Applications of Direct Injection Soft Chemical Ionisation-Mass Spectrometry for the Detection of Pre-blast Smokeless Powder Organic Additives

Analysis of smokeless powders is of interest from forensics and security perspectives. This article reports the detection of smokeless powder organic additives (in their pre-detonation condition), namely the stabiliser diphenylamine and its derivatives 2-nitrodiphenylamine and 4-nitrodiphenylamine, and the additives (used both as stabilisers and plasticisers) methyl centralite and ethyl centralite, by means of swab sampling followed by thermal desorption and direct injection soft chemical ionisation-mass spectrometry. Investigations on the product ions resulting from the reactions of the reagent ions H3O+ and O2+ with additives as a function of reduced electric field are reported. The method was comprehensively evaluated in terms of linearity, sensitivity and precision. For H3O+, the limits of detection (LoD) are in the range of 41-88 pg of additive, for which the accuracy varied between 1.5 and 3.2%, precision varied between 3.7 and 7.3% and linearity showed R20.9991. For O2+, LoD are in the range of 72 to 1.4 ng, with an accuracy of between 2.8 and 4.9% and a precision between 4.5 and 8.6% and R20.9914. The validated methodology was applied to the analysis of commercial pre-blast gun powders from different manufacturers.(VLID)4826148Accepted versio

Can Modus Vivendi Save Liberalism from Moralism? A Critical Assessment of John Gray’s Political Realism

This chapter assesses John Gray’s modus vivendi-based justification for liberalism. I argue that his approach is preferable to the more orthodox deontological or teleological justificatory strategies, at least because of the way it can deal with the problem of diversity. But then I show how that is not good news for liberalism, for grounding liberal political authority in a modus vivendi undermines liberalism’s aspiration to occupy a privileged normative position vis-à-vis other kinds of regimes. So modus vivendi can save liberalism from moralism, but at cost many liberals will not be prepared to pay

Does shear wave ultrasound independently predict axillary lymph node metastasis in women with invasive breast cancer?

Shear wave elastography (SWE) shows promise as an adjunct to greyscale ultrasound examination in assessing breast masses. In breast cancer, higher lesion stiffness on SWE has been shown to be associated with features of poor prognosis. The purpose of this study was to assess whether lesion stiffness at SWE is an independent predictor of lymph node involvement. Patients with invasive breast cancer treated by primary surgery, who had undergone SWE examination were eligible. Data were retrospectively analysed from 396 consecutive patients. The mean stiffness values were obtained using the Aixplorer(®) ultrasound machine from SuperSonic Imagine Ltd. Measurements were taken from a region of interest positioned over the stiffest part of the abnormality. The average of the mean stiffness value obtained from each of two orthogonal image planes was used for analysis. Associations between lymph node involvement and mean lesion stiffness, invasive cancer size, histologic grade, tumour type, ER expression, HER-2 status and vascular invasion were assessed using univariate and multivariate logistic regression. At univariate analysis, invasive size, histologic grade, HER-2 status, vascular invasion, tumour type and mean stiffness were significantly associated with nodal involvement. Nodal involvement rates ranged from 7 % for tumours with mean stiffness <50 kPa to 41 % for tumours with a mean stiffness of >150 kPa. At multivariate analysis, invasive size, tumour type, vascular invasion, and mean stiffness maintained independent significance. Mean stiffness at SWE is an independent predictor of lymph node metastasis and thus can confer prognostic information additional to that provided by conventional preoperative tumour assessment and staging

Goldstone Bosons in Effective Theories with Spontaneously Broken Flavour Symmetry

The Flavour Symmetry of the Standard Model (SM) gauge sector is broken by the fermion Yukawa couplings. Promoting the Yukawa matrices to scalar spurion fields, one can break the flavour symmetry spontaneously by giving appropriate vacuum expectation values (VEVs) to the spurion fields, and one encounters Goldstone modes for every broken flavour symmetry generator. In this paper, we point out various aspects related to the possible dynamical interpretation of the Goldstone bosons: (i) In an effective-theory framework with local flavour symmetry, the Goldstone fields represent the longitudinal modes for massive gauge bosons. The spectrum of the latter follows the sequence of flavour-symmetry breaking related to the hierarchies in Yukawa couplings and flavour mixing angles. (ii) Gauge anomalies can be consistently treated by adding higher-dimensional operators. (iii) Leaving the U(1) factors of the flavour symmetry group as global symmetries, the respective Goldstone modes behave as axions which can be used to resolve the strong CP problem by a modified Peccei-Quinn mechanism. (iv) The dynamical picture of flavour symmetry breaking implies new sources of flavour-changing neutral currents, which arise from integrating out heavy scalar spurion fields and heavy gauge bosons. The coefficients of the effective operators follow the minimal-flavour violation principle.Comment: 27 pages, abstract and introduction extended, more detailed discussion of heavy gauge boson spectrum and auxiliary heavy fermions, outline restructured. Matches version to be published in JHE

Mortality among US employees of a large computer manufacturing company: 1969–2001

BACKGROUND: Previous studies suggested increased cancer incidence and mortality in workers exposed to solvents and other chemicals in computer manufacturing jobs. Most previous studies were of small cohorts and findings were inconsistent. A lawsuit involving a large U.S. company produced a data file for analysis. This study sought to elucidate patterns of mortality in workers who were engaged manufacturing computers and related electronic components in the largest database available to date. METHODS: A proportional mortality and proportional cancer mortality analysis of deaths in eligible workers between 1969 and 2001 was carried out, with U.S. population mortality data as the standard for comparison. Mortality and work history data was from corporate mortality and work history files produced during litigation and standard U.S. and state mortality files. The study base comprised 31,941 decedents who died between 1969 and 2001, who had worked for at least five years and whose death information was collected in the corporate mortality file. Proportional mortality ratios (PMRs) and Proportional Cancer Mortality Ratios (PCMRs) and their 95% confidence intervals were computed for 66 causes of death in males and females. RESULTS: PMRs for all cancers combined were elevated in males (PMR = 107; 95% CI = 105–109) and females (PMR = 115; 95% CI = 110–119); several specific cancers and other causes of death were also significantly elevated in both males and females. There were reduced deaths due to non-malignant respiratory disease in males and females and heart disease in females; several specific cancers and other causes of death were significantly reduced in both males and females. Proportional cancer mortality ratios (PCMRs) for brain and central nervous system cancer were elevated (PCMR = 166; 95% CI = 129–213), kidney cancer (PCMR = 162; 95% CI = 124–212), melanoma of skin (PCMR = 179; 95% CI = 131–244) and pancreatic cancer (PCMR = 126; 95% CI = 101–157) were significantly elevated in male manufacturing workers. Kidney cancer (PCMR = 212; 95% CI = 116–387) and cancer of all lymphatic and hematopoietic tissue (PCMR = 162; 95% CI = 121–218) were significantly elevated in female manufacturing workers. CONCLUSION: Mortality was elevated due to specific cancers and among workers more likely to be exposed to solvents and other chemical exposures in manufacturing operations. Due to lack of individual exposure information, no conclusions are made about associations with any particular agent

Ontology-based employer demand management

Skills shortages globally pose a real and urgent need for proper investigation and workforce development planning into the future. Analysing workforce development and employer demand needs through electronic job market allows much deeper and wider research into skill shortages. Current methods do not provide the level of depth required to address such important economic implications. In this paper, we present a system aiming to gather and analyse current employer demand information from online job advertisements. It identifies current employer demand needs analysed from electronic job market

Complement C1q Activates Tumor Suppressor WWOX to Induce Apoptosis in Prostate Cancer Cells

BACKGROUND:Tissue exudates contain low levels of serum complement proteins, and their regulatory effects on prostate cancer progression are largely unknown. We examined specific serum complement components in coordinating the activation of tumor suppressors p53 and WWOX (also named FOR or WOX1) and kinases ERK, JNK1 and STAT3 in human prostate DU145 cells. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:DU145 cells were cultured overnight in 1% normal human serum, or in human serum depleted of an indicated complement protein. Under complement C1q- or C6-free conditions, WOX1 and ERK were mainly present in the cytoplasm without phosphorylation, whereas phosphorylated JNK1 was greatly accumulated in the nuclei. Exogenous C1q rapidly restored the WOX1 activation (with Tyr33 phosphorylation) in less than 2 hr. Without serum complement C9, p53 became activated, and hyaluronan (HA) reversed the effect. Under C6-free conditions, HA induced activation of STAT3, an enhancer of metastasis. Notably, exogenous C1q significantly induced apoptosis of WOX1-overexpressing DU145 cells, but not vehicle-expressing cells. A dominant negative and Y33R mutant of WOX1 blocked the apoptotic effect. C1q did not enhance p53-mediated apoptosis. By total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy, it was determined that C1q destabilized adherence of WOX1-expressing DU145 cells by partial detaching and inducing formation of clustered microvilli for focal adhesion particularly in between cells. These cells then underwent shrinkage, membrane blebbing and death. Remarkably, as determined by immunostaining, benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer were shown to have a significantly reduced expression of tissue C1q, compared to age-matched normal prostate tissues. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:We conclude that complement C1q may induce apoptosis of prostate cancer cells by activating WOX1 and destabilizing cell adhesion. Downregulation of C1q enhances prostate hyperplasia and cancerous formation due to failure of WOX1 activation

What Drives Animal Fluency Performance in Cantonese-Speaking Chinese Patients with Adult-Onset Psychosis?

Among the numerous studies investigating semantic factors associated with functioning in psychotic patients, most have been conducted on western populations. By contrast, the current cross-sectional study involved native Cantonese-speaking Chinese participants. Using the category fluency task, we compared performance between patients and healthy participants and examined clinical and sociodemographic correlates. First-episode psychosis patients (n = 356) and gender- and age-matched healthy participants (n = 35) were asked to generate as many ‘animals’ as they could in a minute. As expected, patients generated fewer correct responses (an average of 15.5 vs. 22.9 words), generated fewer clusters (an average of 3.7 vs. 5.4 thematically grouped nouns), switched less between clusters (on average 8.0 vs. 11.9 switches) and, interestingly, produced a larger percentage of Chinese zodiac animals than healthy participants (an average of 37.7 vs. 24.2). However, these significant group differences in the clusters and switches disappeared when the overall word production was controlled for. Within patients, education was the strongest predictor of category fluency performance (namely the number of correct responses, clusters, and switches). The findings suggest that an overall slowness in patients may account for the group differences in category fluency performance rather than any specific abnormality per se