Status of Zero Degree Calorimeter for CMS Experiment

The Zero Degree Calorimeter (ZDC) is integral part of the CMS experiment, especially, for heavy ion studies. The design of the ZDC includes two independent calorimeter sections: an electromagnetic section and a hadronic section. Sampling calorimeters using tungsten and quartz fibers have been chosen for the energy measurements. An overview of the ZDC is presented along with a current status of calorimeter's preparation for Day 1 of LHC.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, to appear in the proceedings of CALOR06, June 5-9, 2006 Chicago, US

Volcanic ash ice-nucleating activity can be enhanced or depressed by ash-gas interaction in the eruption plume

Volcanic ash can trigger ice nucleation when immersed in supercooled water. This will impact several processes (e.g., electrification, aggregation, precipitation) in the eruption plume and cloud and in the wider atmosphere upon ash dispersal. Previous studies show that ash bulk properties, reflecting the chemistry and phase state of the source magma, likely contribute to the ice-nucleating activity (INA) of ash. However, it remains unexplored how interaction with magmatic gases in the hot eruption plume, which inevitably leads to altered ash surface properties, affects the ash INA. Here we demonstrate that the INA of tephra is raised by exposure to H2O(g) mixed with SO2(g) at both 800 and 400 °C, but is substantially reduced by exposure to H2O(g) alone or mixed with HCl(g) at the same temperatures. In contrast, the INA of K-feldspar and quartz is reduced by all three eruption plume processing treatments. The decrease in INA of all silicates after heating with H2O(g) might relate to a loss of ice-active sites by surface dehydroxylation and/or oxidation. In the presence of HCl(g) or SO2(g), respectively, metal chloride or sulphate salts form on the tephra surfaces only. While NaCl and CaCl2 seem to have no effect on the tephra INA, CaSO4 is inferred to create ice-active sites, potentially through a particular combination of surface chemistry and topography. Overall, our findings suggest a complex interplay of bulk mineralogy and surface alteration in influencing ice nucleation by volcanic ash, and highlight the general sensitivity (enhancement or depression) of ash INA to interaction with magmatic gases in the eruption plume

High Throughput Screening of a GlaxoSmithKline Protein Kinase Inhibitor Set Identifies an Inhibitor of Human Cytomegalovirus Replication that Prevents CREB and Histone H3 Post-Translational Modification.

To identify new compounds with anti-human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) activity and new anti-HCMV targets, we developed a high throughput strategy to screen a GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Published Kinase Inhibitor Set (PKIS). This collection contains a range of extensively characterized compounds grouped into chemical families (chemotypes). From our screen we identified compounds within chemotypes that impede HCMV replication and identified kinase proteins associated with inhibition of HCMV replication that are potential novel anti-HCMV targets. We focused our study on a top "hit" in our screen, SB-734117, which we found inhibits productive replication of several HCMV strains. Kinase selectivity data indicated that SB-734117 exhibits polypharmacology and is an inhibitor of several proteins from the AGC and CMCG kinase groups. Using western blotting we found that SB-734711 inhibited accumulation of HCMV immediate-early proteins, phosphorylation of cellular proteins involved in immediate-early protein production (CREB and histone H3) and histone H3 lysine 36 trimethylation (H3K36me3). Therefore, we identify SB-734117 as a novel anti-HCMV compound and find that inhibition of AGC and CMCG kinase proteins during productive HCMV replication is associated with inhibition of viral protein production and prevents post-translational modification of cellular factors associated with viral protein production

A Neuroanatomical Signature for Schizophrenia Across Different Ethnic Groups

Schizophrenia is a disabling clinical syndrome found across the world. While the incidence and clinical expression of this illness are strongly influenced by ethnic factors, it is unclear whether patients from different ethnicities show distinct brain deficits. In this multicentre study, we used structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging to investigate neuroanatomy in 126 patients with first episode schizophrenia who came from 4 ethnically distinct cohorts (White Caucasians, African-Caribbeans, Japanese, and Chinese). Each patient was individually matched with a healthy control of the same ethnicity, gender, and age (±1 year). We report a reduction in the gray matter volume of the right anterior insula in patients relative to controls (P < .05 corrected); this reduction was detected in all 4 ethnic groups despite differences in psychopathology, exposure to antipsychotic medication and image acquisition sequence. This finding provides evidence for a neuroanatomical signature of schizophrenia expressed above and beyond ethnic variations in incidence and clinical expression. In light of the existing literature, implicating the right anterior insula in bipolar disorder, depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety, we speculate that the neuroanatomical deficit reported here may represent a transdiagnostic feature of Axis I disorders

The barriers and facilitators to routine outcome measurement by allied health professionals in practice: a systematic review

Background: Allied Health Professionals today are required, more than ever before, to demonstrate their impact.However, despite at least 20 years of expectation, many services fail to deliver routine outcome measurement inpractice. This systematic review investigates what helps and hinders routine outcome measurement of allied healthprofessionals practice.Methods: A systematic review protocol was developed comprising: a defined search strategy for PsycINFO,MEDLINE and CINHAL databases and inclusion criteria and systematic procedures for data extraction and qualityappraisal. Studies were included if they were published in English and investigated facilitators and/or barriers toroutine outcome measurement by allied health professionals. No restrictions were placed on publication type,design, country, or year of publication. Reference lists of included publications were searched to identify additionalpapers. Descriptive methods were used to synthesise the findings.Results: 960 papers were retrieved; 15 met the inclusion criteria. Professional groups represented werePhysiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech and Language Therapy. The included literature varied in qualityand design. Facilitators and barriers to routine outcome measurement exist at individual, managerial andorganisational levels. Key factors affecting professionals’ use of routine outcome measurement include: professionals’level of knowledge and confidence about using outcome measures, and the degree of organisational and peersupportprofessionals received with a view to promoting their work in practice.Conclusions: Whilst the importance of routinely measuring outcomes within the allied health professions is wellrecognised, it has largely failed to be delivered in practice. Factors that influence clinicians’ ability and desire toundertake routine outcome measurement are bi-directional: they can act as either facilitators or barriers. Routineoutcome measurement may only be deliverable if appropriate action is taken at individual therapist, team, andorganisational levels of an organisation

White matter integrity as a predictor of response to treatment in first episode psychosis

The integrity of brain white matter connections is central to a patient's ability to respond to pharmacological interventions. This study tested this hypothesis using a specific measure of white matter integrity, and examining its relationship to treatment response using a prospective design in patients within their first episode of psychosis. Diffusion tensor imaging data were acquired in 63 patients with first episode psychosis and 52 healthy control subjects (baseline). Response was assessed after 12 weeks and patients were classified as responders or non-responders according to treatment outcome. At this second time-point, they also underwent a second diffusion tensor imaging scan. Tract-based spatial statistics were used to assess fractional anisotropy as a marker of white matter integrity. At baseline, non-responders showed lower fractional anisotropy than both responders and healthy control subjects (P < 0.05; family-wise error-corrected), mainly in the uncinate, cingulum and corpus callosum, whereas responders were indistinguishable from healthy control subjects. After 12 weeks, there was an increase in fractional anisotropy in both responders and non-responders, positively correlated with antipsychotic exposure. This represents one of the largest, controlled investigations of white matter integrity and response to antipsychotic treatment early in psychosis. These data, together with earlier findings on cortical grey matter, suggest that grey and white matter integrity at the start of treatment is an important moderator of response to antipsychotics. These findings can inform patient stratification to anticipate care needs, and raise the possibility that antipsychotics may restore white matter integrity as part of the therapeutic response

Telomere length regulation: coupling DNA end processing to feedback regulation of telomerase

The conventional DNA polymerase machinery is unable to fully replicate the ends of linear chromosomes. To surmount this problem, nearly all eukaryotes use the telomerase enzyme, a specialized reverse transcriptase that utizes its own RNA template to add short TG-rich repeats to chromosome ends, thus reversing their gradual erosion occurring at each round of replication. This unique, non-DNA templated mode of telomere replication requires a regulatory mechanism to ensure that telomerase acts at telomeres whose TG tracts are too short, but not at those with long tracts, thus maintaining the protective TG repeat cap at an appropriate average length. The prevailing notion in the field is that telomere length regulation is brought about through a negative feedback mechanism that counts TG repeat-bound protein complexes to generate a signal that regulates telomerase action. This review summarizes experiments leading up to this model and then focuses on more recent experiments, primarily from yeast, that begin to suggest how this counting mechanism might work. The emerging picture is that of a complex interplay between the conventional DNA replication machinery, DNA damage response factors, and a specialized set of proteins that help to recruit and regulate the telomerase enzyme

Reaction-diffusion systems with constant diffusivities: conditional symmetries and form-preserving transformations

Q-conditional symmetries (nonclassical symmetries) for a general class of two-component reaction-diffusion systems with constant diffusivities are studied. Using the recently introduced notion of Q-conditional symmetries of the first type (R. Cherniha J. Phys. A: Math. Theor., 2010. vol. 43., 405207), an exhaustive list of reaction-diffusion systems admitting such symmetry is derived. The form-preserving transformations for this class of systems are constructed and it is shown that this list contains only non-equivalent systems. The obtained symmetries permit to reduce the reaction-diffusion systems under study to two-dimensional systems of ordinary differential equations and to find exact solutions. As a non-trivial example, multiparameter families of exact solutions are explicitly constructed for two nonlinear reaction-diffusion systems. A possible interpretation to a biologically motivated model is presented

GP-SUM. Gaussian Processes Filtering of non-Gaussian Beliefs

This work studies the problem of stochastic dynamic filtering and state propagation with complex beliefs. The main contribution is GP-SUM, a filtering algorithm tailored to dynamic systems and observation models expressed as Gaussian Processes (GP), and to states represented as a weighted sum of Gaussians. The key attribute of GP-SUM is that it does not rely on linearizations of the dynamic or observation models, or on unimodal Gaussian approximations of the belief, hence enables tracking complex state distributions. The algorithm can be seen as a combination of a sampling-based filter with a probabilistic Bayes filter. On the one hand, GP-SUM operates by sampling the state distribution and propagating each sample through the dynamic system and observation models. On the other hand, it achieves effective sampling and accurate probabilistic propagation by relying on the GP form of the system, and the sum-of-Gaussian form of the belief. We show that GP-SUM outperforms several GP-Bayes and Particle Filters on a standard benchmark. We also demonstrate its use in a pushing task, predicting with experimental accuracy the naturally occurring non-Gaussian distributions.Comment: WAFR 2018, 16 pages, 7 figure

Scholastic achievement at age 16 and risk of schizophrenia and other psychoses: a national cohort study

Background: There is abundant evidence that schizophrenia is associated with cognitive deficits in childhood. However, previous studies investigating school performance have been inconclusive. Furthermore, there are several biological and social factors that could confound the association. We investigated whether school performance at age 16 is associated with risk of adult schizophrenia and other psychoses in a large national cohort, while controlling for multiple confounders. Method: Using a national sample of 907 011 individuals born in Sweden between 1973 and 1983, we used Cox regression to assess whether scholastic achievement at age 15-16 predicted hospital admission for psychosis between ages 17 and 31, adjusting for potential confounders. Results: Poor school performance was associated with increased rates of schizophrenia [hazard ratio (HR) 3.9, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.8-5.3], schizo-affective disorder (HR 4.2, 95% CI 1.9-9.1) and other psychoses (HR 3.0, 95% CI 2.3-4.0). Receiving the lowest (E) grade was significantly associated with risk for schizophrenia and other psychoses in every school subject. There was no evidence of confounding by migrant status, low birthweight, hypoxia, parental education level or socio-economic group. Conclusions: Poor school performance across all domains is strongly associated with risk for schizophrenia and other psychoses. Copyright © 2007 Cambridge University Press.link_to_subscribed_fulltex