pinecone/core-2020-05-10-deduplication huggingface dataset:
Does debt affect health? : Cross country evidence on the debt-health nexus

We investigate the relationship between aggregate household debt and aggregate health outcomes across 17 European countries over the period 1995 to 2012. Using a dataset of country-level standardized and objective measures of household debt, health outcomes and a rich set of control variables, we estimate an instrumental variable (GMM) model to address possible reverse causality concerns. We find that aggregate household debt affects health outcomes, and that this varies by the maturity of debt. Both short and medium-term debt has a positive effect on health outcomes. Long-term unsecured debt and mortgage debt are associated with poorer health outcomes. These findings are robust after controlling for alternative measures of health and debt. Overall, the results suggest that aggregate household debt is an important determinant of aggregate health outcomes across countries.PostprintPeer reviewe
Challenges in microbial ecology : building predictive understanding of community function and dynamics

Acknowledgements We thank the Isaac Newton Institute of Mathematical Sciences for hosting the programme ‘Understanding microbial communities: structure, function dynamics’, which made this paper possible. This programme was partially funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the US Army Research Office under grant number W911NF-14-1-0445. We thank all participants of the programme for inspiring discussions, and Aglika Gungova and Stela Ilieva for assistance with the figures.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Carbon Inputs from Miscanthus Displace Older Soil Organic Carbon Without Inducing Priming Soil Carbon Sequestration Below Miscanthus

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and Shell for providing a joint PhD studentship grant award to Andy Robertson (CEH project number NEC04306). We are also grateful to Sean Case at the University of Copenhagen for help with fieldwork and Helen Grant for help with isotopic analysis. Erratum to: Bioenerg. Res. DOI 10.1007/s12155-016-9772-9 Due to an error in communication between the authors and the publishers the title was not correct and merged with the next line of the manuscript. The title should simply read “Carbon inputs from Miscanthus displace older soil organic carbon without inducing priming”. The original version has been corrected.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Microplastics Alter the Properties and Sinking Rates of Zooplankton Faecal Pellets

Plastic debris is a widespread contaminant, prevalent in aquatic ecosystems across the globe. Zooplankton readily ingest microscopic plastic (microplastic, < 1 mm), which are later egested within their faecal pellets. These pellets are a source of food for marine organisms, and contribute to the oceanic vertical flux of particulate organic matter as part of the biological pump. The effects of microplastics on faecal pellet properties are currently unknown. Here we test the hypotheses that (1) faecal pellets are a vector for transport of microplastics, (2) polystyrene microplastics can alter the properties and sinking rates of zooplankton egests and, (3) faecal pellets can facilitate the transfer of plastics to coprophagous biota. Following exposure to 20.6 μm polystyrene microplastics (1000 microplastics mL–1) and natural prey (∼1650 algae mL–1) the copepod Calanus helgolandicus egested faecal pellets with significantly (P < 0.001) reduced densities, a 2.25-fold reduction in sinking rates, and a higher propensity for fragmentation. We further show that microplastics, encapsulated within egests of the copepod Centropages typicus, could be transferred to C. helgolandicus via coprophagy. Our results support the proposal that sinking faecal matter represents a mechanism by which floating plastics can be vertically transported away from surface waters
Measurement of the production cross section of jets in association with a Z boson in pp collisions at root s = 7TeV with the ATLAS detector

Measurements of the production of jets of particles in association with a Z boson in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV are presented, using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb⁻¹ collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Inclusive and differential jet cross sections in Z events, with Z decaying into electron or muon pairs, are measured for jets with transverse momentum pT> 30 GeV and rapidity |y| < 4.4. The results are compared to next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations, and to predictions from different Monte Carlo generators based on leading-order and next-to-leading-order matrix elements supplemented by parton showers.G.Aad ... P.Jackson ... L.Lee ... A.Petridis ... N.Soni ... M.J.White ... et al. (The ATLAS Collaboration
Meta-analysis of Genome-Wide Association Studies for Extraversion: Findings from the Genetics of Personality Consortium

Contains fulltext :
                  166013.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Extraversion is a relatively stable and heritable personality trait associated with numerous psychosocial, lifestyle and health outcomes. Despite its substantial heritability, no genetic variants have been detected in previous genome-wide association (GWA) studies, which may be due to relatively small sample sizes of those studies. Here, we report on a large meta-analysis of GWA studies for extraversion in 63,030 subjects in 29 cohorts. Extraversion item data from multiple personality inventories were harmonized across inventories and cohorts. No genome-wide significant associations were found at the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) level but there was one significant hit at the gene level for a long non-coding RNA site (LOC101928162). Genome-wide complex trait analysis in two large cohorts showed that the additive variance explained by common SNPs was not significantly different from zero, but polygenic risk scores, weighted using linkage information, significantly predicted extraversion scores in an independent cohort. These results show that extraversion is a highly polygenic personality trait, with an architecture possibly different from other complex human traits, including other personality traits. Future studies are required to further determine which genetic variants, by what modes of gene action, constitute the heritable nature of extraversion
Photon production from non-equilibrium disoriented chiral condensates in a spherical expansion

AbstractWe study the production of photons through the non-equilibrium relaxation of a disoriented chiral condensate formed in the expanding hot central region in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. It is found that the expansion smoothes out the resonances in the process of parametric amplification such that the non-equilibrium photons are dominant to the thermal photons over the range 0.2–2 GeV. We propose that to search for non-equilibrium photons in the direct photon measurements of heavy-ion collisions can be a potential test of the formation of disoriented chiral condensates
Evolution of damage during the fatigue of 3D woven glass-fibre reinforced composites subjected to tension–tension loading observed by time-lapse X-ray tomography

AbstractThe development of fatigue damage in a glass fibre modified layer-to-layer three dimensional (3D) woven composite has been followed by time-lapse X-ray computed tomography (CT). The damage was found to be distributed regularly throughout the composite according to the repeating unit, even at large fractions of the total life. This suggests that the through-thickness constraint provides a high level of stress redistribution and damage tolerance. The different types of damage have been segmented, allowing a quantitative analysis of damage evolution as a function of the number of fatigue cycles. Transverse cracks were found to initiate within the weft after just 0.1% of life, followed soon after (by 1% of life) by longitudinal debonding cracks. The number and extent of these multiplied steadily over the fatigue life, whereas the spacing of transverse cracks along with weft/binder debonding saturated at 60% of life and damage in the resin pockets occurred only just before final failure
Four-dimensional Einstein Yang–Mills de Sitter gravity from eleven dimensions

AbstractWe obtain D=4 de Sitter gravity coupled to SU(2) Yang–Mills gauge fields from an explicit and consistent truncation of D=11 supergravity via Kaluza–Klein dimensional reduction on a non-compact space. The “internal” space is a smooth hyperbolic 7-space (H7) written as a foliation of two 3-spheres, on which the SU(2) Yang–Mills fields reside. The positive cosmological constant is completely fixed by the SU(2) gauge coupling constant. The explicit reduction ansatz enables us to lift any of the D=4 solutions to D=11. In particular, we obtain dS2 in M-theory, where the nine-dimensional transverse space is an H7 bundle over S2. We also obtain a new smooth embedding of dS3 in D=6 supergravity
Integrated mRNA and microRNA transcriptome sequencing characterizes sequence variants and mRNA–microRNA regulatory network in nasopharyngeal carcinoma model systems

AbstractNasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a prevalent malignancy in Southeast Asia among the Chinese population. Aberrant regulation of transcripts has been implicated in many types of cancers including NPC. Herein, we characterized mRNA and miRNA transcriptomes by RNA sequencing (RNASeq) of NPC model systems. Matched total mRNA and small RNA of undifferentiated Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)-positive NPC xenograft X666 and its derived cell line C666, well-differentiated NPC cell line HK1, and the immortalized nasopharyngeal epithelial cell line NP460 were sequenced by Solexa technology. We found 2812 genes and 149 miRNAs (human and EBV) to be differentially expressed in NP460, HK1, C666 and X666 with RNASeq; 533 miRNA–mRNA target pairs were inversely regulated in the three NPC cell lines compared to NP460. Integrated mRNA/miRNA expression profiling and pathway analysis show extracellular matrix organization, Beta-1 integrin cell surface interactions, and the PI3K/AKT, EGFR, ErbB, and Wnt pathways were potentially deregulated in NPC. Real-time quantitative PCR was performed on selected mRNA/miRNAs in order to validate their expression. Transcript sequence variants such as short insertions and deletions (INDEL), single nucleotide variant (SNV), and isomiRs were characterized in the NPC model systems. A novel TP53 transcript variant was identified in NP460, HK1, and C666. Detection of three previously reported novel EBV-encoded BART miRNAs and their isomiRs were also observed. Meta-analysis of a model system to a clinical system aids the choice of different cell lines in NPC studies. This comprehensive characterization of mRNA and miRNA transcriptomes in NPC cell lines and the xenograft provides insights on miRNA regulation of mRNA and valuable resources on transcript variation and regulation in NPC, which are potentially useful for mechanistic and preclinical studies
Severe disruption of the cytoskeleton and immunologically relevant surface molecules in a human macrophageal cell line in microgravity—Results of an in vitro experiment on board of the Shenzhou-8 space mission

AbstractDuring spaceflight the immune system is one of the most affected systems of the human body. During the SIMBOX (Science in Microgravity Box) mission on Shenzhou-8, we investigated microgravity-associated long-term alterations in macrophageal cells, the most important effector cells of the immune system. We analyzed the effect of long-term microgravity on the cytoskeleton and immunologically relevant surface molecules. Human U937 cells were differentiated into a macrophageal phenotype and exposed to microgravity or 1g on a reference centrifuge on-orbit for 5 days. After on-orbit fixation, the samples were analyzed with immunocytochemical staining and confocal microscopy after landing. The unmanned Shenzhou-8 spacecraft was launched on board a Long March 2F (CZ-2F) rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC) and landed after a 17-day-mission. We found a severely disturbed actin cytoskeleton, disorganized tubulin and distinctly reduced expression of CD18, CD36 and MHC-II after the 5 days in microgravity. The disturbed cytoskeleton, the loss of surface receptors for bacteria recognition, the activation of T lymphocytes, the loss of an important scavenger receptor and of antigen-presenting molecules could represent a dysfunctional macrophage phenotype. This phenotype in microgravity would be not capable of migrating or recognizing and attacking pathogens, and it would no longer activate the specific immune system, which could be investigated in functional assays. Obviously, the results have to be interpreted with caution as the model system has some limitations and due to numerous technical and biological restrictions (e.g. 23°C and no CO2 supply during in-flight incubation). All parameter were carefully pre-tested on ground. Therefore, the experiment could be adapted to the experimental conditions available on Shenzhou-8
Modeling and Implementation of an Asynchronous Approach to Integrating HPC and Big Data Analysis1

AbstractWith the emergence of exascale computing and big data analytics, many important scientific applications require the integration of computationally intensive modeling and simulation with data-intensive analysis to accelerate scientific discovery. In this paper, we create an analytical model to steer the optimization of the end-to-end time-to-solution for the integrated computation and data analysis. We also design and develop an intelligent data broker to efficiently intertwine the computation stage and the analysis stage to practically achieve the optimal time-to-solution predicted by the analytical model. We perform experiments on both synthetic applications and real-world computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applications. The experiments show that the analytic model exhibits an average relative error of less than 10%, and the application performance can be improved by up to 131% for the synthetic programs and by up to 78% for the real-world CFD application
Orthogonal and symplectic Yangians and Yang–Baxter R-operators

AbstractYang–Baxter R operators symmetric with respect to the orthogonal and symplectic algebras are considered in an uniform way. Explicit forms for the spinorial and metaplectic R operators are obtained. L operators, obeying the RLL relation with the orthogonal or symplectic fundamental R matrix, are considered in the interesting cases, where their expansion in inverse powers of the spectral parameter is truncated. Unlike the case of special linear algebra symmetry the truncation results in additional conditions on the Lie algebra generators of which the L operators is built and which can be fulfilled in distinguished representations only. Further, generalized L operators, obeying the modified RLL relation with the fundamental R matrix replaced by the spinorial or metaplectic one, are considered in the particular case of linear dependence on the spectral parameter. It is shown how by fusion with respect to the spinorial or metaplectic representation these first order spinorial L operators reproduce the ordinary L operators with second order truncation
The 3-loop non-singlet heavy flavor contributions and anomalous dimensions for the structure function F2(x,Q2) and transversity

AbstractWe calculate the massive flavor non-singlet Wilson coefficient for the heavy flavor contributions to the structure function F2(x,Q2) in the asymptotic region Q2≫m2 and the associated operator matrix element Aqq,Q(3),NS(N) to 3-loop order in Quantum Chromodynamics at general values of the Mellin variable N. This matrix element is associated with the vector current and axial vector current for the even and the odd moments N, respectively. We also calculate the corresponding operator matrix elements for transversity, compute the contributions to the 3-loop anomalous dimensions to O(NF) and compare to results in the literature. The 3-loop matching of the flavor non-singlet distribution in the variable flavor number scheme is derived. All results can be expressed in terms of nested harmonic sums in N space and harmonic polylogarithms in x-space. Numerical results are presented for the non-singlet charm quark contribution to F2(x,Q2)
Noether and some other dynamical symmetries in Kantowski–Sachs model

AbstractThe forms of coupling of the scalar field with gravity, appearing in the induced theory of gravity, and that of the potential are found in the Kantowski–Sachs model under the assumption that the Lagrangian admits Noether symmetry. The form thus obtained makes the Lagrangian degenerate. The constrained dynamics thus evolved due to such degeneracy has been analysed and a solution has also been presented which is inflationary in behaviour. It has further been shown that there exists other technique to explore the dynamical symmetries of the Lagrangian simply by inspecting the field equations. Through this method Noether along with some other dynamical symmetries are found which do not make the Lagrangian degenerate
Transcription Factor-Induced Lineage Selection of Stem-Cell-Derived Neural Progenitor Cells

SummaryThe generation of specific types of neurons from stem cells offers important opportunities in regenerative medicine. However, future applications and proper verification of cell identities will require stringent ways to generate homogeneous neuronal cultures. Here we show that transcription factors like Lmx1a, Phox2b, Nkx2.2, and Olig2 can induce desired neuronal lineages from most expressing neural progenitor cells by a mechanism resembling developmental binary cell-fate switching. Such efficient selection of cell fate resulted in remarkable cellular enrichment that enabled global gene-expression validation of generated neurons and identification of previously unrecognized features in the studied cell lineages. Several sources of stem cells have a limited competence to differentiate into specific neuronal cell types; e.g., dopamine neurons. However, we show that the combination of factors that normally promote either regional or dedicated neuronal specification can overcome limitations in cellular competence and also promote efficient reprogramming in more remote neural contexts, including human neural progenitor cells
Rapid behavioural gregarization in the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria entails synchronous changes in both activity and attraction to conspecifics

AbstractDesert Locusts can change reversibly between solitarious and gregarious phases, which differ considerably in behaviour, morphology and physiology. The two phases show many behavioural differences including both overall levels of activity and the degree to which they are attracted or repulsed by conspecifics. Solitarious locusts perform infrequent bouts of locomotion characterised by a slow walking pace, groom infrequently and actively avoid other locusts. Gregarious locusts are highly active with a rapid walking pace, groom frequently and are attracted to conspecifics forming cohesive migratory bands as nymphs and/or flying swarms as adults. The sole factor driving the onset of gregarization is the presence of conspecifics. In several previous studies concerned with the mechanism underlying this transformation we have used an aggregate measure of behavioural phase state, Pgreg, derived from logistic regression analysis, which combines and weights several behavioural variables to characterise solitarious and gregarious behaviour. Using this approach we have analysed the time course of behavioural change, the stimuli that induce gregarization and the key role of serotonin in mediating the transformation. Following a recent critique that suggested that using Pgreg may confound changes in general activity with genuine gregarization we have performed a meta-analysis examining the time course of change in the individual behaviours that we use to generate Pgreg. We show that the forced crowding of solitarious locusts, tactile stimulation of the hind femora, and the short-term application of serotonin each induce concerted changes in not only locomotion-related variables but also grooming frequency and attraction to other locusts towards those characteristic of long-term gregarious locusts. This extensive meta-analysis supports and extends our previous conclusions that solitarious locusts undergo a rapid behavioural gregarization upon receiving appropriate stimulation for a few hours that is mediated by serotonin, at the end of which their behaviour is largely indistinguishable from locusts that have been in the gregarious phase their entire lives
Outpatient Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy in Hong Kong Chinese – An Outcome Analysis

BackgroundLaparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) is now the procedure of choice for symptomatic gallbladder disease. Although many recent studies, mostly from abroad, report that it can be performed safely in the outpatient setting, the experience of outpatient LC in Hong Kong is still limited. This retrospective study evaluated the feasibility, safety and patient acceptance of outpatient LC in Hong Kong Chinese patients.Patients and MethodsThe data of 73 consecutive patients who had undergone outpatient LC between February 2000 and October 2002 in the Day Surgery Centre of Tung Wah Hospital were prospectively collected and reviewed. The selection criteria for patients undergoing outpatient LC included American Society of Anesthesiologists risk classification I or II, age less than 70 years, and the availability of a competent adult to accompany the patient home and look after them for 24 hours. No effort was made to exclude complicated cases. After assessment by the operating surgeon, patients were discharged from the Day Surgery Centre in the afternoon when their clinical condition satisfied pre-defined discharge criteria. All patients were followed up in the Day Surgery Centre in the first and fourth postoperative weeks.ResultsThe same-day discharge rate was 88% and the conversion rate was 4%. Six patients (8.2%) with uneventful LC required hospitalization after the procedure. There was no major complication and no unplanned admission. Two patients had port site wound infection requiring hospital admission at the first follow-up. Patient satisfaction was high, pain acceptance was good, and analgesic consumption was minimal. Mild fat intolerance was common in patients postoperatively (> 50%), but this had almost all resolved by postoperative week four. All patients were able to resume their usual daily activities within 2 weeks after surgery.ConclusionsLC is a safe and feasible outpatient procedure in Hong Kong, with high levels of patient satisfaction. A prospective study with a larger patient population is warranted to verify whether it should be recommended as treatment for gallstone disease in selected patients in future
Constraining new physics in B0→π+π− with reparametrization invariance and QCD factorization

AbstractUsually, B0→π+π− decays are expressed in terms of weak amplitudes explicitly dependent on the CKM weak phase α or γ. In this Letter, we show that the weak amplitudes can be rewritten such that a manifest dependence on β emerges instead. Based on this, we constrain new-physics contributions to the CP-violating phase ϕd in B0–B¯0 mixing. Further, we apply reparametrization invariance and use QCD factorization predictions to investigate the bounds on an additional new-physics amplitude in B0→π+π−