Investigations of potential transfer of Campylobacter coli between hogs and turkeys.

Hogs are often grown in close proximity to turkey farms in North Cartolina, and the potential exists for transfer of pathogens, including Campylobacter, from one host animal to another. The aim of this study was to obtain evidence for possible transfer of Campylobacter coli from hogs to turkeys, or vice versa. Strains from four paired hog and turkey farms were isolated and characterized in terms of their antibiotic resistance profiles, and by molecular subtyping utilizing PCR-RFLP of flaA. Certain strains were found to be shared between hogs and turkeys, suggesting possible transfer. In spite of identical molecular subtypes, such strains commonly differed in antibiotic resistance profiles. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that strains of C. coli may transfer between hogs and turkeys, or that certain strain subtypes may independently colonize these animals through unidentified reservoirs

Active transport, independent mobility and territorial range among children residing in disadvantaged areas

Available online 14 March 2014Regular physical activity during childhood and adolescence promotes physical and mental health across the lifespan. Walking and cycling for transport may be important, inexpensive and accessible sources of physical activity among socioeconomically disadvantaged youth. This study aimed to examine active transport and independent mobility (i.e. walking/cycling without adult accompaniment) on journeys to school and other local destinations, and their associations with children's physical activity in disadvantaged urban and rural areas of Victoria, Australia. In addition, associations were examined between children's perceived accessibility of local destinations by walking/cycling and their territorial range (i.e. how far they were allowed to roam without adult accompaniment).Survey-reported active transport, independent mobility, territorial range, and objectively-measured physical activity were analysed for 271 children (mean age 12.1 (SD 2.2) years). Habitual travel modes (on 3 or more days/week) were examined. Car travel was most prevalent to (43%) and from (33%) school, while 25% walked to school, 31% walked home, and few cycled (6%). Most walking/cycling trips were made independently. Total weekly duration rather than frequency of active transport to school was positively associated with physical activity. No associations were found between independent mobility and physical activity. Territorial range was restricted - only a third of children were allowed to roam more than 15. min from home alone, while approximately half were allowed to do so with friends. The number of accessible destination types in the neighbourhood was positively associated with territorial range. This research provides evidence of how active transport contributes to children's physical activity and a preliminary understanding of children's independent mobility on journeys to school and local destinations. Further research is required to explore influences on these behaviours.Alison Carver, Jenny Veitch, Shannon Sahlqvist, David Crawford, Clare Hum

Trait self-control and beliefs about the utility of emotions for initiatory and inhibitory self-control

How do people with high trait self-control achieve their success? This research aimed to provide evidence for beliefs about emotion utility as a potential mechanism. Specifically, because beliefs about the utility of emotions predict emotion regulation and successful performance, we investigate the hypothesis that trait self-control influences beliefs about the utility of emotions for self-control. Two preregistered studies examined whether beliefs about the utility of emotions in everyday self-control situations varied depending on the person (trait self-control) and the situation (initiatory or inhibitory self-control). Our key finding was that people considered positive emotions more useful for self-control than negative emotions. This effect was also moderated by situational and individual factors, such that positive emotions were considered especially useful by participants with high trait self-control and in situations requiring initiatory self-control (with the opposite effect for negative emotions). This research suggests a potential role for instrumental emotion regulation in self-control success

Single nucleotide polymorphisms linked to quantitative trait loci for grain quality traits in wheat

Citation: Li, C. L., Bai, G. H., Chao, S. M., Carver, B., & Wang, Z. H. (2016). Single nucleotide polymorphisms linked to quantitative trait loci for grain quality traits in wheat. Crop Journal, 4(1), 1-11. doi:10.1016/j.cj.2015.10.002Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grain quality traits that are controlled by quantitative traits loci (QTL) define suitable growing areas and potential end-use products of a wheat cultivar. To dissect QTL for these traits including protein content (GPC); test weight (TW); single kernel characterization system (SKCS)-estimated kernel weight (SKW); kernel diameter (KD); kernel hardness measured by near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) hardness index (NHI); and SKCS-hardness index (SHI), a high-density genetic map with single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers was developed using recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from Ning7840 x Clark. The RILs were evaluated for these quality traits in seven Oklahoma environments from 2001 to 2003. A total of 41 QTL with additive effects on different traits were mapped on most wheat chromosomes, excluding 1A, 2A, 3D, 4D, 6D, and 7B. Seven chromosome regions showed either tightly linked QTL or QTL with pleiotropic effects on two to four traits. Ten pairs of QTL showed additive x additive effects (AA), four QTL were involved in additive x environment (AE) effects, and one was involved in AAE effects. Two to eleven QTL for each of the six traits and 139 tightly linked markers to these QTL were identified. The findings shed light on the inheritance of wheat grain quality traits and provide DNA markers for manipulating these important traits to improve quality of new wheat cultivars. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Crop Science Society of China and Institute of Crop Science, CAAS. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Development and evaluation of rapid novel isothermal amplification assays for important veterinary pathogens: Chlamydia psittaci and Chlamydia pecorum

© 2017 Jelocnik et al. Background. Chlamydia psittaci and Chlamydia pecorum are important veterinary pathogens, with the former also being responsible for zoonoses, and the latter adversely affecting koala populations in Australia and livestock globally. The rapid detection of these organisms is still challenging, particularly at the point-of-care (POC). In the present study, we developed and evaluated rapid, sensitive and robust C. psittaci-specific and C. pecorum-specific Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) assays for detection of these pathogens. Methods and Materials. The LAMP assays, performed in a Genie III real-time fluo- rometer, targeted a 263 bp region of the C. psittaci-specific Cps_0607 gene or a 209 bp region of a C. pecorum-specific conserved gene CpecG_0573, and were evaluated using a range of samples previously screened using species-specific quantitative PCRs (qPCRs). Species-specificity for C. psittaci and C. pecorum LAMP targets was tested against DNA samples from related chlamydial species and a range of other bacteria. In order to evaluate pathogen detection in clinical samples, C. psittaci LAMP was evaluated using a total of 26 DNA extracts from clinical samples from equine and avian hosts, while for C. pecorum LAMP, we tested a total of 63 DNA extracts from clinical samples from koala, sheep and cattle hosts. A subset of 36 C. pecorum samples was also tested in a thermal cycler (instead of a real-time fluorometer) using newly developed LAMP and results were determined as an end point detection. We also evaluated rapid swab processing (without DNA extraction) to assess the robustness of these assays. Results. Both LAMP assays were demonstrated to species-specific, highly reproducible and to be able to detect as little as 10 genome copy number/reaction, with a mean amplification time of 14 and 24 min for C. psittaci and C. pecorum, respectively. When testing clinical samples, the overall congruence between the newly developed LAMP assays and qPCR was 92.3% for C. psittaci (91.7% sensitivity and 92.9% specificity); and 84.1% for C. pecorum (90.6% sensitivity and 77.4% specificity). For a subset of 36 C. pecorum samples tested in a thermal cycler using newly developed LAMP, we observed 34/36 (94.4%) samples result being congruent between LAMP performed in fluorometer and in thermal cycler. Rapid swab processing method evaluated in this study also allows for chlamydial DNA detection using LAMP. Discussion. In this study, we describe the development of novel, rapid and robust C. psittaci-specific and C. pecorum-specific LAMP assays that are able to detect these bacteria in clinical samples in either the laboratory or POC settings. With further development and a focus on the preparation of these assays at the POC, it is anticipated that both tests may fill an important niche in the repertoire of ancillary diagnostic tools available to clinicians

Geospatial analysis and living urban geometry

This essay outlines how to incorporate morphological rules within the exigencies of our technological age. We propose using the current evolution of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) technologies beyond their original representational domain, towards predictive and dynamic spatial models that help in constructing the new discipline of "urban seeding". We condemn the high-rise tower block as an unsuitable typology for a living city, and propose to re-establish human-scale urban fabric that resembles the traditional city. Pedestrian presence, density, and movement all reveal that open space between modernist buildings is not urban at all, but neither is the open space found in today's sprawling suburbs. True urban space contains and encourages pedestrian interactions, and has to be designed and built according to specific rules. The opposition between traditional self-organized versus modernist planned cities challenges the very core of the urban planning discipline. Planning has to be re-framed from being a tool creating a fixed future to become a visionary adaptive tool of dynamic states in evolution

Valuing the visual impact of wind farms: A calculus method for synthesizing choice experiments studies

Despite the great potential of mitigating carbon emission, development of wind farms is often opposed by local communities due to the visual impact on landscape. A growing number of studies have applied nonmarket valuation methods like Choice Experiments (CE) to value the visual impact by eliciting respondents' willingness to pay (WTP) or willingness to accept (WTA) for hypothetical wind farms through survey questions. Several meta-analyses have been found in the literature to synthesize results from different valuation studies, but they have various limitations related to the use of the prevailing multivariate meta-regression analysis. In this paper, we propose a new meta-analysis method to establish general functions for the relationships between the estimated WTP or WTA and three wind farm attributes, namely the distance to residential/coastal areas, the number of turbines and turbine height. This method involves establishing WTA or WTP functions for individual studies, fitting the average derivative functions and deriving the general integral functions of WTP or WTA against wind farm attributes. Results indicate that respondents in different studies consistently showed increasing WTP for moving wind farms to greater distances, which can be fitted by non-linear (natural logarithm) functions. However, divergent preferences for the number of turbines and turbine height were found in different studies. We argue that the new analysis method proposed in this paper is an alternative to the mainstream multivariate meta-regression analysis for synthesizing CE studies and the general integral functions of WTP or WTA against wind farm attributes are useful for future spatial modelling and benefit transfer studies. We also suggest that future multivariate meta-analyses should include non-linear components in the regression functions

An interpretative phenomenological analysis of men’s and women’s coping strategy selection during early IVF treatment

Objectives: To describe the coping strategies that men and women adopted during the early stages of in vitro fertilisation treatment, and explore why and how they selected those strategies. Background: Previous research has identified coping strategies used during fertility treatment and the impact of those strategies on adjustment, but not how and why individuals choose the strategies they did, which is important for understanding coping strategy use as a self-regulatory process. Methods: Three heterosexual couples took part in two or three individual semi-structured interviews over six months, producing fourteen accounts, which were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results: The emergent themes were: not dwelling on emotional issues; getting on with treatment; and keeping busy with other things. Participants selected coping strategies in a conscious, deliberate way, by making comparisons with other patients and by drawing on their broader, customary ways of coping. The strategies participants adopted made sense in the context of their long-term goals as well as their short-term treatment objectives. Conclusion: This research shows that for these participants, shorter-term behavioural strategies were informed by longer-term goals, which is consistent with a self-regulatory approach to understanding how people cope with the stress of treatment for infertility.N/

Voltage control of nuclear spin in ferromagnetic Schottky diodes

We employ optical pump-probe spectroscopy to investigate the voltage dependence of spontaneous electron and nuclear spin polarizations in hybrid MnAs/n-GaAs and Fe/n-GaAs Schottky diodes. Through the hyperfine interaction, nuclear spin polarization that is imprinted by the ferromagnet acts on conduction electron spins as an effective magnetic field. We demonstrate tuning of this nuclear field from <0.05 to 2.4 kG by varying a small bias voltage across the MnAs device. In addition, a connection is observed between the diode turn-on and the onset of imprinted nuclear polarization, while traditional dynamic nuclear polarization exhibits relatively little voltage dependence.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review B Rapid Communications. 15 pages, 3 figure