2,213 research outputs found

    Performance of an environmental test to detect Mycobacterium bovis infection in badger social groups

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    A study by Courtenay and others (2006) demonstrated that the probability of detecting Mycobacterium bovis by PCR in soil samples from the spoil heaps of main badger setts correlated with the prevalence of excretion (infectiousness) of captured badgers belonging to the social group. It has been proposed that such a test could be used to target badger culling to setts containing infectious animals (Anon 2007). This short communication discusses the issues surrounding this concept, with the intention of dispelling any misconceptions among relevant stakeholders (farmers, policy makers and conservationists)

    Final Report: Buffalo National River Ecosystems

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    The objective of this study was to sample the Buffalo River on a seasonal basis for a year, in order to determine whether any potential water quality problems existed

    Cell non-autonomous regulation of hepatic IGF-1 and neonatal growth by Kinase Suppressor of Ras 2 (KSR2)

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    Individuals with poor postnatal growth are at risk for cardiovascular and metabolic problems as adults. Here we show that disruption of the molecular scaffold Kinase Suppressor of Ras 2 (KSR2) causes selective inhibition of hepatic GH signaling in neonatal mice with impaired expression of IGF-1 and IGFBP3. ksr2−/− mice are normal size at birth but show a marked increase in FGF21 accompanied by reduced body mass, shortened body length, and reduced bone mineral density (BMD) and content (BMC) first evident during postnatal development. However, disrupting FGF21 in ksr2−/− mice does not normalize mass, length, or bone density and content in fgf21−/−ksr2−/− mice. Body length, BMC and BMD, but not body mass, are rescued by infection of two-day-old ksr2−/− mice with a recombinant adenovirus encoding human IGF-1. Relative to wild-type mice, GH injections reveal a significant reduction in JAK2 and STAT5 phosphorylation in liver, but not in skeletal muscle, of ksr2−/− mice. However, primary hepatocytes isolated from ksr2−/− mice show no reduction in GH-stimulated STAT5 phosphorylation. These data indicate that KSR2 functions in a cell non-autonomous fashion to regulate GH-stimulated IGF-1 expression in the liver of neonatal mice, which plays a key role in the development of body length

    Chandra HETGS Multi-Phase Spectroscopy of the Young Magnetic O Star theta^1 Orionis C

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    We report on four Chandra grating observations of the oblique magnetic rotator theta^1 Ori C (O5.5 V) covering a wide range of viewing angles with respect to the star's 1060 G dipole magnetic field. We employ line-width and centroid analyses to study the dynamics of the X-ray emitting plasma in the circumstellar environment, as well as line-ratio diagnostics to constrain the spatial location, and global spectral modeling to constrain the temperature distribution and abundances of the very hot plasma. We investigate these diagnostics as a function of viewing angle and analyze them in conjunction with new MHD simulations of the magnetically channeled wind shock mechanism on theta^1 Ori C. This model fits all the data surprisingly well, predicting the temperature, luminosity, and occultation of the X-ray emitting plasma with rotation phase.Comment: 52 pages, 14 figures (1 color), 6 tables. To appear in the Astrophysical Journal, 1 August 2005, v628, issue 2. New version corrects e-mail address, figure and table formatting problem

    On positivity of Ehrhart polynomials

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    Ehrhart discovered that the function that counts the number of lattice points in dilations of an integral polytope is a polynomial. We call the coefficients of this polynomial Ehrhart coefficients, and say a polytope is Ehrhart positive if all Ehrhart coefficients are positive (which is not true for all integral polytopes). The main purpose of this article is to survey interesting families of polytopes that are known to be Ehrhart positive and discuss the reasons from which their Ehrhart positivity follows. We also include examples of polytopes that have negative Ehrhart coefficients and polytopes that are conjectured to be Ehrhart positive, as well as pose a few relevant questions.Comment: 40 pages, 7 figures. To appear in in Recent Trends in Algebraic Combinatorics, a volume of the Association for Women in Mathematics Series, Springer International Publishin

    High-energy magnon dispersion in the half-filled Hubbard model: A comparison with La2_2CuO4_4

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    We use quantum Monte Carlo methods and single-mode approximation to study the magnon dispersion in the 2D half-filled Hubbard and phonon-coupled Heisenberg models. We find that in the Hubbard model with U/t<8U/t< 8, high-energy magnon dispersion is similar to those observed in inelastic neutron scattering experiments in La2CuO4{La}_2{CuO}_4. On the other hand, our studies of a 2D Heisenberg model coupled to dynamic optical bond phonons, fails to reproduce the experimental dispersion. These results can be interpreted as evidence for intermediate U/tU/t and charge fluctuations in the cuprate materials
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