Editorial

Occasionally, we strike moments in our professional and personal lives that are turning points; not just in our own personal odyssey, but within the wider context of our nation and indeed, human civilisation. Jim Bowler and Alan Thorne experienced just such an epiphany, while excavating in the Willandra Lakes Region on February 25, 1974. Careful excavation of some lunettes at Lake Mungo revealed remains of an adult male, sprinkled with red ochre. Now dated at 40,000 yr (40 ±20), this is probably one of the earliest known examples of a sophisticated burial ritual in Australia. Mungo Man’s discovery followed that of Mungo Lady in 1969 (by Jim Bowler) which also indicated ritualistic burial rights and mourning rituals

Editorial

Many of you will have followed the recent political events which prompted the world-wide ‘March for Science’ protests, and incredulity at the US government’s choice of a ‘proud’ climate-change denier as their Secretary of the Interior. Never before has the gap between scientists and non-scientists been so publicised and scrutinised

Editorial

This year will see a full transition of the Quaternary Australasia editorship to Carol Smith and Sanja van Huet, with Pia Atahan retiring mid-year. Carol and Sanja represent the twelfth and thirteenth editors in the line that began when Jeannette Hope and Bruce Thom began editing QA’s predecessor: the Australian Quaternary Newsletter. A strong focus of QA over its lifetime has been on publishing meeting reports and updates related to formal group projects, making QA a valuable asset for the Quaternary community. This strong focus is evident in the current issue of QA, with groups working within the framework of INQUA and PAGES represented

Silent Transitions in Automata with Storage

We consider the computational power of silent transitions in one-way automata with storage. Specifically, we ask which storage mechanisms admit a transformation of a given automaton into one that accepts the same language and reads at least one input symbol in each step. We study this question using the model of valence automata. Here, a finite automaton is equipped with a storage mechanism that is given by a monoid. This work presents generalizations of known results on silent transitions. For two classes of monoids, it provides characterizations of those monoids that allow the removal of \lambda-transitions. Both classes are defined by graph products of copies of the bicyclic monoid and the group of integers. The first class contains pushdown storages as well as the blind counters while the second class contains the blind and the partially blind counters.Comment: 32 pages, submitte

Tumour growth and resistance to gemcitabine of pancreatic cancer cells are decreased by AP-2α overexpression

International audienceBACKGROUND: Activator protein-2alpha (AP-2alpha) is a transcription factor that belongs to the family of AP-2 proteins that have essential roles in tumorigenesis. Indeed, AP-2alpha is considered as a tumour-suppressor gene in different tissues such as colonic, prostatic or breast epithelial cells. Moreover, AP-2alpha also participates in the control of colon and breast cancer cells sensitivity towards chemotherapeutic drugs. Despite its potential interest, very few data are available regarding the roles of AP-2alpha in pancreatic cancer. METHODS: We have developed a stable pancreatic CAPAN-1 cell line overexpressing AP-2alpha. Consequences of overexpression were studied in terms of in vivo cell growth, gene expression, migration capacity and chemosensitivity. RESULTS: In vivo tumour growth of CAPAN-1 cells overexpressing AP-2alpha was significantly decreased by comparison to control cells. An altered expression pattern of cell cycle-controlling factors (CDK-4, CDK-6, cyclin-G1, p27(kip1) and p57(kip2)) was observed in AP-2alpha-overexpressing clones by microarrays and western blot analysis. Promoter activity and ChIP analysis indicated that AP-2alpha induces p27(kip1) protein levels by direct binding to and transactivation of its promoter. Moreover, AP-2alpha overexpression increased the chemosensitivity of CAPAN-1 cells to low doses of gemcitabine and reduced their in vitro migration capacity. CONCLUSION: Our data suggested that AP-2alpha overexpression could be exploited to decrease in vivo tumour growth of pancreatic cancer cells and to increase their sensitivity to gemcitabine

Clinical and Epidemiological Characteristics of 1,420 European Patients with mild-to-moderate Coronavirus Disease 2019

Background: The clinical presentation of European patients with mild-to-moderate Covid-19 infection is still unknown. Objective: To study the clinical presentation of Covid-19 in Europe. Methods: Patients with positive diagnosis of Covid-19 were recruited from 18 European hospitals. Epidemiological and clinical data were obtained through a standardized questionnaire. Bayesian analysis was used for analyzing the relationship between outcomes. Results: 1,420 patients completed the study (962 females, 30.7% of health care workers). The mean age of patients was 39.17\ub112.09 years. The most common symptoms were headache (70.3%), loss of smell (70.2%), nasal obstruction (67.8%), cough (63.2%), asthenia (63.3%), myalgia (62.5%), rhinorrhea (60.1%), gustatory dysfunction (54.2%) and sore throat (52.9%). Fever was reported by on 45.4%. The mean duration of Covid-19 symptoms of mild-to-moderate cured patients was 11.5\ub15.7 days. The prevalence of symptoms significantly varied according to age and sex. Young patients more frequently had ear, nose, and throat complaints, whereas elderly individuals often presented fever, fatigue and loss of appetite. Loss of smell, headache, nasal obstruction and fatigue were more prevalent in female patients. The loss of smell was a key symptom of mild-to-moderate Covid19 patients and was not associated with nasal obstruction and rhinorrhea. Loss of smell persisted at least 7 days after the disease in 37.5% of cured patients. Conclusion: The clinical presentation of mild-to-moderate Covid-19 substantially varies according to the age and the sex characteristics of patients. Olfactory dysfunction seems to be an important underestimated symptom of mild-to-moderate Covid-19 that needs to be recognized as such by the WHO

A Cross-correlation method to search for gravitational wave bursts with AURIGA and Virgo

We present a method to search for transient GWs using a network of detectors with different spectral and directional sensitivities: the interferometer Virgo and the bar detector AURIGA. The data analysis method is based on the measurements of the correlated energy in the network by means of a weighted cross-correlation. To limit the computational load, this coherent analysis step is performed around time-frequency coincident triggers selected by an excess power event trigger generator tuned at low thresholds. The final selection of GW candidates is performed by a combined cut on the correlated energy and on the significance as measured by the event trigger generator. The method has been tested on one day of data of AURIGA and Virgo during September 2005. The outcomes are compared to the results of a stand-alone time-frequency coincidence search. We discuss the advantages and the limits of this approach, in view of a possible future joint search between AURIGA and one interferometric detector.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, submitted to CQG special issue for Amaldi 7 Proceeding

Scientific Objectives of Einstein Telescope

The advanced interferometer network will herald a new era in observational astronomy. There is a very strong science case to go beyond the advanced detector network and build detectors that operate in a frequency range from 1 Hz-10 kHz, with sensitivity a factor ten better in amplitude. Such detectors will be able to probe a range of topics in nuclear physics, astronomy, cosmology and fundamental physics, providing insights into many unsolved problems in these areas.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, Plenary talk given at Amaldi Meeting, July 201

Virgo calibration and reconstruction of the gravitational wave strain during VSR1

Virgo is a kilometer-length interferometer for gravitational waves detection located near Pisa. Its first science run, VSR1, occured from May to October 2007. The aims of the calibration are to measure the detector sensitivity and to reconstruct the time series of the gravitational wave strain h(t). The absolute length calibration is based on an original non-linear reconstruction of the differential arm length variations in free swinging Michelson configurations. It uses the laser wavelength as length standard. This method is used to calibrate the frequency dependent response of the Virgo mirror actuators and derive the detector in-loop response and sensitivity within ~5%. The principle of the strain reconstruction is highlighted and the h(t) systematic errors are estimated. A photon calibrator is used to check the sign of h(t). The reconstructed h(t) during VSR1 is valid from 10 Hz up to 10 kHz with systematic errors estimated to 6% in amplitude. The phase error is estimated to be 70 mrad below 1.9 kHz and 6 micro-seconds above.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, proceedings of Amaldi 8 conference, to be published in Journal of Physics Conference Series (JPCS). Second release: correct typo