572 research outputs found
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Human infections associated with wild birds.
IntroductionWild birds and especially migratory species can become long-distance vectors for a wide range of microorganisms. The objective of the current paper is to summarize available literature on pathogens causing human disease that have been associated with wild bird species.MethodsA systematic literature search was performed to identify specific pathogens known to be associated with wild and migratory birds. The evidence for direct transmission of an avian borne pathogen to a human was assessed. Transmission to humans was classified as direct if there is published evidence for such transmission from the avian species to a person or indirect if the transmission requires a vector other than the avian species.ResultsSeveral wild and migratory birds serve as reservoirs and/or mechanical vectors (simply carrying a pathogen or dispersing infected arthropod vectors) for numerous infectious agents. An association with transmission from birds to humans was identified for 10 pathogens. Wild birds including migratory species may play a significant role in the epidemiology of influenza A virus, arboviruses such as West Nile virus and enteric bacterial pathogens. Nevertheless only one case of direct transmission from wild birds to humans was found.ConclusionThe available evidence suggests wild birds play a limited role in human infectious diseases. Direct transmission of an infectious agent from wild birds to humans is rarely identified. Potential factors and mechanisms involved in the transmission of infectious agents from birds to humans need further elucidation
On the Amplitude of Burst Oscillations in 4U 1636-54: Evidence for Nuclear Powered Pulsars
We present a study of 581 Hz oscillations observed during a thermonuclear
X-ray burst from the low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) 4U 1636-54 with the Rossi
X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). We argue that the combination of large pulsed
amplitudes near burst onset and the spectral evidence for localized emission
during the rise strongly supports rotational modulation as the mechanism for
the oscillations. We discuss how theoretical interpretation of spin modulation
amplitudes, pulse profiles and pulse phase spectroscopy can provide constraints
on the masses and radii of neutron stars. We also discuss the implication of
these findings for the beat frequency models of kHz X-ray variability in LMXB.Comment: AASTEX Latex, 13 pages including 5 figures. Accepted for publication
in the Astrophysical Journal Letter
On the construction of local fields in the bulk of AdS_5 and other spaces
In the Poincare patch of Minkovski AdS_5 we explicitly construct local bulk
fields from the boundary operators, to leading order in 1/N. We also construct
the Green's function implicitly defined by this procedure. We generalize the
construction of local fields for near horizon geometries of Dp branes. We try
to expand the procedure to the interacting case, with partial success.Comment: 11 pages, LaTe
Electrical Characteristics of Polypropylene Mixed with Natural Nanoclay
Polypropylene has been used in radio-frequency capacitors and has also started to be employed in cables as insulation. The objective of this study was to evaluate the electrical properties of polypropylene filled with natural clay as a nano-material. Polypropylene samples having 0%, 2% and 6% natural clay by weight were exposed to 60-Hz sinusoidal voltages at two different rates of rise. The breakdown voltage of each sample was recorded at these different ramp rates. Also, the Root-mean-squared (rms) current was measured as the voltage was increased across the test samples. The important findings of this study were (a) the breakdown strength of the natural nanoclay-filled polypropylene was higher than the unfilled polypropylene, and the optimum concentration of nanoclay appeared to be 2% by weight; (b) the current density as a function of the electric-field intensity indicated a non-linear behavior with saturation, and the saturation onset took place at a higher electric-field intensity in nanoclay-filled polypropylene, wherein 2% nanoclay seemed to be the optimum concentration as well for the onset electric field of saturation
The Long Term Stability of Oscillations During Thermonuclear X-ray Bursts: Constraining the Binary X-ray Mass Function
We report on the long term stability of the millisecond oscillations observed
with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) during thermonuclear X-ray bursts
from the low mass X-ray binaries (LMXB) 4U 1728-34 and 4U 1636-53. We show that
bursts from 4U 1728-34 spanning more than 1.5 years have observed asymptotic
oscillation periods which are within 0.2 microsec. of each other, well within
the magnitude which could be produced by the orbital motion of the neutron star
in a typical LMXB. This stability implies a timescale to change the oscillation
period of > 23,000 years, suggesting a highly stable process such as stellar
rotation as the oscillation mechanism. We show that period offsets in three
distinct bursts from 4U 1636-53 can be plausibly interpreted as due to orbital
motion of the neutron star in this 3.8 hour binary system. We discuss the
constraints on the mass function which can in principle be derived using this
technique.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. AASTeX, to be published in the Astrophysical
Journal Letter
Exotic polarizations of D2 branes and oblique vacua of (S)YM
We investigate the oblique vacua in the perturbed 2+1 dimensional gauge
theory living on D2 branes. The string theory dual of these vacua is expected
to correspond to polarizations of the D2 branes into NS5 branes with D4 brane
charge. We perturb the gauge theory by adding fermions masses. In the
nonsupersymmetric case, we also consider the effect of slight variations of the
masses of the scalars. For certain ranges of scalar masses we find oblique
vacua.
We show that D4 charge is an essential ingredient in understanding D2 -> NS5
polarizations. We find that some of the polarization states which appear as
metastable vacua when D4 charge is not considered are in fact unstable. They
decay by acquiring D4 charge, tilting and shrinking to zero size.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, LaTe
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Investigation of the Switched Inductor Circuit for Harmonics Compensation
Holographic dual of hot Polchinski-Strassler quark-gluon plasma
Abstract: We construct the supergravity dual of the hot quark-gluon plasma in the mass-deformed N = 4 Super-Yang-Mills theory (also known as N = 1∗). The full ten-dimensional type IIB holographic dual is described by 20 functions of two variables, which we determine numerically, and it contains a black hole with S5 horizon topology. As we lower the temperature to around half of the mass of the chiral multiplets, we find evidence for (most likely a first-order) phase transition, which could lead either to one of the Polchinski-Strassler confining, screening, or oblique vacua with polarized branes, or to an intermediate phase corresponding to blackened polarized branes with an S2 ×S3 horizon topology. This phase transition is a feature that could in principle be seen by putting the theory on the lattice, and thus our result for the ratio of the chiral multiplet mass to the phase transition temperature, mc/T = 2.15467491205(6), constitutes the first prediction of string theory and AdS/CFT that could be independently checked via four-dimensional super-QCD lattice computation. We also construct the black-hole solution in certain five-dimensional gauged supergravity truncations and, without directly using uplift/reduction formulae, we find strong evidence that the five- and ten-dimensional solutions are the same. This indicates that five-dimensional gauged supergravity is powerful enough to capture the physics of the high-temperature deconfined phase of the Polchinski-Strassler quark-gluon plasma
Effect of yoghurt serum powder dietary supplementation on growth performance and antioxidant status in fattening lambs
Large quantities of serum are produced during the strained yoghurt manufacturing process, which is the predominant type of yoghurt in Greece. However, the exploitation of this by-product as an alternative source of energy, protein and mineral elements in animal diets has not yet been examined. Therefore, this experiment was conducted to determine the effects of dietary yoghurt serum supplementation on growth performance and antioxidant status in sheep.Fourty eight male 2 months old lambs of Chios breed were randomly assigned to three experimental groups; control group was fed with a commercial basal diet, whereas the other two groups consumed the same diet, with the only difference that concentrated feed was uniformly supplemented with two levels of yoghurt serum powder (YS1: 25 g/kg feed or YS2: 50 g/kg feed). Lambs were weighed in a weekly basis from the beginning until the end of the experiment and blood samples were collected to measure antioxidant status. No significant effect of yoghurt serum powder on growth performance of fattening lambs was demonstrated, even after 28 days of dietary supplementation (P>0.05). At the same time, malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in blood plasma were not significantly different among the experimental groups (P>0.05) and no incidents of lambs with diarrhea were recorded. It can be concluded that yoghurt serum powder appears as a promising alternative of the cereals in the diets of fattening lambs, since no negative effects on growth performance and health status were observed
Mechanisms for High-frequency QPOs in Neutron Star and Black Hole Binaries
We explain the millisecond variability detected by Rossi X-ray Timing
Explorer (RXTE) in the X-ray emission from a number of low mass X-ray binary
systems (Sco X-1, 4U1728-34, 4U1608-522, 4U1636-536, 4U0614+091, 4U1735-44,
4U1820-30, GX5-1 and etc) in terms of dynamics of the centrifugal barrier, a
hot boundary region surrounding a neutron star. We demonstrate that this region
may experience the relaxation oscillations, and that the displacements of a gas
element both in radial and vertical directions occur at the same main
frequency, of order of the local Keplerian frequency. We show the importance of
the effect of a splitting of the main frequency produced by the Coriolis force
in a rotating disk for the interpretation of a spacing between the QPO peaks.
We estimate a magnitude of the splitting effect and present a simple formula
for the whole spectrum of the split frequencies. It is interesting that the
first three lowest-order overtones fall in the range of 200-1200 Hz and match
the kHz-QPO frequencies observed by RXTE. Similar phenomena should also occur
in Black Hole (BH) systems, but, since the QPO frequency is inversely
proportional to the mass of a compact object, the frequency of the
centrifugal-barrier oscillations in the BH systems should be a factor of 5-10
lower than that for the NS systems. The X-ray spectrum formed in this region is
a result of upscattering of a soft radiation (from a disk and a NS surface) off
relatively hot electrons in the boundary layer. We also briefly discuss some
alternative QPO models, including a possibility of acoustic oscillations in the
boundary layer, the proper stellar rotation, and g-mode disk oscillations.Comment: The paper is coming out in the Astrophysical Journal in the 1st of
May issue of 199
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