Eigenvalue estimates for submanifolds of warped product spaces

We give lower bounds for the fundamental tone of open sets in minimal submanifolds immersed into warped product spaces of type $N^n \times_f Q^q$, where $f \in C^\infty(N)$. We also study the essential spectrum of these minimal submanifolds.Comment: 17 page

MANAGEMENT OF A MAIN CITRUS PEST BLACK PARLATORIA SCALE PARLATORIA ZIZIPHI (LUCAS) (HEMIPTERA: DIASPIDIDAE) IN THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN

The scale of black parlatoria, Parlatoria ziziphi (Lucas) (Hemiptera: Diaspididae), causes considerable damage to citrus fruits in the Mediterranean basin. For well managed this pest, we carried out a thorough ecological and behavioral study on the preference of localization and fixation of this pest on the citrus tree throughout the year for two years in six different citrus orchards to know: the lemon, the clementinier and the orange variety Thomson and washington in Tizi Ouzou, sub-humid region of the Mediterranean, in the North of Algeria. This new information on the biology and behavior of P. ziziphi could be applied to the definition of a better pest management strategy and to improvement of sampling methodology for monitoring this devastating pest by the good recognition of its place of infestations

Changes in metabolites in the brain of patients with fibromyalgia after treatment with an NMDA receptor antagonist

The aims of this work were to evaluate whether the treatment of patients with fibromyalgia with memantine is associated with significant changes in metabolite concentrations in the brain, and to explore any changes in clinical outcome measures. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy was performed of the right anterior and posterior insula, both hippocampi and the posterior cingulate cortex. Questionnaires on pain, anxiety, depression, global function, quality of life and cognitive impairment were used. Ten patients were studied at baseline and after three months of treatment with memantine. Significant increases were observed in the following areas: N-acetylaspartate (4.47 at baseline vs. 4.71 at three months, p¿=¿0.02) and N-acetylaspartate+N-acetylaspartate glutamate in the left hippocampus (5.89 vs. 5.98; p¿=¿0.007); N-acetylaspartate+N-acetylaspartate glutamate in the right hippocampus (5.31 vs 5.79; p¿=¿0.01) and the anterior insula (7.56 vs. 7.70; p¿=¿0.033); glutamate+glutamine/creatine ratio in the anterior insula (2.03 vs. 2.17; p¿=¿0.022) and the posterior insula (1.77 vs. 2.00; p¿=¿0.004); choline/creatine ratio in the posterior cingulate (0.18 vs. 0.19; p¿=¿0.023); and creatine in the right hippocampus (3.60 vs. 3.85; p¿=¿0.007). At the three-month follow-up, memantine improved cognitive function assessed by the Cognition Mini-Exam (31.50, SD¿=¿2.95 vs. 34.40, SD¿=¿0.6; p¿=¿0.005), depression measured by the Hamilton Depression Scale (7.70, SD¿=¿0.81 vs. 7.56, SD¿=¿0.68; p¿=¿0.042) and severity of illness measured by the Clinical Global Impression severity scale (5.79, SD¿=¿0.96 vs. 5.31, SD¿=¿1.12; p¿=¿0.007). Depression, clinical global impression and cognitive function showed improvement with memantine. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy could be useful in monitoring response to the pharmacological treatment of fibromyalgia

On the assessment by grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering of replica quality in polymer gratings fabricated by nanoimprint lithography

Grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) can be used to characterize the replica quality of polymer gratings prepared by thermal nanoimprint lithography (NIL). Here it is shown using GISAXS experiments that a series of NIL polymer gratings with different line quality present characteristic features that can be associated with the level of defects per line. Both stamps and NIL polymer gratings exhibit characteristic semicircle-like GISAXS patterns. However NIL polymer gratings with defective lines exhibit GISAXS patterns with an excess of diffuse scattering as compared to those of the corresponding stamps. In a first approach, this effect is attributed to a reduction of the effective length of the lines diffracting coherently as the number of defects per line increases

Allergenic Lipid Transfer Proteins from Plant-Derived Foods Do Not Immunologically and Clinically Behave Homogeneously: The Kiwifruit LTP as a Model

BACKGROUND: Food allergy is increasingly common worldwide. Tools for allergy diagnosis measuring IgE improved much since allergenic molecules and microarrays started to be used. IgE response toward allergens belonging to the same group of molecules has not been comprehensively explored using such approach yet. OBJECTIVE: Using the model of lipid transfer proteins (LTPs) from plants as allergens, including two new structures, we sought to define how heterogeneous is the behavior of homologous proteins. METHODS: Two new allergenic LTPs, Act d 10 and Act c 10, have been identified in green (Actinidia deliciosa) and gold (Actinidia chinensis) kiwifruit (KF), respectively, using clinically characterized allergic patients, and their biochemical features comparatively evaluated by means of amino acid sequence alignments. Along with other five LTPs from peach, mulberry, hazelnut, peanut, mugwort, KF LTPs, preliminary tested positive for IgE, have been immobilized on a microarray, used for IgE testing 1,003 allergic subjects. Comparative analysis has been carried out. RESULTS: Alignment of Act d 10 primary structure with the other allergenic LTPs shows amino acid identities to be in a narrow range between 40 and 55%, with a number of substitutions making the sequences quite different from each other. Although peach LTP dominates the IgE immune response in terms of prevalence, epitope recognition driven by sequence heterogeneity has been recorded to be distributed in a wide range of behaviors. KF LTPs IgE positive results were obtained in a patient subset IgE positive for the peach LTP. Anyhow, the negative results on homologous molecules allowed us to reintroduce KF in patients' diet. CONCLUSION: The biochemical nature of allergenic molecule belonging to a group of homologous ones should not be taken as proof of immunological recognition as well. The availability of panels of homologous molecules to be tested using microarrays is valuable to address the therapeutic intervention

Measurement of the diffractive structure function in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

This paper presents an analysis of the inclusive properties of diffractive deep inelastic scattering events produced in $ep$ interactions at HERA. The events are characterised by a rapidity gap between the outgoing proton system and the remaining hadronic system. Inclusive distributions are presented and compared with Monte Carlo models for diffractive processes. The data are consistent with models where the pomeron structure function has a hard and a soft contribution. The diffractive structure function is measured as a function of \xpom, the momentum fraction lost by the proton, of $\beta$, the momentum fraction of the struck quark with respect to \xpom, and of $Q^2$. The \xpom dependence is consistent with the form \xpoma where $a~=~1.30~\pm~0.08~(stat)~^{+~0.08}_{-~0.14}~(sys)$ in all bins of $\beta$ and $Q^2$. In the measured $Q^2$ range, the diffractive structure function approximately scales with $Q^2$ at fixed $\beta$. In an Ingelman-Schlein type model, where commonly used pomeron flux factor normalisations are assumed, it is found that the quarks within the pomeron do not saturate the momentum sum rule.Comment: 36 pages, latex, 11 figures appended as uuencoded fil

Observation of hard scattering in photoproduction events with a large rapidity gap at HERA

Events with a large rapidity gap and total transverse energy greater than 5 GeV have been observed in quasi-real photoproduction at HERA with the ZEUS detector. The distribution of these events as a function of the $\gamma p$ centre of mass energy is consistent with diffractive scattering. For total transverse energies above 12 GeV, the hadronic final states show predominantly a two-jet structure with each jet having a transverse energy greater than 4 GeV. For the two-jet events, little energy flow is found outside the jets. This observation is consistent with the hard scattering of a quasi-real photon with a colourless object in the proton.Comment: 19 pages, latex, 4 figures appended as uuencoded fil

Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set

We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity. We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2, -1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012

Geographic distribution of the V1016G knockdown resistance mutation in aedes albopictus. A warning bell for Europe

Background: Colonization of large part of Europe by the Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus is causing autochthonous transmission of chikungunya and dengue exotic arboviruses. While pyrethroids are recommended only to reduce/limit transmission, they are widely implemented to reduce biting nuisance and to control agricultural pests, increasing the risk of insurgence of resistance mechanisms. Worryingly, pyrethroid resistance (with mortality < 70%) was recently reported in Ae. albopictus populations from Italy and Spain and associated with the V1016G point mutation in the voltage-sensitive sodium channel gene conferring knockdown resistance (kdr). Genotyping pyrethroid resistance-associated kdr mutations in field mosquito samples represents a powerful approach to detect early signs of resistance without the need for carrying out phenotypic bioassays which require availability of live mosquitoes, dedicated facilities and appropriate expertise.Methods: Here we report results on the PCR-genotyping of the V1016G mutation in 2530 Ae. albopictus specimens from 69 sampling sites in 19 European countries.Results: The mutation was identified in 12 sites from nine countries (with allele frequencies ranging from 1 to 8%), mostly distributed in two geographical clusters. The western cluster includes Mediterranean coastal sites from Italy, France and Malta as well as single sites from both Spain and Switzerland. The eastern cluster includes sites on both sides of the Black Sea in Bulgaria, Turkey and Georgia as well as one site from Romania. These results are consistent with genomic data showing high connectivity and close genetic relationship among West European populations and a major barrier to gene flow between West European and Balkan populations.Conclusions: The results of this first effort to map kdr mutations in Ae. albopictus on a continental scale show a widespread presence of the V1016G allele in Europe, although at lower frequencies than those previously reported from Italy. This represents a wake-up call for mosquito surveillance programs in Europe to include PCR-genotyping of pyrethroid resistance alleles, as well as phenotypic resistance assessments, in their routine activities