730 research outputs found
Modelling for potentiometric surface management of multilayer aquifer systems
Assuring the long-term availability of groundwater of adequate quality and quantity frequently requires the implementation of appropriate ground-water and conjunctive water management strategies. Presented is a model for developing optimal strategies for an multilayer aquifer in which stream-aquifer interflow is affected by the potentiometric surface and ground-water use. The model is applied to the Salt Lake Valley. Discussed is the use of pumping to control: l) potential migration of non-point source agricultural contaminants between aquifer layers and 2) the movement of a mile-long plume caused by mining waste
First detection of Waddlia chondrophila in Africa using SYBR Green real-time PCR on veterinary samples.
Waddlia chondrophila is a strict intracellular microorganism belonging to the order Chlamydiales that has been isolated twice from aborted bovine fetuses, once in USA and once in Germany. This bacterium is now considered as an abortigenic agent in cattle. However, no information is available regarding the presence of this bacterium in Africa. Given the low sensitivity of cell culture to recover such an obligate intracellular bacterium, molecular-based diagnostic approaches are warranted. This report describes the development of a quantitative SYBR Green real-time PCR assay targeting the recA gene of W. chondrophila. Analytical sensitivity was 10 copies of control plasmid DNA per reaction. No cross-amplification was observed when testing pathogens that can cause abortion in cattle. The PCR exhibited a good intra-run and inter-run reproducibility. This real-time PCR was then applied to 150 vaginal swabs taken from Tunisian cows that have aborted. Twelve samples revealed to be Waddlia positive, suggesting a possible role of this bacterium in this setting. This new real-time PCR assay represents a diagnostic tool that may be used to further study the prevalence of Waddlia infection
The association of APOE ε4 with cognitive function over the adult life course and incidence of dementia: 20 years follow-up of the Whitehall II study
Background: Approximately 25% of the general population carries at least one ε4 allele of the Apolipoprotein E
(APOE ε4), the strongest genetic risk factor for late onset Alzheimer’s disease. Beyond its association with late-onset
dementia, the association between APOE ε4 and change in cognition over the adult life course remains uncertain.
This study aims to examine whether the association between Apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 zygosity and cognition
function is modified between midlife and old age.
Methods: A cohort study of 5561 participants (mean age 55.5 (SD = 5.9) years, 27.1% women) with APOE
genotyping and repeated cognitive tests for reasoning, memory, and semantic and phonemic fluency, during a
mean (SD) follow-up of 20.2 (2.8) years (the Whitehall II study). We used joint models to examine the association of
APOE genotype with cognitive function trajectories between 45 and 85 years taking drop-out, dementia, and death
into account and Fine and Gray models to examine associations with dementia.
Results: Compared to non-carriers, heterozygote (prevalence 25%) and homozygote (prevalence 2%) APOE ε4
carriers had increased risk of dementia, sub-distribution hazard ratios 2.19 (95% CI 1.73, 2.77) and 5.97 (95% CI 3.85,
9.28) respectively. Using data spanning 45–85 years with non-ε4 carriers as the reference, ε4 homozygotes had
poorer global cognitive score starting from 65 years; ε4 heterozygotes had better scores between 45 and 55 years,
then no difference until poorer cognitive scores from 75 years onwards. In analysis of individual cognitive tests,
better cognitive performance in the younger ε4 heterozygotes was primarily attributable to executive function.
Conclusions: Both heterozygous and homozygous ε4 carriers had poorer cognition and greater risk of dementia at
older ages. Our findings show some support for a complex antagonist pleiotropic effect of APOE ε4 heterozygosity
over the adult life course, characterized by cognitive advantage in midlife
Templated self-assembly of gold nanoparticles in smectic liquid crystals confined at 3D printed curved surfaces
The fabrication of assembled structures of topological defects in liquid
crystals (LCs) has attracted much attention during the last decade, stemming
from the potential application of these defects in modern technologies. A range
of techniques can be employed to create large areas of engineered defects in
LCs, including mechanical shearing, chemical surface treatment, external
fields, or geometric confinement. The technology of 3D printing has recently
emerged as a powerful method to fabricate novel patterning topographies
inaccessible by other microfabrication techniques, especially confining
geometries with curved topographies. In this work, we show the advantages of
using 3D-printed curved surfaces and controlled anchoring properties to confine
LCs and engineer new structures of topological defects, whose structure we
elucidate by comparison with a novel application of Landau-de Gennes free
energy minimization to the smectic A-nematic phase transition. We also
demonstrate the ability of these defects to act as a scaffold for assembling
gold (Au) nanoparticles (NPs) into reconfigurable 3D structures. We discuss the
characteristics of this templated self-assembly (TSA) approach and explain the
relationship between NP concentrations and defect structures with insights
gained from numerical modeling. This work paves the way for a versatile
platform of LC defect-templated assembly of a range of functional nanomaterials
useful in the field of energy technology.Comment: Main text: 30 pages, 6 figures. Supplementary Information: 5 pages, 4
figure
Molecular prevalence of Chlamydia and Chlamydia-like bacteria in Tunisian domestic ruminant farms and their influencing risk factors
Chlamydia and Chlamydia-like bacteria are well known to infect several organisms and may cause a wide range of diseases, particularly in ruminants. To gain insight into the prevalence and diversity of these intracellular bacteria, we applied a pan-Chlamydiales real-time PCR to 1,134 veterinary samples taken from 130 Tunisian ruminant herds. The true adjusted animal population-level prevalence was 12.9% in cattle, against 8.7% in sheep. In addition, the true adjusted herd-level prevalence of Chlamydiae was 80% in cattle and 25.5% in sheep. Chlamydiales from three familylevel lineages were detected indicating a high biodiversity of Chlamydiales in ruminant herds. Our results showed that Parachlamydia acanthamoebae could be responsiblefor bovine and ovine chlamydiosis in central-eastern Tunisia. Multivariable logistic regression analysis at the animal population level indicated that strata and digestive disorders variables were the important risk factors of bovine and ovine chlamydiosis. However, origin and age variables were found to be associated withbovine and ovine chlamydiosis, respectively. At the herd level, risk factors for Chlamydia positivity were as follows: abortion and herd size for cattle against breeding system, cleaning frequency, quarantine, use of disinfectant and floor type for sheep. Paying attention to these risk factors will help improvement of control programs against this harmful zoonotic disease
Deep Burst Denoising
Noise is an inherent issue of low-light image capture, one which is
exacerbated on mobile devices due to their narrow apertures and small sensors.
One strategy for mitigating noise in a low-light situation is to increase the
shutter time of the camera, thus allowing each photosite to integrate more
light and decrease noise variance. However, there are two downsides of long
exposures: (a) bright regions can exceed the sensor range, and (b) camera and
scene motion will result in blurred images. Another way of gathering more light
is to capture multiple short (thus noisy) frames in a "burst" and intelligently
integrate the content, thus avoiding the above downsides. In this paper, we use
the burst-capture strategy and implement the intelligent integration via a
recurrent fully convolutional deep neural net (CNN). We build our novel,
multiframe architecture to be a simple addition to any single frame denoising
model, and design to handle an arbitrary number of noisy input frames. We show
that it achieves state of the art denoising results on our burst dataset,
improving on the best published multi-frame techniques, such as VBM4D and
FlexISP. Finally, we explore other applications of image enhancement by
integrating content from multiple frames and demonstrate that our DNN
architecture generalizes well to image super-resolution
Population dynamics of ticks infesting sheep in the arid steppes of Tunisia
This study aimed to determine tick population dynamics infesting sheep in Gafsa region (Central Tunisia). Ticks were collected monthly over a year, from October 2013 to September 2014, from 57‒64 randomly-included Barbarine-breed sheep. In total, 560 ticks were collected and identified. They belonged to two species: Rhipicephalus sanguineus sensu lato (98.6%) and Hyalomma excavatum (1.4%). Sheep were only infested from April to October with a maximum infestation prevalence (number of infested animals / number of examined animals) in August for R. sanguineus s.l. (83%), and in May for H. excavatum (7%). The highest infestation intensity (number of ticks / number of infested sheep) was 3.7 ticks per animal in August. These results should help sheep owners and veterinarians to implement efficient control programs against ticks and the pathogens they transmit
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