43,825 research outputs found
Molecular aspects of MERS-CoV
This article is made available for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a betacoronavirus which can cause acute respiratory distress in humans and is associated with a relatively high mortality rate. Since it was first identified in a patient who died in a Jeddah hospital in 2012, the World Health Organization has been notified of 1735 laboratory-confirmed cases from 27 countries, including 628 deaths. Most cases have occurred in Saudi Arabia. MERS-CoVancestors may be found in OldWorld bats of the Vespertilionidae family. After a proposed bat to camel switching event, transmission of MERS-CoV to humans is likely to have been the result of multiple zoonotic transfers from dromedary camels. Human-to-human transmission appears to require close contact with infected persons, with outbreaks mainly occurring in hospital environments. Outbreaks have been associated with inadequate infection prevention and control implementation, resulting in recommendations on basic and more advanced infection prevention and control measures by the World Health Organization, and issuing of government guidelines based on these recommendations in affected countries including Saudi Arabia. Evolutionary changes in the virus, particularly in the viral spike protein which mediates virus-host cell contact may potentially increase transmission of this virus. Efforts are on-going to identify specific evidence-based therapies or vaccines. The broad-spectrum antiviral nitazoxanide has been shown to have in vitro activity against MERS-CoV. Synthetic peptides and candidate vaccines based on regions of the spike protein have shown promise in rodent and non-human primate models. GLS-5300, a prophylactic DNA-plasmid vaccine encoding S protein, is the first MERS-CoV vaccine to be tested in humans, while monoclonal antibody, m336 has given promising results in animal models and has potential for use in outbreak situations
The physics and kinematics of the evolved, interacting planetary nebula PN G342.0-01.7
Here we aim to study the physical and kinematical characteristics of the
unstudied old planetary nebula (PN) PN G342.0-01.7, which shows evidence of
interaction with its surrounding interstellar medium. We used Integral Field
Spectra from the Wide Field Spectrograph on the ANU 2.3 m telescope to provide
spectroscopy across the whole object covering the spectral range 3400-7000
{\AA}. We formed narrow-band images to investigate the excitation structure.
The spectral analysis shows that the object is a distant Peimbert Type I PN of
low excitation, formally of excitation class of 0.5. The low electron density,
high dynamical age, and low surface brightness of the object confirm that it is
observed fairly late in its evolution. It shows clear evidence for dredge-up of
CN-processed material characteristic of its class. In addition, the low
peculiar velocity of 7 km s shows it to be a member of the young disk
component of our Galaxy. We built a self-consistent photoionisation model for
the PNe matching the observed spectrum, the H luminosity, and the
diameter. On the basis of this we derive an effective temperature and luminosity . The temperature is much
higher than might have been expected using the excitation class, proving that
this can be misleading in classifying evolved PNe. PN G342.0-01.7 is in
interaction with its surrounding interstellar medium through which the object
is moving in the south-west direction. This interaction drives a slow shock
into the outer PN ejecta. A shock model suggests that it only accounts for
about 10\% of the total luminosity, but has an important effect on the global
spectrum of the PN.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, A&A accepted 201
Complete gluon bremsstrahlung corrections to the process b -> s l+ l-
In a recent paper, we presented the calculation of the order (alpha_s)
virtual corrections to b->s l+ l- and of those bremsstrahlung terms which are
needed to cancel the infrared divergences. In the present paper we work out the
remaining order(alpha_s) bremsstrahlung corrections to b->s l+ l- which do not
suffer from infrared and collinear singularities. These new contributions turn
out to be small numerically. In addition, we also investigate the impact of the
definition of the charm quark mass on the numerical results.Comment: 20 pages including 11 postscript figure
Large electroweak penguin contribution in B -> K pi and pi pi decay modes
We discuss about a possibility of large electroweak penguin contribution in B
-> K pi and pi pi from recent experimental data. The experimental data may be
suggesting that there are some discrepancies between the data and theoretical
estimation in the branching ratios of them. In B -> K pi decays, to explain it,
a large electroweak penguin contribution and large strong phase differences
seem to be needed. The contributions should appear also in B -> pi pi. We show,
as an example, a solution to solve the discrepancies in both B -> K pi and B ->
pi pi. However the magnitude of the parameters and the strong phase estimated
from experimental data are quite large compared with the theoretical
estimations. It may be suggesting some new physics effects are including in
these processes. We will have to discuss about the dependence of the new
physics. To explain both modes at once, we may need large electroweak penguin
contribution with new weak phases and some SU(3) breaking effects by new
physics in both QCD and electroweak penguin type processes.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figure
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