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The polarization of Λ and Λ¯ hyperons along the beam direction has been measured relative to the second and third harmonic event planes in isobar Ru+Ru and Zr+Zr collisions at √sNN = 200 GeV. This is the first experimental evidence of the hyperon polarization by the triangular flow originating from the initial density fluctuations. The amplitudes of the sine modulation for the second and third harmonic results are comparable in magnitude, increase from central to peripheral collisions, and show a mild pT dependence. The azimuthal angle dependence of the polarization follows the vorticity pattern expected due to elliptic and triangular anisotropic flow, and qualitatively disagree with most hydrodynamic model calculations based on thermal vorticity and shear induced contributions. The model results based on one of existing implementations of the shear contribution lead to a correct azimuthal angle dependence, but predict centrality and pT dependence that still disagree with experimental measurements. Thus, our results provide stringent constraints on the thermal vorticity and shear-induced contributions to hyperon polarization. Comparison to previous measurements at RHIC and the LHC for the second-order harmonic results shows little dependence on the collision system size and collision energy.
J/ψ suppression has long been considered a sensitive signature of the formation of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. In this letter, we present the first measurement of inclusive J/ψ production at mid-rapidity through the dimuon decay channel in Au+Au collisions at √sNN = 200 GeV with the STAR experiment. These measurements became possible after the installation of the Muon Telescope Detector was completed in 2014. The J/ψ yields are measured in a wide transverse momentum (pT) range of 0.15 GeV/c to 12 GeV/c from central to peripheral collisions. They extend the kinematic reach of previous measurements at RHIC with improved precision. In the 0-10% most central collisions, the J/ψ yield is suppressed by a factor of approximately 3 for pT > 5 GeV/c relative to that in p + p collisions scaled by the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. The J/ψ nuclear modification factor displays little dependence on pT in all centrality bins. Model calculations can qualitatively describe the data, providing further evidence for the color-screening effect experienced by J/ψ mesons in the QGP.
In this meeting report, particularly addressing the topic of protection of the cardiovascular system from ischemia/reperfusion injury, highlights are presented that relate to conditioning strategies of the heart with respect to molecular mechanisms and outcome in patients’ cohorts, the influence of co-morbidities and medications, as well as the contribution of innate immune reactions in cardioprotection. Moreover, developmental or systems biology approaches bear great potential in systematically uncovering unexpected components involved in ischemia–reperfusion injury or heart regeneration. Based on the characterization of particular platelet integrins, mitochondrial redox-linked proteins, or lipid-diol compounds in cardiovascular diseases, their targeting by newly developed theranostics and technologies opens new avenues for diagnosis and therapy of myocardial infarction to improve the patients’ outcome.
Background: Predicted increases in suicide were not generally observed in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the picture may be changing and patterns might vary across demographic groups. We aimed to provide a timely, granular picture of the pandemic's impact on suicides globally.
Methods: We identified suicide data from official public-sector sources for countries/areas-within-countries, searching websites and academic literature and contacting data custodians and authors as necessary. We sent our first data request on 22nd June 2021 and stopped collecting data on 31st October 2021. We used interrupted time series (ITS) analyses to model the association between the pandemic's emergence and total suicides and suicides by sex-, age- and sex-by-age in each country/area-within-country. We compared the observed and expected numbers of suicides in the pandemic's first nine and first 10-15 months and used meta-regression to explore sources of variation.
Findings: We sourced data from 33 countries (24 high-income, six upper-middle-income, three lower-middle-income; 25 with whole-country data, 12 with data for area(s)-within-the-country, four with both). There was no evidence of greater-than-expected numbers of suicides in the majority of countries/areas-within-countries in any analysis; more commonly, there was evidence of lower-than-expected numbers. Certain sex, age and sex-by-age groups stood out as potentially concerning, but these were not consistent across countries/areas-within-countries. In the meta-regression, different patterns were not explained by countries’ COVID-19 mortality rate, stringency of public health response, economic support level, or presence of a national suicide prevention strategy. Nor were they explained by countries’ income level, although the meta-regression only included data from high-income and upper-middle-income countries, and there were suggestions from the ITS analyses that lower-middle-income countries fared less well.
Interpretation: Although there are some countries/areas-within-countries where overall suicide numbers and numbers for certain sex- and age-based groups are greater-than-expected, these countries/areas-within-countries are in the minority. Any upward movement in suicide numbers in any place or group is concerning, and we need to remain alert to and respond to changes as the pandemic and its mental health and economic consequences continue.
Challenges of FAIR phase 0
(2018)
After two-year's shutdown, the GSI accelerators plus the latest addition of storage ring CRYRING, will be back into operation in 2018 as the FAIR phase 0 with the goal to fulfill the needs of scientific community and the FAIR accelerators and detector development. Even though GSI has been well known for its operation of a variety of ion beams ranging from proton up to uranium for multi research areas such as nuclear physics, astrophysics, biophysics, material science, the upcoming beam time faces a number of challenges in re-commissioning its existing circular accelerators with brand new control system and upgrade of beam instrumentations, as well as in rising failures of dated components and systems. The cycling synchrotron SIS18 has been undergoing a set of upgrade measures for fulfilling future FAIR operation, among which many measures will also be commissioned during the upcoming beam time. This paper presents the highlights of the challenges such as re-establishing the high intensity heavy ion operation as well as parallel operation mode for serving multi users. The status of preparation including commissioning results will also be reported.
For greater preparedness, pest risk assessors are required to prioritise long lists of pest species with potential to establish and cause significant impact in an endangered area. Such prioritization is often qualitative, subjective, and sometimes biased, relying mostly on expert and stakeholder consultation. In recent years, cluster based analyses have been used to investigate regional pest species assemblages or pest profiles to indicate the risk of new organism establishment. Such an approach is based on the premise that the cooccurrence of well-known global invasive pest species in a region is not random, and that the pest species profile or assemblage integrates complex functional relationships that are difficult to tease apart. In other words, the assemblage can help identify and prioritise species that pose a threat in a target region. A computational intelligence method called a Kohonen self-organizing map (SOM), a type of artificial neural network, was the first clustering method applied to analyse assemblages of invasive pests. The SOM is a well known dimension reduction and visualization method especially useful for high dimensional data that more conventional clustering methods may not analyse suitably. Like all clustering algorithms, the SOM can give details of clusters that identify regions with similar pest assemblages, possible donor and recipient regions. More important, however SOM connection weights that result from the analysis can be used to rank the strength of association of each species within each regional assemblage. Species with high weights that are not already established in the target region are identified as high risk. However, the SOM analysis is only the first step in a process to assess risk to be used alongside or incorporated within other measures. Here we illustrate the application of SOM analyses in a range of contexts in invasive species risk assessment, and discuss other clustering methods such as k-means, hierarchical clustering and the incorporation of the SOM analysis into criteria based approaches to assess pest risk.
Lichen-forming fungi are symbiotic organisms that synthesize unique natural products with potential for new drug leads. Here, we explored the pharmacological activity of six lichen extracts (Evernia prunastri, Pseudevernia furfuracea, Umbilicaria pustulata, Umbilicaria crustulosa, Flavoparmelia caperata, Platismatia glauca) in the context of cancer and inflammation using a comprehensive set of 11 functional and biochemical in vitro screening assays. We assayed intracellular Ca2+ levels and cell migration. For cancer, we measured tumor cell proliferation, cell cycle distribution and apoptosis, as well as the angiogenesis-associated proliferation of endothelial cells (ECs). Targeting inflammation, we assayed leukocyte adhesion onto ECs, EC adhesion molecule expression, as well as nitric oxide production and prostaglandin (PG)E2 synthesis in leukocytes. Remarkably, none of the lichen extracts showed any detrimental influence on the viability of ECs. We showed for the first time that extracts of F. caperata induce Ca2+ signaling. Furthermore, extracts from E. prunastri, P. furfuracea, F. caperata, and P. glauca reduced cell migration. Interestingly, F. caperata extracts strongly decreased tumor cell survival. The proliferation of ECs was significantly reduced by E. prunastri, P. furfuracea, and F. caperata extracts. The extracts did not inhibit the activity of inflammatory processes in ECs. However, the pro-inflammatory activation of leukocytes was inhibited by extracts from E. prunastri, P. furfuracea, F. caperata, and P. glauca. After revealing the potential biological activities of lichen extracts by an array of screening tests, a correlation analysis was performed to evaluate particular roles of abundant lichen secondary metabolites, such as atranorin, physodic acid, and protocetraric acid as well as usnic acid in various combinations. Overall, some of the lichen extracts tested in this study exhibit significant pharmacological activity in the context of inflammation and/or cancer, indicating that the group lichen-forming fungi includes promising members for further testing.
Species recognition in lichen-forming fungi has been a challenge because of unsettled species concepts, few taxonomically relevant traits, and limitations of traditionally used morphological and chemical characters for identifying closely related species. Here we analyze species diversity in the cosmopolitan genus Protoparmelia s.l. The ~25 described species in this group occur across diverse habitats from the boreal -arctic/alpine to the tropics, but their relationship to each other remains unexplored. In this study, we inferred the phylogeny of 18 species currently assigned to this genus based on 160 specimens and six markers: mtSSU, nuLSU, ITS, RPB1, MCM7, and TSR1. We assessed the circumscription of species-level lineages in Protoparmelia s. str. using two coalescent-based species delimitation methods – BP&P and spedeSTEM. Our results suggest the presence of a tropical and an extra-tropical lineage, and eleven previously unrecognized distinct species-level lineages in Protoparmelia s. str. Several cryptic lineages were discovered as compared to phenotype-based species delimitation. Many of the putative species are supported by geographic evidence.
A decade since the availability of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) genome sequence, no promising drug has seen the light of the day. This not only indicates the challenges in discovering new drugs but also suggests a gap in our current understanding of Mtb biology. We attempt to bridge this gap by carrying out extensive re-annotation and constructing a systems level protein interaction map of Mtb with an objective of finding novel drug target candidates. Towards this, we synergized crowd sourcing and social networking methods through an initiative ‘Connect to Decode’ (C2D) to generate the first and largest manually curated interactome of Mtb termed ‘interactome pathway’ (IPW), encompassing a total of 1434 proteins connected through 2575 functional relationships. Interactions leading to gene regulation, signal transduction, metabolism, structural complex formation have been catalogued. In the process, we have functionally annotated 87% of the Mtb genome in context of gene products. We further combine IPW with STRING based network to report central proteins, which may be assessed as potential drug targets for development of drugs with least possible side effects. The fact that five of the 17 predicted drug targets are already experimentally validated either genetically or biochemically lends credence to our unique approach.