Mass administration of azithromycin and Streptococcus pneumoniae carriage: cross-sectional surveys in the Gambia.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of repeated mass drug administration (MDA) of azithromycin in the Gambia on the nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae and on the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains. METHODS: This study involved villages that participated in a cluster randomized trial comparing the effect of one versus three azithromycin MDA rounds on the prevalence of trachoma. Only villages in which most children received 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine were included. Three cross-sectional surveys were performed in two villages that received three annual MDA rounds: the first immediately before the third MDA round and the second and third, 1 and 6 months, respectively, after the third MDA round. The third survey also covered six villages that had received one MDA round 30 months previously. Pneumococcal carriage was assessed using nasopharyngeal swabs and azithromycin resistance was detected using the Etest. FINDINGS: The prevalence of pneumococcal carriage decreased from 43.4% to 19.2% between the first and second surveys (P < 0.001) but rebounded by the third survey (45.8%; P = 0.591). Being a carrier at the first survey was a risk factor for being a carrier at the second (odds ratio: 3.71; P <  0.001). At the third survey, the prevalence of carriage was similar after one and three MDA rounds (50.3% versus 45.8%, respectively; P = 0.170), as was the prevalence of azithromycin resistance (0.3% versus 0.9%, respectively; P = 0.340). CONCLUSION: Three azithromycin MDA rounds did not increase the prevalence of nasopharyngeal carriage of azithromycin-resistant S. pneumoniae strains compared with one round

Surface composition and structure of Co\u3csub\u3e3\u3c/sub\u3eO\u3csub\u3e4\u3c/sub\u3e(110) and the effect of impurity segregation

The Co3O4 (110) single crystal surface has been characterized by low energy electron diffraction (LEED), Auger electron spectroscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). LEED analysis of the clean Co3O4 (110) spinel surface shows a well-ordered pattern with sharp diffraction features. The XPS spectra are consistent with stoichiometric Co3O4 as determined by the concentration ratio of oxygen to cobalt (CO /CCo) and spectral peak shape. In particular, the cobalt 2p XPS spectra are characteristic of the spinel structure with Co3+ occupying octahedral sites and Co2+ in tetrahedral sites within the lattice. During prolonged heating at 630 K, bulk impurities of K, Ca, Na, and Cu segregated to the surface. Sodium desorbed from the surface as NaOH at 825 K, potassium and calcium were only removed by sputtering since no desorption from the surface was detected for temperatures up to 1000 K. Copper also disappeared upon heating above 700 K, most likely by desorbing although the possibility of diffusion back into the bulk could not be eliminated. The appearance of copper impurities correlated with Co3O4 (110) surface reduction to CoO, and the surface could not be fully reoxidized even upon extended oxygen annealing as long as the copper impurity remained on the surface. Upon removal of the Cu from the near-surface region, the surface was easily reoxidized to Co3O4 by O2

Associations with photoreceptor thickness measures in the UK Biobank.

Spectral-domain OCT (SD-OCT) provides high resolution images enabling identification of individual retinal layers. We included 32,923 participants aged 40-69 years old from UK Biobank. Questionnaires, physical examination, and eye examination including SD-OCT imaging were performed. SD OCT measured photoreceptor layer thickness includes photoreceptor layer thickness: inner nuclear layer-retinal pigment epithelium (INL-RPE) and the specific sublayers of the photoreceptor: inner nuclear layer-external limiting membrane (INL-ELM); external limiting membrane-inner segment outer segment (ELM-ISOS); and inner segment outer segment-retinal pigment epithelium (ISOS-RPE). In multivariate regression models, the total average INL-RPE was observed to be thinner in older aged, females, Black ethnicity, smokers, participants with higher systolic blood pressure, more negative refractive error, lower IOPcc and lower corneal hysteresis. The overall INL-ELM, ELM-ISOS and ISOS-RPE thickness was significantly associated with sex and race. Total average of INL-ELM thickness was additionally associated with age and refractive error, while ELM-ISOS was additionally associated with age, smoking status, SBP and refractive error; and ISOS-RPE was additionally associated with smoking status, IOPcc and corneal hysteresis. Hence, we found novel associations of ethnicity, smoking, systolic blood pressure, refraction, IOPcc and corneal hysteresis with photoreceptor thickness

The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Data Release 9 Spectroscopic Galaxy Sample

We present measurements of galaxy clustering from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III). These use the Data Release 9 (DR9) CMASS sample, which contains 264,283 massive galaxies covering 3275 square degrees with an effective redshift z=0.57 and redshift range 0.43 < z < 0.7. Assuming a concordance Lambda-CDM cosmological model, this sample covers an effective volume of 2.2 Gpc^3, and represents the largest sample of the Universe ever surveyed at this density, n = 3 x 10^-4 h^-3 Mpc^3. We measure the angle-averaged galaxy correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of 5\sigma in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Combining with the SDSS-II Luminous Red Galaxy Sample, the detection significance increases to 6.7\sigma. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance to z=0.57 relative to the sound horizon DV /rs = 13.67 +/- 0.22 at z=0.57. Assuming a fiducial sound horizon of 153.19 Mpc, which matches cosmic microwave background constraints, this corresponds to a distance DV(z=0.57) = 2094 +/- 34 Mpc. At 1.7 per cent, this is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. We place this result alongside previous BAO measurements in a cosmological distance ladder and find excellent agreement with the current supernova measurements. We use these distance measurements to constrain various cosmological models, finding continuing support for a flat Universe with a cosmological constant.Comment: 33 page

Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) for the Subaru Telescope: Overview, recent progress, and future perspectives

PFS (Prime Focus Spectrograph), a next generation facility instrument on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope, is a very wide-field, massively multiplexed, optical and near-infrared spectrograph. Exploiting the Subaru prime focus, 2394 reconfigurable fibers will be distributed over the 1.3 deg field of view. The spectrograph has been designed with 3 arms of blue, red, and near-infrared cameras to simultaneously observe spectra from 380nm to 1260nm in one exposure at a resolution of ~1.6-2.7A. An international collaboration is developing this instrument under the initiative of Kavli IPMU. The project is now going into the construction phase aiming at undertaking system integration in 2017-2018 and subsequently carrying out engineering operations in 2018-2019. This article gives an overview of the instrument, current project status and future paths forward.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures. Proceeding of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 201

Jimmy Swaggart's Secular Confession

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The published version is available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02773940902766748 .Following the exposure of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart’s illicit rendezvous with a New Orleans prostitute, the Assemblies of God simultaneously orchestrated a massive attempt to silence those who would discuss the tryst and arranged the most widely publicized confession in American history theretofore. The coincidence of a “silence campaign” with the vast distribution of a public confession invites us to reconsider the nature of the public confession. For what place has a public confession, the discourse of disclosure par excellence, in a silence campaign? This question is best answered, I argue, if we understand public confession not as a stable a-historical form, but as a practice that is informed by multiple, competing traditions. I argue that by situating Swaggart’s performance in a philosophically modern and secular tradition of public confession we can understand both its complicity in a silence campaign and, more generally, the political logic of the modern public confession

The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) started a new phase in August 2008, with new instrumentation and new surveys focused on Galactic structure and chemical evolution, measurements of the baryon oscillation feature in the clustering of galaxies and the quasar Ly alpha forest, and a radial velocity search for planets around ~8000 stars. This paper describes the first data release of SDSS-III (and the eighth counting from the beginning of the SDSS). The release includes five-band imaging of roughly 5200 deg^2 in the Southern Galactic Cap, bringing the total footprint of the SDSS imaging to 14,555 deg^2, or over a third of the Celestial Sphere. All the imaging data have been reprocessed with an improved sky-subtraction algorithm and a final, self-consistent photometric recalibration and flat-field determination. This release also includes all data from the second phase of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Evolution (SEGUE-2), consisting of spectroscopy of approximately 118,000 stars at both high and low Galactic latitudes. All the more than half a million stellar spectra obtained with the SDSS spectrograph have been reprocessed through an improved stellar parameters pipeline, which has better determination of metallicity for high metallicity stars.Comment: Astrophysical Journal Supplements, in press (minor updates from submitted version

The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

This paper describes the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), marking the completion of the original goals of the SDSS and the end of the phase known as SDSS-II. It includes 11663 deg^2 of imaging data, with most of the roughly 2000 deg^2 increment over the previous data release lying in regions of low Galactic latitude. The catalog contains five-band photometry for 357 million distinct objects. The survey also includes repeat photometry over 250 deg^2 along the Celestial Equator in the Southern Galactic Cap. A coaddition of these data goes roughly two magnitudes fainter than the main survey. The spectroscopy is now complete over a contiguous area of 7500 deg^2 in the Northern Galactic Cap, closing the gap that was present in previous data releases. There are over 1.6 million spectra in total, including 930,000 galaxies, 120,000 quasars, and 460,000 stars. The data release includes improved stellar photometry at low Galactic latitude. The astrometry has all been recalibrated with the second version of the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC-2), reducing the rms statistical errors at the bright end to 45 milli-arcseconds per coordinate. A systematic error in bright galaxy photometr is less severe than previously reported for the majority of galaxies. Finally, we describe a series of improvements to the spectroscopic reductions, including better flat-fielding and improved wavelength calibration at the blue end, better processing of objects with extremely strong narrow emission lines, and an improved determination of stellar metallicities. (Abridged)Comment: 20 pages, 10 embedded figures. Accepted to ApJS after minor correction

DNA sequencing by a single molecule detection of labeled nucleotides sequentially cleaved from a single strand of DNA

We are developing a laser-based technique for the rapid sequencing of large DNA fragments (several kb in size) at a rate of 100 to 1000 bases per second. Our approach relies on fluorescent labeling of the bases in a single fragment of DNA, attachment of this labeled DNA fragment to a support, movement of the supported DNA into a flowing sample stream, sequential cleavage of the end nucleotide from the DNA fragment with an exonuclease, and detection of the individual fluorescently labeled bases by laser-induced fluorescence