Neurotranscriptomic Changes Associated with Chick-directed Parental Care in Adult Non-reproductive Japanese Quail

For many species, parental care critically affects offspring survival. But what drives animals to display parental behaviours towards young? In mammals, pregnancy-induced physiological transformations seem key in preparing the neural circuits that lead towards attraction (and reduced-aggression) to young. Beyond mammalian maternal behaviour, knowledge of the neural mechanisms that underlie young-directed parental care is severely lacking. We took advantage of a domesticated bird species, the Japanese quail, for which parental behaviour towards chicks can be induced in virgin non-reproductive adults through a sensitization procedure, a process that is not effective in all animals. We used the variation in parental responses to study neural transcriptomic changes associated with the sensitization procedure itself and with the outcome of the procedure (i.e., presence of parental behaviours). We found differences in gene expression in the hypothalamus and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, but not the nucleus taeniae. Two genes identified are of particular interest. One is neurotensin, previously only demonstrated to be causally associated with maternal care in mammals. The other one is urocortin 3, causally demonstrated to affect young-directed neglect and aggression in mammals. Because our studies were conducted in animals that were reproductively quiescent, our results reflect core neural changes that may be associated with avian young-directed care independently of extensive hormonal stimulation. Our work opens new avenues of research into understanding the neural basis of parental care in non-placental species

Affine Wa(A4), Quaternions, and Decagonal Quasicrystals

We introduce a technique of projection onto the Coxeter plane of an arbitrary higher dimensional lattice described by the affine Coxeter group. The Coxeter plane is determined by the simple roots of the Coxeter graph I2 (h) where h is the Coxeter number of the Coxeter group W(G) which embeds the dihedral group Dh of order 2h as a maximal subgroup. As a simple application we demonstrate projections of the root and weight lattices of A4 onto the Coxeter plane using the strip (canonical) projection method. We show that the crystal spaces of the affine Wa(A4) can be decomposed into two orthogonal spaces whose point groups is the dihedral group D5 which acts in both spaces faithfully. The strip projections of the root and weight lattices can be taken as models for the decagonal quasicrystals. The paper also revises the quaternionic descriptions of the root and weight lattices, described by the affine Coxeter group Wa(A3), which correspond to the face centered cubic (fcc) lattice and body centered cubic (bcc) lattice respectively. Extensions of these lattices to higher dimensions lead to the root and weight lattices of the group Wa(An), n>=4 . We also note that the projection of the Voronoi cell of the root lattice of Wa(A4) describes a framework of nested decagram growing with the power of the golden ratio recently discovered in the Islamic arts.Comment: 26 pages, 17 figure

The No-Pole Condition in Landau gauge: Properties of the Gribov Ghost Form-Factor and a Constraint on the 2d Gluon Propagator

We study the Landau-gauge Gribov ghost form-factor sigma(p^2) for SU(N) Yang-Mills theories in the d-dimensional case. We find a qualitatively different behavior for d=3,4 w.r.t. d=2. In particular, considering any (sufficiently regular) gluon propagator D(p^2) and the one-loop-corrected ghost propagator G(p^2), we prove in the 2d case that sigma(p^2) blows up in the infrared limit p -> 0 as -D(0)\ln(p^2). Thus, for d=2, the no-pole condition \sigma(p^2) 0) can be satisfied only if D(0) = 0. On the contrary, in d=3 and 4, sigma(p^2) is finite also if D(0) > 0. The same results are obtained by evaluating G(p^2) explicitly at one loop, using fitting forms for D(p^2) that describe well the numerical data of D(p^2) in d=2,3,4 in the SU(2) case. These evaluations also show that, if one considers the coupling constant g^2 as a free parameter, G(p^2) admits a one-parameter family of behaviors (labelled by g^2), in agreement with Boucaud et al. In this case the condition sigma(0) <= 1 implies g^2 <= g^2_c, where g^2_c is a 'critical' value. Moreover, a free-like G(p^2) in the infrared limit is obtained for any value of g^2 < g^2_c, while for g^2 = g^2_c one finds an infrared-enhanced G(p^2). Finally, we analyze the Dyson-Schwinger equation (DSE) for sigma(p^2) and show that, for infrared-finite ghost-gluon vertices, one can bound sigma(p^2). Using these bounds we find again that only in the d=2 case does one need to impose D(0) = 0 in order to satisfy the no-pole condition. The d=2 result is also supported by an analysis of the DSE using a spectral representation for G(p^2). Thus, if the no-pole condition is imposed, solving the d=2 DSE cannot lead to a massive behavior for D(p^2). These results apply to any Gribov copy inside the so-called first Gribov horizon, i.e. the 2d result D(0) = 0 is not affected by Gribov noise. These findings are also in agreement with lattice data.Comment: 40 pages, 2 .eps figure

Monitoring response to hepatitis B and C in EU/EEA: testing policies, availability of data on care cascade and chronic viral hepatitis-related mortality – results from two surveys (2016)

Objectives: The World Health Organization (WHO) developed a European Regional Action Plan (EAP) to fast-track action towards the goal of eliminating viral hepatitis. Robust monitoring is essential to assess national programme performance. The purpose of this study was to assess the availability of selected monitoring data sources in European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) Member States (MS). Methods: Availability of data sources at EU/EEA level was assessed using two surveys distributed to 31 EU/EEA MS in 2016. The two surveys covered (A) availability of policy documents on testing; testing practices and monitoring; monitoring of diagnosis and treatment initiation, and; (B) availability of data on mortality attributable to chronic viral hepatitis. Results: Just over two-thirds of EU/EEA MS responded to the surveys. 86% (18/21) reported national testing guidance covering HBV, and 81% (17/21) covering HCV; while 33% (7/21) and 38% (8/21) of countries, respectively, monitored the number of tests performed. 71% (15/21) of countries monitored the number of chronic HBV cases diagnosed and 33% (7/21) the number of people treated. Corresponding figures for HCV were 48% (10/21) and 57% (12/21). 27% (6/22) of countries reported availability of data on mortality attributable to chronic viral hepatitis. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that sources of information in EU/EEA Member States to monitor the progress towards the EAP milestones and targets related to viral hepatitis diagnosis, cascade of care and attributable mortality are limited. Our analysis should raise awareness among EU/EEA policy makers and stimulate higher prioritisation of efforts to improve the monitoring of national viral hepatitis programmes

Effective-Range Expansion of the Neutron-Deuteron Scattering Studied by a Quark-Model Nonlocal Gaussian Potential

The S-wave effective range parameters of the neutron-deuteron (nd) scattering are derived in the Faddeev formalism, using a nonlocal Gaussian potential based on the quark-model baryon-baryon interaction fss2. The spin-doublet low-energy eigenphase shift is sufficiently attractive to reproduce predictions by the AV18 plus Urbana three-nucleon force, yielding the observed value of the doublet scattering length and the correct differential cross sections below the deuteron breakup threshold. This conclusion is consistent with the previous result for the triton binding energy, which is nearly reproduced by fss2 without reinforcing it with the three-nucleon force.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures and 6 tables, submitted to Prog. Theor. Phy