360 research outputs found
Melting and refreezing beneath Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf (East Antarctica) inferred from radar, GPS, and ice core data
Ice-penetrating radar profiles across the grounding line of a small ice-rise promontory located within the Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf in the Dronning Maud Land sector of East Antarctica show downward dipping englacial radar-detected reflectors. Model results indicate that this reflector pattern is best fit by including basal melting of at least 15 cm a-1. This rate of melting is low compared with rates observed on larger ice shelves in both West and East Antarctica. Ice cores extracted from a rift system close to the ice-rise promontory show several meters of marine ice accreted beneath the shelf. These observations of low rates of basal melting, and limited distribution of accreted marine ice suggest that either Antarctic surface water may reach the ice shelf base or that circulation beneath the shelf is likely dominated by the production of high salinity shelf water rather than the incursion of circumpolar deep water, implying a weak sub-shelf circulation system here. Many of the ice shelves located along the coast of Dronning Maud Land are, like Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf, characterized by frequent ice rises and promontories. Therefore, it is highly likely that these are also of shallow bathymetry and are subject to similarly weak side-shelf basal melting and refreezing
Micro-Capsules in Shear Flow
This paper deals with flow-induced shape transitions of elastic capsules. The
state of the art concerning both theory and experiments is briefly reviewed
starting with dynamically induced small deformation of initially spherical
capsules and the formation of wrinkles on polymerized membranes. Initially
non-spherical capsules show tumbling and tank-treading motion in shear flow.
Theoretical descriptions of the transition between these two types of motion
assuming a fixed shape are at variance with the full capsule dynamics obtained
numerically. To resolve the discrepancy, we expand the exact equations of
motion for small deformations and find that shape changes play a dominant role.
We classify the dynamical phase transitions and obtain numerical and analytical
results for the phase boundaries as a function of viscosity contrast, shear and
elongational flow rate. We conclude with perspectives on timedependent flow, on
shear-induced unbinding from surfaces, on the role of thermal fluctuations, and
on applying the concepts of stochastic thermodynamics to these systems.Comment: 34 pages, 15 figure
Do Surgical Interventions Influence Psychosexual and Cosmetic Outcomes in Women with Disorders of Sex Development?
Clinical practice developed to promote psychosexual well-being in DSD is under scrutiny. Although techniques for genital surgery have much improved lately, long-term studies on psychosexual functioning and cosmetic outcome on which to base treatment and counseling are scarce. We studied 91 women with a DSD. Feminizing surgery was performed in 64% of the women; in 60% of them, resurgery in puberty was needed after a single-stage procedure. Both patients and gynecologists were satisfied with the cosmetic appearance of the genitalia. However, forty percent of these females experienced sexuality-related distress and 66% was at risk for developing a sexual dysfunction, whether they had surgery or not. Recognizing the difficulty of accurate assessment, our data indicate that feminizing surgery does not seem to improve nor hamper psychosexual outcome, especially in patients with severe virilization
Installing the "magic methyl"- C-H methylation in synthesis
The selective and efficient C-H methylation of sp2 and sp3 carbon centres has become a powerful transformation in the synthetic toolbox. Due to the potential for profound changes to physicochemical properties attributed to the installation of a "Magic Methyl" group at a strategic site in a lead compound, such techniques have become highly desirable in modern drug discovery and synthesis programmes. This review will cover the diverse techniques that have been employed to enable the selective installation of the C-Me bond in a wide range of chemical structures, from simple building blocks to complex drug-like architectures
Meltwater produced by wind–albedo interaction stored in an East Antarctic ice shelf
Surface melt and subsequent firn air depletion can ultimately
lead to disintegration of Antarctic ice shelves1,2 causing
grounded glaciers to accelerate3 and sea level to rise. In
the Antarctic Peninsula, foehn winds enhance melting near
the grounding line4, which in the recent past has led to the
disintegration of the most northerly ice shelves5,6. Here, we
provide observational and model evidence that this process
also occurs over an East Antarctic ice shelf, where meltwaterinduced
firn air depletion is found in the grounding zone.
Unlike the Antarctic Peninsula, where foehn events originate
from episodic interaction of the circumpolar westerlies with
the topography, in coastal East Antarctica high temperatures
are caused by persistent katabatic winds originating from the
ice sheet’s interior. Katabatic winds warm and mix the air
as it flows downward and cause widespread snow erosion,
explaining >3 K higher near-surface temperatures in summer
and surface melt doubling in the grounding zone compared with
its surroundings. Additionally, these winds expose blue ice and
firn with lower surface albedo, further enhancing melt. The
in situ observation of supraglacial flow and englacial storage
of meltwater suggests that ice-shelf grounding zones in East
Antarctica, like their Antarctic Peninsula counterparts, are
vulnerable to hydrofracturing7
Pharmacokinetics, safety and efficacy from randomized controlled trials of 1 and 2 mg nicotine bitartrate lozenges (Nicotinell®)
A portable reverse transcription recombinase polymerase amplification assay for rapid detection of foot-and-mouth disease virus
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a trans-boundary viral disease of livestock, which causes huge economic losses and constitutes a serious infectious threat for livestock farming worldwide. Early diagnosis of FMD helps to diminish its impact by adequate outbreak management. In this study, we describe the development of a real-time reverse transcription recombinase polymerase amplification (RT-RPA) assay for the detection of FMD virus (FMDV). The FMDV RT-RPA design targeted the 3D gene of FMDV and a 260 nt molecular RNA standard was used for assay validation. The RT-RPA assay was fast (4-10 minutes) and the analytical sensitivity was determined at 1436 RNA molecules detected by probit regression analysis. The FMDV RT-RPA assay detected RNA prepared from all seven FMDV serotypes but did not detect classical swine fever virus or swine vesicular disease virus. The FMDV RT-RPA assay was used in the field during the recent FMD outbreak in Egypt. In clinical samples, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and RT-RPA showed a diagnostic sensitivity of 100% and 98%, respectively. In conclusion, FMDV RT-RPA was quicker and much easier to handle in the field than real-time RT-PCR. Thus RT-RPA could be easily implemented to perform diagnostics at quarantine stations or farms for rapid spot-of-infection detection
Adults with dyslexia demonstrate large effects of crowding and detrimental effects of distractors in a visual tilt discrimination task
Previous research has shown that adults with dyslexia (AwD) are disproportionately impacted by close spacing of stimuli and increased numbers of distractors in a visual search task compared to controls [1]. Using an orientation discrimination task, the present study extended these findings to show that even in conditions where target search was not required: (i) AwD had detrimental effects of both crowding and increased numbers of distractors; (ii) AwD had more pronounced difficulty with distractor exclusion in the left visual field and (iii) measures of crowding and distractor exclusion correlated significantly with literacy measures. Furthermore, such difficulties were not accounted for by the presence of covarying symptoms of ADHD in the participant groups. These findings provide further evidence to suggest that the ability to exclude distracting stimuli likely contributes to the reported visual attention difficulties in AwD and to the aetiology of literacy difficulties. The pattern of results is consistent with weaker and asymmetric attention in AwD
Actively evolving subglacial conduits and eskers initiate ice shelf channels at an Antarctic grounding line
Ice-shelf channels are long curvilinear tracts of thin ice found on Antarctic ice shelves. Many of them originate near the grounding line, but their formation mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here we use ice-penetrating radar data from Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf, East Antarctica, to infer that the morphology of several ice-shelf channels is seeded upstream of the grounding line by large basal obstacles indenting the ice from below. We interpret each obstacle as an esker ridge formed from sediments deposited by subglacial water conduits, and calculate that the eskers’ size grows towards the grounding line where deposition rates are maximum. Relict features on the shelf indicate that these linked systems of subglacial conduits and ice-shelf channels have been changing over the past few centuries. Because ice-shelf channels are loci where intense melting occurs to thin an ice shelf, these findings expose a novel link between subglacial drainage, sedimentation and ice-shelf stability
Within-Host Dynamics of the Hepatitis C Virus Quasispecies Population in HIV-1/HCV Coinfected Patients
HIV/HCV coinfected individuals under highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) represent an interesting model for the investigation of the role played by the immune system in driving the evolution of the HCV quasispecies. We prospectively studied the intra-host evolution of the HCV heterogeneity in 8 coinfected subjects, selected from a cohort of 32 patients initiating HAART: 5 immunological responders (group A) and 3 immunological non-responders (group B), and in two HCV singly infected controls not assuming drugs (group C). For all these subjects at least two serial samples obtained at the first observation (before HAART) and more than 1 year later, underwent clonal sequence analysis of partial E1/E2 sequences, encompassing the whole HVR1. Evolutionary rates, dated phylogenies and population dynamics were co-estimated by using a Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach, and site specific selection pressures were estimated by maximum likelihood-based methods. The intra-host evolutionary rates of HCV quasispecies was 10 times higher in subjects treated with HAART than in controls without immunodeficiency (1.9 and 2.3×10−3 sub/site/month in group A and B and 0.29×10−3 sub/site/month in group C individuals). The within-host Bayesian Skyline plot analysis showed an exponential growth of the quasispecies populations in immunological responders, coinciding with a peak in CD4 cell counts. On the contrary, quasispecies population remained constant in group B and in group C controls. A significant positive selection pressure was detected in a half of the patients under HAART and in none of the group C controls. Several sites under significant positive selection were described, mainly included in the HVR1. Our data indicate that different forces, in addition to the selection pressure, drive an exceptionally fast evolution of HCV during HAART immune restoration. We hypothesize that an important role is played by the enlargement of the viral replicative space
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