Intratesticular Abscess in a Solitary Testicle: The Case for Testicle Sparing Management

We present the case of a 24-year-old immunocompromised man with an intratesticular abscess. The patient presented with one week of left scrotal pain and swelling. Workup included scrotal ultrasonography which revealed a large fluid collection within the tunica albuginea of the left testis. Surgical exploration of the left testis evacuated a significant amount of purulent fluid. The residual viable testicular parenchyma was salvaged. Intraoperative cultures grew Morganella morganii. Follow-up ultrasonography showed resolution of the testicular fluid collection, and the patient was discharged home with oral antibiotics. Intratesticular abscesses are a rare clinical entity which often result in orchiectomy

Evidence for dark energy from the cosmic microwave background alone using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope lensing measurements

For the first time, measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) alone favor cosmologies with $w=-1$ dark energy over models without dark energy at a 3.2-sigma level. We demonstrate this by combining the CMB lensing deflection power spectrum from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope with temperature and polarization power spectra from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. The lensing data break the geometric degeneracy of different cosmological models with similar CMB temperature power spectra. Our CMB-only measurement of the dark energy density $\Omega_\Lambda$ confirms other measurements from supernovae, galaxy clusters and baryon acoustic oscillations, and demonstrates the power of CMB lensing as a new cosmological tool.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; replaced with version accepted by Physical Review Letters, added sentence on models with non-standard primordial power spectr

The immunologic effect of early intravenous two and four gram bolus dosing of tranexamic acid compared to placebo in patients with severe traumatic bleeding (TAMPITI): A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, single-center trial

Background: The hemostatic properties of tranexamic acid (TXA) are well described, but the immunological effects of TXA administration after traumatic injury have not been thoroughly examined. We hypothesized TXA would reduce monocyte activation in bleeding trauma patients with severe injury. Methods: This was a single center, double-blinded, randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing placebo to a 2 g or 4 g intravenous TXA bolus dose in trauma patients with severe injury. Fifty patients were randomized into each study group. The primary outcome was a reduction in monocyte activation as measured by human leukocyte antigen-DR isotype (HLA-DR) expression on monocytes 72 h after TXA administration. Secondary outcomes included kinetic assessment of immune and hemostatic phenotypes within the 72 h window post-TXA administration. Results: The trial occurred between March 2016 and September 2017, when data collection ended. 149 patients were analyzed (placebo, Conclusion: In trauma patients with severe injury, 4 g intravenous bolus dosing of TXA has minimal immunomodulatory effects with respect to leukocyte phenotypes and circulating cytokine levels. Clinical Trial Registration: www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT02535949

Detection of the Power Spectrum of Cosmic Microwave Background Lensing by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope

We report the first detection of the gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background through a measurement of the four-point correlation function in the temperature maps made by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. We verify our detection by calculating the levels of potential contaminants and performing a number of null tests. The resulting convergence power spectrum at 2-degree angular scales measures the amplitude of matter density fluctuations on comoving length scales of around 100 Mpc at redshifts around 0.5 to 3. The measured amplitude of the signal agrees with Lambda Cold Dark Matter cosmology predictions. Since the amplitude of the convergence power spectrum scales as the square of the amplitude of the density fluctuations, the 4-sigma detection of the lensing signal measures the amplitude of density fluctuations to 12%.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, replaced title and author list with version accepted by Physical Review Letters. Likelihood code can be downloaded from http://bccp.lbl.gov/~sudeep/ACTLensLike.htm

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Sunyaev Zel'dovich Selected Galaxy Clusters at 148 GHz in the 2008 Survey

We report on twenty-three clusters detected blindly as Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) decrements in a 148 GHz, 455 square-degree map of the southern sky made with data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope 2008 observing season. All SZ detections announced in this work have confirmed optical counterparts. Ten of the clusters are new discoveries. One newly discovered cluster, ACT-CL J0102-4915, with a redshift of 0.75 (photometric), has an SZ decrement comparable to the most massive systems at lower redshifts. Simulations of the cluster recovery method reproduce the sample purity measured by optical follow-up. In particular, for clusters detected with a signal-to-noise ratio greater than six, simulations are consistent with optical follow-up that demonstrated this subsample is 100% pure. The simulations further imply that the total sample is 80% complete for clusters with mass in excess of 6x10^14 solar masses referenced to the cluster volume characterized by five hundred times the critical density. The Compton y -- X-ray luminosity mass comparison for the eleven best detected clusters visually agrees with both self-similar and non-adiabatic, simulation-derived scaling laws.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, Accepted for publication in Ap

Kinetic modeling studies of heterogeneously catalyzed biodiesel synthesis reactions

The heterogeneously catalyzed transesterification reaction for the production of biodiesel from triglycerides was investigated for reaction mechanism and kinetic constants. Three elementary reaction mechanisms Eley-Rideal (ER), Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Watson (LHHW), and Hattori with assumptions, such as quasi-steady-state conditions for the surface species and methanol adsorption, and surface reactions as the rate-determining steps were applied to predict the catalyst surface coverage and the bulk concentration using a multiscale simulation framework. The rate expression based on methanol adsorption as the rate limiting in LHHW elementary mechanism has been found to be statistically the most reliable representation of the experimental data using hydrotalcite catalyst with different formulations

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Cosmological parameters from three seasons of data

We present constraints on cosmological and astrophysical parameters from high-resolution microwave background maps at 148 GHz and 218 GHz made by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in three seasons of observations from 2008 to 2010. A model of primary cosmological and secondary foreground parameters is fit to the map power spectra and lensing deflection power spectrum, including contributions from both the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) effect and the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (kSZ) effect, Poisson and correlated anisotropy from unresolved infrared sources, radio sources, and the correlation between the tSZ effect and infrared sources. The power ell^2 C_ell/2pi of the thermal SZ power spectrum at 148 GHz is measured to be 3.4 +\- 1.4 muK^2 at ell=3000, while the corresponding amplitude of the kinematic SZ power spectrum has a 95% confidence level upper limit of 8.6 muK^2. Combining ACT power spectra with the WMAP 7-year temperature and polarization power spectra, we find excellent consistency with the LCDM model. We constrain the number of effective relativistic degrees of freedom in the early universe to be Neff=2.79 +\- 0.56, in agreement with the canonical value of Neff=3.046 for three massless neutrinos. We constrain the sum of the neutrino masses to be Sigma m_nu < 0.39 eV at 95% confidence when combining ACT and WMAP 7-year data with BAO and Hubble constant measurements. We constrain the amount of primordial helium to be Yp = 0.225 +\- 0.034, and measure no variation in the fine structure constant alpha since recombination, with alpha/alpha0 = 1.004 +/- 0.005. We also find no evidence for any running of the scalar spectral index, dns/dlnk = -0.004 +\- 0.012.Comment: 26 pages, 22 figures. This paper is a companion to Das et al. (2013) and Dunkley et al. (2013). Matches published JCAP versio

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected

Comparative Genomics of the Apicomplexan Parasites Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora caninum: Coccidia Differing in Host Range and Transmission Strategy

Toxoplasma gondii is a zoonotic protozoan parasite which infects nearly one third of the human population and is found in an extraordinary range of vertebrate hosts. Its epidemiology depends heavily on horizontal transmission, especially between rodents and its definitive host, the cat. Neospora caninum is a recently discovered close relative of Toxoplasma, whose definitive host is the dog. Both species are tissue-dwelling Coccidia and members of the phylum Apicomplexa; they share many common features, but Neospora neither infects humans nor shares the same wide host range as Toxoplasma, rather it shows a striking preference for highly efficient vertical transmission in cattle. These species therefore provide a remarkable opportunity to investigate mechanisms of host restriction, transmission strategies, virulence and zoonotic potential. We sequenced the genome of N. caninum and transcriptomes of the invasive stage of both species, undertaking an extensive comparative genomics and transcriptomics analysis. We estimate that these organisms diverged from their common ancestor around 28 million years ago and find that both genomes and gene expression are remarkably conserved. However, in N. caninum we identified an unexpected expansion of surface antigen gene families and the divergence of secreted virulence factors, including rhoptry kinases. Specifically we show that the rhoptry kinase ROP18 is pseudogenised in N. caninum and that, as a possible consequence, Neospora is unable to phosphorylate host immunity-related GTPases, as Toxoplasma does. This defense strategy is thought to be key to virulence in Toxoplasma. We conclude that the ecological niches occupied by these species are influenced by a relatively small number of gene products which operate at the host-parasite interface and that the dominance of vertical transmission in N. caninum may be associated with the evolution of reduced virulence in this species