Dynamics of Schmallenberg virus infection within a cattle herd in Germany, 2011

In late 2011, the insect-transmitted Schmallenberg virus (SBV) emerged in Europe. In this study, a cattle farm located in the core region of the epidemic was closely monitored between May 2011 and January 2012. Up to the end of September every tested serum sample was negative by an SBV-specific antibody ELISA, suggesting the absence of an infection before autumn 2011. Around the end of September/beginning of October SBV genome was detected in blood samples of some animals, and a few cows exhibited fever during that period. Starting at the end of September the first cows seroconverted; the within-herd prevalence reached 100% within barely 1 month. Consequently, SBV spread rapidly in the tested herd during the vector season of 2011

A Comparison Between AMS 700 and Coloplast Titan: A Systematic Literature Review

There are only two three-piece inflatable penile prostheses (IPP) available to patients in the American market: the AMS (American Medical Systems) 700 series (Boston Scientific, Massachusetts) and the Coloplast Titan® series (Coloplast, Minnesota), and data comparing the two are scant. The aim of our study was to summarize the current scientific evidence comparing the two. A systematic literature review was conducted on PubMed. A 10-year filter was placed to include only studies published after Coloplast launched the Titan Touch® release pump. Eligibility criteria included articles discussing specifically the AMS 700 and Coloplast Titan® models. Further searches for studies on patient/partner satisfaction were conducted. Abstracts were reviewed to include studies focusing specifically on the models we are studying and studies on patient satisfaction using the Erectile Dysfunction Inventory of Treatment Satisfaction (EDITS) questionnaire. The Coloplast device demonstrated slightly greater resistance to the stimulated forces of penetration and gravity. Coloplast implants coated with vancomycin/gentamicin had the highest infection rate followed by the AMS penile prosthesis and the rifampin/gentamicin coating had the lowest infection rate. Prosthesis durability and survival were similar between both brands. Overall satisfaction was high but comparisons are inconsistent. The literature is inconclusive about which device is superior. We suggest randomized, multicenter, prospective studies to help further elucidate the highlights of each product

Subitizing with Variational Autoencoders

Numerosity, the number of objects in a set, is a basic property of a given visual scene. Many animals develop the perceptual ability to subitize: the near-instantaneous identification of the numerosity in small sets of visual items. In computer vision, it has been shown that numerosity emerges as a statistical property in neural networks during unsupervised learning from simple synthetic images. In this work, we focus on more complex natural images using unsupervised hierarchical neural networks. Specifically, we show that variational autoencoders are able to spontaneously perform subitizing after training without supervision on a large amount images from the Salient Object Subitizing dataset. While our method is unable to outperform supervised convolutional networks for subitizing, we observe that the networks learn to encode numerosity as basic visual property. Moreover, we find that the learned representations are likely invariant to object area; an observation in alignment with studies on biological neural networks in cognitive neuroscience

Neuropsychological constraints to human data production on a global scale

Which are the factors underlying human information production on a global level? In order to gain an insight into this question we study a corpus of 252-633 Million publicly available data files on the Internet corresponding to an overall storage volume of 284-675 Terabytes. Analyzing the file size distribution for several distinct data types we find indications that the neuropsychological capacity of the human brain to process and record information may constitute the dominant limiting factor for the overall growth of globally stored information, with real-world economic constraints having only a negligible influence. This supposition draws support from the observation that the files size distributions follow a power law for data without a time component, like images, and a log-normal distribution for multimedia files, for which time is a defining qualia.Comment: to be published in: European Physical Journal

Branes with fluxes wrapped on spheres

Following an eight-dimensional gauged supergravity approach we construct the most general solution describing D6-branes wrapped on a Kahler four-cycle taken to be the product of two spheres of different radii. Our solution interpolates between a Calabi-Yau four-fold and the spaces S^2xS^2xS^2xR^2 or S^2xS^2xR^4, depending on generic choices for the parameters. Then we turn on a background four-form field strength, corresponding to D2-branes, and show explicitly how our solution is deformed. For a particular choice of parameters it represents a flow from a Calabi-Yau four-fold times the three-dimensional Minkowski space-time in the ultraviolet, to the space-time AdS_4xQ^{1,1,1} in the infrared. In general, the solution in the infrared has a singularity which within type-IIA supergravity corresponds to the near horizon geometry of the solution for the D2-D6 system. Finally, we uncover the relation with work done in the eighties on Freund-Rubin type compactifications.Comment: 15 pages, Late

Ammonia volatilization from irrigated and non-irrigated winter wheat plots in the North China Plain - Quantification and modeling

China’s growing population led to a drastic intensification of agriculture and livestock production in the last 50 years. Excessive mineral nitrogen (N) fertilizer application and intensive livestock production cause high N losses to the environment. Pathways of N losses may include gaseous N emissions via nitrification/denitrification (N2O, N2), ammonia (NH3) volatilization, nitrate leaching and surface run-off from soils. Ammonia emissions are one of the most important N loss pathways in the North China Plain (NCP) contributing to soil acidification, eutrophication of ecosystems and causing human health problems through combining with particles in the atmosphere which also impair visibility. For developing mitigation measures in a winter wheat cropping system, systematic measurements of NH3 volatilization were conducted in the NCP in Zhengding, 260 km southwest of Beijing. Ammonia emissions were measured with the calibrated Dräger-Tube method during the main crop growing season of winter wheat from April to June 2016. The treatments included urea and urea followed by immediate irrigation. Additionally, soil samples were taken from three depth increments (0-30, 30-60 and 60-90 cm) before and after fertilization and the NH3 volatilization was simulated with the HERMES model. The soils showed highest mineral nitrogen (Nmin) contents of up to 340 kg ha-1 (0-90 cm) after fertilization. A decrease in the calcium carbonate content and soil pH in topsoils (0-20 cm) (pH: 6.7) compared to subsoil horizons (pH: 7.7) was attributed to the long-term application of ammonium-based fertilizers as well as to high atmospheric deposition rates of ammonium and sulfuric compounds. Urea applied to winter wheat showed an NH3 loss equal to 22% the of applied N. Application of urea to winter wheat followed by irrigation yielded a reduction of the NH3 volatilization to 0.1% of the applied N. An improved N management based on the soil Nmin content is recommended to improve nitrogen use efficiency and to reduce N losses to the environment. Irrigation after fertilization can be recommended for reduction of NH3 volatilization, provided that other N loss pathways are of minor importance. The NH3 volatilization sub-module of the HERMES model enabled to simulate ammonia volatilization in the NCP satisfactorily. It is suggested to validate the model with further data sets from the NCP or from regions with comparable conditions

Is the black-widow pulsar PSR J1555-2908 in a hierarchical triple system?

The 559 Hz black-widow pulsar PSR J1555-2908, originally discovered in radio, is also a bright gamma-ray pulsar. Timing its pulsations using 12 yr of Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data reveals long-term variations in its spin frequency that are much larger than is observed from other millisecond pulsars. While this variability in the pulsar rotation rate could be intrinsic "timing noise", here we consider an alternative explanation: the variations arise from the presence of a very-low-mass third object in a wide multi-year orbit around the neutron star and its low-mass companion. With current data, this hierarchical-triple-system model describes the pulsar's rotation slightly more accurately than the best-fitting timing-noise model. Future observations will show if this alternative explanation is correct

Survivin a radiogenetic promoter for glioblastoma viral gene therapy independently from CArG motifs

BACKGROUND: Radiogenetic therapy is a novel approach in the treatment of cancer, which employs genetic modification to alter the sensitivity of tumor cells to the effect of applied radiation. AIM: To select a potent radiation inducible promoter in the context of brain tumors and to investigate if CArG radio responsive motifs or other elements in the promoter nucleotide sequences can correlate to its response to radiation. METHODS: To select initial candidates for promoter inducible elements, the levels of mRNA expression of six different promoters were assessed using Quantitative RTPCR in D54 MG cells before and after radiation exposure. Recombinant Ad/reporter genes driven by five different promoters; CMV, VEGF, FLT-1, DR5 and survivin were constructed. Glioma cell lines were infected with different multiplicity of infection of the (promoter) Ad or CMV Ad. Cells were then exposed to a range of radiation (0–12 Gy) at single fraction. Fluorescent microscopy, Luc assay and X-gal staining was used to detect the level of expression of related genes. Different glioma cell lines and normal astrocytes were infected with Ad survivin and exposed to radiation. The promoters were analyzed for presence of CArG radio-responsive motifs and CCAAT box consensus using NCBI blast bioinformatics software. RESULTS: Radiotherapy increases the expression of gene expression by 1.25–2.5 fold in different promoters other than survivin after 2 h of radiation. RNA analysis was done and has shown an increase in copy number of tenfold for survivin. Most importantly cells treated with RT and Ad Luc driven by survivin promoter showed a fivefold increase in expression after 2 Gy of radiation in comparison to non-irradiated cells. Presence or absence of CArG motifs did not correlate with promoter response to radiation. Survivin with the best response to radiation had the lowest number of CCAAT box. CONCLUSION: Survivin is a selective potent radiation inducible promoter for glioblastoma viral gene therapy and this response to radiation could be independent of CArG motifs

The melanoma-specific graded prognostic assessment does not adequately discriminate prognosis in a modern population with brain metastases from malignant melanoma

The melanoma-specific graded prognostic assessment (msGPA) assigns patients with brain metastases from malignant melanoma to 1 of 4 prognostic groups. It was largely derived using clinical data from patients treated in the era that preceded the development of newer therapies such as BRAF, MEK and immune checkpoint inhibitors. Therefore, its current relevance to patients diagnosed with brain metastases from malignant melanoma is unclear. This study is an external validation of the msGPA in two temporally distinct British populations.Performance of the msGPA was assessed in Cohort I (1997-2008, n=231) and Cohort II (2008-2013, n=162) using Kaplan-Meier methods and Harrell's c-index of concordance. Cox regression was used to explore additional factors that may have prognostic relevance.The msGPA does not perform well as a prognostic score outside of the derivation cohort, with suboptimal statistical calibration and discrimination, particularly in those patients with an intermediate prognosis. Extra-cerebral metastases, leptomeningeal disease, age and potential use of novel targeted agents after brain metastases are diagnosed, should be incorporated into future prognostic models.An improved prognostic score is required to underpin high-quality randomised controlled trials in an area with a wide disparity in clinical care