The Imperfect Fluid behind Kinetic Gravity Braiding

We present a standard hydrodynamical description for non-canonical scalar field theories with kinetic gravity braiding. In particular, this picture applies to the simplest galileons and k-essence. The fluid variables not only have a clear physical meaning but also drastically simplify the analysis of the system. The fluid carries charges corresponding to shifts in field space. This shift-charge current contains a spatial part responsible for diffusion of the charges. Moreover, in the incompressible limit, the equation of motion becomes the standard diffusion equation. The fluid is indeed imperfect because the energy flows neither along the field gradient nor along the shift current. The fluid has zero vorticity and is not dissipative: there is no entropy production, the energy-momentum is exactly conserved, the temperature vanishes and there is no shear viscosity. Still, in an expansion around a perfect fluid one can identify terms which correct the pressure in the manner of bulk viscosity. We close by formulating the non-trivial conditions for the thermodynamic equilibrium of this imperfect fluid.Comment: 23 pages plus appendices. New version includes extended discussion on diffusion and dynamics in alternative frames, as well as additional references. v3 reflects version accepted for publication in JHEP: minor comments added regarding suitability to numerical approache

IFNAR1-Signalling Obstructs ICOS-mediated Humoral Immunity during Non-lethal Blood-Stage Plasmodium Infection

Funding: This work was funded by a Career Development Fellowship (1028634) and a project grant (GRNT1028641) awarded to AHa by the Australian National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC). IS was supported by The University of Queensland Centennial and IPRS Scholarships. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Scans for signatures of selection in Russian cattle breed genomes reveal new candidate genes for environmental adaptation and acclimation

Domestication and selective breeding has resulted in over 1000 extant cattle breeds. Many of these breeds do not excel in important traits but are adapted to local environments. These adaptations are a valuable source of genetic material for efforts to improve commercial breeds. As a step toward this goal we identified candidate regions to be under selection in genomes of nine Russian native cattle breeds adapted to survive in harsh climates. After comparing our data to other breeds of European and Asian origins we found known and novel candidate genes that could potentially be related to domestication, economically important traits and environmental adaptations in cattle. The Russian cattle breed genomes contained regions under putative selection with genes that may be related to adaptations to harsh environments (e.g., AQP5, RAD50, and RETREG1). We found genomic signatures of selective sweeps near key genes related to economically important traits, such as the milk production (e.g., DGAT1, ABCG2), growth (e.g., XKR4), and reproduction (e.g., CSF2). Our data point to candidate genes which should be included in future studies attempting to identify genes to improve the extant breeds and facilitate generation of commercial breeds that fit better into the environments of Russia and other countries with similar climates

Antimicrobial activity of apple cider vinegar against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans; downregulating cytokine and microbial protein expression

The global escalation in antibiotic resistance cases means alternative antimicrobials are essential. The aim of this study was to investigate the antimicrobial capacity of apple cider vinegar (ACV) against E. coli, S. aureus and C. albicans. The minimum dilution of ACV required for growth inhibition varied for each microbial species. For C. albicans, a 1/2 ACV had the strongest effect, S. aureus, a 1/25 dilution ACV was required, whereas for E-coli cultures, a 1/50 ACV dilution was required (p < 0.05). Monocyte co-culture with microbes alongside ACV resulted in dose dependent downregulation of inflammatory cytokines (TNFα, IL-6). Results are expressed as percentage decreases in cytokine secretion comparing ACV treated with non-ACV treated monocytes cultured with E-coli (TNFα, 99.2%; IL-6, 98%), S. aureus (TNFα, 90%; IL-6, 83%) and C. albicans (TNFα, 83.3%; IL-6, 90.1%) respectively. Proteomic analyses of microbes demonstrated that ACV impaired cell integrity, organelles and protein expression. ACV treatment resulted in an absence in expression of DNA starvation protein, citrate synthase, isocitrate and malate dehydrogenases in E-coli; chaperone protein DNak and ftsz in S. aureus and pyruvate kinase, 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase, fructose bisphosphate were among the enzymes absent in C.albican cultures. The results demonstrate ACV has multiple antimicrobial potential with clinical therapeutic implications

Parental education and perception of outdoor playing time for preschoolers

Abstract Aim: The objective of this study was to analyze whether or not socioeconomic positions influence outdoor playtime during the week (WK) and on the weekends (WEND). Methods: The sample consisted of 485 (girls; n=223) healthy preschoolers, aged from 3 to 6 years, enrolled in kindergartens from the metropolitan area of Porto, Portugal. Physical Activity (PA) was assessed for 7 consecutive days with an accelerometer. The time playing outdoors during the WK or the WEND was reported by parents. Anthropometric data (weight and height) was collected following standardized protocols. Socioeconomic position was assessed by Parental Education (PE), according to the Portuguese education system. Results: We found differences in time spent playing outdoors either for the WK or WEND, but not for Total PA (TPA), in both sexes. However, regression analysis showed that after age adjustment, BMI and TPA for both sexes, we only found significant associations between low PE (LPE) and high PE (HPE) groups on WK or WEND. However, we found no statistically significant association for boys on the WK (p=0.06). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that socioeconomic position can influence the children’s time spent in outdoor activities, especially on the weekends. This may have implications for future interventions with this age group

Visual Associative Learning in Restrained Honey Bees with Intact Antennae

A restrained honey bee can be trained to extend its proboscis in response to the pairing of an odor with a sucrose reward, a form of olfactory associative learning referred to as the proboscis extension response (PER). Although the ability of flying honey bees to respond to visual cues is well-established, associative visual learning in restrained honey bees has been challenging to demonstrate. Those few groups that have documented vision-based PER have reported that removing the antennae prior to training is a prerequisite for learning. Here we report, for a simple visual learning task, the first successful performance by restrained honey bees with intact antennae. Honey bee foragers were trained on a differential visual association task by pairing the presentation of a blue light with a sucrose reward and leaving the presentation of a green light unrewarded. A negative correlation was found between age of foragers and their performance in the visual PER task. Using the adaptations to the traditional PER task outlined here, future studies can exploit pharmacological and physiological techniques to explore the neural circuit basis of visual learning in the honey bee

DNA Vaccines against Dengue Virus Type 2 Based on Truncate Envelope Protein or Its Domain III

Two DNA vaccines were constructed encoding the ectodomain (domains I, II and III) of the DENV2 envelope protein (pE1D2) or only its domain III (pE2D2), fused to the human tissue plasminogen activator signal peptide (t-PA). The expression and secretion of recombinant proteins was confirmed in vitro in BHK cells transfected with the two plasmids, detected by immunofluorescence or immunoprecipitation of metabolically labeled gene products, using polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies against DENV2. Besides, results reveal that the ectodomain of the E protein can be efficiently expressed in vivo, in a mammalian system, without the prM protein that is hypothesized to act as a chaperonin during dengue infection. Balb/c mice were immunized with the DNA vaccines and challenged with a lethal dose of DENV2. All pE1D2-vaccinated mice survived challenge, while 45% of animals immunized with the pE2D2 died after infection. Furthermore, only 10% of pE1D2-immunized mice presented some clinical signs of infection after challenge, whereas most of animals inoculated with the pE2D2 showed effects of the disease with high morbidity degrees. Levels of neutralizing antibodies were significantly higher in pE1D2-vaccinated mice than in pE2D2-immunized animals, also suggesting that the pE1D2 vaccine was more protective than the pE2D2