Measurement of the 2S_{1/2}-8D_{5/2} Transition in Hydrogen.

We present a measurement of the hydrogen 2S_{1/2}-8D_{5/2} transition performed with a cryogenic atomic beam. The measured resonance frequency is ν=770649561570.9(2.0) kHz, which corresponds to a relative uncertainty of 2.6×10^{-12}. Combining our result with the most recent measurement of the 1S-2S transition, we find a proton radius of r_{p}=0.8584(51) fm and a Rydberg constant of R_{∞}=10973731.568332(52) m^{-1}. This result has a combined 3.1σ disagreement with the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) 2018 recommended value.

Kinetics of Magnetic Skyrmion Crystal Formation from the Conical Phase.

The particle-like magnetic skyrmion or skyrmion lattice (SkX) formation has promoted strong application and fundamental science interests. Despite extensive research, the kinetic of the SkX development is much less understood because of the ultrafast spin rotation and high sensitivity to external perturbations. Here, using in situ Lorentz transmission electron microscopy, we successfully measured the dynamics of SkX formation from the conical phase with precise control of both the temperature and the magnetic field. We discovered that the Avrami equation can accurately describe the transition process with an initial Avrami constant around 1, suggesting that the rate-limiting step for the quasiparticle lattice formation is one-dimensional heterogeneous nucleation of individual skyrmions. A modified Arrhenius rate law is established, with an energy barrier that has a square-root dependence on temperature and a quadratic dependence on the magnetic field. This study paves the way toward precise and predictable manipulation of topological spin structures.

Mechanisms of Skyrmion and Skyrmion Crystal Formation from the Conical Phase.

Real-space topological magnetic structures such as skyrmions and merons are promising candidates for information storage and transport. However, the microscopic mechanisms that control their formation and evolution are still unclear. Here, using in situ Lorentz transmission electron microscopy, we demonstrate that skyrmion crystals (SkXs) can nucleate, grow, and evolve from the conical phase in the same ways that real nanocrystals form from vapors or solutions. More intriguingly, individual skyrmions can also "reproduce" by division in a mitosis-like process that allows them to annihilate SkX lattice imperfections, which is not available to crystals made of mass-conserving particles. Combined string method and micromagnetic calculations show that competition between repulsive and attractive interactions between skyrmions governs particle-like SkX growth, but nonconservative SkX growth appears to be defect mediated. Our results provide insights toward manipulating magnetic topological states by applying established crystal growth theory, adapted to account for the new process of skyrmion mitosis.

Dysphagia Affecting Quality of Life in Cerebellar Ataxia-a Large Survey.

Dysphagia is a common symptom in neurodegenerative disorders and is generally associated with increased mortality. In the clinical care setting of ataxia patients, no systematical and standardized assessment of dysphagia is employed. Its impact on patients' health-related quality of life is not well understood. To assess the impact of dysphagia in ataxia patients on diet, body weight, and health-related quality of life. We conducted a large survey using self-reported questionnaires for swallowing-related quality of life (Swal-QOL) and a food frequency list in combination with retrospective clinical data of 119 patients with cerebellar ataxia treated in the neurological outpatient clinic of a large German university hospital. Seventeen percent of ataxia patients suffered from dysphagia based on the Swal-QOL score. Less than 1% of all patients reported dysphagia as one of their most disabling symptoms. Dysphagia was associated with unintentional weight loss (p = 0.02) and reduced health-related quality of life (p = 0.01) but did not affect individual nutritional habits (p > 0.05; Chi-squared test). Dysphagia is a relevant symptom in cerebellar ataxia. A systematic screening for dysphagia in patients with cerebellar ataxia would be desirable to enable early diagnosis and treatment.

Clinical Evaluation of Chairside-Fabricated Partial Crowns Made of Zirconia- Reinforced Lithium Silicate Ceramic - 2-Year-Results.

INTRODUCTION: In a prospective study, the clinical performance of chairside-fabricated partial-crowns made of zirconia-reinforced lithiumsilicate (ZLS)-ceramic was evaluated after 2 years. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 45 patients (28 female/17 male) underwent restoration with 61 chairside-fabricated ZLS partial-crowns on vital premolars and molars. In variation from the manufacturer's recommendations (minimum material thickness (MMT)=1.0 mm), partial-crowns with reduced material thicknesses were fabricated: group 1, MMT=0.5-0.74 mm (n=31); group 2, MMT=0.75-1.0 mm (n=30). The restorations were luted with either a self-adhesive cement (SAC) or the total-etch technique using a dual-curing composite cement (DC). The MMT and cementation technique (SAC vs. DC) were evaluated as possible covariates of the time-dependent survival (SVR) and success rate (SCR) using univariate log-rank-tests. RESULTS: Forty-four patients with 59 restorations participated in the 2-year follow-up examinations. In group 1 (n=31), there were 2 losses due to ceramic fracture (SVR: 94.0% (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.85-1)). In group 2, no losses were documented (SVR: 100%). In 2 restorations cemented with SAC, recementation was necessary (overall SCR: 93% (CI: 0.87-1)). CONCLUSION: To avoid early material-related fractures, observing the recommended minimum thickness of 1.0 mm is essential. However, further validation of these results in studies with longer observational periods is required.

Highly coherent, watt-level deep-UV radiation via a frequency-quadrupled Yb-fiber laser system.

We demonstrate a 1.4 W continuous-wave (CW) laser at 243.1 nm. The radiation is generated through frequency quadrupling the output of a ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier system. which produces >10 W of CW power at 972.5 nm. We demonstrate absolute frequency control by locking the laser to an optical frequency comb and exciting the 1S-2S transition in atomic hydrogen. This frequency-stabilized, high-power deep-UV laser is of significant interest for precision spectroscopy of simple and exotic atoms, two-photon laser cooling of hydrogen, and Raman spectroscopy.

Timing resolution studies of the optical part of the AFP Time-of-flight detector.

We present results of the timing performance studies of the optical part and front-end electronics of the time-of-flight subdetector prototype for the ATLAS Forward Proton (AFP) detector obtained during the test campaigns at the CERN-SPS test-beam facility (120 GeV π+ particles) in July 2016 and October 2016. The time-of-flight (ToF) detector in conjunction with a 3D silicon pixel tracker will tag and measure protons originating in central exclusive interactions p + p → p + X + p, where the two outgoing protons are scattered in the very forward directions. The ToF is required to reduce so-called pileup backgrounds that arise from multiple proton interactions in the same bunch crossing at high luminosity. The background can fake the signal of interest, and the extra rejection from the ToF allows the proton tagger to operate at the high luminosity required for the measurement of the processes. The prototype detector uses fused silica bars emitting Cherenkov radiation as a relativistic particle passes through them. The emitted Cherenkov photons are detected by a multi-anode micro-channel plate photomultiplier tube (MCP-PMT) and processed by fast electronics.

Cavity-enhanced deep ultraviolet laser for two-photon cooling of atomic hydrogen.

We demonstrate a 650 mW 243 nm continuous-wave laser coupled to a linear optical enhancement cavity. The enhancement cavity can maintain >30 W of intracavity power for 1 h of continuous operation without degradation. This system has sufficient power for a demonstration of two-photon laser cooling of hydrogen and may be useful for experiments on other simple two-body atomic systems.

Measurement of the Effective Weak Mixing Angle in pp[over ¯]→Z/γ

We present a measurement of the effective weak mixing angle parameter sin^{2}θ_{eff}^{ℓ} in pp[over ¯]→Z/γ^{*}→µ^{+}µ^{-} events at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV, collected by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider and corresponding to 8.6 fb^{-1} of integrated luminosity. The measured value of sin^{2}θ_{eff}^{ℓ}[µµ]=0.23016±0.00064 is further combined with the result from the D0 measurement in pp[over ¯]→Z/γ^{*}→e^{+}e^{-} events, resulting in sin^{2}θ_{eff}^{ℓ}[comb]=0.23095±0.00040. This combined result is the most precise measurement from a single experiment at a hadron collider and is the most precise determination using the coupling of the Z/γ^{*} to light quarks.

Reduced phase noise in an erbium frequency comb via intensity noise suppression.

We present a coherent erbium fiber frequency comb that achieves low phase noise operation through the active suppression of amplitude fluctuations within the laser oscillator. The amplitude noise servo has a bandwidth of 550 kHz and is achieved by current actuation of the laser pump diode. This servo reduces the integrated phase noise of the carrier envelope offset frequency of the comb, fceo, due to the strong coupling of amplitude and phase noise in the laser oscillator. Additionally, we use a composite error signal that utilizes information from both the amplitude noise and the fceo error signal to actuate the pump diode current, which further increases the coherence of the comb. With this locking scheme, the integrated phase noise on fceo is measured to be 270 mrad from 10 Hz to 1.5 MHz, indicating 93% of the optical carrier power is in the coherent signal. A simultaneous phase lock to a narrow-linewidth continuous-wave laser is achieved by actuating on the cavity length, and shows an integrated phase noise of 44 mrad.

Updated 24-year trend of Type 1 diabetes incidence in children in Poland reveals a sinusoidal pattern and sustained increase.

AIMS: To present the incidence trend for Type 1 diabetes in Polish children aged 0-14 years, updated using data collected during 2005-2012, and assess the reliability of the predictive model constructed previously using the 1989-2004 database. METHODS: Children aged < 15 years with newly diagnosed Type 1 diabetes are recorded prospectively (EURODIAB criteria) in several regional registers in Poland. Age- and gender-standardized incidence rates for Type 1 diabetes were calculated per 100 000 persons/year. Incidence rates were analysed in terms of the dependency on age, gender, geographical region and population density. Incidence rate trends over time were modelled using generalized linear models. RESULTS: The mean standardized incidence for 1989-2012 was 12.72 per 100 000 persons/year [95% confidence interval (CI), 11.35 to 14.21]. Over the 24-year observation period, the incidence increased from 5.36 to 22.74 per 100 000 persons/year. The lowest incidence rate was in children aged 0-4 years (8.35, 95% CI 7.27 to 9.57 per 100 000 persons/year). There was no difference between genders, or urban and rural regions. Incidence rates were higher in northern compared with southern Poland [14.04 (95% CI 12.59 to 15.63) vs. 11.94 (95% CI 10.62 to 13.39) per 100 000 persons/year]. The new data corrected the earlier predictive model by changing the estimates of some factors related to patient age, gender and their interactions with the remaining factors. The incidence rate shows periodic 5.33-year fluctuations. The periodicity component allows for a more accurate prediction of the incidence rate over time. CONCLUSIONS: This cohort study reveals a sustained increase in Type 1 diabetes incidence in Polish children aged 0-14 years with regular, sinusoidal fluctuations and a slight levelling off in past few years. It is of concern that are the highest increases in incidence are found in children aged 0-4 years.

Patient education programme on immunotherapy in multiple sclerosis (PEPIMS): a controlled rater-blinded study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effectiveness of a multi-component evidence-based education programme on disease modifying therapies in multiple sclerosis. DESIGN: Controlled trial with two consecutive patient cohorts and a gap of two months between cohorts. SETTING: Three neurological rehabilitation centres. SUBJECTS: Patients with multiple sclerosis within rehabilitation. INTERVENTIONS: Control group (CG) participants were recruited and received standard information. Two months later, intervention group (IG) participants were recruited and received a six-hour nurse-led interactive group education programme consisting of two parts and a comprehensive information brochure. MAIN MEASURES: Primary endpoint was "informed choice", comprising of adequate risk knowledge in combination with congruency between attitude towards immunotherapy and actual immunotherapy uptake. Further outcomes comprised risk knowledge, decision autonomy, anxiety and depression, self-efficacy, and fatigue. RESULTS: A total of 156 patients were included (IG=75, CG=81). The intervention led to significantly more participants with informed choice (IG: 47% vs. CG: 23%, P=0.004). The rate of persons with adequate risk knowledge was significantly higher in the IG two weeks after the intervention (IG: 54% vs. CG: 31%, P=0.007), but not after six months (IG: 48% vs. CG: 31%, P=0.058). No significant differences were shown for positive attitude towards disease modifying therapy (IG: 62% vs. CG: 71%, P=0.29) and for disease modifying therapy status after six months (IG: 61.5% vs CG: 68.6%, P=0.39). Also no differences were found for autonomy preferences and decisional conflict after six months. CONCLUSION: Delivering evidence-based information on multiple sclerosis disease modifying therapies within a rehabilitation setting led to a marked increase of informed choices.

[Optical coherence tomography in neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders]. / Optische Kohärenztomographie bei Neuromyelitis optica-Spektrum-Erkrankungen.

Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD) are mostly relapsing inflammatory conditions of the central nervous system (CNS). In 55% of the cases of NMOSD optic neuritis (ON) is the most frequent first manifestation and can cause severe damage to the afferent visual system and the retina with resultant severe visual impairment. In recent years, investigations of the retina as part of the CNS by optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been shown to be a valid and efficient method for diagnostics and evaluation of the disease course in NMOSD. In addition, OCT not only shows severe damage of the afferent visual system due to multiple bouts of ON but also reveals NMOSD-specific intraretinal pathologies. The latter could be just as important for future differential diagnostics as for the evaluation of potential therapeutic targets. This article briefly reviews the principles of the OCT technique and describes its relevance for the diagnostics and assessment of disease course in NMOSD.

School Readiness in the Midwest Child-Parent Center Expansion: A Propensity Score Analysis of Year 1 Impacts.

In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of the first year of a federally-funded, evidence-based preschool through third grade intervention in Chicago. We use inverse probability weighting with regression adjustment to estimate the impacts of the Child-Parent Center (CPC) program on teacher assessments of school readiness for 1,289 low-income preschool and 591 comparison-group participants. Results indicated significant positive impacts of the program for all domains, including literacy, math, socio-emotional development, science and total score. The percentage of CPC children who met national norms in school readiness exceeded the comparison group by 12 to 18.5 percentage points. Full-day participants experienced greater school readiness gains while program impacts were similar by family income and home language. Compared to the original CPC evaluation of children born in 1980 in which few comparison group children attended preschool, we find evidence that the contemporary implementation performs at least as well even though the current comparison group participants had alternative preschool experience.

Construction of the optical part of a time-of-flight detector prototype for the AFP detector.

We present the construction of the optical part of the ToF (time-of-flight) subdetector prototype for the AFP (ATLAS Forward Proton) detector. The ToF detector in conjunction with a 3D silicon pixel tracker will tag and measure protons originating in central exclusive interactions p + p → p + X + p, where the two outgoing protons are scattered in the very forward directions. The ToF is required to reduce so-called pileup backgrounds that arise from multiple proton interactions in the same bunch crossing at high luminosity. The background can fake the signal of interest, and the extra rejection from the ToF allows the proton tagger to operate at the high luminosity required for measurement of the processes. The prototype detector uses fused silica bars emitting Cherenkov radiation as a relativistic particle passes through it. The emitted Cherenkov photons are detected by a micro-channel plate multi-anode Photomultiplier Tube (MCP-PMT) and processed by fast electronics.

Evidence for a B_{s}

We report evidence for a narrow structure, X(5568), in the decay sequence X(5568)→B_{s}^{0}π^{±}, B_{s}^{0}→J/ψϕ, J/ψ→µ^{+}µ^{-}, ϕ→K^{+}K^{-}. This is evidence for the first instance of a hadronic state with valence quarks of four different flavors. The mass and natural width of this state are measured to be m=5567.8±2.9(stat)_{-1.9}^{+0.9}(syst) MeV/c^{2} and Γ=21.9±6.4(stat)_{-2.5}^{+5.0}(syst) MeV/c^{2}. If the decay is X(5568)→B_{s}^{*}π^{±}→B_{s}^{0}γπ^{±} with an unseen γ, m(X(5568)) will be shifted up by m(B_{s}^{*})-m(B_{s}^{0})∼49 MeV/c^{2}. This measurement is based on 10.4 fb^{-1} of pp[over ¯] collision data at sqrt[s]=1.96 TeV collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron collider.

Evidence for Simultaneous Production of J/ψ and ϒ Mesons.

We report evidence for the simultaneous production of J/ψ and ϒ mesons in 8.1 fb^{-1} of data collected at sqrt[s]=1.96 TeV by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab pp[over ¯] Tevatron Collider. Events with these characteristics are expected to be produced predominantly by gluon-gluon interactions. In this analysis, we extract the effective cross section characterizing the initial parton spatial distribution, σ_{eff}=2.2±0.7(stat)±0.9(syst) mb.

Brain parenchymal damage in neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder - A multimodal MRI study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate different brain regions for grey (GM) and white matter (WM) damage in a well-defined cohort of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) patients and compare advanced MRI techniques (VBM, Subcortical and cortical analyses (Freesurfer), and DTI) for their ability to detect damage in NMOSD. METHODS: We analyzed 21 NMOSD patients and 21 age and gender matched control subjects. VBM (GW/WM) and DTI whole brain (TBSS) analyses were performed at different statistical thresholds to reflect different statistical approaches in previous studies. In an automated atlas-based approach, Freesurfer and DTI results were compared between NMOSD and controls. RESULTS: DTI TBSS and DTI atlas based analysis demonstrated microstructural impairment only within the optic radiation or in regions associated with the optic radiation (posterior thalamic radiation p < 0.001, 6.9 % reduction of fractional anisotropy). VBM demonstrated widespread brain GM and WM reduction, but only at exploratory statistical thresholds, with no differences remaining after correction for multiple comparisons. Freesurfer analysis demonstrated no group differences. CONCLUSION: NMOSD specific parenchymal brain damage is predominantly located in the optic radiation, likely due to a secondary degeneration caused by ON. In comparison, DTI appears to be the most reliable and sensitive technique for brain damage detection in NMOSD. KEY POINTS: • The hypothesis of a widespread brain damage in NMOSD is challenged. • The optic radiation (OR) is the most severely affected region. • OR-affection is likely due to secondary degeneration following optic neuritis. • DTI is currently the most sensitive technique for NMOSD-related brain-damage detection. • DTI is currently the most reliable technique for NMOSD-related brain-damage detection.

Water Use and Management in the Bakken Shale Oil Play in North Dakota.

Oil and natural gas development in the Bakken shale play of North Dakota has grown substantially since 2008. This study provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of water quantity and management impacts from this development by (1) estimating water demand for hydraulic fracturing in the Bakken from 2008 to 2012; (2) compiling volume estimates for maintenance water, or brine dilution water; (3) calculating water intensities normalized by the amount of oil produced, or estimated ultimate recovery (EUR); (4) estimating domestic water demand associated with the large oil services population; (5) analyzing the change in wastewater volumes from 2005 to 2012; and (6) examining existing water sources used to meet demand. Water use for hydraulic fracturing in the North Dakota Bakken grew 5-fold from 770 million gallons in 2008 to 4.3 billion gallons in 2012. First-year wastewater volumes grew in parallel, from an annual average of 1,135,000 gallons per well in 2008 to 2,905,000 gallons in 2012, exceeding the mean volume of water used in hydraulic fracturing and surpassing typical 4-year wastewater totals for the Barnett, Denver, and Marcellus basins. Surprisingly, domestic water demand from the temporary oilfield services population in the region may be comparable to the regional water demand from hydraulic fracturing activities. Existing groundwater resources are inadequate to meet the demand for hydraulic fracturing, but there appear to be adequate surface water resources, provided that access is available.