170 research outputs found
Use of Mytilus edulis biosentinels to investigate spatial patterns of norovirus and faecal indicator organism contamination around coastal sewage discharges
Temperature Dependence in the JilesâAtherton Model for Non-Oriented Electrical Steels: An Engineering Approach
High operating temperatures modify the magnetic behavior of ferromagnetic cores which may affect the performance of electrical machines. Therefore, a temperature-dependent material model is necessary to model the electrical machine behavior more accurately during the design process. Physics-inspired hysteresis models, such as the JilesâAtherton (JA) model, seem to be promising candidates to incorporate temperature effects and can be embedded in finite element simulations. In this paper, we have identified the JA model parameters from measurements for a temperature range experienced by non oriented electrical steels in electrical machines during their operation. Based on the analysis, a parameter reduction has been performed. The proposed approach simplifies the identification procedures by reducing the number of model parameters and does not require any additional material information, such as the Curie temperature. The resulting temperature-dependent JA model is validated against measurements, and the results are in good agreement
Concentration and quantification of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater using polyethylene glycol-based concentration and qRT-PCR
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Whole Genome Sequencing of Hepatitis A Virus Using a PCR-Free Single-Molecule Nanopore Sequencing Approach
Hepatitis A virus (HAV) is one of the most common causes of acute viral hepatitis in humans. Although HAV has a relatively small genome, there are several factors limiting whole genome sequencing such as PCR amplification artefacts and ambiguities in de novo assembly. The recently developed Oxford Nanopore technologies (ONT) allows single-molecule sequencing of long-size fragments of DNA or RNA using PCR-free strategies. We have sequenced the whole genome of HAV using a PCR-free approach by direct reverse-transcribed sequencing. We were able to sequence HAV cDNA and obtain reads over 7 kilobases in length containing almost the whole genome of the virus. The comparison of these raw long nanopore reads with the HAV reference wild type revealed a nucleotide sequence identity between 81.1 and 96.6%. By de novo assembly of all HAV reads we obtained a consensus sequence of 7362 bases, with a nucleotide sequence identity of 99.0% with the genome of the HAV strain pHM175/18f. When the assembly was performed using as reference the HAV strain pHM175/18f a consensus with a sequence similarity of 99.8 % was obtained. We have also used an ONT amplicon-based assay to sequence two fragments of the VP3 and VP1 regions which showed a sequence similarity of 100% with matching regions of the consensus sequence obtained using the direct cDNA sequencing approach. This study showed the applicability of ONT sequencing technologies to obtain the whole genome of HAV by direct cDNA nanopore sequencing, highlighting the utility of this PCR-free approach for HAV characterization and potentially other viruses of the Picornaviridae family
SDSS J162520.29+120308.7 â a new SU Ursae Majoris star in the period gap
We report results of an extensive world-wide observing campaign devoted to the recently discovered dwarf nova
SDSS J162520.29+120308.7 (SDSS J1625). The data were obtained during the July 2010 eruption of the star and in August and
September 2010 when the object was in quiescence. During the July 2010 superoutburst, SDSS J1625 clearly displayed superhumps
with a mean period of Psh = 0.095942(17) days (138.16 ± 0.02 min) and a maximum amplitude reaching almost 0.4 mag. The superhump
period was not stable, decreasing very rapidly at a rate of ËP = â1.63(14) Ă 10â3 at the beginning of the superoutburst and
increasing at a rate of ËP = 2.81(20) Ă 10â4 in the middle phase. At the end of the superoutburst, it stabilized around the value of
Psh = 0.09531(5) day.
During the first twelve hours of the superoutburst, a low-amplitude double wave modulation was observed whose properties are
almost identical to early superhumps observed in WZ Sge stars. The period of early superhumps, the period of modulations observed
temporarily in quiescence, and the period derived from radial velocity variations are the same within measurement errors, allowing
us to estimate the most probable orbital period of the binary to be Porb = 0.09111(15) days (131.20 ± 0.22 min). This value clearly
indicates that SDSS J1625 is another dwarf nova in the period gap. Knowledge of the orbital and superhump periods allows us to
estimate the mass ratio of the system to be q â 0.25. This high value poses serious problems for both the thermal and tidal instability
(TTI) model describing the behaviour of dwarf novae and for some models explaining the origin of early superhumps
The KELT Follow-Up Network And Transit False-Positive Catalog: Pre-Vetted False Positives For TESS
The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) project has been conducting a photometric survey of transiting planets orbiting bright stars for over 10 years. The KELT images have a pixel scale of ~23\u27\u27 pixelâ»Âčâvery similar to that of NASA\u27s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)âas well as a large point-spread function, and the KELT reduction pipeline uses a weighted photometric aperture with radius 3\u27. At this angular scale, multiple stars are typically blended in the photometric apertures. In order to identify false positives and confirm transiting exoplanets, we have assembled a follow-up network (KELT-FUN) to conduct imaging with spatial resolution, cadence, and photometric precision higher than the KELT telescopes, as well as spectroscopic observations of the candidate host stars. The KELT-FUN team has followed-up over 1600 planet candidates since 2011, resulting in more than 20 planet discoveries. Excluding ~450 false alarms of non-astrophysical origin (i.e., instrumental noise or systematics), we present an all-sky catalog of the 1128 bright stars (6 \u3c V \u3c 13) that show transit-like features in the KELT light curves, but which were subsequently determined to be astrophysical false positives (FPs) after photometric and/or spectroscopic follow-up observations. The KELT-FUN team continues to pursue KELT and other planet candidates and will eventually follow up certain classes of TESS candidates. The KELT FP catalog will help minimize the duplication of follow-up observations by current and future transit surveys such as TESS
The chemical basis of serine palmitoyltransferase inhibition by myriocin
Sphingolipids (SLs) are essential components of cellular membranes formed from the condensation of L-serine and a long-chain acyl thioester. This first step is catalyzed by the pyridoxal-5'-phosphate (PLP)-dependent, enzyme serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT) which is a promising therapeutic target. The fungal natural product myriocin is a potent inhibitor of SPT and is widely used to block SL biosynthesis despite a lack of a detailed understanding of its molecular-mechanism. By combining spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, X-ray crystallography, and kinetics, we have characterized the molecular details of SPT inhibition by myriocin. Myriocin initially forms an external aldimine with PLP at the active site, and a structure of the resulting co-complex explains its nanomolar affinity for the enzyme. This co-complex then catalytically degrades via an unexpected 'retro-aldol-like' cleavage mechanism to a C18 aldehyde which in turn acts as a suicide inhibitor of SPT by covalent modification of the essential catalytic lysine. This surprising dual mechanism of inhibition rationalizes the extraordinary potency and longevity of myriocin inhibition.</p
DissuasĂŁo, redução de armas nucleares e defesas antimĂsseis nos governos Bush e Obama
Convergence of marine megafauna movement patterns in coastal and open oceans
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2017. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 115 (2018): 3072-3077, doi:10.1073/pnas.1716137115.The extent of increasing anthropogenic impacts on large marine
vertebrates partly depends on the animalsâ movement patterns.
Effective conservation requires identification of the key drivers of
movement including intrinsic properties and extrinsic constraints
associated with the dynamic nature of the environments the animals
inhabit. However, the relative importance of intrinsic versus
extrinsic factors remains elusive. We analyse a global dataset of
2.8 million locations from > 2,600 tracked individuals across 50
marine vertebrates evolutionarily separated by millions of years
and using different locomotion modes (fly, swim, walk/paddle).
Strikingly, movement patterns show a remarkable convergence,
being strongly conserved across species and independent of body
length and mass, despite these traits ranging over 10 orders of
magnitude among the species studied. This represents a fundamental
difference between marine and terrestrial vertebrates not
previously identified, likely linked to the reduced costs of locomotion
in water. Movement patterns were primarily explained by the
interaction between species-specific traits and the habitat(s) they
move through, resulting in complex movement patterns when
moving close to coasts compared to more predictable patterns
when moving in open oceans. This distinct difference may be
associated with greater complexity within coastal micro-habitats,
highlighting a critical role of preferred habitat in shaping marine
vertebrate global movements. Efforts to develop understanding
of the characteristics of vertebrate movement should consider the
habitat(s) through which they move to identify how movement
patterns will alter with forecasted severe ocean changes, such as
reduced Arctic sea ice cover, sea level rise and declining oxygen
content.Workshops funding granted by the UWA Oceans Institute, AIMS, and
KAUST. AMMS was supported by an ARC Grant DE170100841 and an IOMRC
(UWA, AIMS, CSIRO) fellowship; JPR by MEDC (FPU program, Spain); DWS by
UK NERC and Save Our Seas Foundation; NQ by FCT (Portugal); MMCM by
a CAPES fellowship (Ministry of Education)
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