INTRODUCTION: The soluble urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) has recently been associated with a decline in kidney function and incidence of chronic kidney disease in patients with cardiovascular disease undergoing cardiac catheterization, yet little is known whether suPAR is associated with deterioration of kidney function in the general population.METHODS: In the population-ba

Abstract: We study the hadroproduction of a W b pair in association with a light jet, focusing on the dominant t-channel contribution and including exactly at the matrix-element level all non-resonant and off-shell effects induced by the finite top-quark width. Our simulations are accurate to the next-to-leading order in QCD, and are matched to the Herwig6 and Pythia8 parton showers through the MC

Abstract: We consider the production of a single Z or W boson in association with jets at the LHC. We compute the corresponding cross sections by matching NLO QCD predictions with the Herwig++ and Pythia8 parton showers, and by merging all of the underlying matrix elements with up to two light partons at the Born level. We compare our results with several 7-TeV measurements by the ATLAS and CMS co

High levels of proenkephalin-A (pro-ENK) have been associated with decreased eGFR in an acute setting. Here, we examined whether pro-ENK levels predict CKD and decline of renal function in a prospective cohort of 2568 participants without CKD (eGFR>60 ml/min per 1.73 m2) at baseline. During a mean follow-up of 16.6 years, 31.7% of participants developed CKD. Participants with baseline pro-ENK leve

We present a new parton-shower algorithm. Borrowing from the basic ideas of dipole cascades, the evolution variable is judiciously chosen as the transverse momentum in the soft limit. This leads to a very simple analytic structure of the evolution. A weighting algorithm is implemented that allows one to consistently treat potentially negative values of the splitting functions and the parton distri

Psychopathy continues to be a challenge in forensic contexts, and evidence of its association with destructive behaviors, such as aggressive antisocial behaviors, is extensive. However, the potential role of intelligence as moderator of the well-established association between psychopathy and aggressive antisocial behaviors has largely been neglected, despite intelligence having been independently

We present a simple approach to combine NNLO QCD calculations and parton showers, based on the unlops technique. We apply the method to the computation of Drell-Yan lepton-pair production at the Large Hadron Collider. We comment on possible improvements and intrinsic uncertainties.

We discuss how the UN2LOPS scheme for matching next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) calculations to parton showers can be applied to processes with large higher-order perturbative QCD corrections. We focus on Higgs-boson production through gluon fusion as an example. We also present an NNLO fixed-order event generator for this reaction.

The mcplots.cern.ch web site (mcplots) provides a simple online repository of plots made with high-energy-physics event generators, comparing them to a wide variety of experimental data. The repository is based on the hepdata online database of experimental results and on the rivet Monte Carlo analysis tool. The repository is continually updated and relies on computing power donated by volunteers,

Vbfnlo is a fully flexible parton level Monte Carlo program for the simulation of vector boson fusion, double and triple vector boson production in hadronic collisions at next-to-leading order in the strong coupling constant. Vbfnlo includes Higgs and vector boson decays with full spin correlations and all off-shell effects. In addition, Vbfnlo implements CP-even and CP-odd Higgs boson via gluon f

The majority of African states continue to be regarded as extractivestates. We use the Cape Colony’s public expenditure to account for theemergence of extractive states in Africa. With a sub-imperial role forSothern African colonial expansion, the Cape Colony became a templatefor extractive practices that continue to characterize the region. Usingpublic expenditure data, budget debates and existin

We compute the O(αs) QCD corrections to charged triple vector boson production at a hadron collider, i.e., the processes pp→ZZW±+X and pp→W±W W±+X. Intermediate Higgs boson exchange effects, spin correlations from leptonic vector boson decays, and off shell contributions are all taken into account. Results are implemented in a fully flexible Monte Carlo program that allows for an easy customizatio

Alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) are characterized by dimorphism for reproductive phenotypes (i.e. tactical dimorphism). Tactical dimorphism often evolves as a response to differing phenotypic optima for a shared reproductive trait between members of the same sex in a species. We characterized dimorphism for body shape between ARTs in the swordtail fish Xiphophorus multilineatus and investi

Local adaptation in hermaphrodite species can be based on a variety of fitness components, including survival, as well as both female and male sex-functions within individuals. When selection via female and male fitness components varies spatially (e.g. due to environmental heterogeneity), local adaptation will depend, in part, on variation in selection through each fitness component, and the exte

A short review is presented for the most commonly used general purpose event generators for heavy ion physics, HIJING, AMPT, and EPOS. A new model, called Angantyr, is presented. It is (similar to HIJING) an extrapolation of pp dynamics to collisions with nuclei. Diffractive excitation of individual nucleons has significant effects in nucleus collisions, and here Angantyr is the first model which

im To describe the population of patients with previously diagnosed peripheral artery disease (PAD) experiencing a myocardial infarction (MI) and to investigate 1-year major adverse cardiac events (MACE: all-cause mortality, reinfarction, stroke and heart failure hospitalisation) following MI.Background MI patients with PAD constitute a high-risk population with adverse cardiac outcomes. Contempor