Comparison of clinical and environmental isolates of Legionella pneumophila obtained in the UK over 19 years

ABSTRACTBetween January 1980 and December 1998, 3458 cases of Legionnaires’ disease were reported to the national surveillance scheme in England and Wales. Of these, 463 (13.4%) were reported as proven by culture and isolation of Legionella spp., with 96.3% being Legionella pneumophila. Serogroup (Sgp), monoclonal antibody (mAb) subgrouping and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis data were obtained for 321 (69.3%) of these, of which 284 were classified as being unrelated to any other isolate in the study. Typing data were also available for 117 unrelated environmental isolates of L. pneumophila obtained from England and Wales, giving a total of 401 unrelated isolates in the study. Of the clinical isolates, 88.0% were Sgp1, compared with only 42.7% of environmental isolates (p <0.001); 79.6% of clinical isolates were subgrouped as mAb2+, compared with only 12.8% of environmental isolates (p <0.001). RFLP typing identified 67 types among the 401 isolates, with clinical isolates showing significantly less diversity than environmental isolates (index of diversity (IOD) 0.944 vs. 0.958; p <0.05), with three RFLP types (1, 5 and 14) accounting for 40.0% of all clinical isolates. Combining the phenotypic and genotypic data resulted in 173 distinct phenons, with clinical isolates showing significantly less diversity than environmental isolates (IOD 0.964 vs. 0.996; p <0.01). Three phenons accounted for 30% of all clinical isolates. These data strongly suggest that some strains of L. pneumophila are more likely to cause human infection than would be expected from their distribution in the environment

Co-existence of organising pneumonia in a patient with Mycobacterium Avium Intracellulare pulmonary infection

Non-tuberculous mycobacterias (NTMs) have many clinical manifestations in humans, depending on the underlying immunological status. We present a patient with Mycobacterium avium intracellulare pulmonary infection and co-existing, biopsy proven non-granulomatous organising pneumonia in distinct regions within the lungs. Treatment consisting of anti-mycobacterial therapy and corticosteroids led to clinico-radiological resolution. This case represents a potential broader clinico-pathological manifestation of Mycobacterium avium intracellulare

Superconducting p-branes and Extremal Black Holes

In Einstein-Maxwell theory, magnetic flux lines are `expelled' from a black hole as extremality is approached, in the sense that the component of the field strength normal to the horizon goes to zero. Thus, extremal black holes are found to exhibit the sort of `Meissner effect' which is characteristic of superconducting media. We review some of the evidence for this effect, and do present new evidence for it using recently found black hole solutions in string theory and Kaluza-Klein theory. We also present some new solutions, which arise naturally in string theory, which are non-superconducting extremal black holes. We present a nice geometrical interpretation of these effects derived by looking carefully at the higher dimensional configurations from which the lower dimensional black hole solutions are obtained. We show that other extremal solitonic objects in string theory (such as p-branes) can also display superconducting properties. In particular, we argue that the relativistic London equation will hold on the worldvolume of `light' superconducting p-branes (which are embedded in flat space), and that minimally coupled zero modes will propagate in the adS factor of the near-horizon geometries of `heavy', or gravitating, superconducting p-branes.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figure

Equation of state of neutron star cores and spin down of isolated pulsars

We study possible impact of a softening of the equation of state by a phase transition, or appearance of hyperons, on the spin evolution of of isolated pulsars. Numerical simulations are performed using exact 2-D simulations in general relativity. The equation of state of dense matter at supranuclear densities is poorly known. Therefore, the accent is put on the general correlations between evolution and equation of state, and mathematical strictness. General conjectures referring to the structure of the one-parameter families of stationary configurations are formulated. The interplay of the back bending phenomenon and stability with respect to axisymmetric perturbations is described. Changes of pulsar parameters in a corequake following instability are discussed, for a broad choice of phase transitions predicted by different theories of dense matter. The energy release in a corequake, at a given initial pressure, is shown to be independent of the angular momentum of collapsing configuration. This result holds for various types of phases transition, with and without metastability. We critically review observations of pulsars that could be relevant for the detection of the signatures of the phase transition in neutron star cores.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Science, in the proceedings of "Isolated Neutron Stars: from the Interior to the Surface", edited by D. Page, R. Turolla and S. Zan

Constraining R-parity violating couplings using dimuon data at Tevatron Run-II

The dimuon plus dijet signal is analyzed in the top squark pair production at Tevatron Run-II experiment and the total event rate is compared with the existing dimuon data. This comparison rules out top squark mass upto 188(104) GeV for the branching fraction 100%(50%) of top squark decay into the muon plus quark via lepton number violating coupling. Interpretation of this limit in the framework of R-parity violating(RPV) SUSY model puts limit on relevant RPV coupling for a given top squark mass and other supersymmetric model parameters. If \MST \lsim 180 GeV we found that the RPV couplings are roughly restricted to be within $\sim 10^{-4}$ which is at the same ballpark value obtained from the neutrino data. The limits are very stringent for a scenario where top squarks appear to be the next lightest supersymmetric particles.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures,added minor clarifications,version to appear in Phys. Lett.

Tuberculous pancreatitis complicated by ruptured splenic artery pseudoaneurysm

Tuberculous pancreatitis complicated by ruptured splenic artery pseudoaneurysm. M. Irfan, F. Thiavalappil, J. Nagaraj, T.H. Brown, D. Roberts, L. Mcknight, N.K. Harrison. Tuberculosis involving the pancreas is rare. We report a patient with pancreatic tuberculosis complicated by haemorrhage from a splenic artery pseudoaneurysm. As far as we are aware, the development of a splenic artery pseudoaneurysm in association with a large caseating mass of tuberculous pancreatic lymph nodes has not been reported previously. We review the literature and discuss the varied presentations of tuberculosis involving the pancreas or the pancreatic bed and its draining lymph nodes

Assessment of fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis for epidemiological genotyping of Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1

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Factors influencing participation in outdoor physical activity promotion schemes: The case of South Staffordshire, England

Policy exhortations for promoting outdoor physical activity have increased considerably in England and Wales over the past 20 years. Despite a considerable number of schemes developing during this period to encourage physical activity and exercise, marked population-level changes in outdoor physical activity behaviour have not been seen. The paper explores the triggers to this participation using a five-fold classification: physical infrastructure; information infrastructure; administrative infrastructure; participant constraints and participant preferences. Through a series of interviews in a case study 'healthy exercise' scheme in South Staffordshire, a district local authority in England, these triggers to participation are identified and explored. It is concluded that whilst the infrastructure triggers can be manipulated by scheme providers in an attempt to improve scheme participation, participant triggers fall largely beyond the control of scheme providers. Research suggests, too, that participant triggers tend to be stronger than infrastructure ones. Because of this, where there is a lack of healthy exercise scheme success, this cannot necessarily be attributed to scheme providers as it might be as a result of user triggers. For the same reason, it might be beyond the influence of scheme providers to turn 'failing' exercise schemes into successful ones. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Extinction risk and conservation of the world\u27s sharks and rays

The rapid expansion of human activities threatens ocean-wide biodiversity. Numerous marine animal populations have declined, yet it remains unclear whether these trends are symptomatic of a chronic accumulation of global marine extinction risk. We present the first systematic analysis of threat for a globally distributed lineage of 1,041 chondrichthyan fishes&mdash;sharks, rays, and chimaeras. We estimate that one-quarter are threatened according to IUCN Red List criteria due to overfishing (targeted and incidental). Large-bodied, shallow-water species are at greatest risk and five out of the seven most threatened families are rays. Overall chondrichthyan extinction risk is substantially higher than for most other vertebrates, and only one-third of species are considered safe. Population depletion has occurred throughout the world&rsquo;s ice-free waters, but is particularly prevalent in the Indo-Pacific Biodiversity Triangle and Mediterranean Sea. Improved management of fisheries and trade is urgently needed to avoid extinctions and promote population recovery

Demonstration of a novel technique to measure two-photon exchange effects in elastic e±pe^\pm p scattering

The discrepancy between proton electromagnetic form factors extracted using unpolarized and polarized scattering data is believed to be a consequence of two-photon exchange (TPE) effects. However, the calculations of TPE corrections have significant model dependence, and there is limited direct experimental evidence for such corrections. We present the results of a new experimental technique for making direct $e^\pm p$ comparisons, which has the potential to make precise measurements over a broad range in $Q^2$ and scattering angles. We use the Jefferson Lab electron beam and the Hall B photon tagger to generate a clean but untagged photon beam. The photon beam impinges on a converter foil to generate a mixed beam of electrons, positrons, and photons. A chicane is used to separate and recombine the electron and positron beams while the photon beam is stopped by a photon blocker. This provides a combined electron and positron beam, with energies from 0.5 to 3.2 GeV, which impinges on a liquid hydrogen target. The large acceptance CLAS detector is used to identify and reconstruct elastic scattering events, determining both the initial lepton energy and the sign of the scattered lepton. The data were collected in two days with a primary electron beam energy of only 3.3 GeV, limiting the data from this run to smaller values of $Q^2$ and scattering angle. Nonetheless, this measurement yields a data sample for $e^\pm p$ with statistics comparable to those of the best previous measurements. We have shown that we can cleanly identify elastic scattering events and correct for the difference in acceptance for electron and positron scattering. The final ratio of positron to electron scattering: $R=1.027\pm0.005\pm0.05$ for $=0.206$ GeV$^2$ and $0.830\leq \epsilon\leq 0.943$