Some epidemiological consequences of drastic ecosystem changes accompanying exploitation of tropical rain forest

Les auteurs donnent quelques exemples des conséquences épidémiologiques inattendues de la modification drastique de l’écosystème forestier tropical humide par les activités humaines. L’homme est exposé aux effets débilitants, voire mortels, d’agents infectieux auxquels certains animaux sauvages servent de réservoirs et chez lesquels ils n’entraînent que des affections bé nignes, voire inapparentes. Les relations complexes existant entre parasites et arbovirus d’une part, réservoirs et vecteurs d’autre part, sont illustrées par les cas bien connus de la fièvre jaune et de la maladie de Kyasanur. Les végétaux cultivés peuvent aussi être infectés par des virus ou des ravageurs divers, normalement inoffensifs pour les popu lations de plantes sauvages. Des exemples en sont donnés dans le cas des plantations de Cacaoyers attaquées par des virus, des champignons et des insectes. Les nouveaux complexes pathogènes ainsi créés peuvent avoir des conséquences désastreuses tant pour l’homme que pour ses cultures vivrières ou industrielles.The epidemiological consequences of tropical rainforest exploitation are discussed in terms of the effects on both exotic and native elements of the community. Incursion exposes man to debilitating or fatal infections/infestations having reservoirs in the wild fauna. As examples, the ecological relations of blood parasites ( Brugia malayi and Plasmodium spp) and arboviruses having mosquito (yellow fever) or tick (Kyasanur forest disease) vectors are discussed. Agricultural crops may be similarly affected by pests/patho gens naturally present in the flora ; by viruses (e.g. cocoa swollen shoot/mottle leaf), insects (e.g. Tiracola plagiata) and fungi (e.g. Microcyclus ulei, Ganoderma, Fomes and Armitlaria spp). The harmful consequences for indigenous humans are illustrated with reference to the effects of measles and influenza on immuno- logically and/or chemo therapeutically unprotected persons. Some of the risks to the world’s population as a whole, have been considered in the light of fragmentary information concer ning animal viruses (e.g. monkey pox, lassa fever, herpes virus B) and plant pathogens/pests which have spread from local foci of typically inapparent infection to cause devastation elsewhere

Field dynamics and kink-antikink production in rapidly expanding systems

Field dynamics in a rapidly expanding system is investigated by transforming from space-time to the rapidity - proper-time frame. The proper-time dependence of different contributions to the total energy is established. For systems characterized by a finite momentum cut-off, a freeze-out time can be defined after which the field propagation in rapidity space ends and the system decays into decoupled solitons, antisolitons and local vacuum fluctuations. Numerical simulations of field evolutions on a lattice for the (1+1)-dimensional $\Phi^4$ model illustrate the general results and show that the freeze-out time and average multiplicities of kinks (plus antikinks) produced in this 'phase transition' can be obtained from simple averages over the initial ensemble of field configurations. An extension to explicitly include additional dissipation is discussed. The validity of an adiabatic approximation for the case of an overdamped system is investigated. The (3+1)-dimensional generalization may serve as model for baryon-antibaryon production after heavy-ion collisions.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures. Two references added. New subsection III.E added. Final version accepted for publication in PR

Association of FCGR3A and FCGR3B haplotypes with rheumatoid arthritis and primary Sjögren's syndrome [POSTER PRESENTATION]

Background Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that is thought to arise from a complex interaction between multiple genetic factors and environmental triggers. We have previously demonstrated an association between a Fc gamma receptor (FcγR) haplotype and RA in a cross-sectional cohort of RA patients. We have sought to confirm this association in an inception cohort of RA patients and matched controls. We also extended our study to investigate a second autoanti-body associated rheumatic disease, primary Sjögren's syndrome (PSS). Methods The FCGR3A-158F/V and FCGR3B-NA1/NA2 functional polymorphisms were examined for association in an inception cohort of RA patients (n = 448), and a well-characterised PSS cohort (n = 83) from the United Kingdom. Pairwise disequilibrium coefficients (D') were calculated in 267 Blood Service healthy controls. The EHPlus program was used to estimate haplotype frequencies for patients and controls and to determine whether significant linkage disequilibrium was present. A likelihood ratio test is performed to test for differences between the haplotype frequencies in cases and controls. A permutation procedure implemented in this program enabled 1000 permutations to be performed on all haplotype associations to assess significance. Results There was significant linkage disequilibrium between FCGR3A and FCGR3B (D' = -0.445, P = 0.001). There was no significant difference in the FCGR3A or FCGR3B allele or genotype frequencies in the RA or PSS patients compared with controls. However, there was a significant difference in the FCGR3A-FCGR3B haplotype distributions with increased homozygosity for the FCGR3A-FCGR3B 158V-NA2 haplotype in both our inception RA cohort (odds ratio = 2.15, 95% confidence interval = 1.1–4.2 P = 0.027) and PSS (odds ratio = 2.83, 95% confidence interval = 1.0–8.2, P = 0.047) compared with controls. The reference group for these analyses comprised individuals who did not possess a copy of the FCGR3A-FCGR3B 158V-NA2 haplotype. Conclusions We have confirmed our original findings of association between the FCGR3A-FCGR3B 158V-NA2 haplotype and RA in a new inception cohort of RA patients. This suggests that there may be an RA-susceptibility gene at this locus. The significant increased frequency of an identical haplotype in PSS suggests the FcγR genetic locus may contribute to the pathogenesis of diverse autoantibody-mediated rheumatic diseases

Orthogonality Effects in Relativistic Models of Nucleon Knockout Reactions

We study the effect of wave function orthogonality in the relativistic treatment of the nucleon removal reactions (gamma, p) and (e, e' p). The continuum wave function describing the outgoing nucleon is made orthogonal to the relevant bound states using the Gram-Schmidt procedure. This procedure has the advantage of preserving the asymptotic character of the continuum wave function and hence the elastic observables are unaffected. The orthogonality effects are found to be negligible for (e, e' p) reactions for missing momenta up to 700 MeV/c. This holds true for both parallel and perpendicular kinematics. By contrast the orthogonalization of the wave functions appears to have a more pronounced effect in the case of (gamma, p) reactions. We find that the orthogonality effect can be significant in this case particularly for large angles. Polarization of the outgoing protons and photon asymmetry show more sensitivity than the cross sections. If the orthogonality condition is imposed solely on this one hole state the effects are usually smaller.Comment: LaTeX, 7 postscript figure

Relativistic Calculations for Photonuclear Reactions (III): A Consistent Relativistic Analysis of the (e,e'p) and (gamma,p) Reactions

Relativistic calculations for the quasifree electron scattering process (e, e'p) and the direct knockout contribution to (gamma, p) reactions are presented. The spectroscopic factors determined from the former reaction are used to fix the magnitude of the knockout contribution to the (gamma, p) reaction at 60 MeV. The results obtained for several nuclei indicate that the knockout contributions are much larger in magnitude and hence closer to the data than predicted in an earlier comparison based on non-relativistic calculations. We discuss the sensitivity of the results to the choice of parameters for the binding and final state interactions. We find these uncertainties to be more pronounced at the larger missing momenta explored by the (gamma, p) reaction. The implications of the present results for the size of contributions due to meson exchange currents are discussed.Comment: LaTeX, 21 pages including 5 figures, submitted to Nuc. Phys.

Nuclear Medium Effects in the Relativistic Treatment of Quasifree Electron Scattering

Non-relativistic reduction of the S-matrix for the quasifree electron scattering process $A\left(~e, e'p~\right)A-1$ is studied in order to understand the source of differences between non-relativistic and relativistic models. We perform an effective Pauli reduction on the relativistic expression for the S-matrix in the one-photon exchange approximation. The reduction is applied to the nucleon current only; the electrons are treated fully relativistically. An expansion of the amplitude results in a power series in the nuclear potentials. The series is found to converge rapidly only if the nuclear potentials are included in the nuclear current operator. The results can be cast in a form which reproduces the non-relativistic amplitudes in the limit that the potentials are removed from the nuclear current operator. Large differences can be found between calculations which do and do not include the nuclear potentials in the different orders of the nuclear current operator. In the high missing momentum region we find that the non-relativistic calculations with potentials included in the nuclear current up to second order give results which are close to those of the fully relativistic calculation. This behavior is an indication of the importance of the medium modifications of the nuclear currents in this model, which are naturally built into the relativistic treatment of the reaction.Comment: Latex, 26 pages including 5 uuencoded postscript figures. accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. C

Improved Limits on Spin-Dependent WIMP-Proton Interactions from a Two Liter CF3_3I Bubble Chamber

Data from the operation of a bubble chamber filled with 3.5 kg of CF$_{3}$I in a shallow underground site are reported. An analysis of ultrasound signals accompanying bubble nucleations confirms that alpha decays generate a significantly louder acoustic emission than single nuclear recoils, leading to an efficient background discrimination. Three dark matter candidate events were observed during an effective exposure of 28.1 kg-day, consistent with a neutron background. This observation provides the strongest direct detection constraint to date on WIMP-proton spin-dependent scattering for WIMP masses $>20$ GeV/c$^{2}$.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures V2 submitted to match journal versio

Anomalous Pseudoscalar-Photon Vertex In and Out of Equilibrium

The anomalous pseudoscalar-photon vertex is studied in real time in and out of equilibrium in a constituent quark model. The goal is to understand the in-medium modifications of this vertex, exploring the possibility of enhanced isospin breaking by electromagnetic effects as well as the formation of neutral pion condensates in a rapid chiral phase transition in peripheral, ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. In equilibrium the effective vertex is afflicted by infrared and collinear singularities that require hard thermal loop (HTL) and width corrections of the quark propagator. The resummed effective equilibrium vertex vanishes near the chiral transition in the chiral limit. In a strongly out of equilibrium chiral phase transition we find that the chiral condensate drastically modifies the quark propagators and the effective vertex. The ensuing dynamics for the neutral pion results in a potential enhancement of isospin breaking and the formation of $\pi^0$ condensates. While the anomaly equation and the axial Ward identity are not modified by the medium in or out of equilibrium, the effective real-time pseudoscalar-photon vertex is sensitive to low energy physics.Comment: Revised version to appear in Phys. Rev. D. 42 pages, 4 figures, uses Revte

Nucleation versus Spinodal decomposition in a first order quark hadron phase transition

We investigate the scenario of homogeneous nucleation for a first order quark-hadron phase transition in a rapidly expanding background of quark gluon plasma. Using an improved preexponential factor for homogeneous nucleation rate, we solve a set of coupled equations to study the hadronization and the hydrodynamical evolution of the matter. It is found that significant supercooling is possible before hadronization begins. This study also suggests that spinodal decomposition competes with nucleation and may provide an alternative mechanism for phase conversion particularly if the transition is strong enough and the medium is nonviscous. For weak enough transition, the phase conversion may still proceed via homogeneous nucleation.Comment: LaTeX, 10 pages with 7 Postscript figures, more discussions and referencese added, typos correcte

Meson Exchange Currents in (e,e'p) recoil polarization observables

A study of the effects of meson-exchange currents and isobar configurations in $A(\vec{e},e'\vec{p})B$ reactions is presented. We use a distorted wave impulse approximation (DWIA) model where final-state interactions are treated through a phenomenological optical potential. The model includes relativistic corrections in the kinematics and in the electromagnetic one- and two-body currents. The full set of polarized response functions is analyzed, as well as the transferred polarization asymmetry. Results are presented for proton knock-out from closed-shell nuclei, for moderate to high momentum transfer.Comment: 44 pages, 18 figures. Added physical arguments explaining the dominance of OB over MEC, and a summary of differences with previous MEC calculations. To be published in PR