64 research outputs found
Milagrito: a TeV air-shower array
Milagrito, a large, covered water-Cherenkov detector, was the world's first
air-shower-particle detector sensitive to cosmic gamma rays below 1 TeV. It
served as a prototype for the Milagro detector and operated from February 1997
to May 1998. This paper gives a description of Milagrito, a summary of the
operating experience, and early results that demonstrate the capabilities of
this technique.Comment: 38 pages including 24 figure
Impacto da adubação orgânica sobre a incidência de tripes em cebola.
Analisou-se a relação entre adubação orgânica e a incidência de Thrips tabaci Lind. em cebola (Allium cepa L), na EE de Ituporanga,entre agosto e dezembro de 1998. Os tratamentos foram determinados de acordo com a necessidade de N para a cultura pela análise de solo. Empregou-se como fonte orgânica diversos adubos fornecendo 75 Kg/ha de N (esterco suÃno; adubo Barriga Verde proveniente de esterco de aves; composto orgânico; esterco de peru; húmus); 37,5 Kg/ha de N (metade da dose normal com esterco de suÃno); as testemunhas foram adubação mineral fornecendo 30-120-60 kg/ha de N-P2O5-K2O e o dobro da dose (60-240-120 kg/ha de N-P2O5-K2O); e testemunha sem adubação. Nenhum tratamento apresentou incidência de T. tabaci superior à testemunha sem adubo. A adubação mineral em relação à orgânica não favoreceu significativamente a incidência de T. tabaci . O processo de conversão do manejo do solo da área experimental de convencional para orgânico pode ter
favorecido a infestação similar do inseto entre tratamentos. No perÃodo de maior incidência de T. tabaci, a relação com nutrientes foi descrita por um modelo envolvendo K/Zn, B e N de maneira positiva. A correlação entre nutrientes e T. tabaci não foi linear na maioria
das avaliações. A adubação orgânica pode substituir a adubação mineral na cultura da cebola, pois foi possÃvel atingir nÃveis de produtividade similares para ambos tratamentos
The Superspace of Geometrodynamics
Wheeler's Superspace is the arena in which Geometrodynamics takes place. I
review some aspects of its geometrical and topological structure that Wheeler
urged us to take seriously in the context of canonical quantum gravity.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures. To appear in the Wheeler memorial volume of
General Relativity and Gravitatio
Obesity, Ethnicity, and Risk of Critical Care, Mechanical Ventilation, and Mortality in Patients Admitted to Hospital with COVID-19: Analysis of the ISARIC CCP-UK Cohort
Distinct clinical symptom patterns in patients hospitalised with COVID-19 in an analysis of 59,011 patients in the ISARIC-4C study
COVID-19 is clinically characterised by fever, cough, and dyspnoea. Symptoms affecting other organ systems have been reported. However, it is the clinical associations of different patterns of symptoms which influence diagnostic and therapeutic decision-making. In this study, we applied clustering techniques to a large prospective cohort of hospitalised patients with COVID-19 to identify clinically meaningful sub-phenotypes. We obtained structured clinical data on 59,011 patients in the UK (the ISARIC Coronavirus Clinical Characterisation Consortium, 4C) and used a principled, unsupervised clustering approach to partition the first 25,477 cases according to symptoms reported at recruitment. We validated our findings in a second group of 33,534 cases recruited to ISARIC-4C, and in 4,445 cases recruited to a separate study of community cases. Unsupervised clustering identified distinct sub-phenotypes. First, a core symptom set of fever, cough, and dyspnoea, which co-occurred with additional symptoms in three further patterns: fatigue and confusion, diarrhoea and vomiting, or productive cough. Presentations with a single reported symptom of dyspnoea or confusion were also identified, alongside a sub-phenotype of patients reporting few or no symptoms. Patients presenting with gastrointestinal symptoms were more commonly female, had a longer duration of symptoms before presentation, and had lower 30-day mortality. Patients presenting with confusion, with or without core symptoms, were older and had a higher unadjusted mortality. Symptom sub-phenotypes were highly consistent in replication analysis within the ISARIC-4C study. Similar patterns were externally verified in patients from a study of self-reported symptoms of mild disease. The large scale of the ISARIC-4C study enabled robust, granular discovery and replication. Clinical interpretation is necessary to determine which of these observations have practical utility. We propose that four sub-phenotypes are usefully distinct from the core symptom group: gastro-intestinal disease, productive cough, confusion, and pauci-symptomatic presentations. Importantly, each is associated with an in-hospital mortality which differs from that of patients with core symptoms
Para-infectious brain injury in COVID-19 persists at follow-up despite attenuated cytokine and autoantibody responses
To understand neurological complications of COVID-19 better both acutely and for recovery, we measured markers of brain injury, inflammatory mediators, and autoantibodies in 203 hospitalised participants; 111 with acute sera (1–11 days post-admission) and 92 convalescent sera (56 with COVID-19-associated neurological diagnoses). Here we show that compared to 60 uninfected controls, tTau, GFAP, NfL, and UCH-L1 are increased with COVID-19 infection at acute timepoints and NfL and GFAP are significantly higher in participants with neurological complications. Inflammatory mediators (IL-6, IL-12p40, HGF, M-CSF, CCL2, and IL-1RA) are associated with both altered consciousness and markers of brain injury. Autoantibodies are more common in COVID-19 than controls and some (including against MYL7, UCH-L1, and GRIN3B) are more frequent with altered consciousness. Additionally, convalescent participants with neurological complications show elevated GFAP and NfL, unrelated to attenuated systemic inflammatory mediators and to autoantibody responses. Overall, neurological complications of COVID-19 are associated with evidence of neuroglial injury in both acute and late disease and these correlate with dysregulated innate and adaptive immune responses acutely
SARS-CoV-2-specific nasal IgA wanes 9 months after hospitalisation with COVID-19 and is not induced by subsequent vaccination
BACKGROUND: Most studies of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 focus on circulating antibody, giving limited insights into mucosal defences that prevent viral replication and onward transmission. We studied nasal and plasma antibody responses one year after hospitalisation for COVID-19, including a period when SARS-CoV-2 vaccination was introduced. METHODS: In this follow up study, plasma and nasosorption samples were prospectively collected from 446 adults hospitalised for COVID-19 between February 2020 and March 2021 via the ISARIC4C and PHOSP-COVID consortia. IgA and IgG responses to NP and S of ancestral SARS-CoV-2, Delta and Omicron (BA.1) variants were measured by electrochemiluminescence and compared with plasma neutralisation data. FINDINGS: Strong and consistent nasal anti-NP and anti-S IgA responses were demonstrated, which remained elevated for nine months (p < 0.0001). Nasal and plasma anti-S IgG remained elevated for at least 12 months (p < 0.0001) with plasma neutralising titres that were raised against all variants compared to controls (p < 0.0001). Of 323 with complete data, 307 were vaccinated between 6 and 12 months; coinciding with rises in nasal and plasma IgA and IgG anti-S titres for all SARS-CoV-2 variants, although the change in nasal IgA was minimal (1.46-fold change after 10 months, p = 0.011) and the median remained below the positive threshold determined by pre-pandemic controls. Samples 12 months after admission showed no association between nasal IgA and plasma IgG anti-S responses (R = 0.05, p = 0.18), indicating that nasal IgA responses are distinct from those in plasma and minimally boosted by vaccination. INTERPRETATION: The decline in nasal IgA responses 9 months after infection and minimal impact of subsequent vaccination may explain the lack of long-lasting nasal defence against reinfection and the limited effects of vaccination on transmission. These findings highlight the need to develop vaccines that enhance nasal immunity. FUNDING: This study has been supported by ISARIC4C and PHOSP-COVID consortia. ISARIC4C is supported by grants from the National Institute for Health and Care Research and the Medical Research Council. Liverpool Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre provided infrastructure support for this research. The PHOSP-COVD study is jointly funded by UK Research and Innovation and National Institute of Health and Care Research. The funders were not involved in the study design, interpretation of data or the writing of this manuscript
Large-scale phenotyping of patients with long COVID post-hospitalization reveals mechanistic subtypes of disease
One in ten severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infections result in prolonged symptoms termed long coronavirus disease (COVID), yet disease phenotypes and mechanisms are poorly understood1. Here we profiled 368 plasma proteins in 657 participants ≥3 months following hospitalization. Of these, 426 had at least one long COVID symptom and 233 had fully recovered. Elevated markers of myeloid inflammation and complement activation were associated with long COVID. IL-1R2, MATN2 and COLEC12 were associated with cardiorespiratory symptoms, fatigue and anxiety/depression; MATN2, CSF3 and C1QA were elevated in gastrointestinal symptoms and C1QA was elevated in cognitive impairment. Additional markers of alterations in nerve tissue repair (SPON-1 and NFASC) were elevated in those with cognitive impairment and SCG3, suggestive of brain–gut axis disturbance, was elevated in gastrointestinal symptoms. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2-specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) was persistently elevated in some individuals with long COVID, but virus was not detected in sputum. Analysis of inflammatory markers in nasal fluids showed no association with symptoms. Our study aimed to understand inflammatory processes that underlie long COVID and was not designed for biomarker discovery. Our findings suggest that specific inflammatory pathways related to tissue damage are implicated in subtypes of long COVID, which might be targeted in future therapeutic trials
Identification of the inducible nitric oxide synthase gene in macro- and microvascular endothelial cell lines.
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