84 research outputs found
Antimicrobial Resistance in Bacteria Isolated from Exotic Pets : The Situation in the Iberian Peninsula
Literature related to antimicrobial resistant (AMR) bacteria in exotic pets is minimal, being essential to report objective data on this topic, which represents a therapeutic challenge for veterinary medicine and public health. Between 2016 and 2020, laboratory records of 3156 exotic pet specimens' microbiological diagnoses and antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) results were examined. The samples were classified into three animal classes: birds (n = 412), mammalia (n = 2399), and reptilian (n = 345). The most prevalent bacteria in birds and mammals were Staphylococcus spp. (15% and 16%), while in reptiles they were Pseudomonas spp. (23%). Pseudomonas was the genus with the highest levels of AMR in all animal groups, followed by Enterococcus spp. By contrast, Gram-positive cocci and Pasteurella spp. were the most sensitive bacteria. Moreover, in reptiles, Stenotrophomonas spp., Morganella spp., and Acinetobacter spp. presented high levels of AMR. Multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria were isolates from reptiles (21%), birds (17%), and mammals (15%). The Enterobacterales had the highest MDR levels: S. marcescens (94.4%), C. freundii (50%), M. morganii (47.4%), K. pneumoniae (46.6%), E. cloacae (44%), and E. coli (38.3%). The prevalence of MDR P. aeruginosa strains was 8%, detecting one isolate with an XDR profile. Regarding antimicrobial use, many antibiotics described as critically important for human use had significant AMR prevalence in bacteria isolated from exotic pets. Under the One-Health approach, these results are alarming and of public health concern since potential transmission of AMR bacteria and genes can occur from exotic pets to their owners in both senses. For this reason, the collaboration between veterinarians and public health professionals is crucial
Nonradiative Electronic Deexcitation Time Scales in Metal Clusters
The life-times due to Auger-electron emission for a hole on a deep electronic
shell of neutral and charged sodium clusters are studied for different sizes.
We consider spherical clusters and calculate the Auger-transition probabilities
using the energy levels and wave functions calculated in the
Local-Density-Approximation (LDA).
We obtain that Auger emission processes are energetically not allowed for
neutral and positively charged sodium clusters. In general, the Auger
probabilities in small Na clusters are remarkably different from the
atomic ones and exhibit a rich size dependence.
The Auger decay times of most of the cluster sizes studied are orders of
magnitude larger than in atoms and might be comparable with typical
fragmentation times.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Warming effect on nitrogen fixation in Mediterranean macrophyte sediments
The Mediterranean Sea is warming faster than the global ocean, with important
consequences for organisms and biogeochemical cycles. Warming is a major
stressor for key marine benthic macrophytes. However, the effect of warming
on marine N2 fixation remains unknown, despite the fact that the high
productivity of macrophytes in oligotrophic waters is partially sustained by
the input of new nitrogen (N) into the system by N2 fixation. Here,
we assess the impact of warming on the N2 fixation rates of three key
marine macrophytes: Posidonia oceanica, Cymodocea nodosa,
and Caulerpa prolifera. We experimentally measured N2
fixation rates in vegetated and bare sediments at temperatures encompassing
current summer mean (25 and 27 ∘C), projected summer mean (29 and
31 ∘C), and projected summer maximum (33 ∘C) seawater
surface temperatures (SSTs) by the end of the century under a scenario of
moderate greenhouse gas emissions. We found that N2 fixation rates
in vegetated sediments were 2.8-fold higher than in bare sediments at current
summer mean SST, with no differences among macrophytes. Currently, the
contribution of N2 fixation to macrophyte productivity could
account for up to 7 %, 13.8 %, and 1.8 % of N requirements for
P. oceanica, C. nodosa, and C. prolifera,
respectively. We show the temperature dependence of sediment N2
fixation rates. However, the thermal response differed for vegetated
sediments, in which rates showed an optimum at 31 ∘C followed by a
sharp decrease at 33 ∘C, and bare sediments, in which rates increased
along the range of the experimental temperatures. The activation energy and
Q10 were lower in vegetated than bare sediments, indicating the lower
thermal sensitivity of vegetated sediments. The projected warming is expected
to increase the contribution of N2 fixation to Mediterranean
macrophyte productivity. Therefore, the thermal dependence of N2
fixation might have important consequences for primary production in coastal
ecosystems in the context of warming.</p
Microscopic study of the He2-SF6 trimers
The He2-SF6 trimers, in their different He isotopic combinations, are studied
both in the framework of the correlated Jastrow approach and of the Correlated
Hyperspherical Harmonics expansion method. The energetics and structure of the
He-SF6 dimers are analyzed, and the existence of a characteristic rotational
band in the excitation spectrum is discussed, as well as the isotopic
differences. The binding energies and the spatial properties of the trimers, in
their ground and lowest lying excited states, obtained by the Jastrow ansatz
are in excellent agreement with the results of the converged CHH expansion. The
introduction of the He-He correlation makes all trimers bound by largely
suppressing the short range He-He repulsion.
The structural properties of the trimers are qualitatively explained in terms
of the shape of the interactions, Pauli principle and masses of the
constituents.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures. Submitted to PR
Dissociation of vertical semiconductor diatomic artificial molecules
We investigate the dissociation of few-electron circular vertical
semiconductor double quantum dot artificial molecules at 0 T as a function of
interdot distance. Slight mismatch introduced in the fabrication of the
artificial molecules from nominally identical constituent quantum wells induces
localization by offsetting the energy levels in the quantum dots by up to 2
meV, and this plays a crucial role in the appearance of the addition energy
spectra as a function of coupling strength particularly in the weak coupling
limit.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let
Critical temperature for the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition (from multifragmentation and fission)
Critical temperature Tc for the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition is
stimated both from the multifragmentation and fission data. In the first
case,the critical temperature is obtained by analysis of the IMF yields in
p(8.1 GeV)+Au collisions within the statistical model of multifragmentation
(SMM). In the second case, the experimental fission probability for excited
188Os is compared with the calculated one with Tc as a free parameter. It is
concluded for both cases that the critical temperature is higher than 16 MeV.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure
Description of induced nuclear fission with Skyrme energy functionals. II. Finite temperature effects
Understanding the mechanisms of induced nuclear fission for a broad range of neutron energies could help resolve fundamental science issues, such as the formation of elements in the universe, but could have also a large impact on societal applications in energy production or nuclear waste management. The goal of this paper is to set up the foundations of a microscopic theory to study the static aspects of induced fission as a function of the excitation energy of the incident neutron, from thermal to fast neutrons. To account for the high excitation energy of the compound nucleus, we employ a statistical approach based on finite temperature nuclear density functional theory with Skyrme energy densities, which we benchmark on the Pu239(n,f) reaction. We compute the evolution of the least-energy fission pathway across multidimensional potential energy surfaces with up to five collective variables as a function of the nuclear temperature and predict the evolution of both the inner and the outer fission barriers as a function of the excitation energy of the compound nucleus. We show that the coupling to the continuum induced by the finite temperature is negligible in the range of neutron energies relevant for many applications of neutron-induced fission. We prove that the concept of quantum localization introduced recently can be extended to T>0, and we apply the method to study the interaction energy and total kinetic energy of fission fragments as a function of the temperature for the most probable fission. While large uncertainties in theoretical modeling remain, we conclude that a finite temperature nuclear density functional may provide a useful framework to obtain accurate predictions of fission fragment properties
High denitrification and anaerobic ammonium oxidation contributes to net nitrogen loss in a seagrass ecosystem in the central Red Sea
Nitrogen loads in coastal areas have increased dramatically, with detrimental consequences for coastal ecosystems. Shallow sediments and seagrass meadows are hotspots for denitrification, favoring N loss. However, atmospheric dinitrogen (N2) fixation has been reported to support seagrass growth. Therefore, the role of coastal marine systems dominated by seagrasses in the net N2 flux remains unclear. Here, we measured denitrification, anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox), and N2 fixation in a tropical seagrass (Enhalus acoroides) meadow and the adjacent bare sediment in a coastal lagoon in the central Red Sea. We detected high annual mean rates of denitrification (34.9 ± 10.3 and 31.6±8.9 mg N m−2 d−1) and anammox (12.4±3.4 and 19.8 ± 4.4 mg N m−2 d−1) in vegetated and bare sediments. The annual mean N loss was higher (between 8 and 63- fold) than the N2 fixed (annual mean = 5.9 ± 0.2 and 0.8 ± 0.3 mg N m−2 d−1) in the meadow and bare sediment, leading to a net flux of N2 from sediments to the atmosphere. Despite the importance of this coastal lagoon in removing N from the system, N2 fixation can contribute substantially to seagrass growth since N2 fixation rates found here could contribute up to 36 % of plant N requirements. In vegetated sediments, anammox rates decreased with increasing organic matter (OM) content, while N2 fixation increased with OMcontent. Denitrification and anammox increased linearly with temperature, while N2 fixation showed a maximum at intermediate temperatures. Therefore, the forecasted warming could further increase the N2 flux from sediments to the atmosphere, potentially impacting seagrass productivity and their capacity to mitigate climate change but also enhancing their potential N removal
Atomic Parity Nonconservation: Electroweak Parameters and Nuclear Structure
There have been suggestions to measure atomic parity nonconservation (PNC)
along an isotopic chain, by taking ratios of observables in order to cancel
complicated atomic structure effects. Precise atomic PNC measurements could
make a significant contribution to tests of the Standard Model at the level of
one loop radiative corrections. However, the results also depend upon certain
features of nuclear structure, such as the spatial distribution of neutrons in
the nucleus. To examine the sensitivity to nuclear structure, we consider the
case of Pb isotopes using various recent relativistic and non-relativistic
nuclear model calculations. Contributions from nucleon internal weak structure
are included, but found to be fairly negligible. The spread among present
models in predicted sizes of nuclear structure effects may preclude using Pb
isotope ratios to test the Standard Model at better than a one percent level,
unless there are adequate independent tests of the nuclear models by various
alternative strong and electroweak nuclear probes. On the other hand,
sufficiently accurate atomic PNC experiments would provide a unique method to
measure neutron distributions in heavy nuclei.Comment: 44 pages, INT Preprint DOE/ER/40561-050-INT92-00-1
Transition from in-plane to out-of-plane azimuthal enhancement in Au+Au collisions
The incident energy at which the azimuthal distributions in semi-central
heavy ion collisions change from in-plane to out-of-plane enhancement, E_tran,
is studied as a function of mass of emitted particles, their transverse
momentum and centrality for Au+Au collisions. The analysis is performed in a
reference frame rotated with the sidewards flow angle, Theta_flow, relative to
the beam axis. A systematic decrease of E_tran as function of mass of the
reaction products, their transverse momentum and collision centrality is
evidenced. The predictions of a microscopic transport model (IQMD) are compared
with the experimental results.Comment: 32 pages, Latex, 22 eps figures, accepted for publication in Nucl.
Phys.
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