99 research outputs found
Evaluation of animal control measures on pet demographics in Santa Clara County, California, 1993–2006
The measurable benefits of animal control programs are unknown and the aim of this study was to determine the impact of these programs on pet population changes. A prospective cross-sectional study of 1000 households was implemented in 2005 to evaluate characteristics of the owned and unowned population of dogs and cats in Santa Clara County, California. The same population was previously studied 12 years earlier. During this time period, the county instituted in 1994 and then subsequently disestablished a municipal spay/neuter voucher program for cats. Dog intakes declined from 1992–2005, as they similarly did for an adjacent county (San Mateo). However, cat intakes declined significantly more in Santa Clara County than San Mateo, with an average annual decline of approximately 700 cats for the 12 year period. Time series analysis showed a greater than expected decline in the number of cats surrendered to shelters in Santa Clara County during the years the voucher program was in effect (1994–2005). The net savings to the county by reducing the number of cat shelter intakes was estimated at approximately $1.5 million. The measurable benefits of animal control programs are unknown and the aim of this study was to determine the impact of these programs on pet population changes
MERAV: a tool for comparing gene expression across human tissues and cell types
The oncogenic transformation of normal cells into malignant, rapidly proliferating cells requires major alterations in cell physiology. For example, the transformed cells remodel their metabolic processes to supply the additional demand for cellular building blocks. We have recently demonstrated essential metabolic processes in tumor progression through the development of a methodological analysis of gene expression. Here, we present the Metabolic gEne RApid Visualizer (MERAV, http://merav.wi.mit.edu), a web-based tool that can query a database comprising ∼4300 microarrays, representing human gene expression in normal tissues, cancer cell lines and primary tumors. MERAV has been designed as a powerful tool for whole genome analysis which offers multiple advantages: one can search many genes in parallel; compare gene expression among different tissue types as well as between normal and cancer cells; download raw data; and generate heatmaps; and finally, use its internal statistical tool. Most importantly, MERAV has been designed as a unique tool for analyzing metabolic processes as it includes matrixes specifically focused on metabolic genes and is linked to the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway search.United States. National Institutes of Health (CA103866)United States. National Institutes of Health (AI47389)Life Sciences Research FoundationMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Ludwig Center for Molecular OncologyHoward Hughes Medical Institut
Herpes simplex virus type 1 ribonucleotide reductase null mutants induce lesions in guinea pigs
Two herpes simplex virus type 1 ribonucleotide reductase null mutants, hrR3 and ICP6[Delta], produced cutaneous lesions in guinea pigs as severe as those of wild-type strains. The lesions induced by hrR3 resulted from in vivo replication of the mutant virus, suggesting that this virus-encoded enzyme is nonessential for virus replication in guinea pigs.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/27674/1/0000057.pd
Cosmic-Ray Positrons: Are There Primary Sources?
Cosmic rays at the Earth include a secondary component originating in
collisions of primary particles with the diffuse interstellar gas. The
secondary cosmic rays are relatively rare but carry important information on
the Galactic propagation of the primary particles. The secondary component
includes a small fraction of antimatter particles, positrons and antiprotons.
In addition, positrons and antiprotons may also come from unusual sources and
possibly provide insight into new physics. For instance, the annihilation of
heavy supersymmetric dark matter particles within the Galactic halo could lead
to positrons or antiprotons with distinctive energy signatures. With the
High-Energy Antimatter Telescope (HEAT) balloon-borne instrument, we have
measured the abundances of positrons and electrons at energies between 1 and 50
GeV. The data suggest that indeed a small additional antimatter component may
be present that cannot be explained by a purely secondary production mechanism.
Here we describe the signature of the effect and discuss its possible origin.Comment: 15 pages, Latex, epsfig and aasms4 macros required, to appear in
Astroparticle Physics (1999
Comparison of prestellar core elongations and large-scale molecular cloud structures in the Lupus 1 region
Turbulence and magnetic fields are expected to be important for regulating molecular cloud formation and evolution. However, their effects on sub-parsec to 100 parsec scales, leading to the formation of starless cores, are not well understood. We investigate the prestellar core structure morphologies obtained from analysis of the Herschel-SPIRE 350 mum maps of the Lupus I cloud. This distribution is first compared on a statistical basis to the large-scale shape of the main filament. We find the distribution of the elongation position angle of the cores to be consistent with a random distribution, which means no specific orientation of the morphology of the cores is observed with respect to the mean orientation of the large-scale filament in Lupus I, nor relative to a large-scale bent filament model. This distribution is also compared to the mean orientation of the large-scale magnetic fields probed at 350 mum with the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Telescope for Polarimetry during its 2010 campaign. Here again we do not find any correlation between the core morphology distribution and the average orientation of the magnetic fields on parsec scales. Our main conclusion is that the local filament dynamics---including secondary filaments that often run orthogonally to the primary filament---and possibly small-scale variations in the local magnetic field direction, could be the dominant factors for explaining the final orientation of each core
Empirical modelling of the BLASTPol achromatic half-wave plate for precision submillimetre polarimetry
A cryogenic achromatic half-wave plate (HWP) for submillimetre astronomical polarimetry
has been designed, manufactured, tested and deployed in the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture
Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol). The design is based on the five-slab
Pancharatnam recipe and itworks in thewavelength range 200–600 μm, making it the broadestband
HWP built to date at (sub)millimetre wavelengths. The frequency behaviour of the HWP
has been fully characterized at room and cryogenic temperatures with incoherent radiation
from a polarizing Fourier transform spectrometer. We develop a novel empirical model, complementary
to the physical and analytical ones available in the literature, that allows us to
recover the HWP Mueller matrix and phase shift as a function of frequency and extrapolated
to 4 K. We show that most of the HWP non-idealities can be modelled by quantifying one
wavelength-dependent parameter, the position of the HWP equivalent axes, which is then readily
implemented in a map-making algorithm. We derive this parameter for a range of spectral
signatures of input astronomical sources relevant to BLASTPol, and provide a benchmark
example of how our method can yield improved accuracy on measurements of the polarization
angle on the sky at submillimetre wavelengths
The cusp plasma imaging detector (CuPID) cubesat observatory: instrumentation
The Cusp Plasma Imaging Detector (CuPID) CubeSat observatory is a 6U CubeSat designed to observe solar wind charge exchange in magnetospheric cusps to test competing theories of magnetic reconnection at the Earth's magnetopause. The CuPID is equipped with three instruments, namely, a wide field-of-view (4.6° × 4.6°) soft x-ray telescope, a micro-dosimeter suite, and an engineering magnetometer optimized for the science operation. The instrument suite has been tested and calibrated in relevant environments, demonstrating successful design. The testing and calibration of these instruments produced metrics and coefficients that will be used to create the CuPID mission's data product.NNX16AJ73G - NASAPublished versio
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