Two-neutron knockout from neutron-deficient 34^{34}Ar, 30^{30}S, and 26^{26}Si

Two-neutron knockout reactions from nuclei in the proximity of the proton dripline have been studied using intermediate-energy beams of neutron-deficient $^{34}$Ar, $^{30}$S, and $^{26}$Si. The inclusive cross sections, and also the partial cross sections for the population of individual bound final states of the $^{32}$Ar, $^{28}$S and $^{24}$Si knockout residues, have been determined using the combination of particle and $\gamma$-ray spectroscopy. Similar to the two-proton knockout mechanism on the neutron-rich side of the nuclear chart, these two-neutron removal reactions from already neutron-deficient nuclei are also shown to be consistent with a direct reaction mechanism.Comment: Phys. Rev. C, rapid communication, in pres

Key features of palliative care service delivery to Indigenous peoples in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States: A comprehensive review

Background: Indigenous peoples in developed countries have reduced life expectancies, particularly from chronic diseases. The lack of access to and take up of palliative care services of Indigenous peoples is an ongoing concern. Objectives: To examine and learn from published studies on provision of culturally safe palliative care service delivery to Indigenous people in Australia, New Zealand (NZ), Canada and the United States of America (USA); and to compare Indigenous peoples’ preferences, needs, opportunities and barriers to palliative care. Methods: A comprehensive search of multiple databases was undertaken. Articles were included if they were published in English from 2000 onwards and related to palliative care service delivery for Indigenous populations; papers could use quantitative or qualitative approaches. Common themes were identified using thematic synthesis. Studies were evaluated using Daly’s hierarchy of evidence-for-practice in qualitative research. Results: Of 522 articles screened, 39 were eligible for inclusion. Despite diversity in Indigenous peoples’ experiences across countries, some commonalities were noted in the preferences for palliative care of Indigenous people: to die close to or at home; involvement of family; and the integration of cultural practices. Barriers identified included inaccessibility, affordability, lack of awareness of services, perceptions of palliative care, and inappropriate services. Identified models attempted to address these gaps by adopting the following strategies: community engagement and ownership; flexibility in approach; continuing education and training; a whole-of-service approach; and local partnerships among multiple agencies. Better engagement with Indigenous clients, an increase in number of palliative care patients, improved outcomes, and understanding about palliative care by patients and their families were identified as positive achievements. Conclusions: The results provide a comprehensive overview of identified effective practices with regards to palliative care delivered to Indigenous populations to guide future program developments in this field. Further research is required to explore the palliative care needs and experiences of Indigenous people living in urban areas

Temporal stability of the rumen microbiota in beef cattle, and response to diet and supplements

Acknowledgements Sampling of ruminal digesta was carried out at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) by Laura Nicoll, Lesley Deans and Claire Broadbent. Sequencing using Illumina MiSeq was carried out by Edinburgh Genomics, The University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh Genomics is partly supported through core grants from NERC (R8/H10/56), MRC (MR/K001744/1) and BBSRC (BB/J004243/1). Data were processed using the Maxwell High Performance Computing Cluster of the University of Aberdeen IT Service (www.abdn.ac.uk/staffnet/research/hpc.php), provided by Dell Inc. and supported by Alces Software. Funding This work was funded by the Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) of the Scottish Government as a collaborative HEI project between The University of Aberdeen, The Roslin Institute, and Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC). The funding body had no role in the design of the study or collection, analysis, or interpretation of data or in writing the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A next-generation liquid xenon observatory for dark matter and neutrino physics

The nature of dark matter and properties of neutrinos are among the most pressing issues in contemporary particle physics. The dual-phase xenon time-projection chamber is the leading technology to cover the available parameter space for weakly interacting massive particles, while featuring extensive sensitivity to many alternative dark matter candidates. These detectors can also study neutrinos through neutrinoless double-beta decay and through a variety of astrophysical sources. A next-generation xenon-based detector will therefore be a true multi-purpose observatory to significantly advance particle physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, solar physics, and cosmology. This review article presents the science cases for such a detector

Oriented Euler complexes and signed perfect matchings

This paper presents “oriented pivoting systems” as an abstract framework for complementary pivoting. It gives a unified simple proof that the endpoints of complementary pivoting paths have opposite sign. A special case are the Nash equilibria of a bimatrix game at the ends of Lemke–Howson paths, which have opposite index. For Euler complexes or “oiks”, an orientation is defined which extends the known concept of oriented abstract simplicial manifolds. Ordered “room partitions” for a family of oriented oiks come in pairs of opposite sign. For an oriented oik of even dimension, this sign property holds also for unordered room partitions. In the case of a two-dimensional oik, these are perfect matchings of an Euler graph, with the sign as defined for Pfaffian orientations of graphs. A near-linear time algorithm is given for the following problem: given a graph with an Eulerian orientation with a perfect matching, find another perfect matching of opposite sign. In contrast, the complementary pivoting algorithm for this problem may be exponential