Quantum Individuality

1st Place in the Humanities, 2011 Denman Research ForumThis essay addresses a number of thorny issues which all arise from a single claim: quantum particles are (in some sense of the word) not individuals. This claim is commonplace to the physicist, puzzling to the philosopher, and simply nonsensical to the layman. Accordingly, the task that underpins this entire essay is to lead the way from the “nonsensicality” knee-jerk reaction to a precise understanding of why it must be the case that quanta cannot be regarded as individuals. Additionally, I will argue that these non-individuals, as such, constitute a counterexample to Leibniz’s Law (LL). The thesis of this essay is therefore twofold.No embarg

How to Think About Indiscernible Particles

Permutation symmetries which arise in quantum mechanics pose an intriguing problem. It is not clear that particles which exhibit permutation symmetries (i.e. particles which are indiscernible, meaning that they can be swapped with each other without this yielding a new physical state) qualify as objects in any reasonable sense of the term. One solution to this puzzle, which I attribute to W.V. Quine, would have us eliminate such particles from our ontology altogether in order to circumvent the metaphysical vexations caused by permutation symmetries. In this essay I argue that Quine\u27s solution is too rash, and in its place I suggest a novel solution based on altering some of the language of quantum mechanics. Before launching into the technical details of indiscernible particles, however, I begin this essay with some remarks on the methodology - instrumentalism - which motivates my arguments

Biomass burning emission inventory with daily resolution: Application to aircraft observations of Asian outflow

Asian outflo

Novel role for animal innate immune molecules: Enterotoxic activity of a snail egg MACPF-Toxin

Gastropod Molluscs rely exclusively on the innate immune system to protect from pathogens, defending their embryos through maternally transferred effectors. In this regard, Pomacea snail eggs, in addition to immune defenses, have evolved the perivitellin-2 or PV2 combining two immune proteins into a neurotoxin: a lectin and a pore-forming protein from the Membrane Attack Complex/Perforin (MACPF) family. This binary structure resembles AB-toxins, a group of toxins otherwise restricted to bacteria and plants. Many of these are enterotoxins, leading us to explore this activity in PV2. Enterotoxins found in bacteria and plants act mainly as pore-forming toxins and toxic lectins, respectively. In animals, although both pore-forming proteins and lectins are ubiquitous, no enterotoxins have been reported. Considering that Pomacea snail eggs ingestion induce morpho-physiological changes in the intestinal mucosa of rodents and is cytotoxic to intestinal cells in culture, we seek for the factor causing these effects and identified PmPV2 from Pomacea maculata eggs. We characterized the enterotoxic activity of PmPV2 through in vitro and in vivo assays. We determined that it withstands the gastrointestinal environment and resisted a wide pH range and enzymatic proteolysis. After binding to Caco-2 cells it promoted changes in surface morphology and an increase in membrane roughness. It was also cytotoxic to both epithelial and immune cells from the digestive system of mammals. It induced enterocyte death by a lytic mechanism and disrupted enterocyte monolayers in a dose-dependent manner. Further, after oral administration to mice PmPV2 attached to enterocytes and induced large dose-dependent morphological changes on their small intestine mucosa, reducing the absorptive surface. Additionally, PmPV2 was detected in the Peyer's patches where it activated lymphoid follicles and triggered apoptosis. We also provide evidence that the toxin can traverse the intestinal barrier and induce oral adaptive immunity with evidence of circulating antibody response. As a whole, these results indicate that PmPV2 is a true enterotoxin, a role that has never been reported to lectins or perforin in animals. This extends by convergent evolution the presence of plant- and bacteria-like enterotoxins to animals, thus expanding the diversity of functions of MACPF proteins in nature.Fil: Giglio, Matías Leonel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de La Plata "Prof. Dr. Rodolfo R. Brenner". Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de La Plata "Prof. Dr. Rodolfo R. Brenner"; ArgentinaFil: Ituarte, Santiago. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de La Plata "Prof. Dr. Rodolfo R. Brenner". Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de La Plata "Prof. Dr. Rodolfo R. Brenner"; ArgentinaFil: Ibañez, Esteban Andrés. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo; ArgentinaFil: Dreon, Marcos Sebastian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de La Plata "Prof. Dr. Rodolfo R. Brenner". Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de La Plata "Prof. Dr. Rodolfo R. Brenner"; ArgentinaFil: Prieto, Eduardo Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquímicas Teóricas y Aplicadas. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquímicas Teóricas y Aplicadas; ArgentinaFil: Fernández, Patricia Ester. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias; ArgentinaFil: Heras, Horacio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de La Plata "Prof. Dr. Rodolfo R. Brenner". Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de La Plata "Prof. Dr. Rodolfo R. Brenner"; Argentin

TIGRFAMs and Genome Properties: tools for the assignment of molecular function and biological process in prokaryotic genomes

TIGRFAMs is a collection of protein family definitions built to aid in high-throughput annotation of specific protein functions. Each family is based on a hidden Markov model (HMM), where both cutoff scores and membership in the seed alignment are chosen so that the HMMs can classify numerous proteins according to their specific molecular functions. Most TIGRFAMs models describe ‘equivalog’ families, where both orthology and lateral gene transfer may be part of the evolutionary history, but where a single molecular function has been conserved. The Genome Properties system contains a queriable set of metabolic reconstructions, genome metrics and extractions of information from the scientific literature. Its genome-by-genome assertions of whether or not specific structures, pathways or systems are present provide high-level conceptual descriptions of genomic content. These assertions enable comparative genomics, provide a meaningful biological context to aid in manual annotation, support assignments of Gene Ontology (GO) biological process terms and help validate HMM-based predictions of protein function. The Genome Properties system is particularly useful as a generator of phylogenetic profiles, through which new protein family functions may be discovered. The TIGRFAMs and Genome Properties systems can be accessed at and

A global review of marine recreational spearfishing

24 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, supplementary information https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-023-09790-7.-- Data availability: The full list of papers used for the systematic review is available as a supplementary tableRecreational spearfishing is a fishing method that occurs globally, yet receives considerably less attention in the scientific literature relative to other recreational fishing methods, such as angling. Lack of scientific information on spearfishing may negatively affect the development and management of marine recreational fisheries. We conducted a systematic review of 102 peer-reviewed papers published between 1967 and 2022 pertaining to marine recreational spearfishing. Based on this literature review, we provide an overview of key insights across social, economic, and ecological dimensions of marine recreational spearfishing. While spearfishers represent less than 5% of marine recreational fishers, the participants are younger and may differ from recreational anglers in their motivations, with suggestions of increased well-being generated from a close connection with the sea during underwater fishing. Recreational spearfishers mostly target species of moderate to high levels of vulnerability that are mid to high trophic level carnivores. Though spearfishers can deliberately target larger individuals of exploited populations, this is not a generalizable pattern. Despite a growing body of research on the ecological impacts of marine recreational spearfishing, there is limited knowledge of these effects and their mechanisms across biological levels of organization (e.g., individual, population, community and ecosystem) compared with those of other fishing methods. Recreational spearfishers can contribute to advances in marine ecological knowledge, and inclusive participatory management could represent a key step towards transformative sustainable development of marine recreational spearfishing. Throughout the review, we identify gaps in the research and areas where future research is needed to better inform the socio-economic importance, ecosystem impacts and future management of marine recreational spearfishingVS was supported by a “Juan de la Cierva Incorporación” (IJC2018-035389-I), and he is now supported by a “Ramón y Cajal” research fellowships (RYC2021-033065-I) granted by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. SV and PP are supported by the Xunta de Galicia (RECREGES I and II projects under Grants ED481B2014/034-0 and ED481B2018/017), Grupo de Referencia Competitiva GI-2060 AEMI, under Grant ED431C2019/11), and Fundación Biodiversidad, Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico, Gobierno de España (SICORE and GT PMR projects). VJG received a postdoctoral grant (#2017/22273-0) from São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). MR would like to acknowledge Portuguese national funds from FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology through projects UIDB/04326/2020, UIDP/04326/2020 and LA/P/0101/2020. MR would also like to acknowledge FCT funding through a postdoctoral grant (SFRH/BPD/116307/2016). JACCN thanks to Meros do Brasil Project sponsored by Petrobras. FJH is supported by a Sȇr Cymru European Regional Development Fund Fellowship (80761-SU-135). RA was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Grants 01LC1826E and 033W046A). ML is supported by the Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación (ANII, POS_EXT_2020_1_165362). This work acknowledges the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S). [...] Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer NaturePeer reviewe

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London

Enhanced genetic maps from family-based disease studies: population-specific comparisons

Abstract Background Accurate genetic maps are required for successful and efficient linkage mapping of disease genes. However, most available genome-wide genetic maps were built using only small collections of pedigrees, and therefore have large sampling errors. A large set of genetic studies genotyped by the NHLBI Mammalian Genotyping Service (MGS) provide appropriate data for generating more accurate maps. Results We collected a large sample of uncleaned genotype data for 461 markers generated by the MGS using the Weber screening sets 9 and 10. This collection includes genotypes for over 4,400 pedigrees containing over 17,000 genotyped individuals from different populations. We identified and cleaned numerous relationship and genotyping errors, as well as verified the marker orders. We used this dataset to test for population-specific genetic maps, and to re-estimate the genetic map distances with greater precision; standard errors for all intervals are provided. The map-interval sizes from the European (or European descent), Chinese, and Hispanic samples are in quite good agreement with each other. We found one map interval on chromosome 8p with a statistically significant size difference between the European and Chinese samples, and several map intervals with significant size differences between the African American and Chinese samples. When comparing Palauan with European samples, a statistically significant difference was detected at the telomeric region of chromosome 11p. Several significant differences were also identified between populations in chromosomal and genome lengths. Conclusions Our new population-specific screening set maps can be used to improve the accuracy of disease-mapping studies. As a result of the large sample size, the average length of the 95% confidence interval (CI) for a 10 cM map interval is only 2.4 cM, which is considerably smaller than on previously published maps.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112826/1/12881_2010_Article_748.pd