5,140 research outputs found
Enterococcal surface protein Esp is not essential for cell adhesion and intestinal colonization of Enterococcus faecium in mice
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Enterococcus faecium </it>has globally emerged as a cause of hospital-acquired infections with high colonization rates in hospitalized patients. The enterococcal surface protein Esp, identified as a potential virulence factor, is specifically linked to nosocomial clonal lineages that are genetically distinct from indigenous <it>E. faecium </it>strains. To investigate whether Esp facilitates bacterial adherence and intestinal colonization of <it>E. faecium</it>, we used human colorectal adenocarcinoma cells (Caco-2 cells) and an experimental colonization model in mice.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>No differences in adherence to Caco-2 cells were found between an Esp expressing strain of <it>E. faecium </it>(E1162) and its isogenic Esp-deficient mutant (E1162Δ<it>esp</it>). Mice, kept under ceftriaxone treatment, were inoculated orally with either E1162, E1162Δ<it>esp </it>or both strains simultaneously. Both E1162 and E1162Δ<it>esp </it>were able to colonize the murine intestines with high and comparable numbers. No differences were found in the contents of cecum and colon. Both E1162 and E1162Δ<it>esp </it>were able to translocate to the mesenteric lymph nodes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results suggest that Esp is not essential for Caco-2 cell adherence and intestinal colonization or translocation of <it>E. faecium </it>in mice.</p
Corvid Re-Caching without ‘Theory of Mind’: A Model
Scrub jays are thought to use many tactics to protect their caches. For instance, they predominantly bury food far away from conspecifics, and if they must cache while being watched, they often re-cache their worms later, once they are in private. Two explanations have been offered for such observations, and they are intensely debated. First, the birds may reason about their competitors' mental states, with a ‘theory of mind’; alternatively, they may apply behavioral rules learned in daily life. Although this second hypothesis is cognitively simpler, it does seem to require a different, ad-hoc behavioral rule for every caching and re-caching pattern exhibited by the birds. Our new theory avoids this drawback by explaining a large variety of patterns as side-effects of stress and the resulting memory errors. Inspired by experimental data, we assume that re-caching is not motivated by a deliberate effort to safeguard specific caches from theft, but by a general desire to cache more. This desire is brought on by stress, which is determined by the presence and dominance of onlookers, and by unsuccessful recovery attempts. We study this theory in two experiments similar to those done with real birds with a kind of ‘virtual bird’, whose behavior depends on a set of basic assumptions about corvid cognition, and a well-established model of human memory. Our results show that the ‘virtual bird’ acts as the real birds did; its re-caching reflects whether it has been watched, how dominant its onlooker was, and how close to that onlooker it has cached. This happens even though it cannot attribute mental states, and it has only a single behavioral rule assumed to be previously learned. Thus, our simulations indicate that corvid re-caching can be explained without sophisticated social cognition. Given our specific predictions, our theory can easily be tested empirically
A generalised random encounter model for estimating animal density with remote sensor data
Summary: Wildlife monitoring technology is advancing rapidly and the use of remote sensors such as camera traps and acoustic detectors is becoming common in both the terrestrial and marine environments. Current methods to estimate abundance or density require individual recognition of animals or knowing the distance of the animal from the sensor, which is often difficult. A method without these requirements, the random encounter model (REM), has been successfully applied to estimate animal densities from count data generated from camera traps. However, count data from acoustic detectors do not fit the assumptions of the REM due to the directionality of animal signals. We developed a generalised REM (gREM), to estimate absolute animal density from count data from both camera traps and acoustic detectors. We derived the gREM for different combinations of sensor detection widths and animal signal widths (a measure of directionality). We tested the accuracy and precision of this model using simulations of different combinations of sensor detection widths and animal signal widths, number of captures and models of animal movement. We find that the gREM produces accurate estimates of absolute animal density for all combinations of sensor detection widths and animal signal widths. However, larger sensor detection and animal signal widths were found to be more precise. While the model is accurate for all capture efforts tested, the precision of the estimate increases with the number of captures. We found no effect of different animal movement models on the accuracy and precision of the gREM. We conclude that the gREM provides an effective method to estimate absolute animal densities from remote sensor count data over a range of sensor and animal signal widths. The gREM is applicable for count data obtained in both marine and terrestrial environments, visually or acoustically (e.g. big cats, sharks, birds, echolocating bats and cetaceans). As sensors such as camera traps and acoustic detectors become more ubiquitous, the gREM will be increasingly useful for monitoring unmarked animal populations across broad spatial, temporal and taxonomic scales
Very Cold Gas and Dark Matter
We have recently proposed a new candidate for baryonic dark matter: very cold
molecular gas, in near-isothermal equilibrium with the cosmic background
radiation at 2.73 K. The cold gas, of quasi-primordial abundances, is condensed
in a fractal structure, resembling the hierarchical structure of the detected
interstellar medium.
We present some perspectives of detecting this very cold gas, either directly
or indirectly. The H molecule has an "ultrafine" structure, due to the
interaction between the rotation-induced magnetic moment and the nuclear spins.
But the lines fall in the km domain, and are very weak. The best opportunity
might be the UV absorption of H in front of quasars. The unexpected cold
dust component, revealed by the COBE/FIRAS submillimetric results, could also
be due to this very cold H gas, through collision-induced radiation, or
solid H grains or snowflakes. The -ray distribution, much more
radially extended than the supernovae at the origin of cosmic rays
acceleration, also points towards and extended gas distribution.Comment: 16 pages, Latex pages, crckapb macro, 3 postscript figures, uuencoded
compressed tar file. To be published in the proceeedings of the
"Dust-Morphology" conference, Johannesburg, 22-26 January, 1996, D. Block
(ed.), (Kluwer Dordrecht
Complementary cooperation, minimal winning coalitions, and power indices
We introduce a new simple game, which is referred to as the complementary
weighted multiple majority game (C-WMMG for short). C-WMMG models a basic
cooperation rule, the complementary cooperation rule, and can be taken as a
sister model of the famous weighted majority game (WMG for short). In this
paper, we concentrate on the two dimensional C-WMMG. An interesting property of
this case is that there are at most minimal winning coalitions (MWC for
short), and they can be enumerated in time , where is the
number of players. This property guarantees that the two dimensional C-WMMG is
more handleable than WMG. In particular, we prove that the main power indices,
i.e. the Shapley-Shubik index, the Penrose-Banzhaf index, the Holler-Packel
index, and the Deegan-Packel index, are all polynomially computable. To make a
comparison with WMG, we know that it may have exponentially many MWCs, and none
of the four power indices is polynomially computable (unless P=NP). Still for
the two dimensional case, we show that local monotonicity holds for all of the
four power indices. In WMG, this property is possessed by the Shapley-Shubik
index and the Penrose-Banzhaf index, but not by the Holler-Packel index or the
Deegan-Packel index. Since our model fits very well the cooperation and
competition in team sports, we hope that it can be potentially applied in
measuring the values of players in team sports, say help people give more
objective ranking of NBA players and select MVPs, and consequently bring new
insights into contest theory and the more general field of sports economics. It
may also provide some interesting enlightenments into the design of
non-additive voting mechanisms. Last but not least, the threshold version of
C-WMMG is a generalization of WMG, and natural variants of it are closely
related with the famous airport game and the stable marriage/roommates problem.Comment: 60 page
Activated PI3Kδ syndrome, an immunodeficiency disorder, leads to sensorimotor deficits recapitulated in a murine model.
The phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K) family plays a major role in cell signaling and is predominant in leukocytes. Gain-of-function (GOF) mutations in the PIK3CD gene lead to the development of activated PI3Kδ syndrome (APDS), a rare primary immunodeficiency disorder. A subset of APDS patients also displays neurodevelopmental delay symptoms, suggesting a potential role of PIK3CD in cognitive and behavioural function. However, the extent and nature of the neurodevelopmental deficits has not been previously quantified. Here, we assessed the cognitive functions of two APDS patients, and investigated the causal role of the PIK3CD GOF mutation in neurological deficits using a murine model of this disease. We used p110δE1020K knock-in mice, harbouring the most common APDS mutation in patients. We found that APDS patients present with visuomotor deficits, exacerbated by autism spectrum disorder comorbidity, whereas p110δE1020K mice exhibited impairments in motor behaviour, learning and repetitive behaviour patterning. Our data indicate that PIK3CD GOF mutations increase the risk for neurodevelopmental deficits, supporting previous findings on the interplay between the nervous and the immune system. Further, our results validate the knock-in mouse model, and offer an objective assessment tool for patients that could be incorporated in diagnosis and in the evaluation of treatments
Coexisting conical bipolar and equatorial outflows from a high-mass protostar
The BN/KL region in the Orion molecular cloud is an archetype in the study of
the formation of stars much more massive than the Sun. This region contains
luminous young stars and protostars, but it is difficult to study because of
overlying dust and gas. Our basic expectations are shaped to some extent by the
present theoretical picture of star formation, the cornerstone of which is that
protostars acrete gas from rotating equatorial disks, and shed angular momentum
by ejecting gas in bipolar outflows. The main source of the outflow in the
BN/KL region may be an object known as radio source I, which is commonly
believed to be surrounded by a rotating disk of molecular material. Here we
report high-resolution observations of silicon monoxide (SiO) and water maser
emission from the gas surrounding source I; we show that within 60 AU (about
the size of the Solar System), the region is dominated by a conical bipolar
outflow, rather than the expected disk. A slower outflow, close to the
equatorial plane of the protostellar system, extends to radii of 1,000 AU.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures. Accepted by Nature. To appear December 199
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