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Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, but its incidence can only be partially explained through established risk factors. Our aim was to use metabolomics to identify novel risk factors for breast cancer and to validate recently reported metabolite-breast cancer findings. We measured levels of 1275 metabolites in prediagnostic serum in a nested case-control study of 782 postmenopausal breast cancer cases and 782 matched controls. Metabolomics analysis was performed by Metabolon Inc using ultra-performance liquid chromatography and a Q-Exactive high resolution/accurate mass spectrometer. Controls were matched by birth date, date of blood draw, and race/ethnicity. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of breast cancer at the 90th versus 10th percentile (modeled on a continuous basis) of metabolite levels were estimated using conditional logistic regression, with adjustment for age. Twenty-four metabolites were significantly associated with breast cancer risk at a false discovery rate <0.20. For the nine metabolites positively associated with risk, the ORs ranged from 1.75 (95% CI: 1.29-2.36) to 1.45 (95% CI: 1.13-1.85), and for the 15 metabolites inversely associated with risk, ORs ranged from 0.59 (95% CI: 0.43-0.79) to 0.69 (95% CI: 0.55-0.87). These metabolites largely comprised carnitines, glycerolipids, and sex steroid metabolites. Associations for three sex steroid metabolites validated findings from recent studies and the remainder were novel. These findings contribute to growing data on metabolite-breast cancer associations by confirming prior findings and identifying novel leads for future validation efforts.

Background: In the US in 2021, 76,080 kidney cancers are expected and >80% are renal cell carcinomas (RCCs). Along with excess fat, metabolic dysfunction is implicated in RCC etiology. To identify RCC-associated metabolites, we conducted a 1:1 matched case–control study nested within the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial. Methods: We measured 522 serum metabolites in 267 cases/control pairs. Cases were followed for a median 7.1 years from blood draw to diagnosis. Using conditional logistic regression, we computed adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) comparing risk between 90th and 10th percentiles of log metabolite intensity, with the significance threshold at a false discovery rate <0.20. Results: Four metabolites were inversely associated with risk of RCC during follow-up—C38:4 PI, C34:0 PC, C14:0 SM, and C16:1 SM (ORs ranging from 0.33–0.44). Two were positively associated with RCC risk—C3-DC-CH3 carnitine and C5 carnitine (ORs = 2.84 and 2.83, respectively). These results were robust when further adjusted for metabolic risk factors (body mass index (BMI), physical activity, diabetes/hypertension history). Metabolites associated with RCC had weak correlations (|r| < 0.2) with risk factors of BMI, physical activity, smoking, alcohol, and diabetes/hypertension history. In mutually adjusted models, three metabolites (C38:4 PI, C14:0 SM, and C3-DC-CH3 carnitine) were independently associated with RCC risk. Conclusions: Serum concentrations of six metabolites were associated with RCC risk, and three of these had independent associations from the mutually adjusted model. These metabolites may point toward new biological pathways of relevance to this malignancy.

The COVID-19 pandemic restrictions forced many schools to shift to remote or hybrid learning, disrupting surveillance systems such as the New Jersey Youth Tobacco Survey, traditionally administered in schools by paper and pencil. In spring 2021, we conducted a feasibility study among a convenience sample of six public high schools to assess the use of an online survey to allow for remote participation. In each school, 4 to 6 classes were selected randomly, and all students within a sampled class were selected to participate in the survey. A total of 702 students completed surveys. School contacts were asked to provide qualitative feedback about the survey administration. Feedback was generally positive, with a few suggestions for improvement. Approximately 19% of students reported the ever use of e-cigarettes. Among current e-cigarette users, there was a shift in popularity from prefilled or refillable pods or cartridges (23.3%) to disposable e-cigarettes (53.5%). Less than 10% of current e-cigarette users reported using tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes, despite a statewide flavor ban on all other flavors.

Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000, Gao Xingjian is the first Chinese writer to be so lauded for his prose and plays. Since relocating to France in 1987, in a voluntary exile from China, he has assembled a body of dramatic work that has best been understood neither as expressly Chinese nor French, but as transnational. In this comprehensive study of his post-exile plays, Mary Mazzilli explores Gao’s plays as examples of postdramatic transnationalism: a transnational artistic and theatrical trend that is fluid, flexible and full of variety of styles and influences. As such this innovative interdisciplinary investigation offers fresh insights on contemporary theatre. Whereas other publications have considered Gao’s work as a cultural and artistic phenomenon, Gao Xingjian’s Post-Exile Plays: Transnationalism and Postdramatic Theatre is the first study to relate his plays to postdramatic theatre and to provide close textual and dramatic analysis that will help readers to better understand his complex work, and also to see it in the context of the work of contemporary playwrights such as Martin Crimp, Peter Handke, and Elfriede Jelinek. Among the plays discussed are: The Other Shore, written just before he left China in 1987; Between Life and Death (1991) - compared in detail to Martin Crimp’s Attempts on her life; Dialogue and Rebuttal (1992), and its relationship to Beckett’s Happy Days; Nocturnal Wanderer (1993), Weekend Quartet (1995), and the latest plays Snow in August (1997), Death Collector (2000) and Ballade Nocturne (2010).

We report the measured transverse momentum (pT) spectra of primary charged particles from pp, p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy sNN−−−√=5.02 TeV in the kinematic range of 0.15 < pT< 50 GeV/c and |η| < 0.8. A significant improvement of systematic uncertainties motivated the reanalysis of data in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at sNN−−−√=2.76 TeV, as well as in p-Pb collisions at sNN−−−√=5.02 TeV, which is also presented. Spectra from Pb-Pb collisions are presented in nine centrality intervals and are compared to a reference spectrum from pp collisions scaled by the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. For central collisions, the pT spectra are suppressed by more than a factor of 7 around 6–7 GeV/c with a significant reduction in suppression towards higher momenta up to 30 GeV/c. The nuclear modification factor RpPb, constructed from the pp and p-Pb spectra measured at the same collision energy, is consistent with unity above 8 GeV/c. While the spectra in both pp and Pb-Pb collisions are substantially harder at sNN−−−√=5.02 TeV compared to 2.76 TeV, the nuclear modification factors show no significant collision energy dependence. The obtained results should provide further constraints on the parton energy loss calculations to determine the transport properties of the hot and dense QCD matter.

The interaction of K - with protons is characterised by the presence of several coupled channels, systems like K ¯ 0 n and π Σ with a similar mass and the same quantum numbers as the K - p state. The strengths of these couplings to the K - p system are of crucial importance for the understanding of the nature of the Λ ( 1405 ) resonance and of the attractive K - p strong interaction. In this article, we present measurements of the K - p correlation functions in relative momentum space obtained in pp collisions at s = 13  Te, in p–Pb collisions at s NN = 5.02  Te, and (semi)peripheral Pb–Pb collisions at s NN = 5.02  Te. The emitting source size, composed of a core radius anchored to the K + p correlation and of a resonance halo specific to each particle pair, varies between 1 and 2 fm in these collision systems. The strength and the effects of the K ¯ 0 n and π Σ inelastic channels on the measured K - p correlation function are investigated in the different colliding systems by comparing the data with state-of-the-art models of chiral potentials. A novel approach to determine the conversion weights ω , necessary to quantify the amount of produced inelastic channels in the correlation function, is presented. In this method, particle yields are estimated from thermal model predictions, and their kinematic distribution from blast-wave fits to measured data. The comparison of chiral potentials to the measured K - p interaction indicates that, while the π Σ – K - p dynamics is well reproduced by the model, the coupling to the K ¯ 0 n channel in the model is currently underestimated.

A bstract A study of strange hadron production associated with hard scattering processes and with the underlying event is conducted to investigate the origin of the enhanced production of strange hadrons in small collision systems characterised by large charged-particle multiplicities. For this purpose, the production of the single-strange meson K S 0 and the double-strange baryon Ξ ± is measured, in each event, in the azimuthal direction of the highest- p T particle (“trigger” particle), related to hard scattering processes, and in the direction transverse to it in azimuth, associated with the underlying event, in pp collisions at s = 5.02 TeV and s = 13 TeV using the ALICE detector at the LHC. The per-trigger yields of K S 0 and Ξ ± are dominated by the transverse-to-leading production (i.e., in the direction transverse to the trigger particle), whose contribution relative to the toward-leading production is observed to increase with the event charged-particle multiplicity. The transverse-to-leading and the toward-leading Ξ ± / K S 0 yield ratios increase with the multiplicity of charged particles, suggesting that strangeness enhancement with multiplicity is associated with both hard scattering processes and the underlying event. The relative production of Ξ ± with respect to K S 0 is higher in transverse-to-leading processes over the whole multiplicity interval covered by the measurement. The K S 0 and Ξ ± per-trigger yields and yield ratios are compared with predictions of three different phenomenological models, namely P ythia 8.2 with the Monash tune, P ythia 8.2 with ropes and EPOS LHC. The comparison shows that none of them can quantitatively describe either the transverse-to-leading or the toward-leading yields of K S 0 and Ξ ± .

The first measurement at midrapidity (| y | < 0 . 5) of the production yield of the strange-charm baryons$${\\Xi }_{\\text{c}}^{+}$$and$${\\Xi }_{\\text{c}}^{0}$$as a function of transverse momentum ( p T ) in different charged-particle multiplicity classes in proton-proton collisions at$$\\sqrt{s}=13$$TeV with the ALICE experiment at the LHC is reported. The$${\\Xi }_{\\text{c}}^{+}$$baryon is reconstructed via the$${\\Xi }_{\\text{c}}^{+}\\to {\\Xi }^{-}{\\pi }^{+}{\\pi }^{+}$$decay channel in the range 4 < p T < 12 GeV /c , while the$${\\Xi }_{\\text{c}}^{0}$$baryon is reconstructed via both the$${\\Xi}_{\\text{c}}^{0}\\to {\\Xi}^{-}{\\pi }^{+}$$and$${\\Xi}_{\\text{c}}^{0}\\to {\\Xi}^{-}{\\text{e}}^{+}{\\nu }_{\\text{e}}$$decay channels in the range 2 < p T < 12 GeV /c . The baryon-to-meson$$\\left({\\Xi}_{\\text{c}}^{0,+}/{\\text{D}}^{0}\\right)$$and the baryon-to-baryon$$\\left({\\Xi}_{\\text{c}}^{0,+}/{\\Lambda}_{\\text{c}}^{+}\\right)$$production yield ratios show no significant dependence on multiplicity. In addition, the observed yield ratios are not described by theoretical predictions that model charm-quark fragmentation based on measurements at e + e − and e − p colliders, indicating differences in the charm-baryon production mechanism in pp collisions. A comparison with different event generators and tunings, including different modelling of the hadronisation process, is also discussed. Moreover, the branching-fraction ratio of$${\\text{BR}}\\left({\\Xi}_{\\text{c}}^{0}\\to {\\Xi }^{-}{\\text{e}}^{+}{\\nu }_{\\text{e}}\\right)/{\\text{BR}}\\left({\\Xi}_{\\text{c}}^{0}\\to {\\Xi }^{-}{\\pi }^{+}\\right)$$is measured as 0.825 ± 0.094 (stat.) ± 0.081 (syst.). This value supersedes the previous ALICE measurement, improving the statistical precision by a factor of 1.6.

Ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions produce a state of hot and dense strongly interacting QCD matter called quark-gluon plasma (QGP). On an event-by-event basis, the volume of the QGP in ultracentral collisions is mostly constant, while its total entropy can vary significantly due to quantum fluctuations, leading to variations in the temperature of the system. Exploiting this unique feature of ultracentral collisions allows for the interpretation of the correlation of the mean transverse momentum$$(\\langle {p}_{\\text{T}}\\rangle )$$of produced charged hadrons and the number of charged hadrons as a measure for the speed of sound, c s . This speed is related to the rate at which compression waves travel in the QGP and is determined by fitting the relative increase in$$\\langle {p}_{\\text{T}}\\rangle $$with respect to the relative change in the average charged-particle density$$(\\langle \\text{d}{N}_{\\text{ch}}/\\text{d}\\eta \\rangle )$$measured at mid-rapidity. This study reports the event-average$$\\langle {p}_{\\text{T}}\\rangle $$of charged particles as well as the variance, skewness, and kurtosis of the event-by-event transverse momentum per charged particle$$([{p}_{\\text{T}}])$$distribution in ultracentral Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 5 . 02 TeV per nucleon pair using the ALICE detector. Different centrality estimators based on charged-particle multiplicity or the transverse energy of the event are used to select ultracentral collisions. By ensuring a pseudorapidity gap between the region used to define the centrality and the region used to perform the measurement, the influence of biases and their potential effects on the rise of the mean transverse momentum is tested. The measured$${c}_{\\text{s}}^{2}$$is found to strongly depend on the exploited centrality estimator and ranges between 0 . 1146±0 . 0028 (stat . )±0 . 0065 (syst . ) and 0 . 4374±0 . 0006 (stat . )±0 . 0184 (syst . ) in natural units. The self-normalized variance shows a steep decrease towards ultracentral collisions, while the self-normalized skewness variables show a maximum, followed by a fast decrease. These non-Gaussian features are understood in terms of the vanishing of the impact-parameter fluctuations contributing to the event-to-event [ p T ] distribution.

The first measurement of prompt D *+ -meson spin alignment in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions with respect to the direction orthogonal to the reaction plane is presented. The spin alignment is quantified by measuring the element ρ 00 of the diagonal spin-density matrix for prompt D *+ mesons with 4 < p T < 30 GeV /c in two rapidity intervals, | y | < 0 . 3 and 0 . 3 < | y | < 0 . 8, in central (0–10%) and midcentral (30–50%) Pb–Pb collisions at$$\\sqrt{{s}_{\\text{NN}}}={5}.0{2}$$TeV. Evidence of spin alignment ρ 00 > 1 / 3 has been found for p T > 15 GeV /c and 0 . 3 < | y | < 0 . 8 with a significance of 3 . 1 σ . The measured spin alignment of prompt D *+ mesons is compared with the one of inclusive J / ψ mesons measured at forward rapidity (2 . 5 < y < 4).