The potential spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus via dynamic contacts between poultry premises in Great Britain

Background: Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses have had devastating effects on poultry industries worldwide, and there is concern about the potential for HPAI outbreaks in the poultry industry in Great Britain (GB). Critical to the potential for HPAI to spread between poultry premises are the connections made between farms by movements related to human activity. Movement records of catching teams and slaughterhouse vehicles were obtained from a large catching company, and these data were used in a simulation model of HPAI spread between farms serviced by the catching company, and surrounding (geographic) areas. The spread of HPAI through real-time movements was modelled, with the addition of spread via company personnel and local transmission. Results: The model predicted that although large outbreaks are rare, they may occur, with long distances between infected premises. Final outbreak size was most sensitive to the probability of spread via slaughterhouse-linked movements whereas the probability of onward spread beyond an index premises was most sensitive to the frequency of company personnel movements. Conclusions: Results obtained from this study show that, whilst there is the possibility that HPAI virus will jump from one cluster of farms to another, movements made by catching teams connected fewer poultry premises in an outbreak situation than slaughterhouses and company personnel. The potential connection of a large number of infected farms, however, highlights the importance of retaining up-to-date data on poultry premises so that control measures can be effectively prioritised in an outbreak situatio

Anarchy in the UK: Detailed genetic analysis of worker reproduction in a naturally occurring British anarchistic honeybee, Apis mellifera, colony using DNA microsatellites

Anarchistic behaviour is a very rare phenotype of honeybee colonies. In an anarchistic colony, many workers’ sons are reared in the presence of the queen. Anarchy has previously been described in only two Australian colonies. Here we report on a first detailed genetic analysis of a British anarchistic colony. Male pupae were present in great abundance above the queen excluder, which was clearly indicative of extensive worker reproduction and is the hallmark of anarchy. Seventeen microsatellite loci were used to analyse these male pupae, allowing us to address whether all the males were indeed workers’ sons, and how many worker patrilines and individual workers produced them. In the sample, 95 of 96 of the males were definitely workers’ sons. Given that ≈ 1% of workers’ sons were genetically indistinguishable from queen’s sons, this suggests that workers do not move any queen-laid eggs between the part of the colony where the queen is present to the area above the queen excluder which the queen cannot enter. The colony had 16 patrilines, with an effective number of patrilines of 9.85. The 75 males that could be assigned with certainty to a patriline came from 7 patrilines, with an effective number of 4.21. They were the offspring of at least 19 workers. This is in contrast to the two previously studied Australian naturally occurring anarchist colonies, in which most of the workers’ sons were offspring of one patriline. The high number of patrilines producing males leads to a low mean relatedness between laying workers and males of the colony. We discuss the importance of studying such colonies in the understanding of worker policing and its evolution

Three-loop HTL gluon thermodynamics at intermediate coupling

We calculate the thermodynamic functions of pure-glue QCD to three-loop order using the hard-thermal-loop perturbation theory (HTLpt) reorganization of finite temperature quantum field theory. We show that at three-loop order hard-thermal-loop perturbation theory is compatible with lattice results for the pressure, energy density, and entropy down to temperatures $T\simeq3\;T_c$. Our results suggest that HTLpt provides a systematic framework that can used to calculate static and dynamic quantities for temperatures relevant at LHC.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figs. 2nd version: improved discussion and fixing typos. Published in JHE

Organometallic neptunium(III) complexes

Studies of transuranic organometallic complexes provide a particularly valuable insight into covalent contributions to the metal–ligand bonding, in which the subtle differences between the transuranium actinide ions and their lighter lanthanide counterparts are of fundamental importance for the effective remediation of nuclear waste. Unlike the organometallic chemistry of uranium, which has focused strongly on UIII and has seen some spectacular advances, that of the transuranics is significantly technically more challenging and has remained dormant. In the case of neptunium, it is limited mainly to NpIV. Here we report the synthesis of three new NpIII organometallic compounds and the characterization of their molecular and electronic structures. These studies suggest that NpIII complexes could act as single-molecule magnets, and that the lower oxidation state of NpII is chemically accessible. In comparison with lanthanide analogues, significant d- and f-electron contributions to key NpIII orbitals are observed, which shows that fundamental neptunium organometallic chemistry can provide new insights into the behaviour of f-elements

Reliability of a 1-week recall period for the Medical Outcomes Study Sleep Scale (MOS-SS) in patients with fibromyalgia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>To evaluate the reliability of a one-week versus a four-week recall period of the Medical Outcomes Study Sleep Scale (MOS-SS) in patients with fibromyalgia (FM).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The MOS-SS was administered by mail to patients with a confirmed diagnosis of FM and a current pain rating of > 2 (0–10 point numerical rating scale) recruited through newspapers, support groups, and the Internet. Reliability of MOS-SS subscale domains was evaluated using test-retest methodology separated by a 1–3 day interval for the 4-week recall period and a 7-day interval for the 1-week recall period. Patient Impression of Change was evaluated for sleep, and for patients with no change, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and the Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated for MOS-SS subscales.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 129 patients enrolled, 91.3% were female, mean age was 49.4 ± 11.0 years; self-rated FM severity was moderate-to-severe in 88.1% of patients. MOS-SS subscale scores were similar for both recall periods with little variation between test-retest. The 9-item Sleep Problems Index scores ranged from 57.2 ± 14.5 to 61.9 ± 15.8 across all assessments and demonstrated high reliability which was similar for the 1-week (ICC 0.81) and 4-week (ICC 0.89) recall periods. For the other MOS-SS subscales, the 1-week recall period also showed good reliability, which was consistent for the ICC and Pearson correlation coefficients.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A 1-week recall period is adequately reliable for use of the MOS-SS in studies evaluating sleep disturbance in patients with FM.</p

Dimension reduction for systems with slow relaxation

We develop reduced, stochastic models for high dimensional, dissipative dynamical systems that relax very slowly to equilibrium and can encode long term memory. We present a variety of empirical and first principles approaches for model reduction, and build a mathematical framework for analyzing the reduced models. We introduce the notions of universal and asymptotic filters to characterize `optimal' model reductions for sloppy linear models. We illustrate our methods by applying them to the practically important problem of modeling evaporation in oil spills.Comment: 48 Pages, 13 figures. Paper dedicated to the memory of Leo Kadanof

The impact of excluding or including Death Certificate Initiated (DCI) cases on estimated cancer survival: A simulation study

Background Population-based cancer registries strive to cover all cancer cases diagnosed within the population, but some cases will always be missed and no register is 100 % complete. Many cancer registries use death certificates to identify additional cases not captured through other routine sources, to hopefully add a large proportion of the missed cases. Cases notified through this route, who would not have been captured without death certificate information, are referred to as Death Certificate Initiated (DCI) cases. Inclusion of DCI cases in cancer registries increases completeness and is important for estimating cancer incidence. However, inclusion of DCI cases will generally lead to biased estimates of cancer survival, but the same is often also true if excluding DCI cases. Missed cases are probably not a random sample of all cancer cases, but rather cases with poor prognosis. Further, DCI cases have poorer prognosis than missed cases in general, since they have all died with cancer mentioned on the death certificates. Methods We performed a simulation study to estimate the impact of including or excluding DCI cases on cancer survival estimates, under different scenarios. Results We demonstrated that including DCI cases underestimates survival. The exclusion of DCI cases gives unbiased survival estimates if missed cases are a random sample of all cancer cases, while survival is overestimated if these have poorer prognosis. Conclusion In our most extreme scenarios, with 25 % of cases initially missed, the usual practice of including DCI cases underestimated 5-year survival by at most 3 percentage points

Exploring the impact of cancer registry completeness on international cancer survival differences: a simulation study

Background Data from population-based cancer registries are often used to compare cancer survival between countries or regions. The ICBP SURVMARK-2 study is an international partnership aiming to quantify and explore the reasons behind survival differences across high-income countries. However, the magnitude and relevance of differences in cancer survival between countries have been questioned, as it is argued that observed survival variations may be explained, at least in part, by differences in cancer registration practice, completeness and the availability and quality of the respective data sources. Methods As part of the ICBP SURVMARK-2 study, we used a simulation approach to better understand how differences in completeness, the characteristics of those missed and inclusion of cases found from death certificates can impact on cancer survival estimates. Results Bias in 1- and 5-year net survival estimates for 216 simulated scenarios is presented. Out of the investigated factors, the proportion of cases not registered through sources other than death certificates, had the largest impact on survival estimates. Conclusion Our results show that the differences in registration practice between participating countries could in our most extreme scenarios explain only a part of the largest observed differences in cancer survival

Impact of Indian Total Sanitation Campaign on latrine coverage and use: a cross-sectional study in Orissa three years following programme implementation.

BACKGROUND: Faced with a massive shortfall in meeting sanitation targets, some governments have implemented campaigns that use subsidies focused on latrine construction to overcome income constraints and rapidly expand coverage. In settings like rural India where open defecation is common, this may result in sub-optimal compliance (use), thereby continuing to leave the population exposed to human excreta. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study to investigate latrine coverage and use among 20 villages (447 households, 1933 individuals) in Orissa, India where the Government of India's Total Sanitation Campaign had been implemented at least three years previously. We defined coverage as the proportion of households that had a latrine; for use we identified the proportion of households with at least one reported user and among those, the extent of reported use by each member of the household. RESULTS: Mean latrine coverage among the villages was 72% (compared to <10% in comparable villages in the same district where the Total Sanitation Campaign had not yet been implemented), though three of the villages had less than 50% coverage. Among these households with latrines, more than a third (39%) were not being used by any member of the household. Well over a third (37%) of the members of households with latrines reported never defecating in their latrines. Less than half (47%) of the members of such households reported using their latrines at all times for defecation. Combined with the 28% of households that did not have latrines, it appears that most defecation events in these communities are still practiced in the open. CONCLUSION: A large-scale campaign to implement sanitation has achieved substantial gains in latrine coverage in this population. Nevertheless, gaps in coverage and widespread continuation of open defecation will result in continued exposure to human excreta, reducing the potential for health gains

On the Strength of First Order Phase Transitions

Electroweak baryogenesis may solve one of the most fundamental questions we can ask about the universe, that of the origin of matter. It has become clear in the past few years that it also poses a multi-faceted challenge. In order to compute the tiny primordial baryonic excess, we probably must invoke physics beyond the standard model (an exciting prospect for most people), we must push perturbation theory to its ``limits'' (or beyond), and we must deal with nonequilibrium aspects of the phase transition. In this talk, I focus mainly on the latter issue, that of nonequilibrium aspects of first order transitions. In particular, I discuss the elusive question of ``weakness''. What does it mean to have a weak first order transition, and how can we distinguish between weak and strong? I argue that weak and strong transitions have very different dynamics; while strong transitions proceed by the usual bubble nucleation mechanism, weak transitions are characterized by a mixing of phases as the system reaches the critical temperature from above. I show that it is possible to clearly distinguish between the two, and discuss consequences for studies of first order transitions in general. (Invited talk given at the ``Electroweak Physics and the Early Universe'' workshop, Sintra, March 23-25, 1994.)Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures not included (can be obtained from hep-ph/9403310, or by request) RevTeX, DART-HEP-94/0