A community approach for pathogens and their arthropod vectors (ticks and fleas) in cats of sub-Saharan Africa

Background Arthropod-borne pathogens and their vectors are present throughout Africa. They have been well studied in livestock of sub-Saharan Africa, but poorly studied in companion animals. Given their socioeconomic importance, the African Small Companion Animal Network (AFSCAN), as part of the WSAVA Foundation, initiated a standardized multi-country surveillance study. Methods In six countries (Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Namibia) in both rural and urban settings, 160 infested cats were sampled to assess their ectoparasite community (ticks and fleas), as well as the micro-parasite prevalence within those ectoparasites (60 and 118 pools of ticks and fleas, respectively) and blood (276 cats, including 116 non-infested). Results Almost two thirds of all infested cats originated from Tanzania and Kenya. Despite the large macro-geographical variation, no consistent difference was found in ectoparasite diversity and numbers between East and West Africa. Far more flea-infested than tick-infested cats were found. The most dominant ectoparasite was Ctenocephalides felis. Among the ticks, the exophilic Haemaphysalis spp. were the commonest, including species that are not typically linked with companion animals (Haemaphysalis spinulosa and Haemaphysalis elliptica). The most prevalent pathogens found in the blood and fleas were Bartonella henselae and Mycoplasma haemofelis. In the ticks, the dog-associated Hepatozoon canis was most commonly found. A high degree of co-parasitism was found in all countries and habitats. Conclusions Our continent-wide standardized field study highlights the cat’s potential to serve as a reservoir of pathogens that can be transmitted to humans or livestock, especially when cats are expected to become more commonly kept in African villages and towns

High-precision quadrupole moment reveals significant intruder component in 13 33Al20 ground state

The electric quadrupole moment of the Al201333 ground state, located at the border of the island of inversion, was obtained using continuous-beam β-detected nuclear quadrupole resonance (β-NQR). From the measured quadrupole coupling constant νQ=2.31(4) MHz in an α-Al2O3 crystal, a precise value for the electric quadrupole moment is extracted: |Qs(Al33)|=141(3) mb. A comparison with large-scale shell model calculations shows that Al33 has at least 50% intruder configurations in the ground state wave function, favoring the excitation of two neutrons across the N=20 shell gap. Al33 therefore clearly marks the gradual transition north of the deformed Na and Mg nuclei towards the normal Z≥14 isotopesThis work was partly supported by the European Community FP6—Structuring the ERA—Integrated Infrastructure Initiative Contract EURONS No. RII3-CT-2004-506065, by the FWO-Vlaanderen, by the IAP programme of the Belgium Science Policy under Grants No. P6/23 and No. P7/12, by a grant of the MICINN (Spain) (FPA2011-29854), by the Nupnet network SARFEN (PRI-PIMMNUP-2011-1361), by MINECO (Spain) Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa Programme under Grant No. SEV-2012-0249, and by JSPS KAKENHI (Japan) Grants No. 21740204 and No. 15K05094. The experiment was carried out under Experimental Program E437

Multimodality and ambient intelligence

In this report we discuss multimodal interface technology. We present examples of multimodal interfaces and show problems and opportunities. Fusion of modalities is discussed and some roadmap discussions on research in Multimodality are summarized. This report also discusses future developments where rather than communicating with a single computer, users communicate with their environment using multimodal interactions and where the environmental interface has perceptual competence that includes being able to interpret what is going on in the environment. We contribute roles to virtual humans in order to allow daily users of future computing environments to establish relationships with the environments, or more in particular, these virtual humans

State trust in middle childhood: an experimental manipulation of maternal support

A

Nuclear charge radius of 26m^{26m}Al and its implication for Vud_{ud} in the quark-mixing matrix

Collinear laser spectroscopy was performed on the isomer of the aluminium isotope $^{26m}$Al. The measured isotope shift to $^{27}$Al in the 3s^{2}3p\;^{2}\!P^\circ_{3/2} \rightarrow 3s^{2}4s\;^{2}\!S_{1/2} atomic transition enabled the first experimental determination of the nuclear charge radius of $^{26m}$Al, resulting in $R_c$=\qty{3.130\pm.015}{\femto\meter}. This differs by 4.5 standard deviations from the extrapolated value used to calculate the isospin-symmetry breaking corrections in the superallowed $\beta$ decay of $^{26m}$Al. Its corrected $\mathcal{F}t$ value, important for the estimation of $V_{ud}$ in the CKM matrix, is thus shifted by one standard deviation to \qty{3071.4\pm1.0}{\second}.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let