Ratio of kaon and pion leptonic decay constants with Nf=2+1+1N_f = 2 + 1 + 1 Wilson-clover twisted-mass fermions

We present a determination of the ratio of kaon and pion leptonic decay constants in isosymmetric QCD (isoQCD), $f_K / f_\pi$, making use of the gauge ensembles produced by the Extended Twisted Mass Collaboration (ETMC) with $N_f = 2 + 1 + 1$ flavors of Wilson-clover twisted-mass quarks, including configurations close to the physical point for all dynamical flavors. The simulations are carried out at three values of the lattice spacing ranging from $\sim 0.068$ to $\sim 0.092$ fm with linear lattice size up to $L \sim 5.5$~fm. The scale is set by the PDG value of the pion decay constant, $f_\pi^{isoQCD} = 130.4~(2)$ MeV, at the isoQCD pion point, $M_\pi^{isoQCD} = 135.0~(2)$ MeV, obtaining for the gradient-flow (GF) scales the values $w_0 = 0.17383~(63)$ fm, $\sqrt{t_0} = 0.14436~(61)$ fm and $t_0 / w_0 = 0.11969~(62)$ fm. The data are analyzed within the framework of SU(2) Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) without resorting to the use of renormalized quark masses. At the isoQCD kaon point $M_K^{isoQCD} = 494.2~(4)$ MeV we get $(f_K / f_\pi)^{isoQCD} = 1.1995~(44)$, where the error includes both statistical and systematic uncertainties. Implications for the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix element $|V_{us}|$ and for the first-row CKM unitarity are discussed.Comment: 68 pages, 14 figures, 12 tables. Version to appear in PR

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Klatsch

Bergmann JR. Klatsch. In: Ueding G, ed. Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik. Berlin: de Gruyter; 2011: 447-458