A stochastic movement simulator improves estimates of landscape connectivity

Acknowledgments This publication issued from the project TenLamas funded by the French Ministère de l'Energie, de l'Ecologie, du Développement Durable et de la Mer through the EU FP6 BiodivERsA Eranet; by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) through the open call INDHET and 6th extinction MOBIGEN to V. M. Stevens, M. Baguette, and A. Coulon, and young researcher GEMS (ANR-13-JSV7-0010-01) to V. M. Stevens and M. Baguette; and by a VLIR-VLADOC scholarship awarded to J. Aben. L. Lens, J. Aben, D. Strubbe, and E. Matthysen are grateful to the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) for financial support of fieldwork and genetic analysis (grant G.0308.13). V. M. Stevens and M. Baguette are members of the “Laboratoire d'Excellence” (LABEX) entitled TULIP (ANR-10-LABX-41). J. M. J. Travis and S. C. F. Palmer also acknowledge the support of NERC. A. Coulon and J. Aben contributed equally to the work.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Relation between antimicrobial use and resistance in Belgian pig herds

The aim of this study was to determine the link between the characteristics of antimicrobial therapy and occurrence of antimicrobial resistance in Escherichia coli of clinically healthy pigs exposed to antimicrobial treatments. A total of 918 Escherichia coli isolates were obtained from faecal samples, collected from 50 pig herds at the end of the fattening period and susceptibility was tested towards 15 different antimicrobial agents, using the disk diffusion method

Melting and refreezing beneath Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf (East Antarctica) inferred from radar, GPS, and ice core data

Ice-penetrating radar profiles across the grounding line of a small ice-rise promontory located within the Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf in the Dronning Maud Land sector of East Antarctica show downward dipping englacial radar-detected reflectors. Model results indicate that this reflector pattern is best fit by including basal melting of at least 15 cm a-1. This rate of melting is low compared with rates observed on larger ice shelves in both West and East Antarctica. Ice cores extracted from a rift system close to the ice-rise promontory show several meters of marine ice accreted beneath the shelf. These observations of low rates of basal melting, and limited distribution of accreted marine ice suggest that either Antarctic surface water may reach the ice shelf base or that circulation beneath the shelf is likely dominated by the production of high salinity shelf water rather than the incursion of circumpolar deep water, implying a weak sub-shelf circulation system here. Many of the ice shelves located along the coast of Dronning Maud Land are, like Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf, characterized by frequent ice rises and promontories. Therefore, it is highly likely that these are also of shallow bathymetry and are subject to similarly weak side-shelf basal melting and refreezing

Quantum Fluctuation Relations for the Lindblad Master Equation

An open quantum system interacting with its environment can be modeled under suitable assumptions as a Markov process, described by a Lindblad master equation. In this work, we derive a general set of fluctuation relations for systems governed by a Lindblad equation. These identities provide quantum versions of Jarzynski-Hatano-Sasa and Crooks relations. In the linear response regime, these fluctuation relations yield a fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT) valid for a stationary state arbitrarily far from equilibrium. For a closed system, this FDT reduces to the celebrated Callen-Welton-Kubo formula

Murder in Jerba : honour, shame and hospitality among Maltese in Ottoman Tunisia

Little is known about the sizeable Maltese communities developing along the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean in the mid-nineteenth century and the extent to which the migrants reproduced Maltese cultural traditions and practices overseas. This article considers this question through a microhistorical analysis of events culminating in the murder of a Maltese woman in the Ottoman Regency of Tunis in 1866. A close reading of transcripts from the interrogation of witnesses and the accused, all members of a Maltese community in Jerba reveals their shared cultural practices and beliefs surrounding the provision of hospitality, honour and shame. Viewed from this perspective, the curious responses of the witnesses to the murder of their compatriot become meaningful, and the crime is reframed as an honour killing.peer-reviewe

Pulmonary cystic disease in HIV positive individuals in the Democratic Republic of Congo: three case reports

Pulmonary emphysema and bronchiectasis in HIV seropositive patients has been described in the presence of injection drug use, malnutrition, repeated opportunistic infections, such as Pneumocytis jirovici pneumonia and Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection, and has been linked to the presence of HIV virus in lung tissue. Given the high burden of pulmonary infections and malnutrition among people living with HIV in resource poor settings, these individuals may be at increased risk of developing pulmonary emphysema, potentially reducing the long term benefit of antiretroviral therapy (ART) if initiated late in the course of HIV infection