1,173 research outputs found
Novel Insights in the faecal egg count reduction test for monitoring drug efficacy against gastrointestinal nematodes of veterinary importance
The faecal egg count reduction test (FECRT) is the method of choice to monitor anthelmintic efficacy against gastro-intestinal nematodes in livestock. Guidelines on how to conduct a FECRT are made available by the World Association for the Advancement of Veterinary Parasitology (WAAVP). Since the publication of these guidelines in the early 1990s, some limitations have been noted, including (i) the ignorance of host-parasite interactions that depend on animal and parasite species, (ii) their feasibility under field conditions, (iii) appropriateness of study design, and (iv) the low analytic sensitivity of the recommended faecal egg count (FEC) method. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to empirically assess the impact of the level of excretion and aggregation of FEC, sample size and detection limit of the FEC method on the sensitivity and specificity of the FECRT to detect reduced efficacy (<90% or <95%) and to develop recommendations for surveys on anthelmintic resistance. A simulation study was performed in which the FECRT (based on the arithmetic mean of grouped FEC of the same animals before and after drug administration) was conducted under varying conditions of mean FEC, aggregation of FEC (inversely correlated with k), sample size, detection limit and ‘true’ drug efficacies. Classification trees were built to explore the impact of the above factors on the sensitivity and specificity of detecting a truly reduced efficacy. For a reduced-efficacy threshold of 90%, most combinations resulted in a reliable detection of reduced and normal efficacy. For the reduced-efficacy threshold of 95% however, unreliable FECRT results were found when sample sizes <15 were combined with highly aggregated FEC (k = 0.25) and detection limits ≥5 EPG or when combined with detection limits ≥15 EPG. Overall, an increase in sample size and mean preDA FEC, and a decrease in detection limit improved the diagnostic accuracy. FECRT remained inconclusive under any evaluated condition for drug efficacies ranging from 87.5% to 92.5% for a reduced-efficacy-threshold of 90% and from 92.5% to 97.5% for a threshold of 95%. The results highlight that (i) the interpretation of this FECRT is affected by a complex interplay of factors, including the level of excretion and aggregation of FEC and (ii) the diagnostic value of FECRT to detect small reductions in efficacy is limited. This study, therefore, provides a framework allowing researchers to adapt their study design according to a wide range of field conditions, while ensuring a good diagnostic performance of the FECRT
Determination of the Intershell Conductance in Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes
We report on the intershell electron transport in multiwalled carbon
nanotubes (MWNT). To do this, local and nonlocal four-point measurements are
used to study the current path through the different shells of a MWNT. For
short electrode separations 1 m the current mainly flows
through the two outer shells, described by a resistive transmission line with
an intershell conductance per length of ~(10 k\Omega)^{-1}/m. The
intershell transport is tunnel-type and the transmission is consistent with the
estimate based on the overlap between -orbitals of neighboring shells.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Silicon and III-V compound nanotubes: structural and electronic properties
Unusual physical properties of single-wall carbon nanotubes have started a
search for similar tubular structures of other elements. In this paper, we
present a theoretical analysis of single-wall nanotubes of silicon and group
III-V compounds. Starting from precursor graphene-like structures we
investigated the stability, energetics and electronic structure of zigzag and
armchair tubes using first-principles pseudopotential plane wave method and
finite temperature ab-initio molecular dynamics calculations. We showed that
(n,0) zigzag and (n,n) armchair nanotubes of silicon having n > 6 are stable
but those with n < 6 can be stabilized by internal or external adsorption of
transition metal elements. Some of these tubes have magnetic ground state
leading to spintronic properties. We also examined the stability of nanotubes
under radial and axial deformation. Owing to the weakness of radial restoring
force, stable Si nanotubes are radially soft. Undeformed zigzag nanotubes are
found to be metallic for 6 < n < 11 due to curvature effect; but a gap starts
to open for n > 12. Furthermore, we identified stable tubular structures formed
by stacking of Si polygons. We found AlP, GaAs, and GaN (8,0) single-wall
nanotubes stable and semiconducting. Our results are compared with those of
single-wall carbon nanotubes.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure
A periodic hexagon tiling model and non-Hermitian orthogonal polynomials
We study a one-parameter family of probability measures on lozenge tilings of
large regular hexagons that interpolates between the uniform measure on all
possible tilings and a particular fully frozen tiling. The description of the
asymptotic behavior can be separated into two regimes: the low and the high
temperature regime. Our main results are the computations of the disordered
regions in both regimes and the limiting densities of the different lozenges
there. For low temperatures, the disorded region consists of two disjoint
ellipses. In the high temperature regime the two ellipses merge into a single
simply connected region. At the transition from the low to the high temperature
a tacnode appears. The key to our asymptotic study is a recent approach
introduced by Duits and Kuijlaars providing a double integral representation
for the correlation kernel. One of the factors in the integrand is the
Christoffel-Darboux kernel associated to polynomials that satisfy non-Hermitian
orthogonality relations with respect to a complex-valued weight on a contour in
the complex plane. We compute the asymptotic behavior of these orthogonal
polynomials and the Christoffel-Darboux kernel by means of a Riemann-Hilbert
analysis. After substituting the resulting asymptotic formulas into the double
integral we prove our main results by classical steepest descent arguments.Comment: 63 pages, 20 figure
Anomalous Aharonov--Bohm gap oscillations in carbon nanotubes
The gap oscillations caused by a magnetic flux penetrating a carbon nanotube
represent one of the most spectacular observation of the Aharonov-Bohm effect
at the nano--scale. Our understanding of this effect is, however, based on the
assumption that the electrons are strictly confined on the tube surface, on
trajectories that are not modified by curvature effects. Using an ab-initio
approach based on Density Functional Theory we show that this assumption fails
at the nano-scale inducing important corrections to the physics of the
Aharonov-Bohm effect. Curvature effects and electronic density spilled out of
the nanotube surface are shown to break the periodicity of the gap
oscillations. We predict the key phenomenological features of this anomalous
Aharonov-Bohm effect in semi-conductive and metallic tubes and the existence of
a large metallic phase in the low flux regime of Multi-walled nanotubes, also
suggesting possible experiments to validate our results.Comment: 7 figure
The Upper Crustal Evolution of a Large Silicic Magma Body: Evidence from Crystal-scale Rb-Sr Isotopic Heterogeneities in the Fish Canyon Magmatic System, Colorado
Batholith-sized bodies of crystal-rich magmatic ‘mush' are widely inferred to represent the hidden sources of many large-volume high-silica rhyolite eruptive units. Occasionally these mush bodies are ejected along with their trapped interstitial liquid, forming the distinctive crystal-rich ignimbrites known as ‘monotonous intermediates'. These ignimbrites are notable for their combination of high crystal contents (35-55%), dacitic bulk compositions with interstitial high-silica rhyolitic glass, and general lack of compositional zonation. The 5000 km3 Fish Canyon Tuff is an archetypal eruption deposit of this type, and is the largest known silicic eruption on Earth. Ejecta from the Fish Canyon magmatic system are notable for the limited compositional variation that they define on the basis of whole-rock chemistry, whereas ∼ 45 vol. % crystals in a matrix of high-silica rhyolite glass together span a large range of mineral-scale isotopic variability (microns to millimetres). Rb/Sr isotopic analyses of single crystals (sanidine, plagioclase, biotite, hornblende, apatite, titanite) and sampling by micromilling of selected zones within glass plus sanidine and plagioclase crystals document widespread isotopic disequilibrium at many scales. High and variable 87Sr/86Sri values for euhedral biotite grains cannot be explained by any model involving closed-system radiogenic ingrowth, and they are difficult to rationalize unless much of this radiogenic Sr has been introduced at a late stage via assimilation of local Proterozoic crust. Hornblende is the only phase that approaches isotopic equilibrium with the surrounding melt, but the melt (glass) was isotopically heterogeneous at the millimetre scale, and was therefore apparently contaminated with radiogenic Sr shortly prior to eruption. The other mineral phases (plagioclase, sanidine, titanite, and apatite) have significantly lower 87Sr/86Sri values than whole-rock values (as much as −0·0005). Such isotopic disequilibrium implies that feldspars, titanite and apatite are antecrysts that crystallized from less radiogenic melt compositions at earlier stages of magma evolution, whereas highly radiogenic biotite xenocrysts and the development of isotopic heterogeneity in matrix melt glass appear to coincide with the final stage of the evolution of the Fish Canyon magma body in the upper crust. Integrated petrographic and geochemical evidence is consistent with pre-eruptive thermal rejuvenation of a near-solidus mineral assemblage from ∼720 to 760°C (i.e. partial dissolution of feldspars + quartz while hornblende + titanite + biotite were crystallizing). Assimilation and blending of phenocrysts, antecrysts and xenocrysts reflects chamber-wide, low Reynolds number convection that occurred within the last ∼10 000 years before eruptio
Fractal Holography: a geometric re-interpretation of cosmological large scale structure
The fractal dimension of large-scale galaxy clustering has been demonstrated
to be roughly from a wide range of redshift surveys. If correct,
this statistic is of interest for two main reasons: fractal scaling is an
implicit representation of information content, and also the value itself is a
geometric signature of area. It is proposed that the fractal distribution of
galaxies may thus be interpreted as a signature of holography (``fractal
holography''), providing more support for current theories of holographic
cosmologies. Implications for entropy bounds are addressed. In particular,
because of spatial scale invariance in the matter distribution, it is shown
that violations of the spherical entropy bound can be removed. This holographic
condition instead becomes a rigid constraint on the nature of the matter
density and distribution in the Universe. Inclusion of a dark matter
distribution is also discussed, based on theoretical considerations of possible
universal CDM density profiles.Comment: 13 pp, LaTeX. Revised version; to appear in JCA
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