Medicinal plants used by women in Mecca: urban, Muslim and gendered knowledge

Background: This study explores medicinal plant knowledge and use among Muslim women in the city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Ethnobotanical research in the region has focused on rural populations and male herbal healers in cities, and based on these few studies, it is suggested that medicinal plant knowledge may be eroding. Here, we document lay, female knowledge of medicinal plants in an urban centre, interpreting findings in the light of the growing field of urban ethnobotany and gendered knowledge and in an Islamic context. Methods: Free-listing, structured and semi-structured interviews were used to document the extent of medicinal plant knowledge among 32 Meccan women. Vernacular names, modes of preparation and application, intended therapeutic use and emic toxicological remarks were recorded. Women were asked where they learnt about medicinal plants and if and when they preferred using medicinal plants over biomedical resources. Prior informed consent was always obtained. We compared the list of medicinal plants used by these Meccan women with medicinal plants previously documented in published literature. Results: One hundred eighteen vernacular names were collected, corresponding to approximately 110 plants, including one algae. Of these, 95 were identified at the species level and 39 (41%) had not been previously cited in Saudi Arabian medicinal plant literature. Almost one half of the plants cited are food and flavouring plants. Meccan women interviewed learn about medicinal plants from their social network, mass media and written sources, and combine biomedical and medicinal plant health care. However, younger women more often prefer biomedical resources and learn from written sources and mass media. Conclusions: The fairly small number of interviews conducted in this study was sufficient to reveal the singular body of medicinal plant knowledge held by women in Mecca and applied to treat common ailments. Plant availability in local shops and markets and inclusion in religious texts seem to shape the botanical diversity used by the Meccan women interviewed, and the use of foods and spices medicinally could be a global feature of urban ethnobotany. Ethnobotanical knowledge among women in Islamic communities may be changing due to access to mass media and biomedicine. We recognise the lack of documentation of the diversity of medicinal plant knowledge in the Arabian Peninsula and an opportunity to better understand gendered urban and rural knowledge

Corporate reputation in the spanish context: An interaction between reporting to stakeholders and industry.

ABSTRACT: The authors describe the intensity and orientation of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in four Spanish industries and explore the relationship that exists between both concepts and an independent measurement of reputation for CSR (CSRR). The results demonstrate that the CSR reporting is especially relevant and useful in the finance industry. Finance companies report significantly more CSR information than most industries in Spain, and this reporting is more closely linked to their CSRR than the CSR reporting of basic, consumer goods and services industries. Borra

An Updated Meta-Analysis of Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase Gene: Three Well-Characterized Polymorphisms with Hypertension

BACKGROUND: Numerous individually underpowered association studies have been conducted on endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) genetic variants across different ethnic populations, however, the results are often irreproducible. We therefore aimed to meta-analyze three eNOS widely-evaluated polymorphisms, G894T (rs1799983) in exon 7, 4b/a in intron 4, and T-786C (rs2070744) in promoter region, in association with hypertension from both English and Chinese publications, while addressing between-study heterogeneity and publication bias. METHODS: Data were analyzed using Stata software (version 11.0), and random-effects model was applied irrespective of between-study heterogeneity, which was evaluated by subgroup and meta-regression analyses. Publication bias was weighed using the Egger's test and funnel plot. RESULTS: There were total 19284/26003 cases/controls for G894T, and 6890/6858 for 4b/a, and 5346/6392 for T-786C polymorphism. Overall comparison of allele 894T with 894G in all study populations yielded a 16% increased risk for hypertension (odds ratio [OR] = 1.16; 95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 1.07-1.27; P = 0.001), and particularly a 32% increased risk (95% CI: 1.16-1.52; P<0.0005) in Asians and a 40% increased risk (95% CI: 1.19-1.65; P<0.0005) in Chinese. Further subgroup analyses suggested that published languages accounted for the heterogeneity for G894T polymorphism. The overall OR of allele 4a versus 4b was 1.29 (95% CI: 1.13-1.46; P<0.0005) in all study populations, and this estimate was potentiated in Asians (OR = 1.42; 95% CI: 1.16-1.72; P<0.0005). For T-786C, ethnicity-stratified analyses suggested a significantly increased risk for -786C allele (OR = 1.25; 95% CI: 1.06-1.47; P = 0.007) and -786CC genotype (OR = 1.69; 95% CI: 1.20-2.38; P = 0.003) in Whites. As an aside, the aforementioned risk estimates reached significance after Bonferroni correction. Finally, meta-regression analysis on other study-level covariates failed to provide any significance for all polymorphisms. CONCLUSION: We, via a comprehensive meta-analysis, ascertained the role of eNOS G894T and 4b/a polymorphisms on hypertension in Asians, and T-786C polymorphism in Whites

Improving topological cluster reconstruction using calorimeter cell timing in ATLAS

Clusters of topologically connected calorimeter cells around cells with large absolute signal-to-noise ratio (topo-clusters) are the basis for calorimeter signal reconstruction in the ATLAS experiment. Topological cell clustering has proven performant in LHC Runs 1 and 2. It is, however, susceptible to out-of-time pile-up of signals from soft collisions outside the 25 ns proton-bunch-crossing window associated with the event’s hard collision. To reduce this effect, a calorimeter-cell timing criterion was added to the signal-to-noise ratio requirement in the clustering algorithm. Multiple versions of this criterion were tested by reconstructing hadronic signals in simulated events and Run 2 ATLAS data. The preferred version is found to reduce the out-of-time pile-up jet multiplicity by ∼50% for jet pT ∼ 20 GeV and by ∼80% for jet pT 50 GeV, while not disrupting the reconstruction of hadronic signals of interest, and improving the jet energy resolution by up to 5% for 20 < pT < 30 GeV. Pile-up is also suppressed for other physics objects based on topo-clusters (electrons, photons, τ -leptons), reducing the overall event size on disk by about 6% in early Run 3 pileup conditions. Offline reconstruction for Run 3 includes the timing requirement

Software Performance of the ATLAS Track Reconstruction for LHC Run 3

Charged particle reconstruction in the presence of many simultaneous proton–proton (pp) collisions in the LHC is a challenging task for the ATLAS experiment’s reconstruction software due to the combinatorial complexity. This paper describes the major changes made to adapt the software to reconstruct high-activity collisions with an average of 50 or more simultaneous pp interactions per bunch crossing (pileup) promptly using the available computing resources. The performance of the key components of the track reconstruction chain and its dependence on pile-up are evaluated, and the improvement achieved compared to the previous software version is quantified. For events with an average of 60 pp collisions per bunch crossing, the updated track reconstruction is twice as fast as the previous version, without significant reduction in reconstruction efficiency and while reducing the rate of combinatorial fake tracks by more than a factor two

Measurements of differential cross-sections in top-quark pair events with a high transverse momentum top quark and limits on beyond the Standard Model contributions to top-quark pair production with the ATLAS detector at √s = 13 TeV

Cross-section measurements of top-quark pair production where the hadronically decaying top quark has transverse momentum greater than 355 GeV and the other top quark decays into ℓνb are presented using 139 fb−1 of data collected by the ATLAS experiment during proton-proton collisions at the LHC. The fiducial cross-section at s = 13 TeV is measured to be σ = 1.267 ± 0.005 ± 0.053 pb, where the uncertainties reflect the limited number of data events and the systematic uncertainties, giving a total uncertainty of 4.2%. The cross-section is measured differentially as a function of variables characterising the tt¯ system and additional radiation in the events. The results are compared with various Monte Carlo generators, including comparisons where the generators are reweighted to match a parton-level calculation at next-to-next-to-leading order. The reweighting improves the agreement between data and theory. The measured distribution of the top-quark transverse momentum is used to search for new physics in the context of the effective field theory framework. No significant deviation from the Standard Model is observed and limits are set on the Wilson coefficients of the dimension-six operators OtG and Otq(8), where the limits on the latter are the most stringent to date. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Measurement of the energy asymmetry in t(t)over-barj production at 13 TeV with the ATLAS experiment and interpretation in the SMEFT framework

A measurement of the energy asymmetry in jet-associated top-quark pair production is presented using $$139\,{\mathrm {fb}}^{-1}$$ 139 fb - 1 of data collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider during pp collisions at $$\sqrt{s}=13\,\text {TeV}$$ s = 13 TeV . The observable measures the different probability of top and antitop quarks to have the higher energy as a function of the jet scattering angle with respect to the beam axis. The energy asymmetry is measured in the semileptonic $$t{\bar{t}}$$ t t ¯ decay channel, and the hadronically decaying top quark must have transverse momentum above $$350\,\text {GeV}$$ 350 GeV . The results are corrected for detector effects to particle level in three bins of the scattering angle of the associated jet. The measurement agrees with the SM prediction at next-to-leading-order accuracy in quantum chromodynamics in all three bins. In the bin with the largest expected asymmetry, where the jet is emitted perpendicular to the beam, the energy asymmetry is measured to be $$-0.043\pm 0.020$$ - 0.043 ± 0.020 , in agreement with the SM prediction of $$-0.037\pm 0.003$$ - 0.037 ± 0.003 . Interpreting this result in the framework of the Standard Model effective field theory (SMEFT), it is shown that the energy asymmetry is sensitive to the top-quark chirality in four-quark operators and is therefore a valuable new observable in global SMEFT fits

Measurement and interpretation of same-sign W boson pair production in association with two jets in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents the measurement of fducial and diferential cross sections for both the inclusive and electroweak production of a same-sign W-boson pair in association with two jets (W±W±jj) using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of √ s = 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis is performed by selecting two same-charge leptons, electron or muon, and at least two jets with large invariant mass and a large rapidity diference. The measured fducial cross sections for electroweak and inclusive W±W±jj production are 2.92 ± 0.22 (stat.) ± 0.19 (syst.)fb and 3.38±0.22 (stat.)±0.19 (syst.)fb, respectively, in agreement with Standard Model predictions. The measurements are used to constrain anomalous quartic gauge couplings by extracting 95% confdence level intervals on dimension-8 operators. A search for doubly charged Higgs bosons H±± that are produced in vector-boson fusion processes and decay into a same-sign W boson pair is performed. The largest deviation from the Standard Model occurs for an H±± mass near 450 GeV, with a global signifcance of 2.5 standard deviations

Performance and calibration of quark/gluon-jet taggers using 140 fb⁻¹ of pp collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The identification of jets originating from quarks and gluons, often referred to as quark/gluon tagging, plays an important role in various analyses performed at the Large Hadron Collider, as Standard Model measurements and searches for new particles decaying to quarks often rely on suppressing a large gluon-induced background. This paper describes the measurement of the efficiencies of quark/gluon taggers developed within the ATLAS Collaboration, using √s=13 TeV proton–proton collision data with an integrated luminosity of 140 fb-1 collected by the ATLAS experiment. Two taggers with high performances in rejecting jets from gluon over jets from quarks are studied: one tagger is based on requirements on the number of inner-detector tracks associated with the jet, and the other combines several jet substructure observables using a boosted decision tree. A method is established to determine the quark/gluon fraction in data, by using quark/gluon-enriched subsamples defined by the jet pseudorapidity. Differences in tagging efficiency between data and simulation are provided for jets with transverse momentum between 500 GeV and 2 TeV and for multiple tagger working points