Charm physics at Belle

This talk reviews an unrepresentative selection of Belle's open-charm and charmonium analyses, focussing on new developments and topics of interest to the DIS community. Highlights include an X(3872) analysis favoring J^PC = 1++, and the D0-D*0bar bound-state interpretation.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, talk presented at DIS'05, Madison, WI. v2: corrected a typo in the summar

Statistical practice at the Belle experiment, and some questions

The Belle collaboration operates a general-purpose detector at the KEKB asymmetric energy e+ e- collider, performing a wide range of measurements in beauty, charm, tau and 2-photon physics. In this paper, the treatment of statistical problems in past and present Belle measurements is reviewed. Some open questions, such as the preferred method for quoting rare decay results, and the statistical treatment of the new B0/B0bar --> pi+ pi- analysis, are discussed.Comment: Paper submitted to the Proceedings of the Conference on Advanced Statistical Techniques in Particle Physics, Durham, March 200

Experimental limits on New Physics from charm decay

Recent measurements in the charm sector are reviewed, concentrating on results which are sensitive to New Physics effects. The scope of the presentation includes D0-D0bar mixing searches, a CPT / Lorentz invariance study, and a range of searches for rare and forbidden decays. Results from the BaBar, Belle, CDF, CLEO, and FOCUS collaborations are presented, including an important first observation.Comment: 14 pages, 5 tables, 17 figures. Invited talk presented at the 21st International Symposium On Lepton And Photon Interactions At High Energies (LP03) 11-16 August 2003, Batavia, Illinois. To appear in the proceedings of the symposiu

“It’s engraved in the Norwegian people.” Dugnad during the time of corona

On March 12th, 2020, Norway went into a national lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic. The measures that were put in place were the most restrictive since the Second World War. When asking Norwegians to comply with these restrictions, the Norwegian government did this by asking them to participate in a ‘dugnad’ against the coronavirus. The word ‘dugnad’ typically refers to a form of voluntary work, and therefore might seem out of place in this situation. This led me to asking the main questions of this thesis: Why did the Norwegian government choose the word ‘dugnad’ in this situation? Based on participant-observation, interviews, and focus groups with Norwegian university students, I show how the word dugnad was chosen specifically because of the connotations in has to community and belonging. I show how there is a tension to the dugnad practice as something voluntary, and as something obligatory. As such, participation in the dugnad is motivated by positive feelings of wanting to belong to a community, but also social control and shame. When looking at the corona dugnad, I explore how national dugnads also have a long history in Norway, and yet they often fail to contain characteristics that define the dugnad. The corona dugnad was an exception to this. I show how the word dugnad was chosen in this setting because it tells Norwegian’s what is expected of them – an effort for the good of the community. Although the word dugnad in relation to the corona dugnad was at first accepted, as time went on, the word eventually became contested, because everyone’s contributions were no longer equal. In particular, Norwegian university students were affected by an increase in mental health issues, showing the negative effects of the pandemic. To conclude this thesis, I highlight the unfair treatment of Norwegian university students as a group that were at risk of being excluded from the national community, during a time where the government was calling for everyone to work together

Foraging resource use by grey-headed flying-foxes in urban and non-urban Australia

Urbanisation is a major threat to ecosystems globally, resulting in habitat loss and habitat fragmentation, reduced biodiversity, and/or species extinction. However, urban habitats also create opportunities for exploitation by adaptable species, and this often leads to unbalanced management actions that have little regard for species conservation. Better understanding of the underlying drivers of wildlife species urbanisation will assist wildlife managers in developing effective and balanced conservation-management strategies. The grey-headed flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus), is a large, highly mobile species, that is becoming increasingly dependent on urban areas. Flying-fox urbanisation has been hypothesised to be a result of loss of natural foraging habitat, an attraction to increased spatiotemporal stability of food resources in urban areas, and/or both. Yet, little is known about how P. poliocephalus utilise urban areas for foraging. This study aims to investigate foraging resource availability as a driver of the documented P. poliocephalus urbanisation. Foraging habitat use was assessed using a large satellite tracking dataset from 98 individuals between 2012-2017. These data were combined with vegetation type data, and published indices of P. poliocephalus habitat quality to assess foraging habitat preferences. Tracked individuals were overwhelmingly dependent on human-modified landscapes for foraging, particularly where they roosted in major-urban areas. To identify the specific food plant species that support P. poliocephalus in urban areas, paired GPS and accelerometer data were used to identify trees visited by foraging individuals roosting in Adelaide. Tracked individuals preferentially visited residential areas and road-side habitats. Individuals visited a relatively high diversity of food plant species in these habitats, and flowering/fruiting phenology records indicated collective year-round availability of food resources for P. poliocephalus. This study suggests that P. poliocephalus urbanisation is, at least in part, driven by spatiotemporal availability and stability of food resources

Hemotropic mycoplasmas in little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus).

BackgroundHemotropic mycoplasmas are epicellular erythrocytic bacteria that can cause infectious anemia in some mammalian species. Worldwide, hemotropic mycoplasmas are emerging or re-emerging zoonotic pathogens potentially causing serious and significant health problems in wildlife. The objective of this study was to determine the molecular prevalence of hemotropic Mycoplasma species in little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) with and without Pseudogymnoascus (Geomyces) destrucans, the causative agent of white nose syndrome (WNS) that causes significant mortality events in bats.MethodsIn order to establish the prevalence of hemotropic Mycoplasma species in a population of 68 little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) with (n = 53) and without (n = 15) white-nose syndrome (WNS), PCR was performed targeting the 16S rRNA gene.ResultsThe overall prevalence of hemotropic Mycoplasmas in bats was 47%, with similar (p = 0.5725) prevalence between bats with WNS (49%) and without WNS (40%). 16S rDNA sequence analysis (~1,200 bp) supports the presence of a novel hemotropic Mycoplasma species with 91.75% sequence homology with Mycoplasma haemomuris. No differences were found in gene sequences generated from WNS and non-WNS animals.ConclusionsGene sequences generated from WNS and non-WNS animals suggest that little brown bats could serve as a natural reservoir for this potentially novel Mycoplasma species. Currently, there is minimal information about the prevalence, host-specificity, or the route of transmission of hemotropic Mycoplasma spp. among bats. Finally, the potential role of hemotropic Mycoplasma spp. as co-factors in the development of disease manifestations in bats, including WNS in Myotis lucifugus, remains to be elucidated