637 research outputs found
Intranasal Immunization with Chitosan/pCAGGS-flaA Nanoparticles Inhibits Campylobacter jejuni in a White Leghorn Model
Campylobacter jejuni is the most common zoonotic bacterium associated with human diarrhea, and chickens are considered to be one of the most important sources for human infection, with no effective prophylactic treatment available. We describe here a prophylactic strategy using chitosan-DNA intranasal immunization to induce specific immune responses. The chitosan used for intranasal administration is a natural mucus absorption enhancer, which results in transgenic DNA expression in chicken nasopharynx. Chickens immunized with chitosan-DNA nanoparticles, which carried a gene for the major structural protein FlaA, produced significantly increased levels of serum anti-Campylobacter jejuni IgG and intestinal mucosal antibody (IgA), compared to those treated with chitosan-DNA (pCAGGS). Chitosan-pCAGGS-flaA intranasal immunization induced reductions of bacterial expellation by 2-3 log10 and 2 log10 in large intestine and cecum of chickens, respectively, when administered with the isolated C. jejuni strain. This study demonstrated that intranasal delivery of chitosan-DNA vaccine successfully induced effective immune response and might be a promising vaccine candidate against C. jejuni infection
Inverse modeling of geochemical and mechanical compaction in sedimentary basins through Polynomial Chaos Expansion
We present an inverse modeling procedure for the estimation of model parameters of sedi-
mentary basins subject to compaction driven by mechanical and geochemical processes. We consider a
sandstone basin whose dynamics are governed by a set of unknown key quantities. These include geophys-
ical and geochemical system attributes as well as pressure and temperature boundary conditions. We derive
a reduced (or surrogate) model of the system behavior based on generalized Polynomial Chaos Expansion
(gPCE) approximations, which are directly linked to the variance-based Sobol indices associated with the
selected uncertain model parameters. Parameter estimation is then performed within a Maximum Likeli-
hood (ML) framework. We then study the way the ML inversion procedure can benefit from the adoption of
anisotropic polynomial approximations (a-gPCE) in which the surrogate model is refined only with respect
to selected parameters according to an analysis of the nonlinearity of the input-output mapping, as quanti-
fied through the Sobol sensitivity indices. Results are illustrated for a one-dimensional setting involving
quartz cementation and mechanical compaction in sandstones. The reliability of gPCE and a-gPCE approxi-
mations in the context of the inverse modeling framework is assessed. The effects of (a) the strategy
employed to build the surrogate model, leading either to a gPCE or a-gPCE representation, and (b) the type
and quality of calibration data on the goodness of the parameter estimates is then explored
Observation of a charged charmoniumlike structure in at GeV
We study the process at a
center-of-mass energy of 4.26GeV using a 827pb data sample obtained with
the BESIII detector at the Beijing Electron Positron Collider. Based on a
partial reconstruction technique, the Born cross section is measured to be
pb. We observe a structure near the
threshold in the recoil mass spectrum, which we denote as the
. The measured mass and width of the structure are
MeV/c and MeV, respectively. Its
production ratio is determined to be . The first uncertainties
are statistical and the second are systematic.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; version accepted to be published in PR
Observation of in
Using a sample of events recorded with
the BESIII detector at the symmetric electron positron collider BEPCII, we
report the observation of the decay of the charmonium state
into a pair of mesons in the process
. The branching fraction is measured for the first
time to be , where the first uncertainty is
statistical, the second systematic and the third is from the uncertainty of
. The mass and width of the are
determined as MeV/ and
MeV.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure
Measurement of azimuthal asymmetries in inclusive charged dipion production in annihilations at = 3.65 GeV
We present a measurement of the azimuthal asymmetries of two charged pions in
the inclusive process based on a data set of 62
at the center-of-mass energy GeV collected with
the BESIII detector. These asymmetries can be attributed to the Collins
fragmentation function. We observe a nonzero asymmetry, which increases with
increasing pion momentum. As our energy scale is close to that of the existing
semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering experimental data, the measured
asymmetries are important inputs for the global analysis of extracting the
quark transversity distribution inside the nucleon and are valuable to explore
the energy evolution of the spin-dependent fragmentation function.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Search for the Lepton Flavor Violation Process at BESIII
We search for the lepton-flavor-violating decay of the into an
electron and a muon using events
collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider. Four candidate
events are found in the signal region, consistent with background expectations.
An upper limit on the branching fraction of (90% C.L.) is obtained
Observation and study of the decay
We report the observation and study of the decay
using events
collected with the BESIII detector. Its branching fraction, including all
possible intermediate states, is measured to be
. We also report evidence for a structure,
denoted as , in the mass spectrum in the GeV/
region. Using two decay modes of the meson ( and
), a simultaneous fit to the mass spectra is
performed. Assuming the quantum numbers of the to be , its
significance is found to be 4.4, with a mass and width of MeV/ and MeV, respectively, and a
product branching fraction
. Alternatively, assuming , the
significance is 3.8, with a mass and width of MeV/ and MeV, respectively, and a product
branching fraction
. The angular distribution of
is studied and the two assumptions of the
cannot be clearly distinguished due to the limited statistics. In all
measurements the first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures and 4 table
Measurement of the Cross Section between 600 and 900 MeV Using Initial State Radiation
We extract the cross section in the energy
range between 600 and 900 MeV, exploiting the method of initial state
radiation. A data set with an integrated luminosity of 2.93 fb taken at
a center-of-mass energy of 3.773 GeV with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII
collider is used. The cross section is measured with a systematic uncertainty
of 0.9%. We extract the pion form factor as well as the
contribution of the measured cross section to the leading order hadronic vacuum
polarization contribution to . We find this value to be
.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, accepted by PL
Search for Baryonic Decays of \psi(3770) and \psi(4040)
By analyzing data samples of 2.9 fb^{-1} collected at \sqrt s=3.773 GeV, 482
pb^{-1} collected at \sqrt s=4.009 GeV and 67 pb^{-1} collected at \sqrt
s=3.542, 3.554, 3.561, 3.600 and 3.650 GeV with the BESIII detector at the
BEPCII storage ring, we search for \psi(3770) and \psi(4040) decay to baryonic
final states, including \Lambda\bar\Lambda\pi^+\pi^-, \Lambda \bar\Lambda\pi^0,
\Lambda\bar\Lambda\eta, \Sigma^+ \bar\Sigma^-, \Sigma^0 \bar\Sigma^0,
\Xi^-\bar\Xi^+ and \Xi^0\bar\Xi^0 decays. None are observed, and upper limits
are set at the 90% confidence level.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
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