Synthesis v. Purity and Large-N Studies: How Might We Assess the Gap between Promise and Performance?

A review of: Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study by Todd Landman. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005, 231 pp

Matter-gravity couplings and Lorentz violation

The gravitational couplings of matter are studied in the presence of Lorentz and CPT violation. At leading order in the coefficients for Lorentz violation, the relativistic quantum hamiltonian is derived from the gravitationally coupled minimal Standard-Model Extension. For spin-independent effects, the nonrelativistic quantum hamiltonian and the classical dynamics for test and source bodies are obtained. A systematic perturbative method is developed to treat small metric and coefficient fluctuations about a Lorentz-violating and Minkowski background. The post-newtonian metric and the trajectory of a test body freely falling under gravity in the presence of Lorentz violation are established. An illustrative example is presented for a bumblebee model. The general methodology is used to identify observable signals of Lorentz and CPT violation in a variety of gravitational experiments and observations, including gravimeter measurements, laboratory and satellite tests of the weak equivalence principle, antimatter studies, solar-system observations, and investigations of the gravitational properties of light. Numerous sensitivities to coefficients for Lorentz violation can be achieved in existing or near-future experiments at the level of parts in 10^3 down to parts in 10^{15}. Certain coefficients are uniquely detectable in gravitational searches and remain unmeasured to date.Comment: 59 pages two-column REVTe

Controlling discrete quantum walks: coins and intitial states

In discrete time, coined quantum walks, the coin degrees of freedom offer the potential for a wider range of controls over the evolution of the walk than are available in the continuous time quantum walk. This paper explores some of the possibilities on regular graphs, and also reports periodic behaviour on small cyclic graphs.Comment: 10 (+epsilon) pages, 10 embedded eps figures, typos corrected, references added and updated, corresponds to published version (except figs 5-9 optimised for b&w printing here

Counterparts: Clothing, value and the sites of otherness in Panapompom ethnographic encounters

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Anthropological Forum, 18(1), 17-35, 2008 [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00664670701858927.Panapompom people living in the western Louisiade Archipelago of Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea, see their clothes as indices of their perceived poverty. ‘Development’ as a valued form of social life appears as images that attach only loosely to the people employing them. They nevertheless hold Panapompom people to account as subjects to a voice and gaze that is located in the imagery they strive to present: their clothes. This predicament strains anthropological approaches to the study of Melanesia that subsist on strict alterity, because native self‐judgments are located ‘at home’ for the ethnographer. In this article, I develop the notion of the counterpart as a means to explore these forms of postcolonial oppression and their implications for the ethnographic encounter

An emerging cyberinfrastructure for biodefense pathogen and pathogen–host data

The NIAID-funded Biodefense Proteomics Resource Center (RC) provides storage, dissemination, visualization and analysis capabilities for the experimental data deposited by seven Proteomics Research Centers (PRCs). The data and its publication is to support researchers working to discover candidates for the next generation of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics against NIAID's Category A, B and C priority pathogens. The data includes transcriptional profiles, protein profiles, protein structural data and host–pathogen protein interactions, in the context of the pathogen life cycle in vivo and in vitro. The database has stored and supported host or pathogen data derived from Bacillus, Brucella, Cryptosporidium, Salmonella, SARS, Toxoplasma, Vibrio and Yersinia, human tissue libraries, and mouse macrophages. These publicly available data cover diverse data types such as mass spectrometry, yeast two-hybrid (Y2H), gene expression profiles, X-ray and NMR determined protein structures and protein expression clones. The growing database covers over 23 000 unique genes/proteins from different experiments and organisms. All of the genes/proteins are annotated and integrated across experiments using UniProt Knowledgebase (UniProtKB) accession numbers. The web-interface for the database enables searching, querying and downloading at the level of experiment, group and individual gene(s)/protein(s) via UniProtKB accession numbers or protein function keywords. The system is accessible at http://www.proteomicsresource.org/

Efficiency and safety of varying the frequency of whole blood donation (INTERVAL): a randomised trial of 45 000 donors

Background: Limits on the frequency of whole blood donation exist primarily to safeguard donor health. However, there is substantial variation across blood services in the maximum frequency of donations allowed. We compared standard practice in the UK with shorter inter-donation intervals used in other countries. Methods: In this parallel group, pragmatic, randomised trial, we recruited whole blood donors aged 18 years or older from 25 centres across England, UK. By use of a computer-based algorithm, men were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to 12-week (standard) versus 10-week versus 8-week inter-donation intervals, and women were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to 16-week (standard) versus 14-week versus 12-week intervals. Participants were not masked to their allocated intervention group. The primary outcome was the number of donations over 2 years. Secondary outcomes related to safety were quality of life, symptoms potentially related to donation, physical activity, cognitive function, haemoglobin and ferritin concentrations, and deferrals because of low haemoglobin. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, number ISRCTN24760606, and is ongoing but no longer recruiting participants. Findings: 45 263 whole blood donors (22 466 men, 22 797 women) were recruited between June 11, 2012, and June 15, 2014. Data were analysed for 45 042 (99·5%) participants. Men were randomly assigned to the 12-week (n=7452) versus 10-week (n=7449) versus 8-week (n=7456) groups; and women to the 16-week (n=7550) versus 14-week (n=7567) versus 12-week (n=7568) groups. In men, compared with the 12-week group, the mean amount of blood collected per donor over 2 years increased by 1·69 units (95% CI 1·59–1·80; approximately 795 mL) in the 8-week group and by 0·79 units (0·69–0·88; approximately 370 mL) in the 10-week group (p<0·0001 for both). In women, compared with the 16-week group, it increased by 0·84 units (95% CI 0·76–0·91; approximately 395 mL) in the 12-week group and by 0·46 units (0·39–0·53; approximately 215 mL) in the 14-week group (p<0·0001 for both). No significant differences were observed in quality of life, physical activity, or cognitive function across randomised groups. However, more frequent donation resulted in more donation-related symptoms (eg, tiredness, breathlessness, feeling faint, dizziness, and restless legs, especially among men [for all listed symptoms]), lower mean haemoglobin and ferritin concentrations, and more deferrals for low haemoglobin (p<0·0001 for each) than those observed in the standard frequency groups. Interpretation: Over 2 years, more frequent donation than is standard practice in the UK collected substantially more blood without having a major effect on donors' quality of life, physical activity, or cognitive function, but resulted in more donation-related symptoms, deferrals, and iron deficiency. Funding: NHS Blood and Transplant, National Institute for Health Research, UK Medical Research Council, and British Heart Foundation

Could dark energy be vector-like?

In this paper I explore whether a vector field can be the origin of the present stage of cosmic acceleration. In order to avoid violations of isotropy, the vector has be part of a ``cosmic triad'', that is, a set of three identical vectors pointing in mutually orthogonal spatial directions. A triad is indeed able to drive a stage of late accelerated expansion in the universe, and there exist tracking attractors that render cosmic evolution insensitive to initial conditions. However, as in most other models, the onset of cosmic acceleration is determined by a parameter that has to be tuned to reproduce current observations. The triad equation of state can be sufficiently close to minus one today, and for tachyonic models it might be even less than that. I briefly analyze linear cosmological perturbation theory in the presence of a triad. It turns out that the existence of non-vanishing spatial vectors invalidates the decomposition theorem, i.e. scalar, vector and tensor perturbations do not decouple from each other. In a simplified case it is possible to analytically study the stability of the triad along the different cosmological attractors. The triad is classically stable during inflation, radiation and matter domination, but it is unstable during (late-time) cosmic acceleration. I argue that this instability is not likely to have a significant impact at present.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures. Uses RevTeX4. v2: Discussion about relation to phantoms added and additional references cite

Beliefs, taboos and minor crop value chains: the case of Bambara Groundnut in Malawi

Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranean) is a source of food for smallholder farmers that is increasingly promoted for its drought tolerance, soil enhancing qualities and nutritious properties. Being an accessible crop to smallholders, it has also recently been the focus of support to develop its value chain in Malawi. However, bambara groundnut is featured in the belief systems of rural people in Malawi, and may effect and be effected by market development. Beliefs and taboos reflect the life/death meanings symbolically represented in bambara groundnut, which influences how and by whom the crop is produced and consumed. These practices lend significant control over the crop to women. These findings have important implications for development and market related interventions that work with food crops, which need to be taken into account during the design phase

Universal WBC reduction

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75583/1/j.1537-2995.2000.40060751.x.pd

Multinational characterization of neurological phenotypes in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

Neurological complications worsen outcomes in COVID-19. To define the prevalence of neurological conditions among hospitalized patients with a positive SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction test in geographically diverse multinational populations during early pandemic, we used electronic health records (EHR) from 338 participating hospitals across 6 countries and 3 continents (January–September 2020) for a cross-sectional analysis. We assessed the frequency of International Classification of Disease code of neurological conditions by countries, healthcare systems, time before and after admission for COVID-19 and COVID-19 severity. Among 35,177 hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection, there was an increase in the proportion with disorders of consciousness (5.8%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.7–7.8%, pFDR < 0.001) and unspecified disorders of the brain (8.1%, 5.7–10.5%, pFDR < 0.001) when compared to the pre-admission proportion. During hospitalization, the relative risk of disorders of consciousness (22%, 19–25%), cerebrovascular diseases (24%, 13–35%), nontraumatic intracranial hemorrhage (34%, 20–50%), encephalitis and/or myelitis (37%, 17–60%) and myopathy (72%, 67–77%) were higher for patients with severe COVID-19 when compared to those who never experienced severe COVID-19. Leveraging a multinational network to capture standardized EHR data, we highlighted the increased prevalence of central and peripheral neurological phenotypes in patients hospitalized with COVID-19, particularly among those with severe disease