainz, Germany (to PSW), the Center for Translational Vascular Biology (CTVB) of the Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz, and the Federal Ministry of Research and Education, Germany (BMBF 01EO1003 to PSW). This work was also supported by the research project Greifswald Approach to Individualized Medicine (GANI_MED). GANI_MED was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs of the Federal State of Mecklenburg, West Pomerania (contract 03IS2061A). We thank all study participants, and the colleagues and coworkers from all cohorts and sites who were involved in the generation of data or in the analysis. We especially thank Andrew Johnson (FHS) for generation of the gene annotation database used for analysis. We thank the German Center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK e.V.) for supporting the analysis and publication of this project. RSV is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the DZHK. Data on CAD and MI were contributed by CARDIoGRAMplusC4D investigators. See Supplemental Acknowledgments for consortium details. PSW, JFF, AS, AT, TZ, RSV, and MD had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis

Multi-trait genome-wide association study identifies new loci associated with optic disc parameters

A new avenue of mining published genome-wide association studies includes the joint analysis of related traits. The power of this approach depends on the genetic correlation of traits, which reflects the number of pleiotropic loci, i.e. genetic loci influencing multiple traits. Here, we applied new meta-analyses of optic nerve head (ONH) related traits implicated in primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG); intraocular pressure and central corneal thickness using Haplotype reference consortium imputations. We performed a multi-trait analysis of ONH parameters cup area, disc area and vertical cup-disc ratio. We uncover new variants; rs11158547 in PPP1R36-PLEKHG3 and rs1028727 near SERPINE3 at genome-wide significance that replicate in independent Asian cohorts imputed to 1000 Genomes. At this point, validation of these variants in POAG cohorts is hampered by the high degree of heterogeneity. Our results show that multi-trait analysis is a valid approach to identify novel pleiotropic variants for ONH

Recovery of EUVL substrates

Mo/Si multilayers, were removed from superpolished zerodur and fused silica substrates with a dry etching process that, under suitable processing conditions, produces negligible change in either the substrate surface figure or surface roughness. Full recovery of the initial normal incidence extreme ultra-violet (EUV) reflectance response has been demonstrated on reprocessed substrates

Large GMR values of sputtered Co/Cu multilayer structures with Co-Cu buffer layers

We demonstrate large giant magnetoresistance (GMR) values of Co/Cu multilayers (MLs) sputtered on combined Co18{angstrom}/Cu48{angstrom} buffer layer. GMR values at room temperature reach 62% at the first antiferromagnetically (AF) coupling peak and 33% at the 2nd AF coupled peak, which are very close to those found in Co/Cu MLs sputtered on a Fe buffer layer. The large GMR effect is attributed to the superior superlattice structure of these samples, as evidenced by the x-ray reflectivity data as well as the TEM micrographs. In particular, the role of thin Co initial layer deposited beneath the Cu buffer layer on improved ML structure has been clarified from cross-sectional micrographs of high-resolution TEM