97 research outputs found
Thermal and non-thermal nature of the soft excess emission from Sersic 159-03 observed with XMM-Newton
Several nearby clusters exhibit an excess of soft X-ray radiation which
cannot be attributed to the hot virialized intra-cluster medium. There is no
consensus to date on the origin of the excess emission: it could be either of
thermal origin, or due to an inverse Compton scattering of the cosmic microwave
background. Using high resolution XMM-Newton data of Sersic 159-03 we first
show that strong soft excess emission is detected out to a radial distance of
0.9 Mpc. The data are interpreted using the two viable models available, i.e.,
by invoking a warm reservoir of thermal gas, or relativistic electrons which
are part of a cosmic ray population. The thermal interpretation of the excess
emission, slightly favored by the goodness-of-fit analysis, indicates that the
warm gas responsible for the emission is high in mass and low in metallicity.Comment: ApJ in pres
Do all roads lead to Rome? The potential of different approaches to diagnose Aelurostrongylus abstrusus infection in cats
An infection with the cat lungworm, Aelurostrongylus abstrusus, can be subclinical, but it can also cause severe respiratory clinical signs. Larvae excretion, antibody levels, clinical assessment findings of the respiratory system and diagnostic imaging findings were recorded and compared for six cats with experimental aelurostrongylosis. In five cats, patency started 33â47 days post infection (pi), but two cats excreted larvae only in long intervals and low numbers. Positive ELISA results were observed in four cats with patent aelurostrongylosis, starting between five days before and 85 days after onset of patency. One seropositive cat remained copromicroscopically negative. Mild respiratory signs were observed in all cats examined. A computed tomographic (CT) examination of the lungs displayed distinct alterations, even in absence of evident clinical signs or when larvae excretion was low or negative. The thoracic radiograph evaluation correlated with the CT results, but CT was more distinctive. After anthelmintic treatment in the 25th week post infection, pulmonary imaging findings improved back to normal within 6â24 weeks. This study shows that a multifaceted approach, including diagnostic imaging, can provide a clearer diagnosis and monitoring of disease progression. Furthermore, a CT examination provides an alternative to post mortem examination and worm counts in anthelmintic efficacy studies
Primary care physician attitudes towards using a secure web-based portal designed to facilitate electronic communication with patients
Background Patient demand for email contact with physician practices is high. If physicians met this demand, improvements in communication, quality of care and patient satisfaction could result. However, physicians have typically been hesitant to communicate electronically with patients, largely due to concerns relating to workload, security and lack of compensation.
Goal To assess physician attitudes towards electronic communication with patients six months after the implementation of an application called Patient Gateway. Patient Gateway allows patients to access an extract of their medical record and facilitates online communication with medical practices.
Methods A paper-based survey was administered to the 43 primary care physicians in one integrated delivery system, with a 56% (24/43) response rate.
Results Overall, physicians felt that Patient Gatewayâs impact on their practices was positive, especially in the areas of refill and referral request management and appointment scheduling. However, physicians are still hesitant to increase general electronic communication with patients; none opted to use Patient Gatewayâs general messaging function with patients, and those who had previously used outside systems to exchange emails with some patients continued to communicate with only a small proportion of their patient panel in this way. However, 38% of physicians already communicate with their own physicians via email, and another 19% would like to do so.
Conclusions Physiciansâ fears about being overwhelmed with messages were not realised. While physicians were generally enthusiastic about the application, none used it directly to communicate with patients. Over three-quarters of respondents indicated that they would be more enthusiastic about electronic communication with patients if this time were compensated
Design and implementation of a web-based patient portal linked to an electronic health record designed to improve medication safety: the Patient Gateway medications module
In this article we describe the background, design, and preliminary results of a medications module within Patient Gateway (PG), a patient portal linked to an electronic health record (EHR). The medications module is designed to improve the accuracy of medication lists within the EHR, reduce adverse drug events and improve patient_provider communication regarding medications and allergies in several primary care practices within a large integrated healthcare delivery network. This module allows patients to view and modify the list of medications and allergies from the EHR, report nonadherence, side effects and other medication-related problems and easily communicate this information to providers, who can verify the information and update the EHR as needed. Usage and satisfaction data indicate that patients found the module easy to use, felt that it led to their providers having more accurate information about them and enabled them to feel more prepared for their forthcoming visits. Further analyses will determine the effects of this module on important medication-related outcomes and identify further enhancements needed to improve on this approach
Correlation between Targeted qPCR Assays and Untargeted DNA Shotgun Metagenomic Sequencing for Assessing the Fecal Microbiota in Dogs
DNA shotgun sequencing is an untargeted approach for identifying changes in relative abundances, while qPCR allows reproducible quantification of specific bacteria. The canine dysbiosis index (DI) assesses the canine fecal microbiota by using a mathematical algorithm based on qPCR results. We evaluated the correlation between qPCR and shotgun sequencing using fecal samples from 296 dogs with different clinical phenotypes. While significant correlations were found between qPCR and sequencing, certain taxa were only detectable by qPCR and not by sequencing. Based on sequencing, less than 2% of bacterial species (17/1190) were consistently present in all healthy dogs (n = 76). Dogs with an abnormal DI had lower alpha-diversity compared to dogs with normal DI. Increases in the DI correctly predicted the gradual shifts in microbiota observed by sequencing: minor changes (R = 0.19, DI 2, DI > 5, and DI > 8, respectively), compared to dogs with a normal DI (DI < 0, all targets within the RI), as higher R-values indicated larger dissimilarities. In conclusion, the qPCR-based DI is an effective indicator of overall microbiota shifts observed by shotgun sequencing in dogs
Entwicklung von RĂŒckbau- und Recyclingstandards fĂŒr RotorblĂ€tter : Abschlussbericht [Kurztitel: Aufbereitung von RotorblĂ€ttern]
Als Ergebnis der breiten politischen BefĂŒrwortung fĂŒr die Energiewende und des stetig
wachsenden Bestands an Windenergieanlagen (WEA) in Deutschland und Europa gewinnen
Fragen der Wartung, LaufzeitverlĂ€ngerung sowie des AnlagenrĂŒckbaus und Recyclings an
Bedeutung. Eine besondere Herausforderung stellt dabei das Rotorblattrecycling mit ihren
glasfaserverstĂ€rkten (GFK) und carbonfaserverstĂ€rkten (CFK) Anlagenteilen dar. Die fĂŒr diese
Materialien existierenden Recyclingprozesse haben sich noch nicht durchgesetzt und der
Wiedereinsatz der recyclierten Materialien ist in der Breite nicht etabliert. Weiterhin mangelt es
an Standards fĂŒr die Demontage und werkstoffliche Aufbereitung dieser Materialien.
Zentraler Forschungsgegenstand war die Entwicklung von Standards fĂŒr eine möglichst
hochwertige und gleichzeitig wirtschaftlich zumutbare Aufbereitungs- und
Behandlungsstrategie fĂŒr RotorblĂ€tter. Ausgehend von den zu erwartenden Abfallmengen und -
arten und des speziellen Aufbaus und der Zusammensetzung der verschiedenen RotorblÀtter
wurde ein vollstĂ€ndiges und schlĂŒssiges Konzept fĂŒr deren Wartungen, Reparatur, Demontage,
Vorzerkleinerung und Aufbereitung erarbeitet. Darauf basierend wurde die
Organisationsverantwortung aus rechtlicher Sicht geprĂŒft und mögliche erforderlicher,
ergÀnzender materiell-rechtlicher Vorgaben vorgeschlagen. Auch Elemente der
abfallwirtschaftlichen Produktverantwortung wurden auf ZweckmĂ€Ăigkeit geprĂŒft und
bewertet.
Die Studie beschreibt damit ein erstes umfassendes technisches, rechtliches und
organisatorisches Recyclingkonzept fĂŒr RotorblĂ€tter
The human secretome
The proteins secreted by human cells (collectively referred to as the secretome) are important not only for the basic understanding of human biology but also for the identification of potential targets for future diagnostics and therapies. Here, we present a comprehensive analysis of proteins predicted to be secreted in human cells, which provides information about their final localization in the human body, including the proteins actively secreted to peripheral blood. The analysis suggests that a large number of the proteins of the secretome are not secreted out of the cell, but instead are retained intracellularly, whereas another large group of proteins were identified that are predicted to be retained locally at the tissue of expression and not secreted into the blood. Proteins detected in the human blood by mass spectrometry-based proteomics and antibody-based immuno-assays are also presented with estimates of their concentrations in the blood. The results are presented in an updated version 19 of the Human Protein Atlas in which each gene encoding a secretome protein is annotated to provide an open-access knowledge resource of the human secretome, including body-wide expression data, spatial localization data down to the single-cell and subcellular levels, and data about the presence of proteins that are detectable in the blood
The dynamical evolution of dwarf planet (136108) Haumea's collisional family: General properties and implications for the trans-Neptunian belt
Recently, the first collisional family was identified in the trans-Neptunian
belt. The family consists of Haumea and at least ten other ~100km-sized
trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) located in the region a = 42 - 44.5 AU. In this
work, we model the long-term orbital evolution of an ensemble of fragments
representing hypothetical post-collision distributions at the time of the
family's birth. We consider three distinct scenarios, in which the kinetic
energy of dispersed particles were varied such that their mean ejection
velocities (veje) were of order 200 m/s, 300 m/s and 400 m/s, respectively.
Each simulation considered resulted in collisional families that reproduced
that currently observed. The results suggest that 60-75% of the fragments
created in the collision will remain in the trans-Neptunian belt, even after 4
Gyr of dynamical evolution. The surviving particles were typically concentrated
in wide regions of orbital element space centred on the initial impact
location, with their orbits spread across a region spanning {\Delta}a ~ 6-12
AU, {\Delta}e ~ 0.1-0.15 and {\Delta}i ~ 7-10{\deg}. Most of the survivors
populated the so-called Classical and Detached regions of the trans-Neptunian
belt, whilst a minor fraction entered the Scattered Disk reservoir (<1%), or
were captured in Neptunian mean motion resonances (<10%). In addition, except
for those fragments located near strong resonances, the great majority
displayed negligible long-term orbital variation. This implies that the orbital
distribution of the intrinsic Haumean family can be used to constrain the
orbital conditions and physical nature of the collision that created the
family, billions of years ago. Indeed, our results suggest that the formation
of the Haumean collisional family most likely occurred after the bulk of
Neptune's migration was complete, or even some time after the migration had
completely ceased.Comment: 38 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS (The abstract
was shortened. Original version can be found in the pdf file
A global agenda for advancing freshwater biodiversity research
Global freshwater biodiversity is declining dramatically, and meeting the challenges of this crisis requires bold goals and the mobilisation of substantial resources. While the reasons are varied, investments in both research and conservation of freshwater biodiversity lag far behind those in the terrestrial and marine realms. Inspired by a global consultation, we identify 15 pressing priority needs, grouped into five research areas, in an effort to support informed stewardship of freshwater biodiversity. The proposed agenda aims to advance freshwater biodiversity research globally as a critical step in improving coordinated actions towards its sustainable management and conservation
A global agenda for advancing freshwater biodiversity research
Global freshwater biodiversity is declining dramatically, and meeting the challenges of this crisis requires bold goals and the mobilisation of substantial resources. While the reasons are varied, investments in both research and conservation of freshwater biodiversity lag far behind those in the terrestrial and marine realms. Inspired by a global consultation, we identify 15 pressing priority needs, grouped into five research areas, in an effort to support informed stewardship of freshwater biodiversity. The proposed agenda aims to advance freshwater biodiversity research globally as a critical step in improving coordinated actions towards its sustainable management and conservation.Peer reviewe
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