Future research to underpin successful peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) eradication

Peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) is a significant pathogen of small ruminants and is prevalent in much of Africa, the Near and Middle East and Asia. Despite the availability of an efficacious and cheap live-attenuated vaccine, the virus has continued to spread, with its range stretching from Morocco in the west to China and Mongolia in the east. Some of the world’s poorest communities rely on small ruminant farming for subsistence and the continued endemicity of PPRV is a constant threat to their livelihoods. Moreover, PPRV’s effects on the world’s population are felt broadly across many economic, agricultural and social situations. This far-reaching impact has prompted the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to develop a global strategy for the eradication of this virus and its disease. PPRV is a morbillivirus and, given the experience of these organizations in eradicating the related rinderpest virus, the eradication of PPRV should be feasible. However, there are many critical areas where basic and applied virological research concerning PPRV is lacking. The purpose of this review is to highlight areas where new research could be performed in order to guide and facilitate the eradication programme. These areas include studies on disease transmission and epidemiology, the existence of wildlife reservoirs and the development of next-generation vaccines and diagnostics. With the support of the international virology community, the successful eradication of PPRV can be achieved

Rescue of recombinant peste des petits ruminants virus: creation of a GFP-expressing virus and application in rapid virus neutralization test

Peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) causes high mortality in goats and sheep and the disease has shown a greatly increased geographic distribution over the last 15 years. It is responsible for serious socioeconomic problems in some of the poorest developing countries. The ability to create recombinant PPRV would provide a useful tool for investigating the biology of the virus and the pathology of disease, as well as for developing new vaccines and diagnostic methods. Here we report the first successful rescue of recombinant PPRV from a full-length cDNA clone of the virus genome. Successful recovery of PPRV was achieved by using a RNA polymerase II promoter to drive transcription of the full-length virus antigenome. We have used this technique to construct a virus expressing a tracer protein (green fluorescent protein, GFP). The recombinant virus replicated as well as the parental virus and could stably express GFP during at least 10 passages. The newly established reverse genetics system for PPRV provides a novel method for constructing a vaccine using PPRV as a vector, and will also prove valuable for fundamental research on the biology of the virus. We found that our recombinant virus allowed more rapid and higher throughput assessment of PPRV neutralization antibody titer via the virus neutralization test (VNT) compared with the traditional method

Lattice QCD determination of m_b, f_B and f_Bs with twisted mass Wilson fermions

We present a lattice QCD determination of the b quark mass and of the B and B_s decay constants, performed with N_f=2 twisted mass Wilson fermions, by simulating at four values of the lattice spacing. In order to study the b quark on the lattice, two methods are adopted in the present work, respectively based on suitable ratios with exactly known static limit and on the interpolation between relativistic data, evaluated in the charm mass region, and the static point, obtained by simulating the HQET on the lattice. The two methods provide results in good agreement. For the b quark mass in the MSbar scheme and for the decay constants we obtain m_b(m_b)=4.29(14) GeV, f_B=195(12) MeV, f_Bs=232(10) MeV and f_Bs/f_B=1.19(5). As a byproduct of the analysis we also obtain the results for the f_D and f_Ds decay constants: f_D=212(8) MeV, f_Ds=248(6) MeV and f_Ds/f_D=1.17(5).Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables. Added appendix showing the agreement of the data for the ratios with the HQE prediction. Matching JHEP published versio

Are autistic traits measured equivalently in individuals with and without an Autism Spectrum Disorder?:An invariance analysis of the Autism Spectrum Quotient Short Form

It is common to administer measures of autistic traits to those without autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) with, for example, the aim of understanding autistic personality characteristics in non-autistic individuals. Little research has examined the extent to which measures of autistic traits actually measure the same traits in the same way across those with and without an ASD. We addressed this question using a multi-group confirmatory factor invariance analysis of the Autism Quotient Short Form (AQ-S: Hoekstra et al. in J Autism Dev Disord 41(5):589-596, 2011) across those with (n = 148) and without (n = 168) ASD. Metric variance (equality of factor loadings), but not scalar invariance (equality of thresholds), held suggesting that the AQ-S measures the same latent traits in both groups, but with a bias in the manner in which trait levels are estimated. We, therefore, argue that the AQ-S can be used to investigate possible causes and consequences of autistic traits in both groups separately, but caution is due when combining or comparing levels of autistic traits across the two group

A behavioral comparison of male and female adults with high functioning autism spectrum conditions

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) affect more males than females in the general population. However, within ASC it is unclear if there are phenotypic sex differences. Testing for similarities and differences between the sexes is important not only for clinical assessment but also has implications for theories of typical sex differences and of autism. Using cognitive and behavioral measures, we investigated similarities and differences between the sexes in age- and IQ-matched adults with ASC (high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome). Of the 83 (45 males and 38 females) participants, 62 (33 males and 29 females) met Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) cut-off criteria for autism in childhood and were included in all subsequent analyses. The severity of childhood core autism symptoms did not differ between the sexes. Males and females also did not differ in self-reported empathy, systemizing, anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive traits/symptoms or mentalizing performance. However, adult females with ASC showed more lifetime sensory symptoms (p = 0.036), fewer current socio-communication difficulties (p = 0.001), and more self-reported autistic traits (p = 0.012) than males. In addition, females with ASC who also had developmental language delay had lower current performance IQ than those without developmental language delay (p<0.001), a pattern not seen in males. The absence of typical sex differences in empathizing-systemizing profiles within the autism spectrum confirms a prediction from the extreme male brain theory. Behavioral sex differences within ASC may also reflect different developmental mechanisms between males and females with ASC. We discuss the importance of the superficially better socio-communication ability in adult females with ASC in terms of why females with ASC may more often go under-recognized, and receive their diagnosis later, than males

Failure to deactivate the default mode network indicates a possible endophenotype of autism.

BACKGROUND: Reduced activity during cognitively demanding tasks has been reported in the default mode network in typically developing controls and individuals with autism. However, no study has investigated the default mode network (DMN) in first-degree relatives of those with autism (such as siblings) and it is not known whether atypical activation of the DMN is specific to autism or whether it is also present in unaffected relatives. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the pattern of task-related deactivation during completion of a visual search task, the Embedded Figures Task, in teenagers with autism, their unaffected siblings and typically developing controls. FINDINGS: We identified striking reductions in deactivation during the Embedded Figures Task in unaffected siblings compared to controls in brain regions corresponding to the default mode network. Adolescents with autism and their unaffected siblings similarly failed to deactivate regions, including posterior cingulate and bilateral inferior parietal cortex. CONCLUSIONS: This suggests that a failure to deactivate these regions is a functional endophenotype of autism, related to familial risk for the condition shared between individuals with autism and their siblings.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Detecting the Companions and Ellipsoidal Variations of RS CVn Primaries: II. omicron Draconis, a Candidate for Recent Low-Mass Companion Ingestion

To measure the stellar and orbital properties of the metal-poor RS CVn binary o Draconis (o Dra), we directly detect the companion using interferometric observations obtained with the Michigan InfraRed Combiner at Georgia State University's Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) Array. The H-band flux ratio between the primary and secondary stars is the highest confirmed flux ratio (370 +/- 40) observed with long-baseline optical interferometry. These detections are combined with radial velocity data of both the primary and secondary stars, including new data obtained with the Tillinghast Reflector Echelle Spectrograph on the Tillinghast Reflector at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory and the 2-m Tennessee State University Automated Spectroscopic Telescope at Fairborn Observatory. We determine an orbit from which we find model-independent masses and ages of the components (M_A = 1.35 +\- 0.05 M_Sun, M_B = 0.99 +\- 0.02 M_Sun, system age = 3.0 -\+ 0.5 Gyr). An average of a 23-year light curve of o Dra from the Tennessee State University Automated Photometric Telescope folded over the orbital period newly reveals eclipses and the quasi-sinusoidal signature of ellipsoidal variations. The modeled light curve for our system's stellar and orbital parameters confirm these ellipsoidal variations due to the primary star partially filling its Roche lobe potential, suggesting most of the photometric variations are not due to stellar activity (starspots). Measuring gravity darkening from the average light curve gives a best-fit of beta = 0.07 +\- 0.03, a value consistent with conventional theory for convective envelope stars. The primary star also exhibits an anomalously short rotation period, which, when taken with other system parameters, suggests the star likely engulfed a low-mass companion that had recently spun-up the star.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, Accepted to Ap

Probing the Inner Disk Emission of the Herbig Ae Stars HD 163296 and HD 190073

The physical processes occurring within the inner few astronomical units of proto-planetary disks surrounding Herbig Ae stars are crucial to setting the environment in which the outer planet-forming disk evolves and put critical constraints on the processes of accretion and planet migration. We present the most complete published sample of high angular resolution H- and K-band observations of the stars HD 163296 and HD 190073, including 30 previously unpublished nights of observations of the former and 45 nights of the latter with the CHARA long-baseline interferometer, in addition to archival VLTI data. We confirm previous observations suggesting significant near-infrared emission originates within the putative dust evaporation front of HD 163296 and show this is the case for HD 190073 as well. The H- and K-band sizes are the same within $(3 \pm 3)\%$ for HD 163296 and within $(6 \pm 10)\%$ for HD 190073. The radial surface brightness profiles for both disks are remarkably Gaussian-like with little or no sign of the sharp edge expected for a dust evaporation front. Coupled with spectral energy distribution analysis, our direct measurements of the stellar flux component at H and K bands suggest that HD 190073 is much younger (<400 kyr) and more massive (~5.6 M$_\odot$) than previously thought, mainly as a consequence of the new Gaia distance (891 pc).Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure