Distribution of Naegleria fowleri in Selected Northeast Arkansas Lakes

Seven northeast Arkansas recreational lakes were examined for the presence of pathogenic and nonpathogenic Naegleria fowleri. Cultural differentiation and microscopic morphology were used as species determining tests, while mouse pathogenicity tests were conducted to determine virulence. Only one isolate met all criteria utilized for definite identification of Naegleria fowleri, although Naegleria type organisms were found in all of the lakes. None of the isolates were pathogenic in mice

A Global Repository for Planet-Sized Experiments and Observations

Working across U.S. federal agencies, international agencies, and multiple worldwide data centers, and spanning seven international network organizations, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) allows users to access, analyze, and visualize data using a globally federated collection of networks, computers, and software. Its architecture employs a system of geographically distributed peer nodes that are independently administered yet united by common federation protocols and application programming interfaces (APIs). The full ESGF infrastructure has now been adopted by multiple Earth science projects and allows access to petabytes of geophysical data, including the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP)—output used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports. Data served by ESGF not only include model output (i.e., CMIP simulation runs) but also include observational data from satellites and instruments, reanalyses, and generated images. Metadata summarize basic information about the data for fast and easy data discovery.This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science/Office of Biological and Environmental Research under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. VB is supported by the Cooperative Institute for Climate Science, Princeton University, under Award NA08OAR4320752 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. Part of this work was undertaken with the assistance of resources from the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), which is supported by the Australian Government. Part of this activity was performed on behalf of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. Part of this activity was performed on behalf of the Goddard Space Flight Center, under a contract with NASA. This work was supported by ANR Convergence project (Grant Agreement ANR-13-MONU-0008). This work was supported by FP7 IS-ENES2 project (Grant Agreement 312979)

A cross-scale analysis to understand and quantify the effects of photosynthetic enhancement on crop growth and yield across environments

Abstract Photosynthetic manipulation provides new opportunities for enhancing crop yield. However, understanding and quantifying the importance of individual and multiple manipulations on the seasonal biomass growth and yield performance of target crops across variable production environments is limited. Using a state-of-the-art cross-scale model in the APSIM platform we predicted the impact of altering photosynthesis on the enzyme-limited (Ac) and electron transport-limited (Aj) rates, seasonal dynamics in canopy photosynthesis, biomass growth, and yield formation via large multiyear-by-location crop growth simulations. A broad list of promising strategies to improve photosynthesis for C3 wheat and C4 sorghum were simulated. In the top decile of seasonal outcomes, yield gains were predicted to be modest, ranging between 0% and 8%, depending on the manipulation and crop type. We report how photosynthetic enhancement can affect the timing and severity of water and nitrogen stress on the growing crop, resulting in nonintuitive seasonal crop dynamics and yield outcomes. We predicted that strategies enhancing Ac alone generate more consistent but smaller yield gains across all water and nitrogen environments, Aj enhancement alone generates larger gains but is undesirable in more marginal environments. Large increases in both Ac and Aj generate the highest gains across all environments. Yield outcomes of the tested manipulation strategies were predicted and compared for realistic Australian wheat and sorghum production. This study uniquely unpacks complex cross-scale interactions between photosynthesis and seasonal crop dynamics and improves understanding and quantification of the potential impact of photosynthesis traits (or lack of it) for crop improvement research

Microsporidia::Why Make Nucleotides if You Can Steal Them?

Microsporidia are strict obligate intracellular parasites that infect a wide range of eukaryotes including humans and economically important fish and insects. Surviving and flourishing inside another eukaryotic cell is a very specialised lifestyle that requires evolutionary innovation. Genome sequence analyses show that microsporidia have lost most of the genes needed for making primary metabolites, such as amino acids and nucleotides, and also that they have only a limited capacity for making adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Since microsporidia cannot grow and replicate without the enormous amounts of energy and nucleotide building blocks needed for protein, DNA, and RNA biosynthesis, they must have evolved ways of stealing these substrates from the infected host cell. Providing they can do this, genome analyses suggest that microsporidia have the enzyme repertoire needed to use and regenerate the imported nucleotides efficiently. Recent functional studies suggest that a critical innovation for adapting to intracellular life was the acquisition by lateral gene transfer of nucleotide transport (NTT) proteins that are now present in multiple copies in all microsporidian genomes. These proteins are expressed on the parasite surface and allow microsporidia to steal ATP and other purine nucleotides for energy and biosynthesis from their host. However, it remains unclear how other essential metabolites, such as pyrimidine nucleotides, are acquired. Transcriptomic and experimental studies suggest that microsporidia might manipulate host cell metabolism and cell biological processes to promote nucleotide synthesis and to maximise the potential for ATP and nucleotide import. In this review, we summarise recent genomic and functional data relating to how microsporidia exploit their hosts for energy and building blocks needed for growth and nucleic acid metabolism and we identify some remaining outstanding questions

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Observation of an Excited Bc+ State

Using pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 8.5 fb-1 recorded by the LHCb experiment at center-of-mass energies of s=7, 8, and 13 TeV, the observation of an excited Bc+ state in the Bc+π+π- invariant-mass spectrum is reported. The observed peak has a mass of 6841.2±0.6(stat)±0.1(syst)±0.8(Bc+) MeV/c2, where the last uncertainty is due to the limited knowledge of the Bc+ mass. It is consistent with expectations of the Bc∗(2S31)+ state reconstructed without the low-energy photon from the Bc∗(1S31)+→Bc+γ decay following Bc∗(2S31)+→Bc∗(1S31)+π+π-. A second state is seen with a global (local) statistical significance of 2.2σ (3.2σ) and a mass of 6872.1±1.3(stat)±0.1(syst)±0.8(Bc+) MeV/c2, and is consistent with the Bc(2S10)+ state. These mass measurements are the most precise to date

Measurement of the inelastic pp cross-section at a centre-of-mass energy of 13TeV

The cross-section for inelastic proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13TeV is measured with the LHCb detector. The fiducial cross-section for inelastic interactions producing at least one prompt long-lived charged particle with momentum p > 2 GeV/c in the pseudorapidity range 2 < η < 5 is determined to be ϭ acc = 62:2 ± 0:2 ± 2:5mb. The first uncertainty is the intrinsic systematic uncertainty of the measurement, the second is due to the uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The statistical uncertainty is negligible. Extrapolation to full phase space yields the total inelastic proton-proton cross-section ϭ inel = 75:4 ± 3:0 ± 4:5mb, where the first uncertainty is experimental and the second due to the extrapolation. An updated value of the inelastic cross-section at a centre-of-mass energy of 7TeV is also reported

Optimising Subjective Anterior Eye Grading Precision

Purpose: To establish the optimum grading increment which ensured parity between practitioners while maximising clinical precision. Methods: Second year optometry students (n = 127, 19.5 ± 1.4 years, 55 % female) and qualified eye care practitioners (n = 61, 40.2 ± 14.8 years, 52 % female) had 30 s to grade each of bulbar, limbal and palpebral hyperaemia of the upper lid of 4 patients imaged live with a digital slit lamp under 16× magnification, diffuse illumination, with the image projected on a screen. The patients were presented in a randomised sequence 3 times in succession, during which the graders used the Efron printed grading scale once to the nearest 0.1 increment, once to nearest 0.5 increment and once to the nearest integer grade in a randomised order. Graders were masked to their previous responses. Results: For most grading conditions less than 20 % of clinicians showed a ≤0.1 difference in grade from the mean. In contrast, more than 50 % of the student graders and 40 % of experienced graders showed a difference in grade from the mean within 0.5 for all conditions under measurement. Student precision in grading was better with both 0.1 and 0.5 grading increments than grading to the nearest unit, except for limbal hyperaemia where they performed more accurately with 0.5 unit increment grading. Limbal grading precision was not affected by grading step increment for experienced practitioners, but 0.1 and 0.5 grading increments were both better than the 1.0 grading increment for bulbar hyperaemia and the 0.1 grading increment was better than the 0.5 grading increment and both were better than the 1.0 grading increment for palpebral hyperaemia. Conclusion: Although narrower interval scales maximise the ability to detect smaller clinical changes, the grading increment should not exceed one standard deviation of the discrepancy between measurements. Therefore, 0.5 grading increments are recommended for subjective anterior eye physiology grading (limbal, bulbar and palpebral redness)