Bilateral Ocular Myositis Associated with Whipple's Disease

Purpose: To describe the clinical features of a Caucasian female patient with a history of treated gastrointestinal Whipple's disease (WD) who developed new-onset diplopia, with a description of the histopathological features of the extraocular muscle biopsies. Methods: A previously fit 38-year-old Caucasian female presented with acute-onset diplopia after being on a sustained medication regime for biopsy-proven gastrointestinal WD. A magnetic resonance imaging scan of her orbits with gadolinium revealed diffuse enhancement of the bellies of the extraocular muscles bilaterally, particularly the medial rectus, superior rectus, and superior oblique muscles, consistent with an infiltrative myositis. She underwent unilateral extraocular muscle biopsies. Results: The extraocular muscle biopsies contained macrophages between the muscle fibres. These contained periodic acid-Schiff-positive cytoplasmic granules. Immunohistochemistry with an antibody raised to Tropheryma whipplei showed positive staining of the same macrophages. Transmission electron microscopy confirmed the presence of effete T. whipplei cell membranes in lysosomes. Conclusion: This case describes bilateral WD-associated extraocular muscle myositis. The exact mechanism for this unusual presentation is unclear, but both a WD-associated immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome and treatment failure are possibilities, with a good response observed to antibiotic therapy and adjunctive corticosteroids

Data release and initial interpretation of test pumping of boreholes at the Glasgow UK Geoenergy Observatory

This report describes a programme of test pumping carried out on ten boreholes at the UK Geoenergy Observatory (Glasgow Observatory), Cuningar Loop in Rutherglen, Greater Glasgow in January and February 2020. It details the types of test undertaken, the datasets generated and how these datasets can best be used dependent on the data analysis being undertaken. Drawdown data for pumping boreholes and observation boreholes is presented in graphical form, together with an initial interpretation of test pumping results. The main objectives of the pumping tests were to obtain data regarding: the physical aquifer properties, in particular transmissivity, of the different hydrogeological zones at the Observatory; to investigate borehole efficiency; and to gather data on the connectivity between different hydrogeological zones. Successful step tests and five hour constant rate tests were carried out in all boreholes except GGB04 in the superficial deposits where a slug test was carried out instead due to the low yield. Time series data of water levels, temperature and conductivity were collected in the pumping and observation boreholes. The constant rate tests were analysed using Jacob’s approximation and Theis recovery methods to give a preliminary interpretation of the transmissivity. The drawdown curves were visually inspected to help identify borehole inefficiency and significant responses from observation boreholes to pumping. Transmissivity values for the superficial deposits are highly variable (0.04 and 225 m2/day), the two bedrock test pumping responses also gave very different results (2.6 and 580 m2/d), three boreholes in the Glasgow Upper mine workings give a consistent transmissivity estimate (950 – 1020 m2/d) and the two boreholes intersecting the Glasgow Main mine workings give transmissivity estimates of 2000 – 2100 m2/d. There is clear connectivity between the bedrock boreholes and the Glasgow Upper mine workings during pumping, with strong responses between boreholes from most pumping tests. There is also clear connectivity within the individual mine workings. There is also evidence of some connectivity between the Glasgow Main mine workings and the Glasgow Upper mine workings. There is an upward vertical hydraulic gradient at the Observatory, with rest water levels approximately 10 – 11 m relative to Ordnance Datum (OD) in the Glasgow Main mine workings; 9 – 10 m OD in the Glasgow Upper mine workings and bedrock boreholes, and 3 – 4.5 m OD in the superficial deposits. Temperature measurements from observation boreholes monitored throughout the testing period show that the groundwater in the deeper Glasgow Main mine workings is warmer than the shallower workings, bedrock or superficial deposits with a value generally 12.4 – 12.8 ºC. Temperatures in the Glasgow Upper mine workings and the overlying bedrock are broadly similar, 11.5 – 12 ºC, apart from GGA04. Specific electrical conductivity measurements from the mine workings and bedrock boreholes lie in the range 1350 - 1600 µScm-1 @25 ºC and are typical of measurements from water boreholes within mined Carboniferous rocks (MacDonald et al. 2017). The conductivity of the superficial deposits is high and variable at 1000 – 1400 µScm-1 @25 ºC, although within the range of those found in Glasgow (Ó Dochartaigh et al. 2018)

Pre-main-sequence Lithium Depletion

In this review I briefly discuss the theory of pre-main-sequence (PMS) Li depletion in low-mass (0.075<M<1.2 Msun) stars and highlight those uncertain parameters which lead to substantial differences in model predictions. I then summarise observations of PMS stars in very young open clusters, clusters that have just reached the ZAMS and briefly highlight recent developments in the observation of Li in very low-mass PMS stars.Comment: 8 pages, invited review at "Chemical abundances and mixing in stars in the Milky Way and its satellites", eds. L. Pasquini, S. Randich. ESO Astrophysics Symposium (Springer-Verlag

Fish Spawning Aggregations: Where Well-Placed Management Actions Can Yield Big Benefits for Fisheries and Conservation

Marine ecosystem management has traditionally been divided between fisheries management and biodiversity conservation approaches, and the merging of these disparate agendas has proven difficult. Here, we offer a pathway that can unite fishers, scientists, resource managers and conservationists towards a single vision for some areas of the ocean where small investments in management can offer disproportionately large benefits to fisheries and biodiversity conservation. Specifically, we provide a series of evidenced-based arguments that support an urgent need to recognize fish spawning aggregations (FSAs) as a focal point for fisheries management and conservation on a global scale, with a particular emphasis placed on the protection of multispecies FSA sites. We illustrate that these sites serve as productivity hotspots - small areas of the ocean that are dictated by the interactions between physical forces and geomorphology, attract multiple species to reproduce in large numbers and support food web dynamics, ecosystem health and robust fisheries. FSAs are comparable in vulnerability, importance and magnificence to breeding aggregations of seabirds, sea turtles and whales yet they receive insufficient attention and are declining worldwide. Numerous case-studies confirm that protected aggregations do recover to benefit fisheries through increases in fish biomass, catch rates and larval recruitment at fished sites. The small size and spatio-temporal predictability of FSAs allow monitoring, assessment and enforcement to be scaled down while benefits of protection scale up to entire populations. Fishers intuitively understand the linkages between protecting FSAs and healthy fisheries and thus tend to support their protection

Low Q^2 Jet Production at HERA and Virtual Photon Structure

The transition between photoproduction and deep-inelastic scattering is investigated in jet production at the HERA ep collider, using data collected by the H1 experiment. Measurements of the differential inclusive jet cross-sections dsigep/dEt* and dsigmep/deta*, where Et* and eta* are the transverse energy and the pseudorapidity of the jets in the virtual photon-proton centre of mass frame, are presented for 0 < Q2 < 49 GeV2 and 0.3 < y < 0.6. The interpretation of the results in terms of the structure of the virtual photon is discussed. The data are best described by QCD calculations which include a partonic structure of the virtual photon that evolves with Q2.Comment: 20 pages, 5 Figure

Hadron Production in Diffractive Deep-Inelastic Scattering

Characteristics of hadron production in diffractive deep-inelastic positron-proton scattering are studied using data collected in 1994 by the H1 experiment at HERA. The following distributions are measured in the centre-of-mass frame of the photon dissociation system: the hadronic energy flow, the Feynman-x (x_F) variable for charged particles, the squared transverse momentum of charged particles (p_T^{*2}), and the mean p_T^{*2} as a function of x_F. These distributions are compared with results in the gamma^* p centre-of-mass frame from inclusive deep-inelastic scattering in the fixed-target experiment EMC, and also with the predictions of several Monte Carlo calculations. The data are consistent with a picture in which the partonic structure of the diffractive exchange is dominated at low Q^2 by hard gluons.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Measurement of D* Meson Cross Sections at HERA and Determination of the Gluon Density in the Proton using NLO QCD

With the H1 detector at the ep collider HERA, D* meson production cross sections have been measured in deep inelastic scattering with four-momentum transfers Q^2>2 GeV2 and in photoproduction at energies around W(gamma p)~ 88 GeV and 194 GeV. Next-to-Leading Order QCD calculations are found to describe the differential cross sections within theoretical and experimental uncertainties. Using these calculations, the NLO gluon momentum distribution in the proton, x_g g(x_g), has been extracted in the momentum fraction range 7.5x10^{-4}< x_g <4x10^{-2} at average scales mu^2 =25 to 50 GeV2. The gluon momentum fraction x_g has been obtained from the measured kinematics of the scattered electron and the D* meson in the final state. The results compare well with the gluon distribution obtained from the analysis of scaling violations of the proton structure function F_2.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Nucl. Phys.