Coding-complete genome sequence of a Falcon aviadenovirus A strain associated with necrotizing hepatitis in an American Kestrel (Falco sparverius)

A necropsy was performed on an American kestrel (Falco sparverius) with necrotizing hepatitis associated with inclusion bodies, suggesting an adenovirus infection. A next-generation sequencing assay was conducted on the liver, and the coding-complete genome sequence of a Falcon aviadenovirus A strain was revealed

Late Light Curves of Normal Type Ia Supernovae

We present late-epoch optical photometry (BVRI) of seven normal/super-luminous Type Ia supernovae: SN 2000E, SN 2000ce, SN 2000cx, SN 2001C, SN 2001V, SN 2001bg, SN 2001dp. The photometry of these objects was obtained using a template subtraction method to eliminate galaxy light contamination during aperture photometry. We show the optical light curves of these supernovae out to epochs of up to ~640 days after the explosion of the supernova. We show a linear decline in these data during the epoch of 200-500 days after explosion with the decline rate in the B,V,& R bands equal to about 1.4 mag/100 days, but the decline rate of the I-band is much shallower at 0.94 mag/100 days.Comment: 33 pages, 11 figures, Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa

Late Light Curves of Normally-Luminous Type Ia Supernovae

The use of Type Ia supernovae as cosmological tools has reinforced the need to better understand these objects and their light curves. The light curves of Type Ia supernovae are powered by the nuclear decay of $^{56}Ni \to ^{56}Co \to ^{56}Fe$. The late time light curves can provide insight into the behavior of the decay products and their effect of the shape of the curves. We present the optical light curves of six "normal" Type Ia supernovae, obtained at late times with template image subtraction, and the fits of these light curves to supernova energy deposition models.Comment: Proceedings of Astronomy with Radioactivities V Conferenc

Identification of a novel herpesvirus associated with a penile proliferative lesion in a beluga (Delphinapterus leucas)

The carcass of an adult male beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) was found beach cast in 2008 on the shore of the St. Lawrence Estuary at Rivière-Ouelle, Quebec, Canada. The carcass was transported to the Faculté de médecine vétérinaire of the Université de Montréal for postmortem examination. Aspiration pneumonia was the probable cause of death. Necropsy revealed a focal papilloma-like penile lesion, characterized by focal mucosal thickening with disorganization of the epithelial layers and lymphoplasmacytic infiltration. A pan-herpesvirus nested PCR assay on frozen tissue from the penile lesion was positive. The PCR product sequencing revealed a partial herpesvirus DNA polymerase (DPOL) gene sequence of 600 nucleotides. Its nearest nucleotide identity was with the partial DPOL gene of an alphaherpesvirus, bovine herpesvirus 5 (79.5% identity). It also shared high identity with several other marine mammal herpesviruses (50.2 to 77.3% identity). This new herpesvirus was tentatively named beluga whale herpesvirus (BWHV). Virus isolation was unsuccessful. The pathogenic potential of BWHV is unknown, but the evaluation of archived tissues suggests that the virus is endemic in the St. Lawrence Estuary beluga population

Estimating Animal Abundance Using Noninvasive DNA Sampling: Promise and Pitfalls

Advances in molecular biology offer promise to the study of demographic characteristics of rare or hard-re-capture species, because individuals can now be identified through noninvasive sampling such as fecal collection or hair snags. However, individual genotyping using such methods currently leads to a novel problem that we call a shadow effect, because some animals not captured previously are believed to be recaptures due to their DNA profile being an indistinguishable shadow of previously captured animals. We evaluate the impact of the shadow effect on the two methods most commonly used in applied population ecology to estimate the size of closed populations: Lincoln-Petersen and multiple-recapture estimators in program CAPTURE. We find that the shadow effect can cause a negative bias in the estimates of both the number of different animals and the number of different genotypes. Furthermore, with Lincoln-Petersen estimators, the shadow effect can cause estimated confidence intervals to decrease even as bias increases. Because the bias arises from heterogeneity in apparent capture probabilities for animals with genetic shadows vs. those without, a model in program CAPTURE that is robust to capture heterogeneity (Mh-jackknife) does not underestimate the number of genotypes in the population and only slightly underestimates the rotal number of individuals As the shadow effect increases, CAPTURE is better able to correctly identify heterogeneity in capture probability and to pick Mh-jackknife, so that the higher levels of shadow effect have less bias than medium levels. The shadow effect will occur in all estimates of demographic rates (including survival) that use DNA sampling to determine individual identity, but it can be minimized by increasing the number of individual loci sampled

How partnerships for community-based health professions training were affected by national changes in funding

Background: Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) have contributed to U.S. healthcare workforce training since 1971. National funders recently refocused efforts from K-12 students to matriculated health profession students, which reduced annual funding by $75,000 (25%) per year per Center. Objectives: To describe how community partnership changed due to funding reductions. Methods: Key informant interviews were conducted with all four regional center directors with community partnerships. Lessons learned: Hosted regional centers navigated partnerships in ways that did not significantly change programs because the host institutions supported continuing the partnerships. Independent centers experienced significant changes in partnerships by ending well-established programs and starting new programs with new partners. Both hosted and independent centers took salary cuts, downsized staff, and applied for grants and contracts to fill the funding gap. Improved communication with the Oregon AHEC program office was reported as needed. Conclusions: Navigating partnerships differed according to host status

Subaru and Keck Observations of the Peculiar Type Ia Supernova 2006gz at Late Phases

Recently, a few peculiar Type Ia supernovae (SNe) that show exceptionally large peak luminosity have been discovered. Their luminosity requires more than 1 Msun of 56Ni ejected during the explosion, suggesting that they might have originated from super-Chandrasekhar mass white dwarfs. However, the nature of these objects is not yet well understood. In particular, no data have been taken at late phases, about one year after the explosion. We report on Subaru and Keck optical spectroscopic and photometric observations of the SN Ia 2006gz, which had been classified as being one of these "overluminous" SNe Ia. The late-time behavior is distinctly different from that of normal SNe Ia, reinforcing the argument that SN 2006gz belongs to a different subclass than normal SNe Ia. However, the peculiar features found at late times are not readily connected to a large amount of 56Ni; the SN is faint, and it lacks [Fe II] and [Fe III] emission. If the bulk of the radioactive energy escapes the SN ejecta as visual light, as is the case in normal SNe Ia, the mass of 56Ni does not exceed ~ 0.3 Msun. We discuss several possibilities to remedy the problem. With the limited observations, however, we are unable to conclusively identify which process is responsible. An interesting possibility is that the bulk of the emission might be shifted to longer wavelengths, unlike the case in other SNe Ia, which might be related to dense C-rich regions as indicated by the early-phase data. Alternatively, it might be the case that SN 2006gz, though peculiar, was actually not substantially overluminous at early times.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Existence of blow-up solutions for a non-linear equation with gradient term in RN

AbstractIn this paper we study the existence of positive large solutions for the equation Δpu+λ|∇u|p−1=ρ(x)f(u) in RN, where f is a non-negative non-decreasing function and ρ is a non-negative continuous function. We show under some hypotheses detailed below the existence of positive solutions which blow up at infinity