National income inequality predicts women's preferences for masculinized faces better than health does

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website at the link below. Copyright @ 2010 The Royal Society

τ→πKν\tau \to \pi K \nu Decay and πK\pi K Scattering

Using chiral low energy theorems and elastic unitarity assumption, the $\tau\to\pi K \nu$ decay is investigated. The vector and scalar $\pi K$ form factors are calculated. It is found that the $\pi K$ spectrum is dominated by the $K^*$ resonance. By measuring the forward-backward asymmetry, it is shown that the S wave $\pi K$ phase shift can be determined near the $K^{*}$ resonance region. The calculated branching ratio and resonance parameters are in good agreement with experiments.Comment: 15 pages, Tex, 6 included figure

Human preferences for sexually dimorphic faces may be evolutionarily novel

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.A large literature proposes that preferences for exaggerated sex typicality in human faces (masculinity/femininity) reflect a long evolutionary history of sexual and social selection. This proposal implies that dimorphism was important to judgments of attractiveness and personality in ancestral environments. It is difficult to evaluate, however, because most available data come from largescale, industrialized, urban populations. Here, we report the results for 12 populations with very diverse levels of economic development. Surprisingly, preferences for exaggerated sex-specific traits are only found in the novel, highly developed environments. Similarly, perceptions that masculine males look aggressive increase strongly with development, specifically, urbanization. These data challenge the hypothesis that facial dimorphism was an important ancestral signal of heritable mate value. One possibility is that highly developed environments provide novel opportunities to discern relationships between facial traits and behavior by exposing individuals to large numbers of unfamiliar faces, revealing patterns too subtle to detect with smaller samples

Biomass-modulated fire dynamics during the last glacial-interglacial transition at the central pyrenees (Spain)

Understanding long-term fire ecology is essential for current day interpretation of ecosystem fire responses. However palaeoecology of fire is still poorly understood, especially at high-altitude mountain environments, despite the fact that these are fire-sensitive ecosystems and their resilience might be affected by changing fire regimes. We reconstruct wildfire occurrence since the Lateglacial (14.7. cal. ka BP) to the Mid-Holocene (6. cal. ka BP) and investigate the climate-fuel-fire relationships in a sedimentary sequence located at the treeline in the Central Spanish Pyrenees. Pollen, macro- and micro-charcoal were analysed for the identification of fire events (FE) in order to detect vegetation post-fire response and to define biomass-fire interactions. mean fire intervals (mfi) reduced since the Lateglacial, peaking at 9-7.7. cal. ka BP while from 7.7 to 6. cal. ka BP no fire is recorded. We hypothesise that Early Holocene maximum summer insolation, as climate forcing, and mesophyte forest expansion, as a fuel-creating factor, were responsible for accelerating fire occurrence in the Central Pyrenees treeline. We also found that fire had long-lasting negative effects on most of the treeline plant communities and that forest contraction from 7.7. cal. ka BP is likely linked to the ecosystem's threshold response to high fire frequencies.This research has been funded by the projects DINAMO (CGL2009-07992) (funding EGPF — grant ref. BES-2010-038593 and MSC), DINAMO2 (CGL2012-33063), ARAFIRE (2012 GA LC 064), GRACCIE-CONSOLIDER (CSD2007-00067). GGR was funded by the Juan de la Cierva Program (grant ref. JCI2009-04345) and JAE-Doc CSIC Program, LLM was supported by a postdoctoral MINT fellowship funded by the Institute for the Environment (Brunel University), AMC is a Ramón y Cajal fellow (ref: RYC-2008-02431), APS holds a grant funded by the Aragon Government (ref. 17030G/5423/480072/14003) and JAE holds a grant funded by the Basque Country Government (BFI-2010-5)

Get screened: a pragmatic randomized controlled trial to increase mammography and colorectal cancer screening in a large, safety net practice

Abstract Background Most randomized controlled trials of interventions designed to promote cancer screening, particularly those targeting poor and minority patients, enroll selected patients. Relatively little is known about the benefits of these interventions among unselected patients. Methods/Design "Get Screened" is an American Cancer Society-sponsored randomized controlled trial designed to promote mammography and colorectal cancer screening in a primary care practice serving low-income patients. Eligible patients who are past due for mammography or colorectal cancer screening are entered into a tracking registry and randomly assigned to early or delayed intervention. This 6-month intervention is multimodal, involving patient prompts, clinician prompts, and outreach. At the time of the patient visit, eligible patients receive a low-literacy patient education tool. At the same time, clinicians receive a prompt to remind them to order the test and, when appropriate, a tool designed to simplify colorectal cancer screening decision-making. Patient outreach consists of personalized letters, automated telephone reminders, assistance with scheduling, and linkage of uninsured patients to the local National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection program. Interventions are repeated for patients who fail to respond to early interventions. We will compare rates of screening between randomized groups, as well as planned secondary analyses of minority patients and uninsured patients. Data from the pilot phase show that this multimodal intervention triples rates of cancer screening (adjusted odds ratio 3.63; 95% CI 2.35 - 5.61). Discussion This study protocol is designed to assess a multimodal approach to promotion of breast and colorectal cancer screening among underserved patients. We hypothesize that a multimodal approach will significantly improve cancer screening rates. The trial was registered at Clinical Trials.gov NCT00818857http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78264/1/1472-6963-10-280.xmlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78264/2/1472-6963-10-280.pdfPeer Reviewe

A search for the decay modes B+/- to h+/- tau l

We present a search for the lepton flavor violating decay modes B+/- to h+/- tau l (h= K,pi; l= e,mu) using the BaBar data sample, which corresponds to 472 million BBbar pairs. The search uses events where one B meson is fully reconstructed in one of several hadronic final states. Using the momenta of the reconstructed B, h, and l candidates, we are able to fully determine the tau four-momentum. The resulting tau candidate mass is our main discriminant against combinatorial background. We see no evidence for B+/- to h+/- tau l decays and set a 90% confidence level upper limit on each branching fraction at the level of a few times 10^-5.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Climate warming, marine protected areas and the ocean-scale integrity of coral reef ecosystems

Coral reefs have emerged as one of the ecosystems most vulnerable to climate variation and change. While the contribution of a warming climate to the loss of live coral cover has been well documented across large spatial and temporal scales, the associated effects on fish have not. Here, we respond to recent and repeated calls to assess the importance of local management in conserving coral reefs in the context of global climate change. Such information is important, as coral reef fish assemblages are the most species dense vertebrate communities on earth, contributing critical ecosystem functions and providing crucial ecosystem services to human societies in tropical countries. Our assessment of the impacts of the 1998 mass bleaching event on coral cover, reef structural complexity, and reef associated fishes spans 7 countries, 66 sites and 26 degrees of latitude in the Indian Ocean. Using Bayesian meta-analysis we show that changes in the size structure, diversity and trophic composition of the reef fish community have followed coral declines. Although the ocean scale integrity of these coral reef ecosystems has been lost, it is positive to see the effects are spatially variable at multiple scales, with impacts and vulnerability affected by geography but not management regime. Existing no-take marine protected areas still support high biomass of fish, however they had no positive affect on the ecosystem response to large-scale disturbance. This suggests a need for future conservation and management efforts to identify and protect regional refugia, which should be integrated into existing management frameworks and combined with policies to improve system-wide resilience to climate variation and change

Evidence for an excess of B -> D(*) Tau Nu decays

Based on the full BaBar data sample, we report improved measurements of the ratios R(D(*)) = B(B -> D(*) Tau Nu)/B(B -> D(*) l Nu), where l is either e or mu. These ratios are sensitive to new physics contributions in the form of a charged Higgs boson. We measure R(D) = 0.440 +- 0.058 +- 0.042 and R(D*) = 0.332 +- 0.024 +- 0.018, which exceed the Standard Model expectations by 2.0 sigma and 2.7 sigma, respectively. Taken together, our results disagree with these expectations at the 3.4 sigma level. This excess cannot be explained by a charged Higgs boson in the type II two-Higgs-doublet model. We also report the observation of the decay B -> D Tau Nu, with a significance of 6.8 sigma.Comment: Expanded section on systematics, text corrections, improved the format of Figure 2 and included the effect of the change of the Tau polarization due to the charged Higg

IL28B genotype predicts response to chronic hepatitis C triple therapy with telaprevir or boceprevir in treatment naïve and treatment-experienced patients other than prior partial- and null-responders

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the IL28B gene were shown to have limited utility in predicting response to telaprevir and boceprevir in treatment of chronic HCV infection in clinical trials. Data outside of the clinical trial setting are lacking. We assessed the value of single and combined IL28B SNPs rs12979860 and rs8099917 genotypes in predicting sustained virological response 12 weeks after cessation of triple therapy (SVR12) with telaprevir or boceprevir in a single-centre cohort of treatment-naïve and treatment-experienced patients with genotype 1 HCV mono-infection (n = 105). The overall SVR12 rate was 65.7%. By unadjusted bivariate logistic regression analysis, rs12979860-CC and rs8099917-TT were significantly associated with SVR12 in the subgroup of patients including all naïve patients and all treatment-experienced patients with the exception of partial- and null-responders to previous HCV therapy. The predictive value of rs12979860-CC was stronger than rs8099917-TT and only rs12979860-CC remained significantly predictive of treatment success when the two variants were assessed by adjusted logistic regression analysis in the whole study cohort. In patients presenting the rs12979860-CC variant, the additional determination of rs8099917 genotype had no value. IL28B rs12979860-CC remained significantly associated with SVR12 also in the multivariate analysis including the other baseline characteristics associated to SVR12 in the bivariate analysis (i.e., female gender, HCV genotype 1b, baseline viral load <800,000 IU/mL, advanced liver fibrosis and prior partial- or null-response to HCV therapy). Our study suggests that testing for the IL28B rs12979860 genotype may still be useful in predicting response to triple therapy with boceprevir and telaprevir in naïve patients and treatment-experienced patients other than partial and null-responders

Study of the reaction e^{+}e^{-} -->J/psi\pi^{+}\pi^{-} via initial-state radiation at BaBar

We study the process $e^+e^-\to J/\psi\pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ with initial-state-radiation events produced at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy collider. The data were recorded with the BaBar detector at center-of-mass energies 10.58 and 10.54 GeV, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 454 $\mathrm{fb^{-1}}$. We investigate the $J/\psi \pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ mass distribution in the region from 3.5 to 5.5 $\mathrm{GeV/c^{2}}$. Below 3.7 $\mathrm{GeV/c^{2}}$ the $\psi(2S)$ signal dominates, and above 4 $\mathrm{GeV/c^{2}}$ there is a significant peak due to the Y(4260). A fit to the data in the range 3.74 -- 5.50 $\mathrm{GeV/c^{2}}$ yields a mass value $4244 \pm 5$ (stat) $\pm 4$ (syst)$\mathrm{MeV/c^{2}}$ and a width value $114 ^{+16}_{-15}$ (stat)$\pm 7$(syst)$\mathrm{MeV}$ for this state. We do not confirm the report from the Belle collaboration of a broad structure at 4.01 $\mathrm{GeV/c^{2}}$. In addition, we investigate the $\pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ system which results from Y(4260) decay