403 research outputs found
Investigation on the influence of nematophagous fungi as feed additive on nematode infection risk of sheep and goats on pasture
Gastrointestinal nematodes in small ruminants cause high economic losses. Thus on most farms anthelmintic treatment is required. In response to increasing problems with anthelmintic resistance, biological control, for example the use of nematophagous fungi, has received significant attention. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Duddingtonia flagrans orally applied to small ruminants on natural infection with gastrointestinal nematodes in a field study in Northern Germany.
20 goats and 20 sheep were fed daily for 3 months with 5x105 spores of D. flagrans per kg bodyweight. Differences in body weight, faecal egg count and larval development in faeces and on pasture in comparison with same-sized control groups were analysed. After 3 months the control goats showed significantly higher mean faecal egg count than the fungus-fed group. No significant difference was found between the two sheep groups. The maximum in larval reduction in faeces was 81.3 % in the sheep groups and 67.9 % in the goat groups (not significant). At the end of the study the body weight gain in the fungus-treated groups was 1.7 kg higher in goats and 0.7 kg higher in sheep than in the control groups (not significant). Regarding the first-year-grazing goats only, the bodyweights revealed significant differences (p<0.05). No statistically significant differences were observed in pasture larval counts.
In the study presented here, no clear effect of fungus could be observed. A modified feeding regimen, perhaps with permanent release boluses or feed blocks, may improve the efficacy. Furthermore, it seems that climatic conditions during the study period could have influenced the results and displayed how sensitive the fungus application may be on such parameters
Observations of Stripped Edge-on Virgo Cluster Galaxies
We present observations of highly inclined, HI deficient, Virgo cluster
spiral galaxies. Our high-resolution VLA HI observations of edge-on galaxies
allow us to distinguish extraplanar gas from disk gas. All of our galaxies have
truncated H-alpha disks, with little or no disk gas beyond a truncation radius.
While all the gas disks are truncated, the observations show evidence for a
continuum of stripping states: symmetric, undisturbed truncated gas disks
indicate galaxies that were stripped long ago, while more asymmetric disks
suggest ongoing or more recent stripping. We compare these timescale estimates
with results obtained from two-dimensional stellar spectroscopy of the outer
disks of galaxies in our sample. One of the galaxies in our sample, NGC 4522 is
a clear example of active ram-pressure stripping, with 40% of its detected HI
being extraplanar. As expected, the outer disk stellar populations of this
galaxy show clear signs of recent (and, in fact, ongoing) stripping. Somewhat
less expected, however, is the fact that the spectrum of the outer disk of this
galaxy, with very strong Balmer absorption and no observable emission, would be
classified as ``k+a'' if observed at higher redshift. Our observations of NGC
4522 and other galaxies at a range of cluster radii allow us to better
understand the role that clusters play in the structure and evolution of disk
galaxies.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the Island
Universes conference held in Terschelling, Netherlands, July 2005, ed. R. de
Jong, version with high resolution figures can be downloaded from
ftp://ftp.astro.yale.edu/pub/hugh/papers/iu_crowl_h.ps.g
CAIRNS: The Cluster And Infall Region Nearby Survey III. Environmental Dependence of H-alpha Properties of Galaxies
We investigate the environmental dependence of star formation in cluster
virial regions and infall regions as part of CAIRNS (Cluster And Infall Region
Nearby Survey), a large spectroscopic survey of the infall regions surrounding
nine nearby rich clusters of galaxies. Our long-slit spectroscopy yields
estimates of star formation rates in environments from cluster cores to the
general large-scale structure. The fraction of galaxies with current star
formation in their inner disks as traced by H-alpha emission increases with
distance from the cluster and converges to the ``field'' value only at 2-3
virial radii, in agreement with other investigations. However, among galaxies
with significant current star formation (EW[Ha]geq2\AA), there is no difference
in the distribution of EW[Ha] inside and outside the virial radius. This
surprising result, first seen by Carter et al., suggests that (1) star
formation is truncated on either very short timescales or only at moderate and
high redshifts or (2) that projection effects contaminate the measurement. The
number density profiles of star-forming and non-star-forming galaxies indicate
that, among galaxies projected inside the virial radius, at least half of the
former and 20% of the latter are ``infall interlopers,'' galaxies in the infall
region but outside the virial region. The kinematics of star-forming galaxies
in the infall region closely match those of absorption-dominated galaxies. This
result shows that the star forming galaxies in the infall regions are not
interlopers from the field and excludes one model of the backsplash scenario of
galaxy transformation. Finally, we quantify systematic uncertainties in
estimating the global star formation in galaxies from their inner disks.Comment: 25 pages, 21 figures, accepted for publication in A
Impact of long-range interactions on the disordered vortex lattice
The interaction between the vortex lines in a type-II superconductor is
mediated by currents. In the absence of transverse screening this interaction
is long-ranged, stiffening up the vortex lattice as expressed by the dispersive
elastic moduli. The effect of disorder is strongly reduced, resulting in a
mean-squared displacement correlator =
characterized by a mere logarithmic growth with distance. Finite screening cuts
the interaction on the scale of the London penetration depth \lambda and limits
the above behavior to distances R<\lambda. Using a functional renormalization
group (RG) approach, we derive the flow equation for the disorder correlation
function and calculate the disorder-averaged mean-squared relative displacement
\propto ln^{2\sigma} (R/a_0). The logarithmic growth (2\sigma=1) in
the perturbative regime at small distances [A.I. Larkin and Yu.N. Ovchinnikov,
J. Low Temp. Phys. 34, 409 (1979)] crosses over to a sub-logarithmic growth
with 2\sigma=0.348 at large distances.Comment: 9 pages, no figure
Radiation therapy as an alternative to surgery in the management of intracranial juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma
Juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma is a benign, vascular tumor which typically presents in adolescent males. Although surgical resection is usually recommended for the management of this tumor, external beam radiation therapy has also been advocated in the literature. We report three cases of large juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibromas with extensive intracranial extension primarily managed with external beam radiation therapy. Although there was not complete resolution of the tumors, there was significant alleviation of symptomatology with no serious side effects from the radiation therapy. Based on these cases, we feel that external beam radiation therapy in the management of extensive juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibromas with intracranial extension is warranted in certain select cases.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/30399/1/0000019.pd
Genome-Wide Identification of Expression Quantitative Trait Loci (eQTLs) in Human Heart.
In recent years genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have uncovered numerous chromosomal loci associated with various electrocardiographic traits and cardiac arrhythmia predisposition. A considerable fraction of these loci lie within inter-genic regions. The underlying trait-associated variants likely reside in regulatory regions and exert their effect by modulating gene expression. Hence, the key to unraveling the molecular mechanisms underlying these cardiac traits is to interrogate variants for association with differential transcript abundance by expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analysis. In this study we conducted an eQTL analysis of human heart. For a total of 129 left ventricular samples that were collected from non-diseased human donor hearts, genome-wide transcript abundance and genotyping was determined using microarrays. Each of the 18,402 transcripts and 897,683 SNP genotypes that remained after pre-processing and stringent quality control were tested for eQTL effects. We identified 771 eQTLs, regulating 429 unique transcripts. Overlaying these eQTLs with cardiac GWAS loci identified novel candidates for studies aimed at elucidating the functional and transcriptional impact of these loci. Thus, this work provides for the first time a comprehensive eQTL map of human heart: a powerful and unique resource that enables systems genetics approaches for the study of cardiac traits
The evolving role of next-generation sequencing in screening and diagnosis of hemoglobinopathies
During the last few years, next-generation sequencing (NGS) has undergone a rapid transition from a research setting to a clinical application, becoming the method of choice in many clinical genetics laboratories for the detection of disease-causing variants in a variety of genetic diseases involving multiple genes. The hemoglobinopathies are the most frequently found Mendelian inherited monogenic disease worldwide and are composed of a complex group of disorders frequently involving the inheritance of more than one abnormal gene. This review aims to present the role of NGS in both screening and pre- and post-natal diagnostics of the hemoglobinopathies, and the added value of NGS is discussed based on the results described in the literature. Overall, NGS has an added value in large-scale high throughput carrier screening and in the complex cases for which common molecular techniques have some inadequacies. It is proven that the majority of thalassemia cases and Hb variants can be diagnosed using routine analysis involving a combined approach of hematology, hemoglobin separation, and classical DNA methods; however, we conclude that NGS can be a useful addition to the existing methods in the diagnosis of these disorders.Genetics of disease, diagnosis and treatmen
The magnetic fields of large Virgo cluster spirals: Paper II
The Virgo cluster of galaxies provides excellent conditions for studying
interactions of galaxies with the cluster environment. Both the high-velocity
tidal interactions and effects of ram pressure stripping by the intracluster
gas can be investigated in detail. We extend our systematic search for possible
anomalies in the magnetic field structures of Virgo cluster spirals in order to
characterize a variety of effects and attribute them to different disturbing
agents. Six angularly large Virgo cluster spiral galaxies (NGC4192, NGC4302,
NGC4303, NGC4321, NGC4388, and NGC4535) were targets of a sensitive total power
and polarization study using the 100-m radio telescope in Effelsberg at 4.85GHz
and 8.35GHz (except for NGC4388 observed only at 4.85GHz, and NGC4535 observed
only at 8.35GHz). Magnetic field structures distorted to various extent are
found in all galaxies. Three galaxies (NGC4302, NGC4303, and NGC4321) show some
signs of possible tidal interactions, while NGC4388 and NGC4535 have very
likely experienced strong ram-pressure and shearing effects, respectively,
visible as distortions and asymmetries of polarized intensity distributions. As
in our previous study, even strongly perturbed galaxies closely follow the
radio-far-infrared correlation. In NGC4303 and NGC4321, we observe symmetric
spiral patterns of the magnetic field and in NGC4535 an asymmetric pattern.
Magnetic fields allow us to trace even weak interactions that are difficult to
detect with other observations. Our results show that the degree of distortions
of a galaxy is not a simple function of the distance to the cluster center but
reflects also the history of its interactions. The angle between the velocity
vector and the rotation vector of a galaxy may be a general parameter that
describes the level of distortions of galactic magnetic fields.Comment: 12 pages, 18 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomy
and Astrophysic
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