2010 ACVIM Small Animal Consensus Statement on Leptospirosis: Diagnosis, Epidemiology, Treatment, and Prevention

This report offers a consensus opinion on the diagnosis, epidemiology, treatment, and prevention of leptospirosis in dogs, an important zoonosis. Clinical signs of leptospirosis in dogs relate to development of renal disease, hepatic disease, uveitis, and pulmonary hemorrhage. Disease may follow periods of high rainfall, and can occur in dogs roaming in proximity to water sources, farm animals, or wildlife, or dogs residing in suburban environments. Diagnosis is based on acute and convalescent phase antibody titers by the microscopic agglutination test (MAT), with or without use of polymerase chain reaction assays. There is considerable interlaboratory variation in MAT results, and the MAT does not accurately predict the infecting serogroup. The recommended treatment for optimal clearance of the organism from renal tubules is doxycycline, 5 mg/kg PO q12h, for 14 days. Annual vaccination can prevent leptospirosis caused by serovars included in the vaccine and is recommended for dogs at risk of infection

The Mass Function of Newly Formed Stars (Review)

The topic of the stellar "original mass function" has a nearly 50 year history,dating to the publication in 1955 of Salpeter's seminal paper. In this review I discuss the many more recent results that have emerged on the initial mass function (IMF), as it is now called, from studies over the last decade of resolved populations in star forming regions and young open clusters.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure; to appear in "The Dense Instellar Medium in Galaxies -- 4'th Cologne-Bonn-Zermatt-Symposium" editted by S. Pfalzner, C. Kramer, C. Straubmeier and A. Heithausen, Springer-Verlag (2004

Long term geological record of a global deep subsurface microbial habitat in sand injection complexes

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Molecular spectroscopy: Complexity of excited-state dynamics in DNA

Absorption of ultraviolet light by DNA is known to lead to carcinogenic mutations, but the processes between photon absorption and the photochemical reactions are poorly understood. In their study of the excited-stated dynamics of model DNA helices using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy1, Crespo-Hernández et al. observe that the picosecond component of the transient signals recorded for the adenine–thymine oligonucleotide (dA)18(dT)18 is close to that for (dA)18, but quite different from that for (dAdT)9(dAdT)9; from this observation, they conclude that excimer formation limits excitation energy to one strand at a time. Here we use time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy to probe the excited-state dynamics, which reveals the complexity of these systems and indicates that the interpretation of Crespo-Hernández et al. is an oversimplification. We also comment on the pertinence of separating base stacking and base pairing in excited-state dynamics of double helices and question the authors' assignment of the long-lived signal component found for (dA)18(dT)18 to adenine excimers

Global land surface air temperature dynamics since 1880

The geographical extent, magnitude, and uncertainty of global climate change have been widely discussed and have critical policy implications at both global and local scales. In this study, a new analysis of annual mean global land surface air temperature since 1880 was generated, which has greater coverage and lower uncertainty than previous distributions. The Biased Sentinel Hospitals Areal Disease Estimation (BSHADE) method, used in this study, makes a best linear unbiased estimation (BLUE) when a sample is small and biased to a spatially heterogeneous population. For the period of 1901–2010, the warming trend was found to be 0.109 °C decade−1 with 95% confidence intervals between 0.081 °C and 0.137 °C. Additionally, warming exhibited different spatial patterns in different periods. In the early 20th century (1923–1950), warming occurred mainly in the mid-high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, whereas in the most recent decades (1977–2014), warming was more spatially extensive across the global land surface. Compared with other common methods, the difference in results appears in the areas with few stations and in the early years, when stations had sparse coverage and were unevenly distributed. Validation, which was performed using real data that simulated the historic situation, showed a smaller error in the BSHADE estimate than in other methods. This study produced a new database with greater coverage and less uncertainty that will improve the understanding of climate dynamics on the Earth since 1880, especially in isolated areas and early periods, and will benefit the assessment of climate-change-related issues, such as the effects of human activities

Dense matter with eXTP

In this White Paper we present the potential of the Enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry (eXTP) mission for determining the nature of dense matter; neutron star cores host an extreme density regime which cannot be replicated in a terrestrial laboratory. The tightest statistical constraints on the dense matter equation of state will come from pulse profile modelling of accretion-powered pulsars, burst oscillation sources, and rotation-powered pulsars. Additional constraints will derive from spin measurements, burst spectra, and properties of the accretion flows in the vicinity of the neutron star. Under development by an international Consortium led by the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Science, the eXTP mission is expected to be launched in the mid 2020s.Comment: Accepted for publication on Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. (2019

Discovery of the Optical Transient of the Gamma Ray Burst 990308

The optical transient of the faint Gamma Ray Burst 990308 was detected by the QUEST camera on the Venezuelan 1-m Schmidt telescope starting 3.28 hours after the burst. Our photometry gives $V = 18.32 \pm 0.07$, $R = 18.14 \pm 0.06$, $B = 18.65 \pm 0.23$, and $R = 18.22 \pm 0.05$ for times ranging from 3.28 to 3.47 hours after the burst. The colors correspond to a spectral slope of close to $f_{\nu} \propto \nu^{1/3}$. Within the standard synchrotron fireball model, this requires that the external medium be less dense than $10^{4} cm^{-3}$, the electrons contain $> 20$ of the shock energy, and the magnetic field energy must be less than 24% of the energy in the electrons for normal interstellar or circumstellar densities. We also report upper limits of $V > 12.0$ at 132 s (with LOTIS), $V > 13.4$ from 132-1029s (with LOTIS), $V > 15.3$ at 28.2 min (with Super-LOTIS), and a 8.5 GHz flux of $< 114 \mu Jy$ at 110 days (with the Very Large Array). WIYN 3.5-m and Keck 10-m telescopes reveal this location to be empty of any host galaxy to $R > 25.7$ and $K > 23.3$. The lack of a host galaxy likely implies that it is either substantially subluminous or more distant than a red shift of $\sim 1.2$.Comment: ApJ Lett submitted, 5 pages, 2 figures, no space for 12 coauthor

The Arabidopsis thaliana N-recognin E3 ligase PROTEOLYSIS1 influences the immune response.

N-degron pathways of ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis (formerly known as the N-end rule pathway) control the stability of substrate proteins dependent on the amino-terminal (Nt) residue. Unlike yeast or mammalian N-recognin E3 ligases, which each recognize several different classes of Nt residues, in Arabidopsis thaliana, N-recognin functions of different N-degron pathways are carried out independently by PROTEOLYSIS (PRT)1, PRT6, and other unknown proteins. PRT1 recognizes type 2 aromatic Nt-destabilizing residues and PRT6 recognizes type 1 basic residues. These two N-recognin functions diverged as separate proteins early in the evolution of plants, before the conquest of the land. We demonstrate that loss of PRT1 function promotes the plant immune system, as mutant prt1-1 plants showed greater apoplastic resistance than WT to infection by the bacterial hemi-biotroph Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato (Pst) DC3000. Quantitative proteomics revealed increased accumulation of proteins associated with specific components of plant defense in the prt1-1 mutant, concomitant with increased accumulation of salicylic acid. The effects of the prt1 mutation were additional to known effects of prt6 in influencing the immune system, in particular, an observed over-accumulation of pipecolic acid (Pip) in the double-mutant prt1-1 prt6-1. These results demonstrate a potential role for PRT1 in controlling aspects of the plant immune system and suggest that PRT1 limits the onset of the defense response via degradation of substrates with type 2 Nt-destabilizing residues

Atmospheric Evolution

Earth's atmosphere has evolved as volatile species cycle between the atmosphere, ocean, biomass and the solid Earth. The geochemical, biological and astrophysical processes that control atmospheric evolution are reviewed from an "Earth Systems" perspective, with a view not only to understanding the history of Earth, but also to generalizing to other solar system planets and exoplanets.Comment: 34 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Accepted as a chapter in "Encyclopaedia of Geochemistry", Editor Bill White, Springer-Nature, 201

Antimicrobial Peptides and Skin: A Paradigm of Translational Medicine

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are small, cationic, amphiphilic peptides with broad-spectrum microbicidal activity against both bacteria and fungi. In mammals, AMPs form the first line of host defense against infections and generally play an important role as effector agents of the innate immune system. The AMP era was born more than 6 decades ago when the first cationic cyclic peptide antibiotics, namely polymyxins and tyrothricin, found their way into clinical use. Due to the good clinical experience in the treatment of, for example, infections of mucus membranes as well as the subsequent understanding of mode of action, AMPs are now considered for treatment of inflammatory skin diseases and for improving healing of infected wounds. Based on the preclinical findings, including pathobiochemistry and molecular medicine, targeted therapy strategies are developed and first results indicate that AMPs influence processes of diseased skin. Importantly, in contrast to other antibiotics, AMPs do not seem to propagate the development of antibiotic-resistant micro-organisms. Therefore, AMPs should be tested in clinical trials for their efficacy and tolerability in inflammatory skin diseases and chronic wounds. Apart from possible fields of application, these peptides appear suited as an example of the paradigm of translational medicine for skin diseases which is today seen as a `two-way road' - from bench to bedside and backwards from bedside to bench. Copyright (c) 2012 S. Karger AG, Base