Perspectives and Integration in SOLAS Science

Why a chapter on Perspectives and Integration in SOLAS Science in this book? SOLAS science by its nature deals with interactions that occur: across a wide spectrum of time and space scales, involve gases and particles, between the ocean and the atmosphere, across many disciplines including chemistry, biology, optics, physics, mathematics, computing, socio-economics and consequently interactions between many different scientists and across scientific generations. This chapter provides a guide through the remarkable diversity of cross-cutting approaches and tools in the gigantic puzzle of the SOLAS realm. Here we overview the existing prime components of atmospheric and oceanic observing systems, with the acquisition of ocean–atmosphere observables either from in situ or from satellites, the rich hierarchy of models to test our knowledge of Earth System functioning, and the tremendous efforts accomplished over the last decade within the COST Action 735 and SOLAS Integration project frameworks to understand, as best we can, the current physical and biogeochemical state of the atmosphere and ocean commons. A few SOLAS integrative studies illustrate the full meaning of interactions, paving the way for even tighter connections between thematic fields. Ultimately, SOLAS research will also develop with an enhanced consideration of societal demand while preserving fundamental research coherency. The exchange of energy, gases and particles across the air-sea interface is controlled by a variety of biological, chemical and physical processes that operate across broad spatial and temporal scales. These processes influence the composition, biogeochemical and chemical properties of both the oceanic and atmospheric boundary layers and ultimately shape the Earth system response to climate and environmental change, as detailed in the previous four chapters. In this cross-cutting chapter we present some of the SOLAS achievements over the last decade in terms of integration, upscaling observational information from process-oriented studies and expeditionary research with key tools such as remote sensing and modelling. Here we do not pretend to encompass the entire legacy of SOLAS efforts but rather offer a selective view of some of the major integrative SOLAS studies that combined available pieces of the immense jigsaw puzzle. These include, for instance, COST efforts to build up global climatologies of SOLAS relevant parameters such as dimethyl sulphide, interconnection between volcanic ash and ecosystem response in the eastern subarctic North Pacific, optimal strategy to derive basin-scale CO2 uptake with good precision, or significant reduction of the uncertainties in sea-salt aerosol source functions. Predicting the future trajectory of Earth’s climate and habitability is the main task ahead. Some possible routes for the SOLAS scientific community to reach this overarching goal conclude the chapter

Search for rare quark-annihilation decays, B --> Ds(*) Phi

We report on searches for B- --> Ds- Phi and B- --> Ds*- Phi. In the context of the Standard Model, these decays are expected to be highly suppressed since they proceed through annihilation of the b and u-bar quarks in the B- meson. Our results are based on 234 million Upsilon(4S) --> B Bbar decays collected with the BABAR detector at SLAC. We find no evidence for these decays, and we set Bayesian 90% confidence level upper limits on the branching fractions BF(B- --> Ds- Phi) Ds*- Phi)<1.2x10^(-5). These results are consistent with Standard Model expectations.Comment: 8 pages, 3 postscript figues, submitted to Phys. Rev. D (Rapid Communications

Mechanisms of T cell organotropism

F.M.M.-B. is supported by the British Heart Foundation, the Medical Research Council of the UK and the Gates Foundation

Nutritional Systems Biology Modeling: From Molecular Mechanisms to Physiology

The use of computational modeling and simulation has increased in many biological fields, but despite their potential these techniques are only marginally applied in nutritional sciences. Nevertheless, recent applications of modeling have been instrumental in answering important nutritional questions from the cellular up to the physiological levels. Capturing the complexity of today's important nutritional research questions poses a challenge for modeling to become truly integrative in the consideration and interpretation of experimental data at widely differing scales of space and time. In this review, we discuss a selection of available modeling approaches and applications relevant for nutrition. We then put these models into perspective by categorizing them according to their space and time domain. Through this categorization process, we identified a dearth of models that consider processes occurring between the microscopic and macroscopic scale. We propose a “middle-out” strategy to develop the required full-scale, multilevel computational models. Exhaustive and accurate phenotyping, the use of the virtual patient concept, and the development of biomarkers from “-omics” signatures are identified as key elements of a successful systems biology modeling approach in nutrition research—one that integrates physiological mechanisms and data at multiple space and time scales

Measurement of branching fractions and mass spectra of B -> K pi pi gamma (vol 98, art no 211804, 2007)

Contains fulltext : 71970.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)2 p

Search for the rare leptonic decay B-->tau(-)nu(tau)

We present a search for the decay B- -> tau(-)(tau) in a sample of 88.9 x 10(6) B (B) over bar pairs recorded with the BABAR detector at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center B factory. One of the two B mesons from the Upsilon(4S) is reconstructed in a hadronic or a semileptonic final state, and the decay products of the other B in the event are analyzed for consistency with a B- -> tau(-)(tau) decay. We find no evidence of a signal and set an upper limit on the branching fraction of B((B) over bar -> tau(-)(tau)) < 4.2 x 10(-4) at the 90% confidence level

Measurement of branching fractions and mass spectra of B -> K pi pi gamma

We present a measurement of the partial branching fractions and mass spectra of the exclusive radiative penguin processes B -> K pi pi gamma in the range m(K pi pi)pi(+)pi(-). Using 232x10(6) e(+)e(-)-> B (B) over bar events recorded by the BABAR experiment at the SLAC PEP-II asymmetric-energy storage ring, we measure the branching fractions B(B+-> K+pi(-)pi(+)gamma)=[2.95 +/- 0.13(stat)+/- 0.20(syst)]x10(-5), B(B-0 -> K+pi(-)pi(0)gamma)=[4.07 +/- 0.22(stat)+/- 0.31(syst)]x10(-5), B(B-0 -> K-0 pi(+)pi(-)gamma)=[1.85 +/- 0.21(stat)+/- 0.12(syst)]x10(-5), and B(B+-> K-0 pi(+)pi(0)gamma)=[4.56 +/- 0.42(stat)+/- 0.31(syst)]x10(-5)

Measurements of the branching fraction and CP-violation asymmetries in B-0 -> f(0)(980)K-S(0)

We present measurements of the branching fraction and CP-violating asymmetries in the decay B-0-->f(0)(980)K-S(0). The results are obtained from a data sample of 123x10(6) Y(4S)-->B (B) over bar decays. From a time-dependent maximum likelihood fit, we measure the branching fraction B(B-0-->f(0)(980)(-->pi(+)pi(-))K-0)=(6.0+/-0.9+/-0.6+/-1.2)x10(-6), the mixing-induced CP violation parameter S=-1.62(-0.51)(+0.56)+/-0.09+/-0.04, and the direct CP violation parameter C=0.27+/-0.36+/-0.10+/-0.07, where the first errors are statistical, the second systematic, and the third due to model uncertainties. We measure the f(0)(980) mass and width to be m(f0)(980)=(980.6+/-4.1+/-0.5+/-4.0) MeV/c(2) and Gamma(f0)(980)=(43(-9)(+12)+/-3+/-9) MeV/c(2), respectively

Search for the rare leptonic decay B-->tau(-)nu(tau)

We present a search for the decay B- -> tau(-)(tau) in a sample of 88.9 x 10(6) B (B) over bar pairs recorded with the BABAR detector at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center B factory. One of the two B mesons from the Upsilon(4S) is reconstructed in a hadronic or a semileptonic final state, and the decay products of the other B in the event are analyzed for consistency with a B- -> tau(-)(tau) decay. We find no evidence of a signal and set an upper limit on the branching fraction of B((B) over bar -> tau(-)(tau)) < 4.2 x 10(-4) at the 90% confidence level

Search for lepton flavor violation in the decay tau(+/-)-> e(+/-)gamma

A search for the nonconservation of lepton flavor in the decay tau(+/-)-> e(+/-)gamma has been performed with 2.07x10(8) e(+)e(-)->tau(+)tau(-) events collected by the BABAR detector at the SLAC PEP II storage ring at a center-of-mass energy near 10.58 GeV. We find no evidence for a signal and set an upper limit on the branching ratio of B(tau(+/-)-> e(+/-)gamma)< 1.1x10(-7) at 90% confidence level