Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology: Cosmic Laboratories for New Physics (Summary of the Snowmass 2001 P4 Working Group)

The past few years have seen dramatic breakthroughs and spectacular and puzzling discoveries in astrophysics and cosmology. In many cases, the new observations can only be explained with the introduction of new fundamental physics. Here we summarize some of these recent advances. We then describe several problem in astrophysics and cosmology, ripe for major advances, whose resolution will likely require new physics.Comment: 27 pages, 14 figure

Tracking the origin of invasive Rosa rubiginosa populations in Argentina

The exact geographic origin of invasive species populations is rarely known; however, such knowledge is vital to understanding species’ invasion success, spread, and evolution as well as for assessing any biological control options. We investigated the shrub Rosa rubiginosa L., focusing on the presumed European origin of invasive populations in Argentina. We analyzed eight polymorphic microsatellite loci among 102 native (European) and 29 invasive (mainly central Argentinean and Patagonian) populations. Genetic diversity in the invasive range was clearly lower than in the native range, possibly because of a low number of introductions. Contrary to earlier hypotheses, the interpretation of principal coordinate analysis results and Jaccard dissimilarities contradicts the idea of the Argentinean populations having a Spanish origin. Instead, we found a close similarity between Argentinean samples and those from Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria. We therefore assume that these neighboring countries are the most probable source regions for the Argentinean populations, which in some cases may also have arrived via Chile. According to historic information, emigrants from these regions may have introduced R. rubiginosa to South America in the nineteenth century on at least two occasions, either for food or as rootstock material for propagating living fences.Fil: Hirsch, Heidi. Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg; AlemaniaFil: Zimmermann, Heike. Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg; AlemaniaFil: Ritz, Christiane M.. Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Goerlitz; AlemaniaFil: Wissemann, Volker. Justus-Liebig-University Giessen; AlemaniaFil: von Wehrden, Henrik. Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg; Alemania. Leuphana University, Institute of Ecology and Environmental Chemistry; AlemaniaFil: Renison, Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas y Tecnológicas. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas y Tecnológicas; ArgentinaFil: Wesche, Karsten. Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Goerlitz; AlemaniaFil: Welk, Erik. Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg; AlemaniaFil: Hensen, Isabell. Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg; Alemani

Deep Neural Baselines for Computational Paralinguistics

Detecting sleepiness from spoken language is an ambitious task, which is addressed by the Interspeech 2019 Computational Paralinguistics Challenge (ComParE). We propose an end-to-end deep learning approach to detect and classify patterns reflecting sleepiness in the human voice. Our approach is based solely on a moderately complex deep neural network architecture. It may be applied directly on the audio data without requiring any specific feature engineering, thus remaining transferable to other audio classification tasks. Nevertheless, our approach performs similar to state-of-the-art machine learning models.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; This paper was accepted at INTERSPEECH 2019, Graz, 15-19th September 2019. DOI will be added after publishment of the accepted pape

Actinomyces neuii Isolated From a 20-Month-Old Girl With Cervical Lymphadenitis

Actinomycetes are Gram-positive bacteria that can be part of the normal human flora of the gastrointestinal, pulmonary, and genital tract. Infections are rare, slowly progressing and most commonly affect the cervicofacial region. Actinomyces israelii is the most frequently isolated species but a number of other species may cause infection. We report the first postnatally acquired case of an actinomycosis caused by A. neuii in a child. We also provide a systematic review of all published cases of A. neuii infections. In children, there is one case report of a premature infant with perinatally acquired A. neuii sepsis. In adults 21 cases have currently been reported and A. neuii infection was associated with endophthalmitis after eye surgery, foreign material-associated infection and abscess formation in the inguinal, axillary, and mammary area. Our case highlights that a A. neuii infection is also a potential differential diagnosis in children with chronic lymphadeniti

An effective and efficient approach for manually improving geocoded data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The process of geocoding produces output coordinates of varying degrees of quality. Previous studies have revealed that simply excluding records with low-quality geocodes from analysis can introduce significant bias, but depending on the number and severity of the inaccuracies, their inclusion may also lead to bias. Little quantitative research has been presented on the cost and/or effectiveness of correcting geocodes through manual interactive processes, so the most cost effective methods for improving geocoded data are unclear. The present work investigates the time and effort required to correct geocodes contained in five health-related datasets that represent examples of data commonly used in Health GIS.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Geocode correction was attempted on five health-related datasets containing a total of 22,317 records. The complete processing of these data took 11.4 weeks (427 hours), averaging 69 seconds of processing time per record. Overall, the geocodes associated with 12,280 (55%) of records were successfully improved, taking 95 seconds of processing time per corrected record on average across all five datasets. Geocode correction improved the overall match rate (the number of successful matches out of the total attempted) from 79.3 to 95%. The spatial shift between the location of original successfully matched geocodes and their corrected improved counterparts averaged 9.9 km per corrected record. After geocode correction the number of city and USPS ZIP code accuracy geocodes were reduced from 10,959 and 1,031 to 6,284 and 200, respectively, while the number of building centroid accuracy geocodes increased from 0 to 2,261.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results indicate that manual geocode correction using a web-based interactive approach is a feasible and cost effective method for improving the quality of geocoded data. The level of effort required varies depending on the type of data geocoded. These results can be used to choose between data improvement options (e.g., manual intervention, pseudocoding/geo-imputation, field GPS readings).</p

Wie bindet man seine Mitarbeitenden? Fördern die Arbeitgeberattraktivität und die betriebliche Gesundheitsförderung die Bleibemotivation der Mitarbeitenden? Eine quantitative Fragebogenstudie

Mit einem Rekordhoch von zwei Millionen unbesetzten Arbeitsplätzen auf dem heutigen Arbeitsmarkt war die Notwendigkeit der Mitarbeiterbindung noch nie so relevant. Diese Studie untersucht die Beziehungen zwischen Arbeitgeberattraktivität und betrieblicher Gesundheitsförderung zu allgemeiner Arbeitszufriedenheit und Bleibemotivation, um die wichtigsten Schraubstellen für die Mitarbeiterbindung zu finden. Das erdachte Untersuchungsmodell dieser Studie orientiert sich hierbei an einem Modell von Dassler et al. (2022). Zwetsloot et al. (2010) und Suárez-Albanchez et al. (2021), sind ebenfalls für die Theoretische Einordnung der Variablen dieser Arbeit relevant. Die Daten wurden mittels eines Online-Fragebogens erhoben, an dem 116 Probanden teilnahmen und durch eine aus einem Vorjahr stammende Bachelorarbeit ergänzt, was zu einer Gesamtstichprobe von 212 Befragten führte. Für die Untersuchung der Arbeitgeberattraktivität wurde teilweise eine Skala von Zimber (unveröffentlicht, Hochschule der Wirtschaft für Management) verwendet. Unter den fünf Facetten der Arbeitgeberattraktivität zeigte sich unerwartet, dass der inhaltliche Anspruch negative Auswirkung auf die allgemeine Arbeitszufriedenheit hat, während sich die Soziale Interaktion als ein starker Prädiktor für eben diese herauskristallisierte. Zusätzlich trug die persönliche Entwicklung als stärkster Einfluss zur Vorhersage der Bleibemotivation bei. Die betriebliche Gesundheitsförderung spielt eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Steigerung der Bleibemotivation, ohne jedoch einen signifikanten Einfluss auf die allgemeine Arbeitszufriedenheit zu haben. Affectives Commitment erwies sich als entscheidender Mediator der Beziehungen der unabhängigen Variablen (Arbeitgeberattraktivität und betriebliche Gesundheitsförderung) zu den abhängigen Variablen (allgemeine Arbeitszufriedenheit und Bleibemotivation). Zusammenfassend betont diese Studie die Bedeutung von Arbeitgeberattraktivität und betrieblicher Gesundheitsförderung als Schwerpunkte zur Steigerung der Mitarbeiterbindung. Diese Faktoren zu priorisieren, um eine zufriedenere und engagiertere Belegschaft zu fördern wäre dementsprechend für Arbeitgebende empfehlenswert

Correlation of enhanced thrombospondin-1 expression, TGF-β signalling and proteinuria in human type-2 diabetic nephropathy

Background. Activation of the thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1)-TGF-β pathway by glucose and the relevance of TSP-1-dependent activation of TGF-β for renal matrix expansion, renal fibrosis and sclerosis have previously been demonstrated by our group in in vivo and in vitro studies

Neutrophil count in sputum is associated with increased sputum glucose and sputum L-lactate in cystic fibrosis

BackgroundMarkers of lung inflammation measured directly in expectorated sputum have the potential of improving the timing of antibiotic treatment in cystic fibrosis (CF). L-Lactate might be a marker of inflammation, as it is produced from glucose by polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) in CF lungs. We aimed to investigate changes in and associations between PMNs, glucose and L-lactate in sputum during antibiotic treatment. In addition, the effect of hemoglobin A1c and plasma glucose on these biomarkers were investigated.MethodsWe sampled non-induced sputum at day 0, 7, 14 and 42 in 27 chronically infected CF patients electively treated with 14 days of intravenous antibiotic. To analyze sputum samples, we used flowcytometry to count PMNs and colorimetric assays to estimate lactate and glucose.ResultsNo changes in levels of PMNs, glucose and lactate were detected in sputum during the antibiotic treatment. Sputum PMNs were positively associated with both glucose (log coefficient = 0.20, p = 0.01) and L-lactate (log coefficient = 0.34, pConclusionsIn CF sputum PMNs, glucose and lactate were unchanged during elective antibiotic treatment. However, sputum PMNs were associated with both sputum glucose and sputum lactate. Surprisingly, hyperglycemia seemed to be associated with less PMNs infiltration and less glucose in CF sputum

An Innovative Non-Linear Prediction Model for Clinical Benefit in Women with Newly Diagnosed Breast Cancer Using Baseline FDG-PET/CT and Clinical Data

Objectives: We aimed to develop a novel non-linear statistical model integrating primary tumor features on baseline [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT), molecular subtype, and clinical data for treatment benefit prediction in women with newly diagnosed breast cancer using innovative statistical techniques, as opposed to conventional methodological approaches. Methods: In this single-center retrospective study, we conducted a comprehensive assessment of women newly diagnosed with breast cancer who had undergone a FDG-PET/CT scan for staging prior to treatment. Primary tumor (PT) volume, maximum and mean standardized uptake value (SUVmax and SUVmean), metabolic tumor volume (MTV), and total lesion glycolysis (TLG) were measured on PET/CT. Clinical data including clinical staging (TNM) but also PT anatomical site, histology, receptor status, proliferation index, and molecular subtype were obtained from the medical records. Overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and clinical benefit (CB) were assessed as endpoints. A logistic generalized additive model was chosen as the statistical approach to assess the impact of all listed variables on CB. Results: 70 women with newly diagnosed breast cancer (mean age 63.3 ± 15.4 years) were included. The most common location of breast cancer was the upper outer quadrant (40.0%) in the left breast (52.9%). An invasive ductal adenocarcinoma (88.6%) with a high tumor proliferation index (mean ki-67 expression 35.1 ± 24.5%) and molecular subtype B (51.4%) was by far the most detected breast tumor. Most PTs displayed on hybrid imaging a greater volume (12.8 ± 30.4 cm3) with hypermetabolism (mean ± SD of PT maximum SUVmax, SUVmean, MTV, and TLG, respectively: 8.1 ± 7.2, 4.9 ± 4.4, 12.7 ± 30.4, and 47.4 ± 80.2). Higher PT volume (p < 0.01), SUVmax (p = 0.04), SUVmean (p = 0.03), and MTV (<0.01) significantly compromised CB. A considerable majority of patients survived throughout this period (92.8%), while five women died (7.2%). In fact, the OS was 31.7 ± 14.2 months and PFS was 30.2 ± 14.1 months. A multivariate prediction model for CB with excellent accuracy could be developed using age, body mass index (BMI), T, M, PT TLG, and PT volume as predictive parameters. PT volume and PT TLG demonstrated a significant influence on CB in lower ranges; however, beyond a specific cutoff value (respectively, 29.52 cm3 for PT volume and 161.95 cm3 for PT TLG), their impact on CB only reached negligible levels. Ultimately, the absence of distant metastasis M displayed a strong positive impact on CB far ahead of the tumor size T (standardized average estimate 0.88 vs. 0.4). Conclusions: Our results emphasized the pivotal role played by FDG-PET/CT prior to treatment in forecasting treatment outcomes in women newly diagnosed with breast cancer. Nevertheless, careful consideration is required when selecting the methodological approach, as our innovative statistical techniques unveiled non-linear influences of predictive biomarkers on treatment benefit, highlighting also the importance of early breast cancer diagnosis.Peer Reviewe