MOOSE MODIFY BED SITES IN RESPONSE TO HIGH TEMPERATURES

Moose (Alces alces) employ physiological and behavioral mechanisms to enable them to dissipate excess heat when ambient temperature is above the upper critical temperature of their thermoneutral zone. In this note, we describe 2 cases where GPS radio-collared female moose modified summer bed sites as a potential thermoregulatory response to high temperatures. The first case occurred on 18 - 21 July 2011 when ambient temperatures averaged 25 °C (8 °C above the upper critical temperature of moose) and reached 32 °C and 96% relative humidity. Based on field observations of the bed site immediately after use, the moose cleared litter and duff to expose 3 m2 of mineral soil under a closed-canopy balsam fir (Abies balsamea) stand. The moose spent 64% of the time bedded during a 4-day event, with ≤11 individual bedding events in the same bed site. A second case was observed on 5 July 2013 during similar weather conditions (29 °C and 70% relative humidity) when a different moose cleared a bed site and used it continuously for 10 hours

Rationale and design of the randomized, controlled early valve replacement guided by biomarkers of left ventricular decompensation in asymptomatic patients with severe aortic stenosis (EVOLVED) trial

Background: The optimal timing of aortic valve replacement in asymptomatic patients with aortic stenosis is uncertain. Replacement fibrosis, as assessed by midwall (nonischemic) late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) on cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging, is an irreversible marker of left ventricular decompensation in aortic stenosis. Once established, it progresses rapidly and is associated with poor long-term prognosis in a dose-dependent manner. // Trial design: The objective of this multicenter prospective randomized controlled trial is to determine whether early aortic valve replacement in asymptomatic patients with severe aortic stenosis can improve the adverse prognosis associated with midwall LGE. Patients will be screened for likelihood of having LGE with electrocardiography or high-sensitivity troponin I. Those at high risk will proceed to CMR imaging. Approximately 400 patients with midwall LGE will be randomized 1:1 to early valve replacement or routine care. Those who do not exhibit midwall LGE will continue with routine care and be randomized to a study registry or no further follow-up. Follow-up will be annual for approximately 3 years until the number of required outcome events is achieved. The primary endpoint is a composite of all-cause mortality and unplanned aortic stenosis–related hospitalization. The expected event rate is 25.0% in the routine care arm and 13.4% in the early intervention arm over the first 2 years; 88 observed primary outcome events will give 90% power at 5% significance level. Key secondary endpoints include all-cause mortality, sudden cardiac death, stroke, and symptomatic status. // Conclusion: The EVOLVED trial is the first multicenter randomized controlled trial to compare early aortic valve replacement to routine care in asymptomatic patients with severe aortic stenosis and midwall LGE

A Custom, High-Channel-Count Data Acquisition System for Chemical Species Tomography of Aero-Jet Engine Exhaust Plumes

The fiber-laser imaging of gas turbine exhaust species project aims to provide a video-rate imaging (100 frames/s) diagnostic tool for application to the exhaust plumes of the largest civil aero-jet engines. This remit, enabled by chemical species tomography (CST) currently targeting carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), requires system design that facilitates expansion of multiple parameters. Scalability is needed in order to increase imaging speeds and spatial resolutions and extends the system toward other pertinent gases such as the oxides of nitrogen and sulfur and unburnt hydrocarbons. This paper presents a fully scalable, noninvasive instrument for installation in a commercial engine testing facility, technical challenges having been tackled iteratively through bespoke optical and mechanical design, and it specifically presents the high-speed data acquisition (DAQ) system required. Measurement of gas species concentration is implemented by tunable diode laser absorption with wavelength modulation spectroscopy (TDLAS-WMS) using a custom, high-speed 10-40-MS/s/channel 14-bit DAQ. For CO 2 tomography, the system uses six angular projections of 21 beams each. However, the presented DAQ has capacity for 192 fully parallel 10-Hz-3-MHz differential inputs, achieving a best-case signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 56.5 dB prior to filtering. A 12 Ethernet-connected digitization nodes based on field-programmable gate array technology with software control are distributed around a 7-m-diameter mounting “ring.” Hence, the high data rates of 8.96-Gb/s per printed circuit board and 107.52 Gb/s for the whole system can be reduced by using local digital lock-in amplifiers. We believe that this DAQ system is unique in both the TDLAS and CST literatures

"Actual" does not imply "feasible"

The familiar complaint that some ambitious proposal is infeasible naturally invites the following response: Once upon a time, the abolition of slavery and the enfranchisement of women seemed infeasible, yet these things were actually achieved. Presumably, then, many of those things that seem infeasible in our own time may well be achieved too and, thus, turn out to have been perfectly feasible after all. The Appeal to History, as we call it, is a bad argument. It is not true that if some desirable state of affairs was actually achieved, then it was feasible that it was achieved. “Actual” does not imply “feasible,” as we put it. Here is our objection. “Feasible” implies “not counterfactually fluky.” But “actual” does not imply “not counterfactually fluky.” So, “actual” does not imply “feasible.” While something like the Flukiness Objection is sometimes hinted at in the context of the related literature on abilities, it has not been developed in any detail, and both premises are inadequately motivated. We offer a novel articulation of the Flukiness Objection that is both more precise and better motivated. Our conclusions have important implications, not only for the admissible use of history in normative argument, but also by potentially circumscribing the normative claims that are applicable to us

CLIMB-COVID: continuous integration supporting decentralised sequencing for SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance.

Funder: Wellcome TrustIn response to the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in the UK, the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium was formed to rapidly sequence SARS-CoV-2 genomes as part of a national-scale genomic surveillance strategy. The network consists of universities, academic institutes, regional sequencing centres and the four UK Public Health Agencies. We describe the development and deployment of CLIMB-COVID, an encompassing digital infrastructure to address the challenge of collecting and integrating both genomic sequencing data and sample-associated metadata produced across the COG-UK network

Genetic risk and a primary role for cell-mediated immune mechanisms in multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis is a common disease of the central nervous system in which the interplay between inflammatory and neurodegenerative processes typically results in intermittent neurological disturbance followed by progressive accumulation of disability. Epidemiological studies have shown that genetic factors are primarily responsible for the substantially increased frequency of the disease seen in the relatives of affected individuals, and systematic attempts to identify linkage in multiplex families have confirmed that variation within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) exerts the greatest individual effect on risk. Modestly powered genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have enabled more than 20 additional risk loci to be identified and have shown that multiple variants exerting modest individual effects have a key role in disease susceptibility. Most of the genetic architecture underlying susceptibility to the disease remains to be defined and is anticipated to require the analysis of sample sizes that are beyond the numbers currently available to individual research groups. In a collaborative GWAS involving 9,772 cases of European descent collected by 23 research groups working in 15 different countries, we have replicated almost all of the previously suggested associations and identified at least a further 29 novel susceptibility loci. Within the MHC we have refined the identity of the HLA-DRB1 risk alleles and confirmed that variation in the HLA-A gene underlies the independent protective effect attributable to the class I region. Immunologically relevant genes are significantly overrepresented among those mapping close to the identified loci and particularly implicate T-helper-cell differentiation in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy