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The Target Absorbers for Neutrals (TANs) represent one of the most radioactive regions in the Large Hadron Collider. Seven 40cm long fused silica rods with different dopant specifications, manufactured by Heraeus, were irradiated in one of the TANs located around the ATLAS experiment by the Beam RAte of Neutrals (BRAN) detector group. This campaign took place during Run 2 data taking, which occurred between 2016 and 2018. This paper reports a complete characterization of optical transmission per unit length of irradiated fused silica materials as a function of wavelength (240 nm–1500 nm), dose (up to 18 MGy), and level of OH and H2 dopants introduced in the manufacturing process. The dose delivered to the rods was estimated using Monte Carlo simulations performed by the CERN FLUKA team. 

The co-existence of rats and humans in urban environments has long been a cause for concern regarding human health because of the potential for rats to harbor and transmit disease-causing pathogens. Here, we analyze whole-genome sequence (WGS) data from 41 Escherichia coli isolates collected from rat feces from 12 locations within the city of Chicago, IL, United States to determine the potential for rats to serve as a reservoir for pathogenic E. coli and describe its population structure. We identified 25 different serotypes, none of which were isolated from strains containing significant virulence markers indicating the presence of Shiga toxin-producing and other disease-causing E . coli . Nor did the E. coli isolates harbor any particularly rare stress tolerant or antimicrobial resistance genes. We then compared the isolates against a public database of approximately 100,000 E. coli and Shigella isolates of primarily food, food facility, or clinical origin. We found that only one isolate was genetically similar to genome sequences in the database. Phylogenetic analyses showed that isolates cluster by serotype, and there was little geographic structure (e.g., isolation by distance) among isolates. However, a greater signal of isolation by distance was observed when we compared genetic and geographic distances among isolates of the same serotype. This suggests that E. coli serotypes are independent lineages and recombination between serotypes is rare. 

Abstract Frozen winters define life at high latitudes and altitudes. However, recent, rapid changes in winter conditions have highlighted our relatively poor understanding of ecosystem function in winter relative to other seasons. Winter ecological processes can affect reproduction, growth, survival, and fitness, whereas processes that occur during other seasons, such as summer production, mediate how organisms fare in winter. As interest grows in winter ecology, there is a need to clearly provide a thought-provoking framework for defining winter and the pathways through which it affects organisms. In the present article, we present nine maxims (concise expressions of a fundamentally held principle or truth) for winter ecology, drawing from the perspectives of scientists with diverse expertise. We describe winter as being frozen, cold, dark, snowy, less productive, variable, and deadly. Therefore, the implications of winter impacts on wildlife are striking for resource managers and conservation practitioners. Our final, overarching maxim, “winter is changing,” is a call to action to address the need for immediate study of the ecological implications of rapidly changing winters. 

A study of the anomalous couplings of the Higgs boson to vector bosons, including$${\textit{CP}}$$$\mathrm{CP}$-violation effects, has been conducted using its production and decay in the WW channel. This analysis is performed on proton–proton collision data collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC during 2016–2018 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 138$$\,\text {fb}^{-1}$$${\text{fb}}^{-1}$. The different-flavor dilepton$$({\textrm{e}} {{\upmu }})$$$\left(\text{e}\mu \right)$final state is analyzed, with dedicated categories targeting gluon fusion, electroweak vector boson fusion, and associated production with a W or Z boson. Kinematic information from associated jets is combined using matrix element techniques to increase the sensitivity to anomalous effects at the production vertex. A simultaneous measurement of four Higgs boson couplings to electroweak vector bosons is performed in the framework of a standard model effective field theory. All measurements are consistent with the expectations for the standard model Higgs boson and constraints are set on the fractional contribution of the anomalous couplings to the Higgs boson production cross section.

 

A measurement is presented of a ratio observable that provides a measure of the azimuthal correlations among jets with large transverse momentum$$p_{\textrm{T}}$$$p_{\text{T}}$. This observable is measured in multijet events over the range of$$p_{\textrm{T}} = 360$$$p_{\text{T}}=360$–$$3170\,\text {Ge}\hspace{-.08em}\text {V} $$$3170\text{Ge}\text{V}$based on data collected by the CMS experiment in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13$$\,\text {Te}\hspace{-.08em}\text {V}$$$\text{Te}\text{V}$, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 134$$\,\text {fb}^{-1}$$${\text{fb}}^{-1}$. The results are compared with predictions from Monte Carlo parton-shower event generator simulations, as well as with fixed-order perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) predictions at next-to-leading-order (NLO) accuracy obtained with different parton distribution functions (PDFs) and corrected for nonperturbative and electroweak effects. Data and theory agree within uncertainties. From the comparison of the measured observable with the pQCD prediction obtained with the NNPDF3.1 NLO PDFs, the strong coupling at the Z boson mass scale is$$\alpha _\textrm{S} (m_{{\textrm{Z}}}) =0.1177 \pm 0.0013\, \text {(exp)} _{-0.0073}^{+0.0116} \,\text {(theo)} = 0.1177_{-0.0074}^{+0.0117}$$${\alpha }_{\text{S}}\left(m_{\text{Z}}\right)=0.1177\pm 0.0013{\text{(exp)}}_{-0.0073}^{+0.0116}\text{(theo)}=0.{1177}_{-0.0074}^{+0.0117}$, where the total uncertainty is dominated by the scale dependence of the fixed-order predictions. A test of the running of$$\alpha _\textrm{S}$$${\alpha }_{\text{S}}$in the$$\,\text {Te}\hspace{-.08em}\text {V}$$$\text{Te}\text{V}$region shows no deviation from the expected NLO pQCD behaviour.

 

Energy correlators that describe energy-weighted distances between two or three particles in a hadronic jet are measured using an event sample of$\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of$36.3{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$. The measured distributions are consistent with the trends in the simulation that reveal two key features of the strong interaction: confinement and asymptotic freedom. By comparing the ratio of the measured three- and two-particle energy correlator distributions with theoretical calculations that resum collinear emissions at approximate next-to-next-to-leading-logarithmic accuracy matched to a next-to-leading-order calculation, the strong coupling is determined at the$Z$boson mass:${\alpha }_S(m_Z)=0.1229_{-0.0050}^{+0.0040}$, the most precise${\alpha }_S(m_Z)$value obtained using jet substructure observables.