Search for weakly interacting massive particles with the first five-tower data from the cryogenic dark matter search at the soudan underground laboratory.

We report results from the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search at the Soudan Underground Laboratory (CDMS II) featuring the full complement of 30 detectors. A blind analysis of data taken between October 2006 and July 2007 sets an upper limit on the weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) nucleon spin-independent cross section of 6.6x10;{-44} cm;{2} (4.6x10;{-44} cm;{2} when combined with previous CDMS II data) at the 90% confidence level for a WIMP mass of 60 GeV/c;{2}. This achieves the best sensitivity for dark matter WIMPs with masses above 44 GeV/c;{2}, and significantly restricts the parameter space for some favored supersymmetric models.

First results from the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search in the Soudan Underground Laboratory.

We report the first results from a search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment at the Soudan Underground Laboratory. Four Ge and two Si detectors were operated for 52.6 live days, providing 19.4 kg d of Ge net exposure after cuts for recoil energies between 10 and 100 keV. A blind analysis was performed using only calibration data to define the energy threshold and selection criteria for nuclear-recoil candidates. Using the standard dark-matter halo and nuclear-physics WIMP model, these data set the world's lowest exclusion limits on the coherent WIMP-nucleon scalar cross section for all WIMP masses above 15 GeV/c2, ruling out a significant range of neutralino supersymmetric models. The minimum of this limit curve at the 90% C.L. is 4 x 10(-43) cm2 at a WIMP mass of 60 GeV/c2.

Exclusion limits on the WIMP-nucleon cross section from the cryogenic dark matter search.

The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) employs Ge and Si detectors to search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) via their elastic-scattering interactions with nuclei while discriminating against interactions of background particles. CDMS data, accounting for the neutron background, give limits on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon elastic-scattering cross section that exclude unexplored parameter space above 10 GeV/c2 WIMP mass and, at >75% C.L., the entire 3sigma allowed region for the WIMP signal reported by the DAMA experiment.

Interpretive description: a noncategorical qualitative alternative for developing nursing knowledge.

Despite nursing's enthusiastic endorsement of the applicability of qualitative research approaches to answering relevant clinical questions, many nurse researchers have been hesitant to depart from traditional qualitative research methods. While various derivations of phenomenology, grounded theory, and ethnography have been popularized within qualitative nursing research, the methodological principles upon which these approaches are based reflect the foundations and objectives of disciplines whose aims are sometimes quite distinct from nursing's domain of inquiry. Thus, as many nurse researchers have discovered, nursing's unique knowledge mandate may not always be well served by strict adherence to traditional methods as the "gold standard" for qualitative nursing research. The authors present the point of view that a non-categorical description, drawing on principles grounded in nursing's epistemological mandate, may be an appropriate methodological alternative for credible research toward the development of nursing science. They propose a coherent set of strategies for conceptual orientation, sampling, data construction, analysis, and reporting by which nurses can use an interpretive descriptive approach to develop knowledge about human health and illness experience phenomena without sacrificing the theoretical or methodological integrity that the traditional qualitative approaches provide.

Mortality of steelworkers employed in hot jobs.

This paper investigates possible relationships between heat stress of steelworkers and cause-specific mortality patterns. Prior to field investigation, jobs were identified which appeared to involve heat stress exposure. A selected sample of these jobs was surveyed for assessing the workers' environmental and metabolic heat load. These data were utilized to form different categories of heat stress. Mortality patterns of workers in jobs falling in each of the heat stress categories were analyzed by length of exposure for those workers from a cohort of 59,000 steelworkers who held one of the surveyed jobs. The comparison group consisted of workers who never worked in any of the work areas in which job were surveyed but were members of the same cohort. Findings of interest are: a deficit in mortality from cardiovascular disease for workers in jobs involving higher levels of environmental heat exposure; a high risk of death from cardiovascular disease for workers with less than 6 months of exposure and a downward trend in mortality for workers who remained on the job, indicating a possible relationship between inability to work in jobs involving heat stress and health; and, increased risks of digestive disease mortality among workers exposed to higher levels of environmental heat.

Trends in cancer incidence in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, 1937-71.

Cancer incidence rates by race, sex, and cancer site were obtained from the Third National Cancer Survey for the years 1969-71 for residents of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. When the sex-site-specific rates for 1969-71, as well as incidence rates from surveys in the county in 1937, 1947, and 1957-58, were compared with U.S. rates for 1937, 1947, and 1969-71, a number of significant changes in incidence were observed. Male incidence of cancers of the lung, bronchus, and trachea increased steadily between 1937 and 1969-71 both in Allegheny County and the United States. In the county, female incidence rates for these cancers decreased in the period 1947 to 1957-58 but showed an average annual increased of 9.2 percent in the interval 1957-58 to 1969-71. Incidence rates for county males increased by an average of 4.4 percent per year from 1957-58 to 1969-71. For stomach cancer, incidence rates for both sexes have decreased sharply in the county and in the United States. In the county, stomach cancer rates for females declined by an annual average of 4 percent from 1957-58 to 1969-71, while those formales dropped 2.1 percent. There appears to have been a steady decline over time in cervical cancer in Allegheny County, although the average annual rate of decrease of 2.8 percent for the latest interval (1957-58 to 1969-71) is not as large as the decrease of 3.9 percent per year from 1947 to 1957-58. Breast cancer rates for the county appear to have been steadily, although slowly, increasing at an average rate of about 0.6 percent per year, in contrast to almost constant U.S. rates. The county's breast cancer incidence rate for 1969-71 almost equals the U.S rate. There have been steady increases in prostate cancer incidence in both Allegheny County and the United States since 1937. For all sites combined, male cancer incidence rates increased, while those for females slowly decreased in both Allegheny County and the United States during the interval 1937 to 1969-71. In the county, male rates for the interval 1937 to 1969-71 increased an average of 1 percent per year, while female rates declined approximately 0.3 percent annually.

The proteoglycans of the human intervertebral disc.

The methods of Hascall & Sajdera (1969) were used to compare the proteoglycans of human intervertebral disc with those of bovine nasal cartilage. In contrast with cartilage, most of the hexuronate of disc could be extracted at low shear with water or dilute salt solutions. Extracts of disc with 4M-guanidinium chloride were centrifugated in 0.4M-guanidinium chloride in a CsCl gradient. Analytical ultracentrifugation of the hexuronate-containing heavy component revealed two fractions. both more polydisperse than those of cartilage. Also the more rapidly sediminting component was a much smaller fraction of the total. After prior extraction with 0.4M-guanidinium chloride, 4M-guanidinium chloride extracts of disc were found, by ultracentrifugal analysis, to be enriched in components resembling the proteoglycan monomer and aggregating factors of cartilage.

The site of zinc absorption in the rat small intestine (38481).

Rats fed a zinc-adequate diet exhibited a nonuniform distribution of zinc in the small intestine. The zinc content of zinc-deficient rat small intestine was reduced, particularly in the duodenum and distal ileum. It is possible that the difference in the intestinal zinc content may reflect the rate of zinc absorption in the tissue. Uptake of 65-Zn by intestinal segments in vitro showed that the pattern of absorption obtained is dependent upon the parameters used for quantitation. This observation could account for the variation between the results obtained by different experimental methods of determining the site and rate of absorption of the nutrient.