Mitochondrial phylogeography and demographic history of the Vicuña: implications for conservation

The vicuña (Vicugna vicugna; Miller, 1924) is a conservation success story, having recovered from near extinction in the 1960s to current population levels estimated at 275 000. However, lack of information about its demographic history and genetic diversity has limited both our understanding of its recovery and the development of science-based conservation measures. To examine the evolution and recent demographic history of the vicuña across its current range and to assess its genetic variation and population structure, we sequenced mitochondrial DNA from the control region (CR) for 261 individuals from 29 populations across Peru, Chile and Argentina. Our results suggest that populations currently designated as Vicugna vicugna vicugna and Vicugna vicugna mensalis comprise separate mitochondrial lineages. The current population distribution appears to be the result of a recent demographic expansion associated with the last major glacial event of the Pleistocene in the northern (18 to 22°S) dry Andes 14–12 000 years ago and the establishment of an extremely arid belt known as the 'Dry Diagonal' to 29°S. Within the Dry Diagonal, small populations of V. v. vicugna appear to have survived showing the genetic signature of demographic isolation, whereas to the north V. v. mensalis populations underwent a rapid demographic expansion before recent anthropogenic impacts

The Impact of an Intervention to Improve Malaria Care in Public Health Centers on Health Indicators of Children in Tororo, Uganda (PRIME): A Cluster-Randomized Trial.

Optimizing quality of care for malaria and other febrile illnesses is a complex challenge of major public health importance. To evaluate the impact of an intervention aiming to improve malaria case management on the health of community children, a cluster-randomized trial was conducted from 2010-2013 in Tororo, Uganda, where malaria transmission is high. Twenty public health centers were included; 10 were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to intervention or control. Households within 2 km of health centers provided the sampling frame for the evaluation. The PRIME intervention included training in fever case management using malaria rapid diagnostic tests (mRDTs), patient-centered services, and health center management; plus provision of mRDTs and artemether-lumefantrine. Cross-sectional community surveys were conducted at baseline and endline (N = 8,766), and a cohort of children was followed for approximately 18 months (N = 992). The primary outcome was prevalence of anemia (hemoglobin < 11.0 g/dL) in children under 5 years of age in the final community survey. The intervention was delivered successfully; however, no differences in prevalence of anemia or parasitemia were observed between the study arms in the final community survey or the cohort. In the final survey, prevalence of anemia in children under 5 years of age was 62.5% in the intervention versus 63.1% in control (adjusted risk ratio = 1.01; 95% confidence interval = 0.91-1.13; P = 0.82). The PRIME intervention, focusing on training and commodities, did not produce the expected health benefits in community children in Tororo. This challenges common assumptions that improving quality of care and access to malaria diagnostics will yield health gains

A comprehensive 1000 Genomes-based genome-wide association meta-analysis of coronary artery disease

Existing knowledge of genetic variants affecting risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) is largely based on genome-wide association studies (GWAS) analysis of common SNPs. Leveraging phased haplotypes from the 1000 Genomes Project, we report a GWAS meta-analysis of 185 thousand CAD cases and controls, interrogating 6.7 million common (MAF>0.05) as well as 2.7 million low frequency (0.005<MAF<0.05) variants. In addition to confirmation of most known CAD loci, we identified 10 novel loci, eight additive and two recessive, that contain candidate genes that newly implicate biological processes in vessel walls. We observed intra-locus allelic heterogeneity but little evidence of low frequency variants with larger effects and no evidence of synthetic association. Our analysis provides a comprehensive survey of the fine genetic architecture of CAD showing that genetic susceptibility to this common disease is largely determined by common SNPs of small effect siz

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Search for direct pair production of the top squark in all-hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for direct pair production of the scalar partner to the top quark using an integrated luminosity of 20.1fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at √s = 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC are reported. The top squark is assumed to decay via t˜→tχ˜01 or t˜→ bχ˜±1 →bW(∗)χ˜01 , where χ˜01 (χ˜±1 ) denotes the lightest neutralino (chargino) in supersymmetric models. The search targets a fully-hadronic final state in events with four or more jets and large missing transverse momentum. No significant excess over the Standard Model background prediction is observed, and exclusion limits are reported in terms of the top squark and neutralino masses and as a function of the branching fraction of t˜ → tχ˜01 . For a branching fraction of 100%, top squark masses in the range 270–645 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 30 GeV. For a branching fraction of 50% to either t˜ → tχ˜01 or t˜ → bχ˜±1 , and assuming the χ˜±1 mass to be twice the χ˜01 mass, top squark masses in the range 250–550 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 60 GeV

A review of elliptical and disc galaxy structure, and modern scaling laws

A century ago, in 1911 and 1913, Plummer and then Reynolds introduced their models to describe the radial distribution of stars in `nebulae'. This article reviews the progress since then, providing both an historical perspective and a contemporary review of the stellar structure of bulges, discs and elliptical galaxies. The quantification of galaxy nuclei, such as central mass deficits and excess nuclear light, plus the structure of dark matter halos and cD galaxy envelopes, are discussed. Issues pertaining to spiral galaxies including dust, bulge-to-disc ratios, bulgeless galaxies, bars and the identification of pseudobulges are also reviewed. An array of modern scaling relations involving sizes, luminosities, surface brightnesses and stellar concentrations are presented, many of which are shown to be curved. These 'redshift zero' relations not only quantify the behavior and nature of galaxies in the Universe today, but are the modern benchmark for evolutionary studies of galaxies, whether based on observations, N-body-simulations or semi-analytical modelling. For example, it is shown that some of the recently discovered compact elliptical galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5 may be the bulges of modern disc galaxies.Comment: Condensed version (due to Contract) of an invited review article to appear in "Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems"(www.springer.com/astronomy/book/978-90-481-8818-5). 500+ references incl. many somewhat forgotten, pioneer papers. Original submission to Springer: 07-June-201

Clouds, circulation and climate sensitivity

Fundamental puzzles of climate science remain unsolved because of our limited understanding of how clouds, circulation and climate interact. One example is our inability to provide robust assessments of future global and regional climate changes. However, ongoing advances in our capacity to observe, simulate and conceptualize the climate system now make it possible to fill gaps in our knowledge. We argue that progress can be accelerated by focusing research on a handful of important scientific questions that have become tractable as a result of recent advances. We propose four such questions below; they involve understanding the role of cloud feedbacks and convective organization in climate, and the factors that control the position, the strength and the variability of the tropical rain belts and the extratropical storm tracks

Neither fair nor unchangeable but part of the natural order: orientations towards inequality in the face of criticism of the economic system

The magnitude of climate change threats to life on the planet is not matched by the level of current mitigation strategies. To contribute to our understanding of inaction in the face of climate change, the reported study draws upon the pro status quo motivations encapsulated within System Justification Theory. In an online questionnaire study, participants (N = 136) initially completed a measure of General System Justification. Participants in a “System-critical” condition were then exposed to information linking environmental problems to the current economic system; participants in a Control condition were exposed to information unrelated to either environmental problems or the economic system. A measure of Economic System Justification was subsequently administered. Regressions of Economic System Justification revealed interactions between General System Justification and Information Type: higher general system justifiers in the System-critical condition rated the economic system as less fair than did their counterparts in the Control condition. However, they also indicated inequality as more natural than did their counterparts in the Control condition. The groups did not differ in terms of beliefs about the economic system being open to change. The results are discussed in terms of how reassurance about the maintenance of the status quo may be bolstered by recourse to beliefs in a natural order

Measurement of the cross-section of high transverse momentum vector bosons reconstructed as single jets and studies of jet substructure in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a measurement of the cross-section for high transverse momentum W and Z bosons produced in pp collisions and decaying to all-hadronic final states. The data used in the analysis were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 7 TeV;{\rm Te}{\rm V}$and correspond to an integrated luminosity of$4.6\;{\rm f}{{{\rm b}}^{-1}}$. The measurement is performed by reconstructing the boosted W or Z bosons in single jets. The reconstructed jet mass is used to identify the W and Z bosons, and a jet substructure method based on energy cluster information in the jet centre-of-mass frame is used to suppress the large multi-jet background. The cross-section for events with a hadronically decaying W or Z boson, with transverse momentum${{p}_{{\rm T}}}\gt 320\;{\rm Ge}{\rm V}$and pseudorapidity$|\eta |\lt 1.9$, is measured to be${{\sigma }_{W+Z}}=8.5\pm 1.7$ pb and is compared to next-to-leading-order calculations. The selected events are further used to study jet grooming techniques

Measurements of integrated and differential cross sections for isolated photon pair production in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A measurement of the production cross section for two isolated photons in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of √s=8 TeV is presented. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb−1 recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurement considers photons with pseudorapidities satisfying |ηγ|40GeV and EγT,2>30 GeV for the two leading photons ordered in transverse energy produced in the interaction. The background due to hadronic jets and electrons is subtracted using data-driven techniques. The fiducial cross sections are corrected for detector effects and measured differentially as a function of six kinematic observables. The measured cross section integrated within the fiducial volume is 16.8 ± 0.8  pb . The data are compared to fixed-order QCD calculations at next-to-leading-order and next-to-next-to-leading-order accuracy as well as next-to-leading-order computations including resummation of initial-state gluon radiation at next-to-next-to-leading logarithm or matched to a parton shower, with relative uncertainties varying from 5% to 20%