Global analysis of atmospheric transmissivity using cloud cover, aridity and flux network datasets

Atmospheric transmissivity (t) is a critical factor in climatology, which affects surface energy balance, measured at a limited number of meteorological stations worldwide. With the limited availability of meteorological datasets in remote areas across different climatic regions, estimation of t is becoming a challenging task for adequate hydrological, climatic, and crop modeling studies. The availability of solar radiation data is comparatively less accessible on a global scale than the temperature and precipitation datasets, which makes it necessary to develop methods to estimate t. Most of the previous studies provided region specific datasets of t, which usually provide local assessments. Hence, there is a necessity to give the empirical models for t estimation on a global scale that can be easily assessed. This study presents the analysis of the t relationship with varying geographic features and climatic factors like latitude, aridity index, cloud cover, precipitation, temperature, diurnal temperature range, and elevation. In addition to these factors, the applicability of these relationships was evaluated for different climate types. Thus, empirical models have been proposed for each climate type to estimate t by using the most effective factors such as cloud cover and aridity index. The cloud cover is an important yet often overlooked factor that can be used to determine the global atmospheric transmissivity. The empirical relationship and statistical indicator provided the best performance in equatorial climates as the coefficient of determination (r2) was 0.88 relatively higher than the warm temperate (r2 = 0.74) and arid regions (r2 = 0.46). According to the results, it is believed that the analysis presented in this work is applicable for estimating the t in different ecosystems across the globe

Vitamin food fortification today

Historically, food fortification has served as a tool to address population-wide nutrient deficiencies such as rickets by vitamin D fortified milk. This article discusses the different policy strategies to be used today. Mandatory or voluntary fortification and fortified foods, which the consumer needs, also have to comply with nutritional, regulatory, food safety and technical issues. The ‘worldwide map of vitamin fortification’ is analysed, including differences between develop and developing countries. The vitamins, folate and vitamin D, are taken as practical examples in the review of the beneficial effect of different strategies on public health. The importance of the risk–benefit aspect, as well as how to identify the risk groups, and the food vehicles for fortification is discussed

Transcription of toll-like receptors 2, 3, 4 and 9, FoxP3 and Th17 cytokines in a susceptible experimental model of canine Leishmania infantum infection

Canine leishmaniosis (CanL) due to Leishmania infantum is a chronic zoonotic systemic disease resulting from complex interactions between protozoa and the canine immune system. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are essential components of the innate immune system and facilitate the early detection of many infections. However, the role of TLRs in CanL remains unknown and information describing TLR transcription during infection is extremely scarce. The aim of this research project was to investigate the impact of L. infantum infection on canine TLR transcription using a susceptible model. The objectives of this study were to evaluate transcription of TLRs 2, 3, 4 and 9 by means of quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) in skin, spleen, lymph node and liver in the presence or absence of experimental L. infantum infection in Beagle dogs. These findings were compared with clinical and serological data, parasite densities in infected tissues and transcription of IL-17, IL-22 and FoxP3 in different tissues in non-infected dogs (n = 10), and at six months (n = 24) and 15 months (n = 7) post infection. Results revealed significant down regulation of transcription with disease progression in lymph node samples for TLR3, TLR4, TLR9, IL-17, IL-22 and FoxP3. In spleen samples, significant down regulation of transcription was seen in TLR4 and IL-22 when both infected groups were compared with controls. In liver samples, down regulation of transcription was evident with disease progression for IL-22. In the skin, upregulation was seen only for TLR9 and FoxP3 in the early stages of infection. Subtle changes or down regulation in TLR transcription, Th17 cytokines and FoxP3 are indicative of the silent establishment of infection that Leishmania is renowned for. These observations provide new insights about TLR transcription, Th17 cytokines and Foxp3 in the liver, spleen, lymph node and skin in CanL and highlight possible markers of disease susceptibility in this model

Liquefaction hazard of the Groningen region of the Netherlands due to induced seismicity

The operator of the Groningen gas field is leading an effort to quantify the seismic hazard and riskof the region due to induced earthquakes, includingoverseeing one of the most comprehensive liquefaction hazard studies performedgloballyto date. Due tothe unique characteristics of the seismic hazard and the geologic deposits in Groningen, efforts first focused on developing relationships for a Groningen-specific liquefaction triggering model. The liquefaction hazard was then assessedusing a Monte Carlo method, wherein a range of credibleevent scenarios were considered in computingliquefaction damage-potentialhazard curves. Thiseffort entailed the use of a regional stochastic seismic source model,ground motion prediction equation,site response model,and geologic model that were developed as part of the broader regional seismic hazardassessment.“No-to-Minor Surficial Liquefaction Manifestations”arepredicted for mostsites across the study areafor a 75-year return period. The only sites where “Moderate Surficial Liquefaction Manifestations” are predicted are in the town of Zandeweer, with only some of the sites in the townbeing predicted to experience this severityof liquefactionfor thisreturn period

Using molecular data for epidemiological inference: assessing the prevalence of Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense in Tsetse in Serengeti, Tanzania

Background: Measuring the prevalence of transmissible Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense in tsetse populations is essential for understanding transmission dynamics, assessing human disease risk and monitoring spatio-temporal trends and the impact of control interventions. Although an important epidemiological variable, identifying flies which carry transmissible infections is difficult, with challenges including low prevalence, presence of other trypanosome species in the same fly, and concurrent detection of immature non-transmissible infections. Diagnostic tests to measure the prevalence of T. b. rhodesiense in tsetse are applied and interpreted inconsistently, and discrepancies between studies suggest this value is not consistently estimated even to within an order of magnitude. Methodology/Principal Findings: Three approaches were used to estimate the prevalence of transmissible Trypanosoma brucei s.l. and T. b. rhodesiense in Glossina swynnertoni and G. pallidipes in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania: (i) dissection/microscopy; (ii) PCR on infected tsetse midguts; and (iii) inference from a mathematical model. Using dissection/microscopy the prevalence of transmissible T. brucei s.l. was 0% (95% CI 0–0.085) for G. swynnertoni and 0% (0–0.18) G. pallidipes; using PCR the prevalence of transmissible T. b. rhodesiense was 0.010% (0–0.054) and 0.0089% (0–0.059) respectively, and by model inference 0.0064% and 0.00085% respectively. Conclusions/Significance: The zero prevalence result by dissection/microscopy (likely really greater than zero given the results of other approaches) is not unusual by this technique, often ascribed to poor sensitivity. The application of additional techniques confirmed the very low prevalence of T. brucei suggesting the zero prevalence result was attributable to insufficient sample size (despite examination of 6000 tsetse). Given the prohibitively high sample sizes required to obtain meaningful results by dissection/microscopy, PCR-based approaches offer the current best option for assessing trypanosome prevalence in tsetse but inconsistencies in relating PCR results to transmissibility highlight the need for a consensus approach to generate meaningful and comparable data

Molecular Characterization of Growth Hormone-producing Tumors in the GC Rat Model of Acromegaly

D.A.C. was supported by the Nicolás Monardes program of the Andalusian Ministry of Health (C-0015-2014) and by a grant from the Andalusian Ministry of Science and Innovation (CTS-7478). A.S-M and A.L.C were supported by grants from the ISCIII-Subdirección General de Evaluación y Fomento de la Investigación co-funded with Fondos FEDER (PI12/0143 and PI13/02043, respectively) and the Andalusian Regional Government (CTS-444) and a grant from Pfizer Spain. R.L.C. was supported by a grant from Andalusian Ministry of Health (PI0302-2012). R.M.L. was supported by grants from Proyecto de Investigación en Salud (FIS) PI13- 00651 (funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III), CTS-1406, PI-0639-2012, BIO-0139 (funded by Junta de Andalucía) and by Ayuda Merck Serono 2013. J. P. C. was funded by a grant (BFU2013-43282-R) from Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. CIBER is an initiative of Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Sanidad, Servicios Sociales e Igualdad, Spain. J.F.M.R. is supported by the “Sara Borrell” program from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. R.M. Luque and J.P. Castaño have received grants and lecture fees from Ipsen and Novartis. E. Venegas-Moreno and A. Soto-Moreno received grants and lecture fees from Ipsen, Novartis and Pfizer. A. Leal-Cerro received grants from Novartis and Pfizer. David Cano received a grant from Novartis

Virtual Compton Scattering off a Spinless Target in AdS/QCD

We study the doubly virtual Compton scattering off a spinless target $\gamma^*P\to\gamma^*P'$ within the Anti-de Sitter(AdS)/QCD formalism. We find that the general structure allowed by the Lorentz invariance and gauge invariance of the Compton amplitude is not easily reproduced with the standard recipes of the AdS/QCD correspondence. In the soft-photon regime, where the semi-classical approximation is supposed to apply best, we show that the measurements of the electric and magnetic polarizabilities of a target like the charged pion in real Compton scattering, can already serve as stringent tests.Comment: 21 pages, version to be published in JHEP