Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment Using Azred Water Quality Models

Cryptosporidiosis is a common gastrointestinal disease that significantly impacts immune-compromised individuals. In this study, water quality analysis and doseresponse models are used to calculate the location-based risk of Cryptosporidium infection within 24 hours of an intrusion into a drinking water system. Current water quality models such as EP ANET are based upon two main assumptions: complete mixing occurs at pipe cross junctions, and axial dispersion of a solute does not occur along the length of a pipe. To improve the accuracy of EPANET, two newly developed models, AZRED I and II, consider these assumptions. EP ANET-generated simulations model plug flow-the movement of large contaminant concentration pulses with respect to time-while AZRED-generated simulations model solute dispersion, which results in lower contaminant concentrations over a longer period of time. The risk of infection was calculated for populations at four specific locations in a network using an exponential model. Results obtained using AZRED, when compared to results obtained from EPANET, predicted a higher risk of infection at downstream locations.Digitized from a paper copy provided by the Physiological Sciences Graduate Interdisciplinary Program

EFFECT OF VARIOUS ROOT CANAL DISINFECTION PROCEDURES ON EXPRESSION OF ENTEROCOCCUS FAECALIS VIRULENCE FACTOR – A PCR STUDY

Abstract Objective: To compare and evaluate antimicrobial effects of 2% Chlorhexidine (CHX) versus 0.1% Octenidine Dihydrochloride (OCT) as root canal irrigant with and without Laser activation against Enterococcus faecalis virulence factor - E. faecalis endocarditis antigen (efaA) using real time polymerase chain reaction. Aim: To evaluate the effect of various root canal disinfection procedures on expression of Enterococcus faecalis virulence factor (efaA) using real time PCR. Methods and Materials: Forty single rooted premolars were taken and decoronated to standardize the root length as 14 mm. The canals were instrumented up to F3 Protaper Gold and teeth were autoclaved at 121°C for 20 minutes at 15 psi. 0.1 mL of the bacterial suspension was injected into the root canals, and the samples were incubated at 37°C and 100% humidity for 21 days. The samples were randomly divided into four groups: Group I – 2% Chlorhexidine, Group - II 2% Chlorhexidine with Laser, Group III – 0.1% Octenidine dihydrochloride, Group IV- 0.1% Octenidine dihydrochloride with Laser. After the irrigation protocol, Paper points were used to transfer the contents of the canal. PCR was performed to detect the presence of Enterococcus faecalis virulence factor (efaA). Results:Octenidine (0.1%) was more effective than 2% Chlorhexidine against E. faecalis. Group II and IV showed significant difference compared to Group I and III with statistically significant difference (p˂0.001). Laser activation enhanced the antimicrobial action of the irrigants. Conclusion: Octenidine (0.1%) was more effective than 2% Chlorhexidine against E. faecalis. Laser activated irrigation proved to enhance the antimicrobial action of the irrigants

Long-term effect of lifestyle intervention on adiposity, metabolic parameters, inflammation and physical fitness in obese children: a randomized controlled trial

Epidemiology in Pediatrics and Child Healt

Parvovirus 4 Infection and Clinical Outcome in High-Risk Populations

Parvovirus 4 (PARV4) is a DNA virus frequently associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections, but its clinical significance is unknown. We studied the prevalence of PARV4 antibodies in 2 cohorts of HIV- and HCV-infected individuals (n = 469) and the correlations with disease status. We found that PARV4 infection frequently occurred in individuals exposed to bloodborne viruses (95% in HCV-HIV coinfected intravenous drug users [IDUs]). There were no correlations between PARV4 serostatus and HCV outcomes. There was, however, a significant association with early HIV-related symptoms, although because this was tightly linked to both HCV status and clinical group (IDU), the specific role of PARV4 is not yet clear

Velocity independent constraints on spin-dependent DM-nucleon interactions from IceCube and PICO

[EN] Adopting the Standard Halo Model (SHM) of an isotropic Maxwellian velocity distribution for dark matter (DM) particles in the Galaxy, the most stringent current constraints on their spin-dependent scattering cross-section with nucleons come from the IceCube neutrino observatory and the PICO-60 C3F8 superheated bubble chamber experiments. The former is sensitive to high energy neutrinos from the self-annihilation of DM particles captured in the Sun, while the latter looks for nuclear recoil events from DM scattering off nucleons. Although slower DM particles are more likely to be captured by the Sun, the faster ones are more likely to be detected by PICO. Recent N-body simulations suggest significant deviations from the SHM for the smooth halo component of the DM, while observations hint at a dominant fraction of the local DM being in substructures. We use the method of Ferrer et al. (JCAP 1509: 052, 2015) to exploit the complementarity between the two approaches and derive conservative constraints on DM-nucleon scattering. Our results constrain sigma SD less than or similar to 3x10-39cm2 (6x10-38cm2) at greater than or similar to 90% C.L. for a DM particle of mass 1 TeV annihilating into tau+tau- (bb) with a local density of rho DM=0.3GeV/cm3. The constraints scale inversely with rho DM and are independent of the DM velocity distribution.Aartsen, MG.; Ackermann, M.; Adams, J.; Aguilar, JA.; Ahlers, M.; Ahrens, M.; Alispach, C.... (2020). Velocity independent constraints on spin-dependent DM-nucleon interactions from IceCube and PICO. The European Physical Journal C. 80(9):1-8. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-8069-5S18809F. Ferrer, A. Ibarra, S. Wild, JCAP 1509(09), 052 (2015). arXiv:1506.03386 [hep-ph]S. van den Bergh, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac. 111, 657 (1999). arXiv:astro-ph/9904251G. Bertone, D. Hooper, J. Silk, Phys. Rept. 405, 279 (2005). arXiv:hep-ph/0404175A.K. Drukier, K. Freese, D.N. Spergel, Phys. Rev. D 33, 3495 (1986)M. Kuhlen, N. Weiner, J. Diemand, P. Madau, B. Moore, D. Potter, J. Stadel, M. Zemp, JCAP 1002, 030 (2010). arXiv:0912.2358 [astro-ph.GA]M. Lisanti, L.E. Strigari, J.G. Wacker, R.H. Wechsler, Phys. Rev. D 83, 023519 (2011). arXiv:1010.4300 [astro-ph.CO]Y.Y. Mao, L.E. Strigari, R.H. Wechsler, H.Y. Wu, O. Hahn, Astrophys. J. 764, 35 (2013). arXiv:1210.2721 [astro-ph.CO]L. Necib, M. Lisanti, V. Belokurov, arXiv:1807.02519 [astro-ph.GA]N.W. Evans, C.A.J. O’Hare, C. McCabe, Phys. Rev. D 99(2), 023012 (2019). arXiv:1810.11468 [astro-ph.GA]M.G. Aartsen et al. [IceCube Collaboration], Eur. Phys. J. C 77, no. 3, 146 (2017) arXiv:1612.05949 [astro-ph.HE]C. Amole et al., [PICO Collaboration]. Phys. Rev. Lett. 118(25), 251301 (2017). arXiv:1702.07666 [astro-ph.CO]M.T. Frandsen, F. Kahlhoefer, C. McCabe, S. Sarkar, K. Schmidt-Hoberg, JCAP 1201, 024 (2012). arXiv:1111.0292 [hep-ph]K. Choi, C. Rott, Y. Itow, JCAP 1405, 049 (2014). arXiv:1312.0273 [astro-ph.HE]A. Achterberg et al., [IceCube Collaboration]. Astropart. Phys. 26, 155 (2006). arXiv:astro-ph/0604450R. Abbasi et al. [IceCube Collaboration], Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 601, 294 (2009) arXiv:0810.4930 [physics.ins-det]M.G. Aartsen et al. [IceCube Collaboration], JINST 12, no. 03, P03012 (2017) arXiv:1612.05093 [astro-ph.IM]R. Abbasi et al., [IceCube Collaboration]. Astropart. Phys. 35, 615 (2012). arXiv:1109.6096 [astro-ph.IM]G.J. Feldman, R.D. Cousins, Phys. Rev. D 57, 3873 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.57.3873. arXiv:physics/9711021 [physics.data-an]M. Tanabashi et al. [Particle Data Group], Phys. Rev. D 98, no. 3, 030001 (2018)C. Amole et al. [PICO Collaboration], arXiv:1905.12522 [physics.ins-det]C. Amole et al. [PICO Collaboration], Phys. Rev. D 93, no. 5, 052014 (2016) arXiv:1510.07754 [hep-ex]E. Tollerud et al. [ERFA] Computational Science and Discovery, no 8, 1 (2015) https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1021149J.N. Bahcall, R.K. Ulrich, Rev. Mod. Phys. 60, 297 (1988)T. Mumford et al. [SunPy Community] Computational Science and Discovery, no 8, 1 (2015) arXiv:1505.02563 [astro-ph]V. Gluscevic, M.I. Gresham, S.D. McDermott, A.H.G. Peter, K.M. Zurek, JCAP 1512(12), 057 (2015). arXiv:1506.04454 [hep-ph]A.L. Fitzpatrick, W. Haxton, E. Katz, N. Lubbers, Y. Xu, ‘, JCAP 1302, 004 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2013/02/004. arXiv:1203.3542 [hep-ph]A. Ibarra, A. Rappelt, JCAP 1708(08), 039 (2017). arXiv:1703.09168 [hep-ph

Combined sensitivity to the neutrino mass ordering with JUNO, the IceCube Upgrade, and PINGU

The ordering of the neutrino mass eigenstates is one of the fundamental open questions in neutrino physics. While current-generation neutrino oscillation experiments are able to produce moderate indications on this ordering, upcoming experiments of the next generation aim to provide conclusive evidence. In this paper we study the combined performance of the two future multi-purpose neutrino oscillation experiments JUNO and the IceCube Upgrade, which employ two very distinct and complementary routes toward the neutrino mass ordering. The approach pursued by the 20 kt medium-baseline reactor neutrino experiment JUNO consists of a careful investigation of the energy spectrum of oscillated νe produced by ten nuclear reactor cores. The IceCube Upgrade, on the other hand, which consists of seven additional densely instrumented strings deployed in the center of IceCube DeepCore, will observe large numbers of atmospheric neutrinos that have undergone oscillations affected by Earth matter. In a joint fit with both approaches, tension occurs between their preferred mass-squared differences Δm312=m32-m12 within the wrong mass ordering. In the case of JUNO and the IceCube Upgrade, this allows to exclude the wrong ordering at >5σ on a timescale of 3-7 years - even under circumstances that are unfavorable to the experiments' individual sensitivities. For PINGU, a 26-string detector array designed as a potential low-energy extension to IceCube, the inverted ordering could be excluded within 1.5 years (3 years for the normal ordering) in a joint analysis

Time-Integrated Neutrino Source Searches with 10 Years of IceCube Data.

This Letter presents the results from pointlike neutrino source searches using ten years of IceCube data collected between April 6, 2008 and July 10, 2018. We evaluate the significance of an astrophysical signal from a pointlike source looking for an excess of clustered neutrino events with energies typically above ∼1  TeV among the background of atmospheric muons and neutrinos. We perform a full-sky scan, a search within a selected source catalog, a catalog population study, and three stacked Galactic catalog searches. The most significant point in the northern hemisphere from scanning the sky is coincident with the Seyfert II galaxy NGC 1068, which was included in the source catalog search. The excess at the coordinates of NGC 1068 is inconsistent with background expectations at the level of 2.9σ after accounting for statistical trials from the entire catalog. The combination of this result along with excesses observed at the coordinates of three other sources, including TXS 0506+056, suggests that, collectively, correlations with sources in the northern catalog are inconsistent with background at 3.3σ significance. The southern catalog is consistent with background. These results, all based on searches for a cumulative neutrino signal integrated over the 10 years of available data, motivate further study of these and similar sources, including time-dependent analyses, multimessenger correlations, and the possibility of stronger evidence with coming upgrades to the detector