Risk maps for range expansion of the Lyme disease vector, Ixodes scapularis, in Canada now and with climate change

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Lyme disease is the commonest vector-borne zoonosis in the temperate world, and an emerging infectious disease in Canada due to expansion of the geographic range of the tick vector <it>Ixodes scapularis</it>. Studies suggest that climate change will accelerate Lyme disease emergence by enhancing climatic suitability for <it>I. scapularis</it>. Risk maps will help to meet the public health challenge of Lyme disease by allowing targeting of surveillance and intervention activities.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A risk map for possible Lyme endemicity was created using a simple risk algorithm for occurrence of <it>I. scapularis </it>populations. The algorithm was calculated for each census sub-division in central and eastern Canada from interpolated output of a temperature-driven simulation model of <it>I. scapularis </it>populations and an index of tick immigration. The latter was calculated from estimates of tick dispersion distances by migratory birds and recent knowledge of the current geographic range of endemic <it>I. scapularis </it>populations. The index of tick immigration closely predicted passive surveillance data on <it>I. scapularis </it>occurrence, and the risk algorithm was a significant predictor of the occurrence of <it>I. scapularis </it>populations in a prospective field study. Risk maps for <it>I. scapularis </it>occurrence in Canada under future projected climate (in the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s) were produced using temperature output from the Canadian Coupled Global Climate Model 2 with greenhouse gas emission scenario enforcing '<it>A2</it>' of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We have prepared risk maps for the occurrence of <it>I. scapularis </it>in eastern and central Canada under current and future projected climate. Validation of the risk maps provides some confidence that they provide a useful first step in predicting the occurrence of <it>I. scapularis </it>populations, and directing public health objectives in minimizing risk from Lyme disease. Further field studies are needed, however, to continue validation and refinement of the risk maps.</p

Cowpea: a legume crop for a challenging environment

Running title: Cowpea for a challenging environmentCowpea is a grain legume native from Africa and is a primary source of protein for millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the developing world. The main important characteristics of this crop include a good protein quality with a high nutritional value, its nitrogen-fixing ability, and an ability to be more drought- and heat-tolerant than most of its legume relatives. In a research perspective, studies of cowpea are relatively scarce, despite its relevance to agriculture in the developing world and its resilience to stress. The present review provides an overview of different aspects of cowpea, with a special emphasis on the molecular markers for assessing genetic diversity, as well as on biochemical and transcriptomic data with respect to evaluating cowpea drought stress tolerance. The integration of both datasets will be useful for the improvement of cowpea because research on drought stress tolerance is of major interest for this crop in a challenging environment. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.This work is supported by European Investment Funds by FEDER/COMPETE/POCI—Operacional Competitiveness and Internacionalization Programme, under Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006958 and National Funds by FCT—Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under the project UID/AGR/04033/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Electronic properties of carbon nanotube structures

An individual single-wall carbon nanotube has a periodic structure. Despite that, and because nanotubes can have different chiralities, systems of nanotubes can be highly non-periodic. This implies some difficulty in studying the electronic properties of nanotube structures. In this thesis, three nanotube systems are studied. The first problem presented in this thesis is that of a compositionally disordered nanotube rope. Using a tight binding approach, we derive a tunneling matrix element that couples low-energy electronic states of carbon nanotubes. The matrix element Dependence on chiral angles and intratube crystal momenta is explicitly shown. We find that conservation of crystal momentum along the tube direction suppresses interwall coherence in a carbon nanorope containing tubes with random chiralities. Numerical calculations are presented which indicate that electronic states in a rope are localized in the transverse direction with a coherence length corresponding to a tube diameter. The second problem we study is that of a junction made of two crossed metallic nanotubes of general chiralities. We derive a tunneling matrix element that couples low-energy states on the two tubes, allowing us to calculate the contact conductance of the junction. We systematic study the dependence of the junction conductance on different junction parameters, and find that the crossing angle has the dominant effect on the conductance magnitude. Furthermore, and because of the intrinsic asymmetries of the junction, forward and backward hopping probabilities from one nanotube to another are different. As a result, passing a current in one tube leads to a finite voltage drop across the other, thereby ascribing a zero-field Hall-like resistance to the junction. We find that this Hall resistance and the contact resistance of the junction are simply related. Our third problem is aimed at understanding the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) energy-resolved images of finite chiral metallic nanotubes. The STM technique is a powerful one, as it allows for the study of the electronic and structural properties of carbon nanotubes. Of recent interest is the STM imaging of discrete states of finite metallic nanotubes. In order to understand such images, we consider two effects. The first is that the reflection at the ends of the nanotube mixes the two nanotube bands in a non-universal way, yielding two families of eigenstates. The second effect is that of the STM tip. Images of the wavefunctions can be dramatically changed by the STM tip. We show that by analyzing the STM images of the two families of states, one can extract the tip effects and obtain information about the wavefunctions of the two families

Estimating the carbon emissions caused by electric vehicle use in Turkey using marginal emission factors

Electric vehicles (EVs) produce zero carbon emissions during their use. However, generation of the electricity to charge EVs does cause emissions. In this study, we calculate the carbon emissions caused by the introduction of 10,000 hypothetical EVs in Turkey. To this end, we first develop a simulation model that characterizes the hourly power demand of EVs based on distributions of EV model characteristics, trip times and lengths as well as charging decisions of EV users. We then characterize the supply side by determining the marginal power plants and estimating the Marginal Emission Factor (MEF) for the Turkish power system. We use real hourly generation data of the country by different fuel types, under four different seasons and three time-of-day periods, for years 2014 and 2019. We find the MEFs for Turkey in 2019 to range between 100-332 kgCO2/MWh, which are much lower than the MEFs reported for other countries. Finally, we bring the supply and demand studies together to calculate the carbon emissions of the hypothetical EV fleet. We observe the EVs fleet to cause between one fifth and one third of the emissions of a similar internal combustion engine car fleet

Lipopolysaccharide induces acute lung injury and alveolar haemorrhage in association with the cytokine storm, coagulopathy and AT1R/JAK/STAT augmentation in a rat model that mimics moderate and severe Covid-19 pathology.

Progress in the study of Covid-19 disease in rodents has been hampered by the lack of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2; virus entry route to the target cell) affinities for the virus spike proteins across species. Therefore, we sought to determine whether a modified protocol of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome in rats can mimic both cell signalling pathways as well as severe disease phenotypes of Covid-19 disease. Rats were injected via intratracheal (IT) instillation with either 15 mg/kg of LPS (model group) or saline (control group) before being killed after 3 days. A severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like effect was observed in the model group as demonstrated by the development of a "cytokine storm" (>2.7 fold increase in blood levels of IL-6, IL-17A, GM-CSF, and TNF-α), high blood ferritin, demonstrable coagulopathy, including elevated D-dimer (approximately 10-fold increase), PAI-1, PT, and APTT (p 4 fold increase). Chest imaging revealed bilateral small patchy opacities of the lungs. Severe lung injury was noted by the presence of both, alveolar collapse and haemorrhage, desquamation of epithelial cells in the airway lumen, infiltration of inflammatory cells (CD45+ leukocytes), widespread thickening of the interalveolar septa, and ultrastructural alterations similar to Covid-19. Thus, these findings demonstrate that IT injection of 15 mg/kg LPS into rats, induced an AT1R/JAK/STAT-mediated cytokine storm with resultant pneumonia and coagulopathy that was commensurate with moderate and severe Covid-19 disease noted in humans

Metformin Protects against Diabetic Cardiomyopathy: An Association between Desmin–Sarcomere Injury and the iNOS/mTOR/TIMP-1 Fibrosis Axis

The intermediate filament protein desmin is essential for maintaining the structural integrity of sarcomeres, the fundamental unit of cardiac muscle. Diabetes mellitus (DM) can cause desmin to become dysregulated, following episodes of nitrosative stress, through the activation of the iNOS/mTOR/TIMP-1 pathway, thereby stimulating collagen deposition in the myocardium. In this study, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) was induced in rats. One group of animals was pre-treated with metformin (200 mg/kg) prior to diabetes induction and subsequently kept on metformin until sacrifice at week 12. Cardiac injuries developed in the diabetic rats as demonstrated by a significant (p p < 0.0001) correlation between desmin tissue levels/sarcomere damage and glycated hemoglobin, heart rate, iNOS, mTOR, and fibrosis was observed. These findings demonstrate an association between damage of the cardiac contractile unit—desmin and sarcomere—and the iNOS/mTOR/TIMP-1/collagen axis of fibrosis in T2DM-induced cardiomyopathy, with metformin exhibiting beneficial cardiovascular pleiotropic effects