Strange particle production in proton-proton collisions at s=0.9\sqrt{s}=0.9 TeV with ALICE at the LHC

The production of mesons containing strange quarks (K$^0_s$, $\phi$) and both singly and doubly strange baryons ($\Lambda$, Anti-$\Lambda$, and $\Xi$+Anti-$\Xi$) are measured at central rapidity in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 0.9 TeV with the ALICE experiment at the LHC. The results are obtained from the analysis of about 250 k minimum bias events recorded in 2009. Measurements of yields (dN/dy) and transverse momentum spectra at central rapidities for inelastic pp collisions are presented. For mesons, we report yields () of 0.184 $\pm$ 0.002 stat. $\pm$ 0.006 syst. for K$^0_s$ and 0.021 $\pm$ 0.004 stat. $\pm$ 0.003 syst. for $\phi$. For baryons, we find = 0.048 $\pm$ 0.001 stat. $\pm$ 0.004 syst. for $\Lambda$, 0.047 $\pm$ 0.002 stat. $\pm$ 0.005 syst. for Anti-$\Lambda$ and 0.0101 $\pm$ 0.0020 stat. $\pm$ 0.0009 syst. for $\Xi$+Anti-$\Xi$. The results are also compared with predictions for identified particle spectra from QCD-inspired models and provide a baseline for comparisons with both future pp measurements at higher energies and heavy-ion collisions.Comment: 33 pages, 21 captioned figures, 10 tables, authors from page 28, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/387

Solar Neutrino Measurements in Super-Kamiokande-IV

Upgraded electronics, improved water system dynamics, better calibration and analysis techniques allowed Super-Kamiokande-IV to clearly observe very low-energy 8B solar neutrino interactions, with recoil electron kinetic energies as low as 3.49 MeV. Super-Kamiokande-IV data-taking began in September of 2008; this paper includes data until February 2014, a total livetime of 1664 days. The measured solar neutrino flux is (2.308+-0.020(stat.) + 0.039-0.040(syst.)) x 106/(cm2sec) assuming no oscillations. The observed recoil electron energy spectrum is consistent with no distortions due to neutrino oscillations. An extended maximum likelihood fit to the amplitude of the expected solar zenith angle variation of the neutrino-electron elastic scattering rate in SK-IV results in a day/night asymmetry of (-3.6+-1.6(stat.)+-0.6(syst.))%. The SK-IV solar neutrino data determine the solar mixing angle as sin2 theta_12 = 0.327+0.026-0.031, all SK solar data (SK-I, SK-II, SK III and SKIV) measures this angle to be sin2 theta_12 = 0.334+0.027-0.023, the determined mass-squared splitting is Delta m2_21 = 4.8+1.5-0.8 x10-5 eV2.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review D; 23 pages, 40 figure

Heart failure and diabetes: metabolic alterations and therapeutic interventions: a state-of-the-art review from the Translational Research Committee of the Heart Failure Association-European Society of Cardiology.

Altres ajuts: C.M. is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; SFB 894, TRR-219, and Ma 2528/7-1), the German Federal Ministry of Education and Science (BMBF; 01EO1504) and the Corona foundation. J.B. is supported by the DFG (SFB 1118) and the DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research) and by the BMBF. M.L. is supported by the DFG (SFB TRR 219M-03). R.B. is supported by the Netherlands Heart Foundation (CVON DOSIS 2014-40, CVON SHE-PREDICTS-HF 2017-21, and CVON RED-CVD 2017-11); and the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme program of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO VIDI, grant 917.13.350). N.M. is supported by the DFG (SFB TRR 219M-03, M-05). H.T. is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health of the US Public Health Service (HL-RO1 061483 and HL-RO1 073162). A.B.G. was supported by grants from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia , Fundació La MARATÓ de TV3 (201502, 201516), CIBER Cardiovascular (CB16/11/00403), and AdvanceCat 2014-2020. H.B. is supported by the DFG (Bu2126/3-1). A.D.C. was supported by 'FIL' funds for research from University of Parma. A.G. was supported by grants from the European Union Commission's FP7 programme (HOMAGE and FIBROTARGETS) and ERA-CVD Joint Transnational Call 2016 LYMIT-DIS. G.R. acknowledges recent funding from The Cunningham Trust, MRC (MR/K012924/1) and the Diabetes UK RW and JM Collins studentship. S.H. received funding from the European Union Commission's Seventh Framework programme (2007-2013) under grant agreement N° 305507 (HOMAGE), N° 602904 (FIBROTARGETS) and N° 602156 (HECATOS). S.H. acknowledges the support from the Netherlands Cardiovascular Research Initiative: an initiative with support of the Dutch Heart Foundation, CVON-ARENA-PRIME, CVON-EARLY HFPEF, and SHE-PREDICTS. This research is co-financed as a PPP-allowance Research and Innovation by the Ministry of Economic Affairs within Top Sector Life sciences & Health

Ulcerative colitis mucosal transcriptomes reveal mitochondriopathy and personalized mechanisms underlying disease severity and treatment response

© 2019, The Author(s). Molecular mechanisms driving disease course and response to therapy in ulcerative colitis (UC) are not well understood. Here, we use RNAseq to define pre-treatment rectal gene expression, and fecal microbiota profiles, in 206 pediatric UC patients receiving standardised therapy. We validate our key findings in adult and paediatric UC cohorts of 408 participants. We observe a marked suppression of mitochondrial genes and function across cohorts in active UC, and that increasing disease severity is notable for enrichment of adenoma/adenocarcinoma and innate immune genes. A subset of severity genes improves prediction of corticosteroid-induced remission in the discovery cohort; this gene signature is also associated with response to anti-TNFα and anti-α 4 β 7 integrin in adults. The severity and therapeutic response gene signatures were in turn associated with shifts in microbes previously implicated in mucosal homeostasis. Our data provide insights into UC pathogenesis, and may prioritise future therapies for nonresponders to current approaches

Glucocorticoid use and factors associated with variability in this use in the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics Inception Cohort

© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology. All rights reserved. Objectives. To describe glucocorticoid (GC) use in the SLICC inception cohort and to explore factors associated with GC use. In particular we aimed to assess temporal trends in GC use and to what extent physician-related factors may influence use. Methods. Patients were recruited within 15 months of diagnosis of SLE from 33 centres between 1999 and 2011 and continue to be reviewed annually. Descriptive statistics were used to detail oral and parenteral GC use. Cross sectional and longitudinal analyses were performed to explore factors associated with GC use at enrolment and over time. Results. We studied 1700 patients with a mean (S.D.) follow-up duration of 7.26 (3.82) years. Over the entire study period, 1365 (81.3%) patients received oral GCs and 447 (26.3%) received parenteral GCs at some point. GC use was strongly associated with treatment centre, age, race/ethnicity, sex, disease duration and disease activity. There was no change in the proportion of patients on GCs or the average doses of GC used over time according to year of diagnosis. Conclusion. GCs remain a cornerstone in SLE management and there have been no significant changes in their use over the past 10-15 years. While patient and disease factors contribute to the variation in GC use, between-centre differences suggest that physician-related factors also contribute. Evidence-based treatment algorithms are needed to inform a more standardized approach to GC use in SLE

Is DRE essential for the follow up of prostate cancer patients? A prospective audit of 194 patients

BACKGROUND: Prostate cancer follow up forms a substantial part of the urology outpatient workload. Nurse led prostate cancer follow up clinics are becoming more common. Routine follow-up may involve performing DRE, which may require training. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this audit was to assess the factors that influenced the change in the management of prostate cancer patients during follow up. This would allow us to pave the way towards a protocol driven follow up clinic led by nurse specialists without formal training in DRE. RESULTS: 194 prostate cancer patients were seen over a period of two months and all the patients had DRE performed on at least one occasion. The management was changed in 47 patients. The most common factor influencing this change was PSA trend. A change in DRE findings influenced advancement of the clinic visit in 2 patients. CONCLUSIONS: PSA is the most common factor influencing change in the management of these patients. Nurse specialists can run prostate cancer follow-up clinics in parallel to existing consultant clinics and reserve DRE only for those patients who have a PSA change or have onset of new symptoms. However larger studies are required involving all the subgroups of patients to identify the subgroups of patients who will require DRE routinely

Isospin Breaking in K -> Pi Pi Decays

We perform a complete analysis of isospin breaking in K -> Pi Pi amplitudes in chiral perturbation theory, including both strong isospin violation and electromagnetic corrections to next-to-leading order in the low-energy expansion. The unknown chiral couplings are estimated at leading order in the 1/N_c expansion. We study the impact of isospin breaking on CP conserving amplitudes and rescattering phases. In particular, we extract the effective couplings g_8 and g_27 from a fit to K -> Pi Pi branching ratios, finding small deviations from the isospin-limit case. The ratio Re(A_0)/Re(A_2) measuring the Delta I=1/2 enhancement is found to decrese from 22.1 +/- 0.1 in the isospin limit to 20.3 +/- 0.5 in the presence of isospin breaking. We also analyse the effect of isospin violation on the CP violation parameter epsilon-prime, finding a destructive interference between three different sources of isospin violation. Within the uncertainties of large-N_c estimates for the low-energy constants, the isospin violating correction for epsilon-prime is below 15%.Comment: 57 pages, 3 figures, 4 tables. References added, version to be published in Eur. Phys. J.

Advanced Virgo Plus. Future perspectives

While completing the commissioning phase to prepare the Virgo interferometer for the next joint Observation Run (O4), the Virgo collaboration is also finalizing the design of the next upgrades to the detector to be employed in the following Observation Run (O5). The major upgrade will concern decreasing the thermal noise limit, which will imply using very large test masses and increased laser beam size. But this will not be the only upgrade to be implemented in the break between the O4 and O5 observation runs to increase the Virgo detector strain sensitivity. The paper will cover the challenges linked to this upgrade and implications on the detector’s reach and observational potential, reflecting the talk given at 12th Cosmic Ray International Seminar - CRIS 2022 held in September 2022 in Napoli

Exclusive photoproduction of pi degrees up to large values of Mandelstam variables s, t, and u with CLAS

Exclusive photoproduction cross sections have been measured for the process $\gamma p \rightarrow p\pi^0(e^+e^-(\gamma))$ with the Dalitz decay final state using tagged photon energies in the range of $E_{\gamma} = 1.275-5.425$ GeV. The complete angular distribution of the final state $\pi^0$, for the entire photon energy range up to large values of $t$ and $u$, has been measured for the first time. The data obtained show that the cross section $d\sigma/dt$, at mid to large angles, decreases with energy as $s^{-6.89\pm 0.26}$. This is in agreement with the perturbative QCD quark counting rule prediction of $s^{-7}$. Paradoxically, the size of angular distribution of measured cross sections is greatly underestimated by the QCD based Generalized Parton Distribution mechanism at highest available invariant energy $s=11$ GeV$^2$. At the same time, the Regge exchange based models for $\pi^0$ photoproduction are more consistent with experimental data.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure