1,316 research outputs found
Failure of vaccination to prevent outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease
Outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease persist in dairy cattle herds in Saudi Arabia despite revaccination at intervals of 4-6 months. Vaccine trials provide data on antibody responses following vaccination. Using this information we developed a mathematical model of the decay of protective antibodies with which we estimated the fraction of susceptible animals at a given time after vaccination. The model describes the data well, suggesting over 95% take with an antibody half-life of 43 days. Farm records provided data on the time course of five outbreaks. We applied a 'SLIR' epidemiological model to these data, fitting a single parameter representing disease transmission rate. The analysis provides estimates of the basic reproduction number R(0), which may exceed 70 in some cases. We conclude that the critical intervaccination interval which would provide herd immunity against FMDV is unrealistically short, especially for heterologous challenge. We suggest that it may not be possible to prevent foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks on these farms using currently available vaccines
Theory of dark resonances for alkali vapors in a buffer-gas cell
We develop an analytical theory of dark resonances that accounts for the full
atomic-level structure, as well as all field-induced effects such as coherence
preparation, optical pumping, ac Stark shifts, and power broadening. The
analysis uses a model based on relaxation constants that assumes the total
collisional depolarization of the excited state. A good qualitative agreement
with experiments for Cs in Ne is obtained.Comment: 16 pages; 7 figures; revtex4. Accepted for publication in PR
Nuclear quadrupole resonances in compact vapor cells: the crossover from the NMR to the NQR interaction regimes
We present the first experimental study that maps the transformation of
nuclear quadrupole resonances from the pure nuclear quadrupole regime to the
quadrupole-perturbed Zeeman regime. The transformation presents an interesting
quantum-mechanical problem, since the quantization axis changes from being
aligned along the axis of the electric-field gradient tensor to being aligned
along the magnetic field. We achieve large nuclear quadrupole shifts for I =
3/2 131-Xe by using a 1 mm^3 cubic cell with walls of different materials. When
the magnetic and quadrupolar interactions are of comparable size, perturbation
theory is not suitable for calculating the transition energies. Rather than use
perturbation theory, we compare our data to theoretical calculations using a
Liouvillian approach and find excellent agreement.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Evidence for salt glands in the Triassic reptile Diademodon (Therapsida; Cynodontia)
Main articleFossilised skulls of Diademodon exhibit rostral depressions which may have housed salt glands.
The possible functions of salt glands in this advanced cynodont are examined. Diademodon
appears to have been more reptilian than mammalian in its general physiological organisation.the Chairman's Fund of the Anglo American Corporation, the S. L.
Sive Memorial Travelling Fellowship, University of the Witwatersrand
Medical School, the Medical Referees Fund of the Department
of Anatom,. Medical School, and the Bernard Price
Institute for Palaeontological Research, University of the Witwatersran
Optimal strategies : theoretical approaches to the parametrization of the dark energy equation of state
The absence of compelling theoretical model requires the parameterizing the
dark energy to probe its properties. The parametrization of the equation of
state of the dark energy is a common method. We explore the theoretical
optimization of the parametrization based on the Fisher information matrix. As
a suitable parametrization, it should be stable at high redshift and should
produce the determinant of the Fisher matrix as large as possible. For the
illustration, we propose one parametrization which can satisfy both criteria.
By using the proper parametrization, we can improve the constraints on the dark
energy even for the same data. We also show the weakness of the so-called
principal component analysis method.Comment: 7pages, 11 figures, 2 tables, To match the version accepted by AS
Nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung: An example of the impossibility of measuring off-shell amplitudes
For nearly fifty years theoretical and experimental efforts in
nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung (NN) have been devoted to measuring
off-shell amplitudes and distinguishing among various NN potentials on the
basis of their off-shell behavior. New experiments are underway, designed
specifically to attain kinematics further off shell than in the past, and thus
to be more sensitive to the off-shell behavior. This letter shows that,
contrary to these expectations, and due to the invariance of the S-matrix under
transformations of the fields, the off-shell NN amplitude is as a matter of
principle an unmeasurable quantity in NN.Comment: 9 pages, Latex, using RevTeX; Minor wording changes, title changed,
version to be published in Phys. Rev. Letter
Unproceedings of the Fourth .Astronomy Conference (.Astronomy 4), Heidelberg, Germany, July 9-11 2012
The goal of the .Astronomy conference series is to bring together
astronomers, educators, developers and others interested in using the Internet
as a medium for astronomy. Attendance at the event is limited to approximately
50 participants, and days are split into mornings of scheduled talks, followed
by 'unconference' afternoons, where sessions are defined by participants during
the course of the event. Participants in unconference sessions are discouraged
from formal presentations, with discussion, workshop-style formats or informal
practical tutorials encouraged. The conference also designates one day as a
'hack day', in which attendees collaborate in groups on day-long projects for
presentation the following morning. These hacks are often a way of
concentrating effort, learning new skills, and exploring ideas in a practical
fashion. The emphasis on informal, focused interaction makes recording
proceedings more difficult than for a normal meeting. While the first
.Astronomy conference is preserved formally in a book, more recent iterations
are not documented. We therefore, in the spirit of .Astronomy, report
'unproceedings' from .Astronomy 4, which was held in Heidelberg in July 2012.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, .Astronomy 4, #dotastr
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