Airborne observations of the tropospheric CO2 distribution and its controlling factors over the South Pacific Basin

Highly precise measurements of CO2 mixing ratios were recorded aboard both the NASA DC-8 and P3-B aircraft during the Pacific Exploratory Mission-Tropics conducted in August-October 1996. Data were obtained at altitudes ranging from 0.1 to 12 km over a large portion of the South Pacific Basin representing the most geographically extensive CO2 data set recorded in this region. These data along with CO2 surface measurements from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (NOAA/CMDL) and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) were examined to establish vertical and meridional gradients. The CO2 spatial distribution in the southern hemisphere appeared to be largely determined by interhemispheric transport as air masses with depleted CO2 levels characteristic of northern hemispheric air were frequently observed south of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. However, regional processes also played a role in modulating background concentrations. Comparisons of CO2 with other trace gases indicated that CO2 values were influenced by continental sources. Large scale plumes from biomass burning activities produced enhanced CO2 mixing ratios within the lower to midtroposphere over portions of the remote Pacific. An apparent CO2 source was observed in the NOAA/ CMDL surface data between 15° N and 15° S and in the lower altitude flight data between 8° N and 8.5° S with a zone of intensity from 6.5° N to 1° S. Inferred from these data is the presence of a Southern Ocean sink from south of 15° S having two distinct zones seasonally out of phase with one another. Copyright 1999 by the American Geophysical Union

Interventions for the treatment of oral and oropharyngeal cancers: surgical treatment.

BACKGROUND: Surgery is an important part of the management of oral cavity cancer with regard to both the removal of the primary tumour and removal of lymph nodes in the neck. Surgery is less frequently used in oropharyngeal cancer. Surgery alone may be treatment for early stage disease or surgery may be used in combination with radiotherapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy/biotherapy. There is variation in the recommended timing and extent of surgery in the overall treatment regimens of people with these cancers. OBJECTIVES: To determine which surgical treatment modalities for oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancers result in increased overall survival, disease free survival, progression free survival and reduced recurrence. SEARCH STRATEGY: The following electronic databases were searched: the Cochrane Oral Health Group Trials Register (to 17 February 2011), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library 2011, Issue 1), MEDLINE via OVID (1950 to 17 February 2011) and EMBASE via OVID (1980 to 17 February 2011). There were no restrictions regarding language or date of publication. SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomised controlled trials where more than 50% of participants had primary tumours of the oral cavity or oropharynx, and which compared two or more surgical treatment modalities or surgery versus other treatment modalities. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Data extraction and assessment of risk of bias was undertaken independently by two or more review authors. Study authors were contacted for additional information as required. Adverse events data were collected from published trials. MAIN RESULTS: Seven trials (n = 669; 667 with cancers of the oral cavity) satisfied the inclusion criteria, but none were assessed as low risk of bias. Trials were grouped into three main comparisons. Four trials compared elective neck dissection (ND) with therapeutic neck dissection in patients with oral cavity cancer and clinically negative neck nodes, but differences in type of surgery and duration of follow-up made meta-analysis inappropriate. Three of these trials reported overall and disease free survival. One trial showed a benefit for elective supraomohyoid neck dissection compared to therapeutic ND in overall and disease free survival. Two trials found no difference between elective radical ND and therapeutic ND for the outcomes of overall survival and disease free survival. All four trials found reduced locoregional recurrence following elective ND.A further two trials compared elective radical ND with elective selective ND and found no difference in overall survival, disease free survival or recurrence. The final trial compared surgery plus radiotherapy to radiotherapy alone but data were unreliable because the trial stopped early and there were multiple protocol violations.None of the trials reported quality of life as an outcome. Two trials, evaluating different comparisons reported adverse effects of treatment. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Seven included trials evaluated neck dissection surgery in patients with oral cavity cancers. The review found weak evidence that elective neck dissection of clinically negative neck nodes at the time of removal of the primary tumour results in reduced locoregional recurrence, but there is insufficient evidence to conclude that elective neck dissection increases overall survival or disease free survival compared to therapeutic neck dissection. There is very weak evidence from one trial that elective supraomohyoid neck dissection may be associated with increased overall and disease free survival. There is no evidence that radical neck dissection increases overall survival compared to conservative neck dissection surgery. Reporting of adverse events in all trials was poor and it was not possible to compare the quality of life of patients undergoing different surgeries

Vascular responses of the extremities to transdermal application of vasoactive agents in Caucasian and African descent individuals

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Springer in European Journal of Applied Physiology on 04/04/2015, available online: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-015-3164-2 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. Purpose: Individuals of African descent (AFD) are more susceptible to non-freezing cold injury than Caucasians (CAU) which may be due, in part, to differences in the control of skin blood flow. We investigated the skin blood flow responses to transdermal application of vasoactive agents. Methods: Twenty-four young males (12 CAU and 12 AFD) undertook three tests in which iontophoresis was used to apply acetylcholine (ACh 1 w/v %), sodium nitroprusside (SNP 0.01 w/v %) and noradrenaline (NA 0.5 mM) to the skin. The skin sites tested were: volar forearm, non-glabrous finger and toe, and glabrous finger (pad) and toe (pad). Results: In response to SNP on the forearm, AFD had less vasodilatation for a given current application than CAU (P = 0.027–0.004). ACh evoked less vasodilatation in AFD for a given application current in the non-glabrous finger and toe compared with CAU (P = 0.043–0.014) with a lower maximum vasodilatation in the non-glabrous finger (median [interquartile], AFD n = 11, 41[234] %, CAU n = 12, 351[451] %, P = 0.011) and non-glabrous toe (median [interquartile], AFD n = 9, 116[318] %, CAU n = 12, 484[720] %, P = 0.018). ACh and SNP did not elicit vasodilatation in the glabrous skin sites of either group. There were no ethnic differences in response to NA. Conclusion: AFD have an attenuated endothelium-dependent vasodilatation in non-glabrous sites of the fingers and toes compared with CAU. This may contribute to lower skin temperature following cold exposure and the increased risk of cold injuries experienced by AFD.Published versio

Spontaneous and deliberate future thinking: A dual process account

© 2019 Springer Nature.This is the final published version of an article published in Psychological Research, licensed under a Creative Commons Attri-bution 4.0 International License. Available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01262-7.In this article, we address an apparent paradox in the literature on mental time travel and mind-wandering: How is it possible that future thinking is both constructive, yet often experienced as occurring spontaneously? We identify and describe two ‘routes’ whereby episodic future thoughts are brought to consciousness, with each of the ‘routes’ being associated with separable cognitive processes and functions. Voluntary future thinking relies on controlled, deliberate and slow cognitive processing. The other, termed involuntary or spontaneous future thinking, relies on automatic processes that allows ‘fully-fledged’ episodic future thoughts to freely come to mind, often triggered by internal or external cues. To unravel the paradox, we propose that the majority of spontaneous future thoughts are ‘pre-made’ (i.e., each spontaneous future thought is a re-iteration of a previously constructed future event), and therefore based on simple, well-understood, memory processes. We also propose that the pre-made hypothesis explains why spontaneous future thoughts occur rapidly, are similar to involuntary memories, and predominantly about upcoming tasks and goals. We also raise the possibility that spontaneous future thinking is the default mode of imagining the future. This dual process approach complements and extends standard theoretical approaches that emphasise constructive simulation, and outlines novel opportunities for researchers examining voluntary and spontaneous forms of future thinking.Peer reviewe

The semi-classical expansion and resurgence in gauge theories: new perturbative, instanton, bion, and renormalon effects

We study the dynamics of four dimensional gauge theories with adjoint fermions for all gauge groups, both in perturbation theory and non-perturbatively, by using circle compactification with periodic boundary conditions for the fermions. There are new gauge phenomena. We show that, to all orders in perturbation theory, many gauge groups are Higgsed by the gauge holonomy around the circle to a product of both abelian and nonabelian gauge group factors. Non-perturbatively there are monopole-instantons with fermion zero modes and two types of monopole-anti-monopole molecules, called bions. One type are "magnetic bions" which carry net magnetic charge and induce a mass gap for gauge fluctuations. Another type are "neutral bions" which are magnetically neutral, and their understanding requires a generalization of multi-instanton techniques in quantum mechanics - which we refer to as the Bogomolny-Zinn-Justin (BZJ) prescription - to compactified field theory. The BZJ prescription applied to bion-anti-bion topological molecules predicts a singularity on the positive real axis of the Borel plane (i.e., a divergence from summing large orders in peturbation theory) which is of order N times closer to the origin than the leading 4-d BPST instanton-anti-instanton singularity, where N is the rank of the gauge group. The position of the bion--anti-bion singularity is thus qualitatively similar to that of the 4-d IR renormalon singularity, and we conjecture that they are continuously related as the compactification radius is changed. By making use of transseries and Ecalle's resurgence theory we argue that a non-perturbative continuum definition of a class of field theories which admit semi-classical expansions may be possible.Comment: 112 pages, 7 figures; v2: typos corrected, discussion of supersymmetric models added at the end of section 8.1, reference adde

Search for Second-Generation Scalar Leptoquarks in ppˉ\bm{p \bar{p}} Collisions at s\sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

Results on a search for pair production of second generation scalar leptoquark in $p \bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=1.96 TeV are reported. The data analyzed were collected by the CDF detector during the 2002-2003 Tevatron Run II and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 198 pb$^{-1}$. Leptoquarks (LQ) are sought through their decay into (charged) leptons and quarks, with final state signatures represented by two muons and jets and one muon, large transverse missing energy and jets. We observe no evidence for $LQ$ production and derive 95% C.L. upper limits on the $LQ$ production cross sections as well as lower limits on their mass as a function of $\beta$, where $\beta$ is the branching fraction for $LQ \to \mu q$.Comment: 9 pages (3 author list) 5 figure

Measurement of CP-violation asymmetries in D0 to Ks pi+ pi-

We report a measurement of time-integrated CP-violation asymmetries in the resonant substructure of the three-body decay D0 to Ks pi+ pi- using CDF II data corresponding to 6.0 invfb of integrated luminosity from Tevatron ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. The charm mesons used in this analysis come from D*+(2010) to D0 pi+ and D*-(2010) to D0bar pi-, where the production flavor of the charm meson is determined by the charge of the accompanying pion. We apply a Dalitz-amplitude analysis for the description of the dynamic decay structure and use two complementary approaches, namely a full Dalitz-plot fit employing the isobar model for the contributing resonances and a model-independent bin-by-bin comparison of the D0 and D0bar Dalitz plots. We find no CP-violation effects and measure an asymmetry of ACP = (-0.05 +- 0.57 (stat) +- 0.54 (syst))% for the overall integrated CP-violation asymmetry, consistent with the standard model prediction.Comment: 15 page

Measurement of the B0 anti-B0 oscillation frequency using l- D*+ pairs and lepton flavor tags

The oscillation frequency Delta-md of B0 anti-B0 mixing is measured using the partially reconstructed semileptonic decay anti-B0 -> l- nubar D*+ X. The data sample was collected with the CDF detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider during 1992 - 1995 by triggering on the existence of two lepton candidates in an event, and corresponds to about 110 pb-1 of pbar p collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.8 TeV. We estimate the proper decay time of the anti-B0 meson from the measured decay length and reconstructed momentum of the l- D*+ system. The charge of the lepton in the final state identifies the flavor of the anti-B0 meson at its decay. The second lepton in the event is used to infer the flavor of the anti-B0 meson at production. We measure the oscillation frequency to be Delta-md = 0.516 +/- 0.099 +0.029 -0.035 ps-1, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to Physical Review

Observation of the Baryonic Flavor-Changing Neutral Current Decay Lambda_b -> Lambda mu+ mu-

We report the first observation of the baryonic flavor-changing neutral current decay Lambda_b -> Lambda mu+ mu- with 24 signal events and a statistical significance of 5.8 Gaussian standard deviations. This measurement uses ppbar collisions data sample corresponding to 6.8fb-1 at sqrt{s}=1.96TeV collected by the CDF II detector at the Tevatron collider. The total and differential branching ratios for Lambda_b -> Lambda mu+ mu- are measured. We find B(Lambda_b -> Lambda mu+ mu-) = [1.73+-0.42(stat)+-0.55(syst)] x 10^{-6}. We also report the first measurement of the differential branching ratio of B_s -> phi mu+ mu- using 49 signal events. In addition, we report branching ratios for B+ -> K+ mu+ mu-, B0 -> K0 mu+ mu-, and B -> K*(892) mu+ mu- decays.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 4 tables. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let