The invasive ‘mothcatcher’ (Araujia sericifera Brot.; Asclepiadoideae) co-opts native honeybees as its primary pollinator in South Africa

Araujia sericifera is a South American milkweed which is an invasive/exotic species in South Africa. This species relies on pollinators for sexual reproduction and we show it has co-opted native South African honeybees as primary pollinators in its adopted country. Moths also visit the flowers of this species, but contribute little to its relatively high pollination success

Measurements of differential cross sections of Z/gamma*+jets+X events in proton anti-proton collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

We present cross section measurements for Z/gamma*+jets+X production, differential in the transverse momenta of the three leading jets. The data sample was collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron proton anti-proton collider at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1 fb-1. Leading and next-to-leading order perturbative QCD predictions are compared with the measurements, and agreement is found within the theoretical and experimental uncertainties. We also make comparisons with the predictions of four event generators. Two parton-shower-based generators show significant shape and normalization differences with respect to the data. In contrast, two generators combining tree-level matrix elements with a parton shower give a reasonable description of the the shapes observed in data, but the predicted normalizations show significant differences with respect to the data, reflecting large scale uncertainties. For specific choices of scales, the normalizations for either generator can be made to agree with the measurements.Comment: Published in PLB. 11 pages, 3 figure

Relative rates of B meson decays into psi(2S) and J/psi mesons

We report on a study of the relative rates of B meson decays into psi(2S) and J/psi mesons using 1.3 fb^-1 of pbar p collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV recorded by the D0 detector operating at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We observe the channels B^0_s -> psi(2S)phi, B^0_s -> J/psi phi, B^+/- -> psi(2S) K^+/-, and B^+/- -> J/psi K^+/- and we measure the relative branching fractions for these channels to be B(B^0_s -> psi(2S)phi)/B(B^0_s -> J/psi phi) = 0.55 +/- 0.11 (stat) +/- 0.07 (syst) +/- 0.06 (B), B(B^+/- -> psi(2S) K^+/-)/B(B^+/- -> J/psi K^+/-) = 0.65 +/- 0.04 (stat) +/- 0.03 (syst) +/- 0.07 (B) where the final error corresponds to the uncertainty in the J/psi and psi(2S) branching ratio into two muons.Comment: Published in Phys. Rev. D - Rapid Communicatio

Effectiveness of the head CT choice decision aid in parents of children with minor head trauma: study protocol for a multicenter randomized trial

Background: Blunt head trauma is a common cause of death and disability in children worldwide. Cranial computed tomography (CT), the reference standard for the diagnosis of traumatic brain injury (TBI), exposes children to ionizing radiation which has been linked to the development of brain tumors, leukemia, and other cancers. We describe the methods used to develop and test the effectiveness of a decision aid to facilitate shared decision-making with parents regarding whether to obtain a head CT scan or to further observe their child at home. Methods/Design: This is a protocol for a multicenter clinician-level parallel randomized trial to compare an intervention group receiving a decision aid, ‘Head CT Choice’, to a control group receiving usual care. The trial will be conducted at five diverse emergency departments (EDs) in Minnesota and California. Clinicians will be randomized to decision aid or usual care. Parents visiting the ED with children who are less than 18-years-old, have experienced blunt head trauma within 24 hours, and have one or two risk factors for clinically-important TBI (ciTBI) from the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network head injury clinical prediction rules will be eligible for enrollment. We will measure the effect of Head CT Choice on: (1) parent knowledge regarding their child’s risk of ciTBI, the available diagnostic options, and the risks of radiation exposure associated with a cranial CT scan (primary outcome); (2) parent engagement in the decision-making process; (3) the degree of conflict parents experience related to feeling uninformed; (4) patient and clinician satisfaction with the decision made; (5) the rate of ciTBI at seven days; (6) the proportion of patients in whom a cranial CT scan is obtained; and (7) seven-day healthcare utilization. To capture these outcomes, we will administer parent and clinician surveys immediately after each clinical encounter, obtain video recordings of parent-clinician discussions, administer parent healthcare utilization diaries, analyze hospital billing records, review the electronic medical record, and conduct telephone follow-up. Discussion: This multicenter trial will robustly assess the effectiveness of a decision aid on patient-centered outcomes, safety, and healthcare utilization in parents of children with minor head trauma in five diverse EDs. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov registration number: NCT02063087. Registration date February 13, 2014

Skeletal Diversification via Heteroatom Linkage Control: Preparation of Bicyclic and Spirocyclic Scaffolds from NSubstituted Homopropargyl Alcohols

The discovery and application of a new branching pathway synthesis strategy that rapidly produces skeletally diverse scaffolds is described. Two different scaffold types, one a bicyclic iodo-vinylidene tertiary amine/tertiary alcohol and the other, a spirocyclic 3-furanone, are each obtained using a two-step sequence featuring a common first step. Both scaffold types lead to intermediates that can be orthogonally diversified using the same final components. One of the scaffold types was obtained in sufficiently high yield that it was immediately used to produce a 97-compound library