Search

The kaon parton distribution functions (PDFs) are poorly known due to paucity of kaon-induced Drell-Yan data. Nevertheless, these Drell-Yan data suggest a softer valence $u$ quark distribution of kaon than that of pion. We discuss the opportunity to constrain kaon PDFs utilizing existing kaon-induced $J/\psi$ production data. We compare the $K^- / \pi^-$ and $K^+ / \pi^+$ cross-section ratio data with calculations based on two global-fit parametrizations and two recent theoretical predictions for the kaon and pion PDFs, and test the results with two quarkonium production models. The $K^- / \pi^-$ cross-section ratio for $J/\psi$ production provides an independent evidence of different valence quark distributions in pion and kaon. The $K^+ / \pi^+$ $J/\psi$ data are found to be sensitive to the gluon distribution in kaon. We show that these $J/\psi$ production data provide valuable constraints for evaluating the adequacy of currently available sets of kaon PDFs., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures

QCD gives rise to a rich spectrum of excited baryon states. Understanding their internal structure is important for many areas of nuclear physics, such as nuclear forces, dense matter, and neutrino-nucleus interactions. Generalized parton distributions (GPDs) are an established tool for characterizing the QCD structure of the ground-state nucleon. They are used to create 3D tomographic images of the quark/gluon structure and quantify the mechanical properties such as the distribution of mass, angular momentum and forces in the system. Transition GPDs extend these concepts to $N \rightarrow N^\ast$ transitions and can be used to characterize the 3D structure and mechanical properties of baryon resonances. They can be probed in high-momentum-transfer exclusive electroproduction processes with resonance transitions $e + N \rightarrow e' + M + N^\ast$, such as deeply-virtual Compton scattering ($M = \gamma$) or meson production ($M = \pi, K$, $etc.$), and in related photon/hadron-induced processes. This White Paper describes a research program aiming to explore baryon resonance structure with transition GPDs. This includes the properties and interpretation of the transition GPDs, theoretical methods for structures and processes, first experimental results from JLab 12 GeV, future measurements with existing and planned facilities (JLab detector and energy upgrades, COMPASS/AMBER, EIC, EicC, J-PARC, LHC ultraperihperal collisions), and the theoretical and experimental developments needed to realize this program.

More than six million people died of the COVID-19 by April 2022. The heavy casualties have put people on great and urgent alert and people try to find all kinds of information to keep them from being inflected by the coronavirus. This research tries to find out whether the mobile health text information sent to peoples devices is correct as smartphones becoming the major information source for people. The proposed method uses various mobile information retrieval and data mining technologies including lexical analysis, stopword elimination, stemming, and decision trees to classify the mobile health text information to one of the following classes: (i) true, (ii) fake, (iii) misinformative, (iv) disinformative, and (v) neutral. Experiment results show the accuracy of the proposed method is above the threshold value 50 percentage, but is not optimal. It is because the problem, mobile text misinformation identification, is intrinsically difficult.

We present an analysis to extract kaon parton distribution functions (PDFs) for the first time using meson-induced Drell-Yan and quarkonium production data. Starting from the statistical model first developed for determining the partonic structure of spin-1/2 nucleon and later applied to the spin-0 pion, we have extended this approach to perform a global fit to existing kaon-induced Drell-Yan and $J/\psi$ production data. These data are well described by the statistical model, allowing a first extraction of the kaon PDFs. We find that both the Drell-Yan and the $J/\psi$ data favor a harder valence distribution for strange quark than for up quark in kaon. The kaon gluon distribution is further constrained by the $J/\psi$ production data. In particular, the momentum fraction carried by gluons is found to be similar for pion and kaon., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2202.12547

This dissertation presents an extensive investigation of UTe2 under various magnetic field and pressure conditions by utilizing the Tunnel Diode Oscillator (TDO) and electrical transport. The study is primarily divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the utilization of the TDO to establish a magnetic susceptibility measurement device. The TDO's frequency, highly sensitive to inductance changes due to the negative I-V curve regime of the tunnel diode, is harnessed to create a measurement circuit compatible with low-temperature refrigerators. The design and development process of these devices are thoroughly detailed. The second part unveils the comprehensive (H, T, P) phase diagram of UTe2 under magnetic fields reaching 41 T along the crystallographic b-axis, combined with applied pressures of up to 18.8 kbar. Utilizing magnetoresistance and tunnel diode oscillator measurements, we investigated the pressure-induced evolutions of multiple phases. By monitoring the field-induced transition between superconducting and magnetic field-polarized phases across various pressures (up to 18.8 kbar), we track the suppression of this transition with increasing pressure. This suppression culminates in the disappearance of superconductivity near 16 kbar, concurrently leading to a distinct, pressure-induced magnetic ordered state that is stable at zero field. The evolution of a second superconducting phase and its upper critical field under pressure are also investigated, leading to insights into the confinement of superconductivity by magnetic phases and the boundaries of triplet superconductivity.

The pion, as the Goldstone boson of the strong interaction, is the lightest QCD bound state and responsible for the long-range nucleon-nucleon interaction inside the nucleus. Our knowledge on the pion partonic structure is limited by the existing Drell-Yan data which are primarily sensitive to the pion valence-quark distributions. The recent progress of global analysis of pion's parton distribution functions (PDFs) utilizing various experimental approaches are introduced. From comparisons between the pion-induced $J/\psi$ and $\psi(2S)$ production data with theoretical calculations using the CEM and NRQCD models, we show how these charmonium production data could provide useful constraints on the pion PDFs., Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; invited review. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2006.06947, arXiv:2209.04072

Although there are some experimental hints for the higher excited $\rho$ mesons, our knowledge of their properties is much poor theoretically. Based on our recent work about excited $\rho$ mesons [Phys.Rev.D104(2021)034013], we present the mass spectra and decay properties of the higher excited $\rho$ mesons with the modified Godfrey-Isgur quark model and the $^3P_0$ strong decay model, and compare our predictions with the experimental hints, which should be helpful to search for these higher excited $\rho$ mesons., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures

We present a new analysis to extract pion parton distribution functions (PDFs) within the framework of the statistical model. Starting from the statistical model first developed for the spin-1/2 nucleon, we extend this model to describe the spin-0 pion. Based on a combined fit to both the pion-induced Drell-Yan data and the pion-induced $J/\Psi$ production data, a new set of pion PDFs has been obtained. The inclusion of the $J/\Psi$ production data in the combined fit has provided additional constraints for better determining the gluon distribution in the pion. We also compare the pion PDFs obtained in the statistical model with other existing pion PDFs., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures

Background: With elderly people comprising a growing share of the population, landscape planners need to consider their specific requirements to enhance the opportunities for them to engage in nature-based recreation (NBR). However, few studies have spatially assessed the recreation potential, demand, and opportunities for elderly people in cities. Thus, this paper aimed to spatially model and investigate the NBR opportunities for and demand of elderly people in urban areas. A spatial framework based on the ESTIMAP recreation model was developed, considering special factors to better reflect elderly people’s preferences regarding NBR at the city scale. In particular, NBR opportunities were assessed considering landscape aesthetics, various types of facilities, and proximity. The street network was used to understand elderly people’s walking behaviours regarding green spaces and related facilities. Results: A case study in Hannover, Germany, demonstrated the applicability of the proposed method. The results illustrate the spatial heterogeneity of recreation options for the elderly. Only parts of Hannover’s green spaces offer high recreation opportunities for elderly people. Many of the existing green spaces lack diverse landscape components and sufficient supply of facilities, resulting in a compromise to aesthetics and recreational opportunities. Conclusions: The proposed method contributes to research on spatial planning and environmental justice by incorporating vulnerable groups’ preferences and needs in spatially assessing NBR. The planning implications highlight pocket gardens and greenways connecting communities and parks as development opportunities in the city. © 2022, The Author(s).

We investigate how charmonium hadroproduction at fixed-target energies can be used to constrain the gluon distribution in pions. Using nonrelativistic QCD (NRQCD) formulation, the $J/\psi$ and $\psi(2S)$ cross sections as a function of longitudinal momentum fraction $x_F$ from pions and protons colliding with light targets, as well as the $\psi(2S)$ to $J/\psi$ cross section ratios, are included in the analysis. The color-octet long-distance matrix elements are found to have a pronounced dependence on the pion parton distribution functions (PDFs). This study shows that the $x_F$ differential cross sections of pion-induced charmonium production impose strong constraints on the pion's quark and gluon PDFs. In particular, the pion PDFs with larger gluon densities provide a significantly better description of the data. It is also found that the production of the $\psi(2S)$ state is associated with a larger quark-antiquark contribution, compared with $J/\psi$., Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures and 23-page supplementary materials. Published version

We present a comparison of data of lepton angular distributions of Drell-Yan/$Z$ production with the fixed-order pQCD calculations by which the baseline of pQCD effects is illustrated. As for the $Z$ production, we predict that $A_0$ and $A_2$ for $Z$ plus single gluon-jet events are very different from that of $Z$ plus single quark-jet events, allowing a new experimental tool for checking various algorithms which attempt to discriminate quark jets from gluon jets. Using an intuitive geometric approach, we show that the violation of the Lam-Tung relation, appearing at large transverse-momentum region, is attributed to the presence of a non-coplanarity effect. This interpretation is consistent with the appearance of violation beyond LO-QCD effect., Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures; contribution to the proceedings of 40th International Conference on High Energy physics (ICHEP2020), 28 July - 6 August 2020, Prague, Czech. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1907.11356

We present an analysis of hadroproduction of $J/\psi$ and $\psi(2S)$ at fixed-target energies in the framework of non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD). Using both pion- and proton-induced data, a new determination of the color-octet long-distance matrix elements (LDMEs) is obtained. Compared with previous results, the contributions from the $q \bar{q}$ and color-octet processes are significantly enhanced, especially at lower energies. A good agreement between the pion-induced $J/\psi$ production data and NRQCD calculations using the newly obtained LDMEs is achieved. We find that the pion-induced charmonium production data are sensitive to the gluon density of pions, and favor pion PDFs with relatively large gluon contents at large $x$., Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, published version

Aims: TRAPPC11, a subunit of the transport protein particle (TRAPP) complex is important for complex integrity and anterograde membrane transport from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to the ER-Golgi intermediate compartment. Several individuals with TRAPPC11 mutations have been reported with muscle weakness and other features including brain, liver, skeletal and eye involvement. A detailed analysis of brain and muscle pathology will further our understanding of the presentation and aetiology of TRAPPC11-disease. Methods: We describe five cases of early-onset TRAPPC11-related muscular dystrophy with a systematic review of muscle pathology in all five individuals, post-mortem brain pathology findings in one, and membrane trafficking assays in another. Results: All affected individuals presented in infancy with muscle weakness, motor delay and elevated serum creatine kinase (CK). Additional features included cataracts, liver disease, intellectual disability, cardiomyopathy, movement disorder, and structural brain abnormalities. Muscle pathology in all five revealed dystrophic changes, universal hypoglycosylation of alpha-dystroglycan and variably reduced dystrophin-associated complex proteins. Membrane trafficking assays showed defective Golgi trafficking in one individual. Neuropathological examination of one individual revealed cerebellar atrophy, granule cell hypoplasia, Purkinje cell (PC) loss, degeneration, and dendrite dystrophy, reduced alpha-dystroglycan (IIH6) expression in PC and dentate neurons, and absence of neuronal migration defects. Conclusions: This report suggests that recessive mutations in TRAPPC11 are linked to muscular dystrophies with hypoglycosylation of alpha-dystroglycan. The structural cerebellar involvement that we document for the first time resembles the neuropathology reported in N-linked congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDG) such as PMM2-CDG, suggesting defects in multiple glycosylation pathways in this condition.

The gluon distributions of the pion obtained from various global fits exhibit large variations among them. Within the framework of the color evaporation model, we show that the existing pion-induced $J/\psi$ production data, usually not included in the global fits, can impose useful additional constraints on the pion parton distribution functions (PDFs). In particular, these data can probe the pion's gluon densities at large $x$. Existing pion-induced $J/\psi$ data covering a broad range of beam momenta are compared with next-to-leading-order QCD calculations using various sets of pion PDFs. It is found that $J/\psi$ data measured at forward rapidity and at sufficiently high beam momentum are sensitive to the large-$x$ gluon distribution of pions. The current $J/\psi$ data favor the Sutton-Martin-Roberts-Stirling and Gluck-Reya-Vogt pion PDFs, containing significant gluon content at large $x$., Comment: 33 pages, 12 figures and 4 tables. Published version

The lepton angular distribution coefficients $A_i$ for $Z$ boson production in $pp$ and $\bar p p$ collisions have been measured at the LHC and the Tevatron. A recent study showed that many features of the measured angular distribution coefficients, including the transverse momentum ($q_T$) and rapidity dependencies and the violation of the Lam-Tung relation, can be well described using an intuitive geometric approach. In this paper, we extend this geometric approach to describe the angular distribution coefficients for $W$ boson produced in $\bar{p} p$ collisions at the Tevatron. We first compare the data with a perturbative QCD calculation at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^2)$. We then show that the data and QCD calculations can be well described with the geometric approach. Implications for future studies at the LHC energy are also discussed., Comment: 8 pages and 6 figures. Published version

Background: Treatment for stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) of unresectable disease mainly involves concurrent chemoradiation (CRT). Post-CRT consolidation treatment with durvalumab is a major therapeutic advance that provides survival benefit in this group of patients. However, the performance of this treatment strategy remains to be studied in a real-world setting. Methods: A total of 31 patients who had disease control post-CRT were included in the durvalumab early access program (EAP) as an intent-to-treat cohort and retrospectively reviewed for post-CRT progression-free survival (PFS) and time to metastatic disease or death (TMDD). The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) at the initiation of durvalumab was analyzed in 29 patients. Results: The median time from the completion of concurrent CRT to the initiation of durvalumb was 2.8 months. The objective response was 25.8% and the 12 month PFS and TMDD-free rate were 56.4% and 66.9%, respectively. The low NLR patients showed a significantly longer post-CRT PFS (not reach vs. 12.0 months [95% CI: 5.5–not estimable]; P = 0.040; the hazard ratio for disease progression or death, 0.23 [95% CI: 0.05–1.00]; P = 0.048) and the 12 month post-CRT PFS rate (82.5 vs. 42.6%). The post-CRT TMDD (not reach vs. 12.6 months, [95% CI: 10.8–not estimable]; P = 0.010; the hazard ratio for distant metastasis or death, 0.11 [95% CI: 0.01–0.88]; P = 0.037) and 12 month post-CRT TMDD-free rate (90.9 vs. 57.1%) were also significantly higher in the low NLR patients. Conclusions: Durvalumab consolidation treatment in real-world patients showed substantial efficacy and the correlation with the NLR level warrants further investigation. © 2020 The Authors. Thoracic Cancer published by China Lung Oncology Group and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

Introduction: Internet technologies could strengthen data collection and integration and have been used extensively in public health research. It is necessary to apply this technology to further investigate the behaviour and health of biomedical researchers. A browser-based extension was developed by researchers and clinicians to promote the collection and analysis of researchers' behavioural and psychological data. This protocol illustrates an observational study aimed at (1) characterising the health status of biomedical researchers in China and assessing work stress, job satisfaction, role conflict, role ambiguity, and family support; (2) identifying the association between work, behaviour, and health; and (3) investigating the association between behaviour and mental status. Our findings will contribute to the understanding of the influences of job, work environment, and family support on the mental and physical health of biomedical researchers. Methods and analysis: This is a prospective observational study; all candidates will be recruited from China. Participants will install an extension on their Internet browsers, which will collect data when they are accessing PubMed. A web-based survey will be sent to the user interfaces every 6 months that will involve sociodemographic variables, perceived stress scale, job satisfaction scale, role conflict and ambiguity scale, and family support scale. Machine-learning algorithms will analyse the data generated during daily access. Ethics and dissemination: This study received ethical approval from the ethics committee of the Shanghai Children's Medical Centre (reference number SCMCIRB-K2018082). Study results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations.

There is an apparent discrepancy between the results of the charged kaon multiplicities off the deuteron target from HERMES and COMPASS experiments. In this article we point out that this discrepancy cannot be explained by different $Q^2$ values. Furthermore we examine the empirical parametrization of the fragmentation functions, DSS2017 carefully and find that the agreement between the theoretical estimate and the HERMES data is less satisfactory as claimed., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures,will appear in the proceeding of the 8th International conference on Quark and Nuclear physics, Tsukuba, Japan from November 13 to November 17, 2018. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1807.06524

Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors are a major development in the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and is one of the most significant discoveries since the development of statin therapy. Administration of two human monoclonal antibodies to PCSK9 (alirocumab and evolocumab) can significantly reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c) concentrations, thus improving lipid management. Accordingly, guidelines on the specific indications for alirocumab and evolocumab usage have been released. This multicentre study aimed to estimate the proportion of patients treated for an acute myocardial infarction (MI) who could be considered for PCSK9 inhibitors under the current National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) lipid targets criteria. The records of 596 patients in two large hospitals in Liverpool, UK were analysed. Information was collected on lipid profiles during and after admission, lipid-lowering therapy and previous CVD. At least 2.2% of patients were eligible for PCSK9 inhibitors post-MI under the current NICE guidance. Additionally, 29% of patients failed to achieve LDL-c concentrations <2.0 mmol/L despite maximum statin therapy and failed to meet eligibility for PCSK9 inhibitors as per the NICE criteria. This cohort represents a group of patients 'in limbo', in which statin therapy alone is not sufficient to reduce LDL-c. PCSK9 inhibitors are expensive and so their use must be highly selective. At present, in a real-world setting with ezetimibe underprescribing, ~2% of patients are eligible and a further 30% are deprived of benefit and improved outcomes by lack of optimisation and/or potential use of PCSK9 inhibitors. [Abstract copyright: © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.]

With an appropriate hard scale, exclusive hadronic processes could provide novel information of the internal quark-gluon configurations of hadrons. The availability of 10-20 GeV secondary meson beam in the coming high-momentum beam line of Hadron Hall at J-PARC offers an unique opportunity to carry out the measurements of the exclusive hard processes. We address this interesting approach by two possibilities: (a) $\pi^- p \to K^0 \Lambda(1405)$ for the constituent quark structure of $\Lambda(1405)$, and (b) exclusive pion-induced Drell-Yan process $\pi^- p \to \gamma^* n \to l^+ l^- n$ for the generalized parton distributions (GPDs) of nucleons. Realization of such measurements at J-PARC will open up a new way of accessing the internal quark structure of exotic hadrons and also the nucleon GPDs based on a solid theoretical foundation of perturbative QCD., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures; contribution to the proceedings of the 3rd J-PARC Symposium (J-PARC 2019), September 23-26, 2019, Tsukuba, Japan

The lepton angular distributions of the Drell-Yan process in the fixed-target experiments are investigated by NLO and NNLO perturbative QCD. We present the calculated angular parameters $\lambda$, $\mu$, $\nu$ and the degree of violation of the Lam-Tung relation, $1-\lambda-2\nu$, for the E615 experiment as well as predictions for the COMPASS experiment. Many salient features of transverse momentum and rapidity dependence could be qualitatively understood by a geometric approach., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; contribution to the proceedings of the XXVII. International Workshop on Deep-Inelastic Scattering and Related Subjects (DIS2019), April 8-12, 2019,Torino, Italy

High precision data of lepton angular distributions in inclusive $Z$ boson production, reported by the CMS and ATLAS Collaborations, showed pronounced transverse momentum ($q_T$) dependencies of the $A_0$ and $A_2$ coefficients. Violation of the Lam-Tung relation, $A_0 = A_2$, was also found. An intuitive understanding of these results can be obtained from a geometric approach. We predict that $A_0$ and $A_2$ for $Z$ plus single gluon-jet events are very different from that of $Z$ plus single quark-jet events, allowing a new experimental tool for checking various algorithms which attempt to discriminate quark jets from gluon jets. We also predict that the Lam-Tung relation would be more severely violated for the $Z$ plus multiple-jet data than what has been observed so far for inclusive $Z$ production data. These predictions can be readily tested using existing LHC data., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1708.05807

This dissertation explored the daily experiences of first-generation Chinese migrant women who study and/or work in universities and colleges in the United States of America. Drawing on previous scholarship on whiteness studies and Asian American gender and sexuality studies with femiqueer perspectives, the primary goal of this study was to gain a better understanding of these Chinese migrant women’s daily experiences and negotiations with power relations concerning race, gender, and sexuality, and to challenge the dominant perceptions and constructions of Chinese/Asian women. By analyzing their narratives of everyday experiences, I found that white heteronormative patriarchal ideologies have been globally promoted, normalized, and disseminated along with the internationalization of U.S. nationalism and imperialism. These ideologies instructed and influenced these Chinese women’s notions of race, gender, sexuality, and their transnational relations. These ideologies also otherized these women through their relational experiences with family, academia, and social life because of their race, gender, and sexuality. However, simultaneously, these women’s daily negotiations and engagement with power hierarchy and their survival in U.S. academia and the society reinforced, shaped, interrupted, and challenged the existing power hierarchy and the racial formation of Asian America.

The demographic structure of many cities in Europe and around the world is characterized by an increasing proportion of elderly people. This poses challenges for landscape planning: it must play greater attention to elderly people and provide opportunities to improve their quality of life through green spaces. Nature-based recreation (NBR) plays an essential role in elderly people’s quality of life. It can improve their physical fitness, mental health, and social contact. Therefore, landscape planning should be expected to respond to population aging by developing urban green spaces so that they can provide these multiple benefits to the elderly. However, elderly people’s needs and preferences have attracted little attention in the planning of urban green spaces. First, with regard to elderly people’s specific preferences for green spaces, existing knowledge is scattered and lacks an interpretation for planning purposes. Few studies have sought to achieve a systematic understanding either of elderly people’s NBR preferences in different types of green spaces, or of the differences between the preferences of elderly groups and young groups. Secondly, it was unclear whether and how NBR opportunities of a city could be spatially assessed in order to create a basis for planning that better takes into account elderly people. Third, despite growing academic attention being paid to issues of environmental justice, the age perspective has not been closely examined, especially in terms of accessibility to urban green spaces. To fill the identified knowledge gaps, this thesis aims to provide a systematic understanding of elderly people’s preferences for NBR, to spatially assess NBR opportunities and demands, and to investigate the equality in access to NBR for elderly people. The thesis is organized by the following research questions. The first question concerns the state of scientific knowledge and asks: (1) What landscape characteristics and green space features are prefer

Background: Approximately 3%–5% of lung adenocarcinoma is driven by anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) fusion oncogene, whose activity can be suppressed by multiple ALK inhibitors. Crizotinib and ceritinib have demonstrated superior efficacy to platinum-based chemotherapy as front-line treatment for patients with ALK-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the direct comparison between them in the front-line setting remains lacking. Methods: A total of 48 patients with ALK-positive, previously untreated advanced NSCLC, who received crizotinib and ceritinib as front-line treatment were retrospectively investigated. The efficacy and pattern of disease progression were analyzed. Results: Patients receiving ceritinib treatment were significantly younger than those receiving crizotinib treatment (52.0 vs. 63.0, P = 0.016). The median progression-free survival (PFS) was significantly longer with ceritinib than with crizotinib treatment (32.3 vs. 12.9 months; log-rank P = 0.020); the hazard ratio for disease progression or death, 0.27 (95% CI, 0.08–0.90; P = 0.033). An objective response was noted in all patients in the ceritinib group and in 23 patients in the crizotinib group (74.2%; 95% CI, 59.0 to 88.5). The rate of systemic progression was significantly lower over time with ceritinib treatment compared to crizotinib treatment (cause-specific hazard ratio, 0.21; 95% CI 0.06–0.73; P = 0.014). Serious adverse events were noted in one (2.9%) patient showing elevated liver function in the crizotinib group and three (23.1%) patients showing diarrhea in the ceritinib group. Dose reduction was needed in five out of 13 (38.5%) patients receiving ceritinib treatment. Conclusion: Ceritinib showed higher efficacy associated with a better control of systemic progression compared to crizotinib for the front-line treatment of ALK-positive advanced NSCLCs. © 2019 The Authors. Thoracic Cancer published by China Lung Oncology Group and John Wiley & Sons Australia

The lepton angular distributions of the Drell-Yan process in fixed-target experiments are investigated by NLO and NNLO perturbative QCD. We present the calculated angular parameters $\lambda$, $\mu$, $\nu$ and the degree of violation of the Lam-Tung relation, $1-\lambda-2\nu$, for the NA10, E615 and E866 experiments. Predictions for the ongoing COMPASS and SeaQuest experiments are also presented. The transverse momentum ($q_T$) distributions of $\lambda$ and $\nu$ show a clear dependence on the dimuon mass ($Q$) while those of $\mu$ have a strong rapidity ($x_F$) dependence. Furthermore, $\lambda$ and $\nu$ are found to scale with $q_T/Q$. These salient features could be qualitatively understood by a geometric approach where the lepton angular distribution parameters are expressed in terms of the polar and azimuthal angles of the "natural axis" in the dilepton rest frame., Comment: published version, two-column format, 10 pages, 14 figures

Several rotational invariant quantities for the lepton angular distributions in Drell-Yan and quarkonium production were derived several years ago, allowing the comparison between different experiments adopting different reference frames. Using an intuitive picture for describing the lepton angular distribution in these processes, we show how the rotational invariance of these quantities can be readily obtained. This approach can also be used to determine the rotational invariance or non-invariance of various quantities specifying the amount of violation for the Lam-Tung relation. While the violation of the Lam-Tung relation is often expressed by frame-dependent quantities, we note that alternative frame-independent quantities are preferred., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, revised version, to appear in Phys. Letts

We investigate the results of the charged kaon multiplicities off the deuteron target from HERMES and COMPASS experiments. The discrepancy of the two data sets cannot be explained by different $Q^2$ values. Furthermore we examine the empirical parametrization of the fragmentation functions, DSS2017, and find that the agreement between the theoretical predictions and the HERMES data is less satisfactory as claimed., Comment: Contributed talk at the XXVI International Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering and Related Subjects at Kobe university, Kobe, Japan from April 16 to April 20, 2018

Experiments were conducted in a ventilated greenhouse located in a commercial farm (2°56′N, 101°54′E) at Broga, Malaysia from 2014 to 2015. The objective of this study was to evaluate the interaction between within-row plant spacing and fruit-set position on the yield and quality of 'Glamour' rockmelon fruit. Rockmelon was grown at 1.57 m between rows with 0.15 m, 0.30 m, and 0.60 m of within-row plant spacing. The plants were fixed to set fruit at T1 (one fruit, 1-7 lateral branches), T2 (one fruit, 8-14 lateral branches), T3 (two fruits, 1-7 lateral branches), and T4 (two fruits, 8-14 lateral branches). As within-row plant spacing decreased from 0.30 m to 0.15 m, yield per ha was increased by 58.1%, and a 3.7-fold increase in yield was seen from 0.60-m to 0.15-m spacing. Total soluble solids (11.96°Brix) and total carbohydrate content (86.60 g GE 100 g DW) were highest at a plant spacing of 0.60 m. Our results demonstrated that the interaction between 0.30-m within-row plant spacing with two fruits set at 8-14 lateral branches showed the most commercially viable outcome in fresh fruit weight as these conditions produced two fruits with an average fruit weight of 2.20 kg per fruit.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary probiotic quorum sensing degrader Bacillus cereus on the growth performance, intestinal short‐chain fatty acid levels, antioxidant status and histopathological response of Macrobrachium rosenbergii against Aeromonas hydrophila. M. rosenbergii juveniles were fed with 104 cfu/g probiotic B. cereus, while the control group was fed without B. cereus. After 28 days of feeding, growth performance was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in prawns fed with B. cereus compared to the control group. Probiotic‐fed prawns showed the highest propionic acid level, while no significant differences (p > 0.05) were observed for acetic acid or butyric acid levels. Dietary B. cereus supplementation significantly (p < 0.05) improved the superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity in the prawns. In the challenge study, no significant differences were observed between the treatments in survival and haemolymph SOD activity. However, histopathological observations of the hepatopancreas after A. hydrophila challenge showed hemocyte infiltrations and necrosis in the control prawns, while the probiotic‐fed prawns showed an overall better hepatopancreatic condition. These findings indicate that dietary B. cereus can be an effective growth promoter in M. rosenbergii and mitigates a compromise to the hepatopancreatic integrity during pathogenic challenge.

African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) and lemon fin barb hybrid (LFBH) (Hypsibarbus wetmorei ♂ × Barbodes gonionotus ♀) were cultured in either a biofloc technology (BFT) system or an individual recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) and their survival, growth, feeding efficiencies and biochemical composition were then compared after 8 weeks. LFBH and African catfish were chosen based on their different feeding habits. In the BFT treatments, glycerol was added to create a carbon to nitrogen ratio of 15, while the RAS system consisted of a fine mesh mechanical and biological filter. Each of the four treatments was triplicated, with each replicate consisting of 20 African catfish (0.98 ± 0.05 g) or LFBH (1.77 ± 0.02 g). Water quality and biofloc formation were examined weekly while the biofloc proximate composition was measured in weeks 5 and 8. During weeks 6, 7 and 8 the total viable bacterial colony forming units (CFU) were quantified. Regardless of species, biofloc formation was similar but the crude protein, lipid and ash significantly decreased from week 5 to week 8. However, biofloc crude protein and ash were significantly higher in the LFBH treatment. Total viable CFU were significantly higher (P < 0.05) in BFT compared to RAS, with LFBH having significantly more (P < 0.05) than African catfish. The proximate composition of the fish were unaffected by either system. Implementing BFT significantly (P < 0.05) improved both African catfish and LFBH growth, but this improvement was substantially higher for LFBH (41.6%) than for African catfish (7.6%). This may be due to a better ability of LFBH to consume smaller particles. Preliminary results also indicate that the nutritional composition of bioflocs could be influenced by biofloc age, which could have implications to solids management.

The development of indoor positioning solutions using smartphones is a growing activity with an enormous potential for everyday life and professional applications. The research activities on this topic concentrate on the development of new positioning solutions that are tested in specific environments under their own evaluation metrics. To explore the real positioning quality of smartphone-based solutions and their capabilities for seamlessly adapting to different scenarios, it is needed to find fair evaluation frameworks. The design of competitions using extensive pre-recorded datasets is a valid way to generate open data for comparing the different solutions created by research teams. In this paper, we discuss the details of the 2017 IPIN indoor localization competition, the different datasets created, the teams participating in the event, and the results they obtained. We compare these results with other competition-based approaches (Microsoft and Perf-loc) and on-line evaluation web sites. The lessons learned by organising these competitions and the benefits for the community are addressed along the paper. Our analysis paves the way for future developments on the standardization of evaluations and for creating a widely-adopted benchmark strategy for researchers and companies in the field.

Metamaterials are subwavelength man-made plasmonic or dielectric structures designed to realize specific effects on the electromagnetic radiation interacting with the material. Here we aim to rotate the polarization of an incident terahertz beam using chiral metamaterials, while suppressing the circular dichroism which induces ellipticity of the output beam. An incident linearly polarized wave can be decomposed into left-circularly and right-circularly polarized waves, and the difference in propagation phase will result in rotation of the plane of polarization. Since chiral structures couple electric and magnetic fields, they are often implemented in complex geometries such as spirals or bi-layered plasmonic structures, which can achieve carefully balanced responses to the two fields. The important feature of the bi-layered plasmonic structure is the cross-coupling between the resonances of the two layers. It is precisely this coupling between the layers that induces currents in the structures that are mutually dependent producing chirality within the structure. By coupling a metallic structure to its complement, we are able to achieve strong transmission in the region of maximum polarization rotation, and relatively low ellipticity of the output state. Three different structures were fabricated for this work that will be referred to as: the plain crosses, crossed arrowheads, and crossed arcs, pictured in the figure below. The terahertz responses of the structures were compared using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and numerical simulations using CST Microwave Studio software.

The only experimental information on the parton distribution of kaons was obtained from the scarce kaon-induced Drell-Yan cross section data. From these data, evidence for a valence $u$ quark distribution of kaon softer than that of pion was found. We study the feasibility to extract kaon's valence quark distribution via the existing kaon-induced J/psi production data. We compare the NA3 data on the K- / pi- and K+ / pi+ ratios for J/psi production on a platinum target with theoretical calculations based on the color-evaporation model. We show that the NA3 data on J/psi production provide an independent evidence for a valence $u$ quark distribution softer in kaon than in pion. The data also suggest different gluon distributions for kaon and pion., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

High precision data of lepton angular distributions for $\gamma^*/Z$ production in $pp$ collisions at the LHC, covering broad ranges of dilepton transverse momenta ($q_T$) and rapidity ($y$), were recently reported. Strong $q_T$ dependencies were observed for several angular distribution coefficients, $A_i$, including $A_0 - A_4$. Significant $y$ dependencies were also found for the coefficients $A_1$, $A_3$ and $A_4$, while $A_0$ and $A_2$ exhibit very weak rapidity dependence. Using an intuitive geometric picture we show that the $q_T$ and $y$ dependencies of the angular distributions coefficients can be well described., Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, some typos corrected

Prebiotics are one of the feed additives being studied to potentially enhance the growth of aquatic animals. The effects of dietary fructooligosaccharide (FOS) additives at 0.1%, 0.4%, 1% and 2% on the growth performance, superoxide dismutase (SOD), lipid peroxidation, intestinal short chain fatty acids (SCFA) and hepatopancreatic histopathology of the freshwater prawn Macrobrachium rosenbergii post-larvae (initial weight ± SE of 22.8 ± 0.2 mg) were evaluated after 56 days of feeding. Each aquarium contained 80 post-larvae and each treatment was quadruplicated which yielded 320 prawns/treatment. The results showed that the specific growth rate for length and weight of the prawns was highest in the 0.4% dietary FOS treatment compared to all others. Prawns fed the 0.4% FOS diet had significantly higher (P < 0.05) intestinal acetic acid than the control or 0.1% FOS treatments as well as significantly higher propionic acid than all other treatments. The amount of butyric acid was similar among all the dietary FOS treatments (P > 0.05). Increasing dietary FOS significantly increased lipid peroxidation and decreased SOD inhibition rate (%), indicating oxidative stress to the prawns. On day 28, prawns fed 0.1 or 0.4% FOS had significantly more E-cells within their hepatopancreatic tubules compared to other treatments while after 56 days, the hepatopancreatic tubules of prawns in the 0.4% FOS treatment were more closely arranged with significantly more R- and E-cells. In some instances, prawns fed the 1 or 2% FOS diets had hypertrophied B-cells. The results demonstrate that the optimal tested FOS level to M. rosenbergii post-larvae was 0.4%, and higher levels of 1 or 2% dietary FOS induced oxidative stress and reduced their hepatopancreatic condition.

In this communication, we observe the interaction of fundamental parametric resonances with subharmonic resonances of order one-half of a geometrically nonlinear nonlocal nanobeam model resting on a fractional Pasternak-type viscoelastic foundation. Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and nonlinear von Karman strain-displacement relation are employed to obtained fractional order governing equation for the transverse vibration of a system. Under the assumption of small fractional damping, we used the perturbation multiple-scales method to obtain an approximated analytical solution for the frequency-amplitude response. Combined parametric resonance from axial load and subharmonic resonance under external excitation are examined for different parameters of the model. Validation of the multiple scales solution against numerical solution in the phase plane and Poincare map will be provided

Worldwide, the number of individuals with dementia is growing in an epidemic manner, with an estimated 35.6 million people affected in 2010 (Prince et al., 2013). With the population aging in Asia, dementia care will become a major public health challenge in this region in the coming decades. Over half of the patients with dementia in the world will live in Asia by 2030. In China alone, a recent review of dementia studies showed that there were 9.2 million dementia patients in 2010 (Chan et al., 2013). These figures are staggering. In many Asian countries, dementia is regarded as a shameful illness, and the local terms for dementia are derogatory. Dementia carries a stigma that may lead to patients' reluctance in seeking treatment and delay in diagnosis. In addition, local names for dementia frequently conjure up pictures of severe stage of dementia, and may lead to therapeutic nihilism, discouraging mental health professionals from working with elderly patients with dementia. As Asia faces the challenges of a rapidly aging population and provisions of care for growing number of dementia patients, change in local names for dementia has become an issue of attention

We explain a method to find internal quark configurations of exotic hadron candidates by using the constituent counting rule. The counting rule was theoretically predicted in perturbative QCD for hard exclusive hadron reactions, and it has been tested in experiments for stable hadrons including compound systems of hadrons such as the deuteron, $^3$H, and $^3$He. It indicates that the cross section scales as $d\sigma /dt \sim 1/s^{n-2}$, where $s$ is the center-of-mass energy squared and $n$ is the total number of constituents. We apply this method for finding internal configurations of exotic hadron candidates, especially $\Lambda (1405)$. There is a possibility that $\Lambda (1405)$ could be five-quark state or a $\bar K N$ molecule, and scaling properties should be different between the ordinary three-quark state or five-quark one. We predict such a difference in $\pi^- + p \to K^0 + \Lambda (1405)$, and it could be experimentally tested, for example, at J-PARC. On the other hand, there are already measurements for $\gamma + p \to K^+ + \Lambda (1405)$ as well as the ground $\Lambda$ in photoproduction reactions. Analyzing such data, we found an interesting indication that $\Lambda (1405)$ looks like a five-quark state at medium energies and a three-quark one at high energies. However, accurate higher-energy measurements are necessary for drawing a solid conclusion, and it should be done at JLab by using the updated 12 GeV electron beam. Furthermore, we discuss studies of exotic hadron candidates, such as $f_0 (980)$ and $a_0 (980)$, in electron-positron annihilation by using generalized distribution amplitudes and the counting rule. These studies should be possible as a KEKB experiment., Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX, 10 eps files, to be published in JPS Conf. Proc., Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Meson-Nucleon Physics and the Structure of the Nucleon (MENU2016), July 25-30, 2016, Kyoto, Japan

We consider the $HZ$ associated production at the $14~{\rm TeV}$ LHC in the littlest Higgs model (LHM) and study the corrections of the transverse momentum resummation and threshold resummation at the next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy and the fixed-order prediction at the QCD next-to-leading order (NLO) including the contribution from the one-loop-induced $gg$-fusion channel. The QCD NLO+NLL effects on the integrated cross section and the distributions of transverse momentum and invariant mass of the $HZ$ system for the $HZ$ production in the LHM are discussed. The distributions of transverse momentum and invariant mass of the $HZ$ system are evaluated by means of the transverse momentum resummation and threshold resummation, respectively. We estimate their scale uncertainties and find that the predictions obtained at the QCD NLO+NLL accuracy are much more reliable than those using the pure NLO approach. We see also that the relative deviation between the results in the LHM and the standard model is considerably reduced by the resummation effects, but still observable., Comment: 36 pages, 8 figures

Generalized parton distributions (GPDs) encoding multidimensional information of hadron partonic structure appear as the building blocks in a factorized description of hard exclusive reactions. The nucleon GPDs have been accessed by deeply virtual Compton scattering and deeply virtual meson production with lepton beam. A complementary probe with hadron beam is the exclusive pion-induced Drell-Yan process. In this paper, we discuss recent theoretical advances on describing this process in terms of nucleon GPDs and pion distribution amplitudes. Furthermore, we address the feasibility of measuring the exclusive pion-induced Drell-Yan process $\pi^- p \to \mu^+\mu^- n$ via a spectrometer at the High Momentum Beamline being constructed at J-PARC in Japan. Realization of such measurement at J-PARC will provide a new test of perturbative QCD descriptions of a novel class of hard exclusive reactions. It will also offer the possibility of experimentally accessing nucleon GPDs at large timelike virtuality., Comment: 35 pages and 16 figures. Replaced with published version. Added the journal reference and DOI

Dietary supplementation of functional feed additives such as probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotic are widely studied in aquaculture to potentially enhance the growth of aquatic animals. Many pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria in fish and shrimp have been reported to use quorum sensing (QS) signal molecules to induce the production of virulence factors. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of probiotic, prebiotic and synbiotic on the growth and health performance in Macrobrachium rosenbergii. The first study was to isolate QS degrader from the prawn with prebiotic utilization activity. Two QS degrader strains, BP-MBRG/1b and BP-MBRH/1b were isolated from the gut and hepatopancreas of adult Macrobrachium rosenbergii. Isolation of QS degraders was based on the ability of microbial community to grow in a minimal medium which contains only the mixture of N-Acyl homoserine lactones (AHL). The QS degrader strain isolated from the gut showed strong inhibition of AHL and was identified as Bacillus cereus (BP-MBRG/1b). The results also showed that the degrader strain BP-MBRG/1b grew well in fructooligosaccharide (FOS) agar medium. Later, the second study was designed to investigate the effects of dietary prebiotic FOS at 0.1%, 0.4%, 1% and 2% to determine the optimum inclusion level of FOS required by M. rosenbergii post-larvae (PL) after 56 days of feeding. The specific growth rate (SGR) was significant (p < 0.05) highest in the 0.4% FOS fed PL. Furthermore, 0.4% FOS also significantly (p < 0.05) stimulated the highest intestinal short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) production compared to the control treatment. After 56 days, the hepatopancreatic tubules of prawns in the 0.4% FOS treatment were more closely arranged with significantly (p < 0.05) more R- and E-cells. However, oxidative stress in prawns was increased with the increased of FOS concentration. Lastly, the third experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of the probiotic and FOS in single or combined d

Asymmetry analysis based on the overlapping of thermal images proved able to detect inflammation and, predict foot ulceration. This technique involves three main steps: segmentation, geometric transformation, and overlapping. However, the overlapping technique, which consists of subtracting the intensity levels of the right foot from those of the left foot, can also detect false abnormal areas if the projections of the left and right feet are not the same. In this paper, we present an alternative technique to asymmetry analysis-based overlapping. The proposed technique, scalable scanning, allows for an effective comparison even if the shapes and sizes of the feet projections appear differently in the image. The tested results show that asymmetry analysis- based scalable scanning provides fewer false abnormal areas than does asymmetry analysis -based overlapping., Comment: Journal of Diabetes & Metabolism, 2012

Due to the increasing popularity of personal digital devices, many students listen to music while they study. It is however a controversial issue whether music listening is helpful to study performance. This study investigates the effects of different types of background music on study performance among college students through lab experiments. Two major categories of study activities - reading comprehension and mathematical computation - were examined for four different treatments of background music style (i.e., soft music, rock music, heavy metal music, and no music). For each student subject, objective measures, such as test scores and heart rates, were recorded for all conditions of the experiment design. Subjective measures concerning treatment evaluations along with personal preference and behaviours on music listening were instrumented in the individual interviews after the experiments. Data analysis on the objective measures indicates that neither test scores nor heart rates of reading comprehension and mathematic computation for different styles of background music are with statistical significance. However, significant gender differences were found and the influences were distinct for the two study activities tested. By further cross-referencing with the subjective measures, our results suggest that, for a better studying performance, college students may choose to listen to background music with preferred music for reading activities but non-preferred music for mathematic computation.

The observation of the violation of Lam-Tung relation in the $\pi N$ Drell-Yan process triggered many theoretical speculations. The TMD Boer-Mulders functions characterizing the correlation of transverse momentum and transverse spin for partons in unpolarized hadrons could nicely account for the violation. The COMPASS experiment at CERN will measure the angular distributions of dimuons from the unpolarized Drell-Yan process over a wide kinematic region and study the beam particle dependence. Significant statistics is expected from a successful run in 2015 which will bring further understanding of the origin of the violation of Lam-Tung relation and of the partonic transverse spin structure of the nucleon., Comment: Proceedings of the 21st International Symposium on Spin Physics - October 20-24, 2014, Beijing, China; 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table

We propose a post-processing approach for tuning terahertz metamaterials by modifying the coupling between two metamaterial layers. We demonstrate that this method allows the metamaterial resonance to be shifted by 31% of the central frequency.

High precision data of dilepton angular distributions in $\gamma^*/Z$ production were reported recently by the CMS Collaboration covering a broad range of the dilepton transverse momentum, $q_T$, up to $\sim 300$ GeV. Pronounced $q_T$ dependencies of the $\lambda$ and $\nu$ parameters, characterizing the $\cos^2\theta$ and $\cos 2\phi$ angular distributions, were found. Violation of the Lam-Tung relation was also clearly observed. We show that the $q_T$ dependence of $\lambda$ allows a determination of the relative contributions of the $q \bar q$ annihilation versus the $qG$ Compton process. The violation of the Lam-Tung relation is attributed to the presence of a non-zero component of the $q - \bar q$ axis in the direction normal to the "hadron plane" formed by the colliding hadrons. The magnitude of the violation of the Lam-Tung relation is shown to reflect the amount of this `non-coplanarity". The observed $q_T$ dependencies of $\lambda$ and $\nu$ from the CMS and the earlier CDF data can be well described using this approach., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures