178 research outputs found
’n Kritiese evaluasie van die Godsbeeld van Sally McFague
Sally McFague’s image of God: A critical evaluationIn the past decade, many feminist publications on the image of God have seen the light of day. This article concentrates on the viewpoint of Sally McFague in addressing the problem of God-language. It attempts to poin t ou t the positive and negative aspects of McFague’s images of God-as-Mother, God-as-Lover and God-as-Friend. Finally, it aims to pinpoint the value of the feminist viewpoint for theological discussion in general and the proclamation of the church today in particular
Approach to the semiconductor cavity QED in high-Q regimes with q-deformed boson
The high density Frenkel exciton which interacts with a single mode
microcavity field is dealed with in the framework of the q-deformed boson. It
is shown that the q-defomation of bosonic commutation relations is satisfied
naturally by the exciton operators when the low density limit is deviated. An
analytical expression of the physical spectrum for the exciton is given by
using of the dressed states of the cavity field and the exciton. We also give
the numerical study and compare the theoretical results with the experimental
resultsComment: 6 pages, 2 figure
Zoonotic alphaviruses in fatal and neurologic infections in wildlife and nonequine domestic animals, South Africa
Alphaviruses from Africa, such as Middelburg virus
(MIDV), and Sindbis virus (SINV), were detected in horses
with neurologic disease in South Africa, but their host
ranges remain unknown. We investigated the contribution
of alphaviruses to neurologic infections and death in wildlife
and domestic animals in this country. During 2010–
2018, a total of 608 clinical samples from wildlife and
nonequine domestic animals that had febrile, neurologic
signs or unexplained deaths were tested for alphaviruses.
We identified 32 (5.5%) of 608 alphavirus infections
(9 SINV and 23 MIDV), mostly in neurotissue of wildlife,
domestic animals, and birds. Phylogenetic analysis of the
RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene confirmed either
SINV or MIDV. This study implicates MIDV and SINV as
potential causes of neurologic disease in wildlife and nonequine
domestic species in Africa and suggests a wide
host range and pathogenic potential.https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eidpm2020Medical Virolog
West Nile virus in wildlife and nonequine domestic animals, South Africa, 2010–2018
West Nile virus (WNV) lineage 2 is associated with neurologic disease in horses and humans in South Africa. Surveillance in wildlife and nonequine domestic species during 2010–2018 identified WNV in 11 (1.8%) of 608 animals with severe neurologic and fatal infections, highlighting susceptible hosts and risk for WNV epizootics in Africa.The work was funded through the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Global Disease Detection grant for zoonotic arboviruses under grant 1U19GH000571-01-GDD Non-Research CoAg with the National Health Laboratory
Services project 23 and University of Pretoria Zoonotic Arbo and Respiratory Virus Group income-generated funds. J.S. received doctoral scholarships from the National Research Foundation (grant no. 95175), the Meat Industry Trust (grant no. IT8114/98), and the Poliomyelitis Research Foundation (grant no. 15/112) and a partial studentship from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Cooperative Agreement no. 5 NU2GGH001874-02-00 with the University of Pretoria.http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eidam2020Medical Virolog
Functional characterisation of the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis risk locus GPX3/TNIP1
Background
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a complex, late-onset, neurodegenerative disease with a genetic contribution to disease liability. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified ten risk loci to date, including the TNIP1/GPX3 locus on chromosome five. Given association analysis data alone cannot determine the most plausible risk gene for this locus, we undertook a comprehensive suite of in silico, in vivo and in vitro studies to address this.
Methods
The Functional Mapping and Annotation (FUMA) pipeline and five tools (conditional and joint analysis (GCTA-COJO), Stratified Linkage Disequilibrium Score Regression (S-LDSC), Polygenic Priority Scoring (PoPS), Summary-based Mendelian Randomisation (SMR-HEIDI) and transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS) analyses) were used to perform bioinformatic integration of GWAS data (Ncases = 20,806, Ncontrols = 59,804) with ‘omics reference datasets including the blood (eQTLgen consortium N = 31,684) and brain (N = 2581). This was followed up by specific expression studies in ALS case-control cohorts (microarray Ntotal = 942, protein Ntotal = 300) and gene knockdown (KD) studies of human neuronal iPSC cells and zebrafish-morpholinos (MO).
Results
SMR analyses implicated both TNIP1 and GPX3 (p < 1.15 × 10−6), but there was no simple SNP/expression relationship. Integrating multiple datasets using PoPS supported GPX3 but not TNIP1. In vivo expression analyses from blood in ALS cases identified that lower GPX3 expression correlated with a more progressed disease (ALS functional rating score, p = 5.5 × 10−3, adjusted R2 = 0.042, Beffect = 27.4 ± 13.3 ng/ml/ALSFRS unit) with microarray and protein data suggesting lower expression with risk allele (recessive model p = 0.06, p = 0.02 respectively). Validation in vivo indicated gpx3 KD caused significant motor deficits in zebrafish-MO (mean difference vs. control ± 95% CI, vs. control, swim distance = 112 ± 28 mm, time = 1.29 ± 0.59 s, speed = 32.0 ± 2.53 mm/s, respectively, p for all < 0.0001), which were rescued with gpx3 expression, with no phenotype identified with tnip1 KD or gpx3 overexpression.
Conclusions
These results support GPX3 as a lead ALS risk gene in this locus, with more data needed to confirm/reject a role for TNIP1. This has implications for understanding disease mechanisms (GPX3 acts in the same pathway as SOD1, a well-established ALS-associated gene) and identifying new therapeutic approaches. Few previous examples of in-depth investigations of risk loci in ALS exist and a similar approach could be applied to investigate future expected GWAS findings
Significant out-of-sample classification from methylation profile scoring for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
We conducted DNA methylation association analyses using Illumina 450K data from whole blood for an Australian amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) case–control cohort (782 cases and 613 controls). Analyses used mixed linear models as implemented in the OSCA software. We found a significantly higher proportion of neutrophils in cases compared to controls which replicated in an independent cohort from the Netherlands (1159 cases and 637 controls). The OSCA MOMENT linear mixed model has been shown in simulations to best account for confounders. When combined in a methylation profile score, the 25 most-associated probes identified by MOMENT significantly classified case–control status in the Netherlands sample (area under the curve, AUC = 0.65, CI95% = [0.62–0.68], p = 8.3 × 10−22). The maximum AUC achieved was 0.69 (CI95% = [0.66–0.71], p = 4.3 × 10−34) when cell-type proportion was included in the predictor
Anisotropic flow of charged hadrons, pions and (anti-)protons measured at high transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
The elliptic, , triangular, , and quadrangular, , azimuthal
anisotropic flow coefficients are measured for unidentified charged particles,
pions and (anti-)protons in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
with the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Results obtained with the
event plane and four-particle cumulant methods are reported for the
pseudo-rapidity range at different collision centralities and as a
function of transverse momentum, , out to GeV/.
The observed non-zero elliptic and triangular flow depends only weakly on
transverse momentum for GeV/. The small dependence
of the difference between elliptic flow results obtained from the event plane
and four-particle cumulant methods suggests a common origin of flow
fluctuations up to GeV/. The magnitude of the (anti-)proton
elliptic and triangular flow is larger than that of pions out to at least
GeV/ indicating that the particle type dependence persists out
to high .Comment: 16 pages, 5 captioned figures, authors from page 11, published
version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/186
Centrality dependence of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
The inclusive transverse momentum () distributions of primary
charged particles are measured in the pseudo-rapidity range as a
function of event centrality in Pb-Pb collisions at
TeV with ALICE at the LHC. The data are presented in the range
GeV/ for nine centrality intervals from 70-80% to 0-5%.
The Pb-Pb spectra are presented in terms of the nuclear modification factor
using a pp reference spectrum measured at the same collision
energy. We observe that the suppression of high- particles strongly
depends on event centrality. In central collisions (0-5%) the yield is most
suppressed with at -7 GeV/. Above
GeV/, there is a significant rise in the nuclear modification
factor, which reaches for GeV/. In
peripheral collisions (70-80%), the suppression is weaker with almost independently of . The measured nuclear
modification factors are compared to other measurements and model calculations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 captioned figures, 2 tables, authors from page 12,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/284
Measurement of charm production at central rapidity in proton-proton collisions at TeV
The -differential production cross sections of the prompt (B
feed-down subtracted) charmed mesons D, D, and D in the rapidity
range , and for transverse momentum GeV/, were
measured in proton-proton collisions at TeV with the ALICE
detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis exploited the hadronic
decays DK, DK, DD, and their charge conjugates, and was performed on a
nb event sample collected in 2011 with a
minimum-bias trigger. The total charm production cross section at TeV and at 7 TeV was evaluated by extrapolating to the full phase space
the -differential production cross sections at TeV
and our previous measurements at TeV. The results were compared
to existing measurements and to perturbative-QCD calculations. The fraction of
cdbar D mesons produced in a vector state was also determined.Comment: 20 pages, 5 captioned figures, 4 tables, authors from page 15,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/307
Particle-yield modification in jet-like azimuthal di-hadron correlations in Pb-Pb collisions at = 2.76 TeV
The yield of charged particles associated with high- trigger
particles ( GeV/) is measured with the ALICE detector in
Pb-Pb collisions at = 2.76 TeV relative to proton-proton
collisions at the same energy. The conditional per-trigger yields are extracted
from the narrow jet-like correlation peaks in azimuthal di-hadron correlations.
In the 5% most central collisions, we observe that the yield of associated
charged particles with transverse momenta GeV/ on the
away-side drops to about 60% of that observed in pp collisions, while on the
near-side a moderate enhancement of 20-30% is found.Comment: 15 pages, 2 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 10,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/350
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