83 research outputs found
Characterising co-infections with Plasmodium spp., Mansonella perstans or Loa loa in asymptomatic children, adults and elderly people living on Bioko Island using nucleic acids extracted from malaria rapid diagnostic tests
BACKGROUND: Regular and comprehensive epidemiological surveys of the filarial nematodes Mansonella perstans and Loa loa in children, adolescents and adults living across Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea are lacking. We aimed to demonstrate that blood retained on malaria rapid diagnostic tests, commonly deployed for malaria surveys, could be used as a source of nucleic acids for molecular based detection of M. perstans and L. loa. We wanted to determine the positivity rate and distribution of filarial nematodes across different age groups and geographical areas as well as to understand level of co-infections with malaria in an asymptomatic population. METHODOLOGY: M. perstans, L. loa and Plasmodium spp. parasites were monitored by qPCR in a cross-sectional study using DNA extracted from a subset malaria rapid diagnostic tests (mRDTs) collected during the annual malaria indicator survey conducted on Bioko Island in 2018. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We identified DNA specific for the two filarial nematodes investigated among 8.2% (263) of the 3214 RDTs screened. Positivity rates of M. perstans and L. loa were 6.6% and 1.5%, respectively. M. perstans infection were more prominent in male (10.5%) compared to female (3.9%) survey participants. M. perstans parasite density and positivity rate was higher among older people and the population living in rural areas. The socio-economic status of participants strongly influenced the infection rate with people belonging to the lowest socio-economic quintile more than 3 and 5 times more likely to be L. loa and M. perstans infected, respectively. No increased risk of being co-infected with Plasmodium spp. parasites was observed among the different age groups. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We found otherwise asymptomatic individuals were infected with M. perstans and L. loa. Our study demonstrates that employing mRDTs probed with blood for malaria testing represents a promising, future tool to preserve and ship NAs at room temperature to laboratories for molecular, high-throughput diagnosis and genotyping of blood-dwelling nematode filarial infections. Using this approach, asymptomatic populations can be reached and surveyed for infectious diseases beyond malaria
Flavor changing t -> c l_1^- l_2^+ decay in the general two Higgs doublet model
We study the flavor changing t-> c l_1^- l_2^+ decay in the framework of the
general two Higgs doublet model, the so called model III. We predict the
branching ratio for l_1=\tau, l_2=\mu at the order of magnitude of BR \sim
10^{-8}.Comment: 12 Pages, 5 Figure
Single Top Quark Production via FCNC Couplings at Hadron Colliders
We calculate single top-quark production at hadron colliders via the
chromo-magnetic flavor-changing neutral current couplings and . We find that the strength for the anomalous ()
coupling may be probed to () at the Tevatron with of data and
() at the LHC with of data. The two couplings may be
distinguished by a comparision of the single top signal with the direct top and
top decay signals for these couplings.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, 3 table
Dimension-six CP-conserving operators of the third-family quarks and their effects on collider observables
We list all possible dimension-six CP-conserving invariant operators involving the third-family quarks which
could be generated by new physics at a higher scale. Expressions for these
operators after electroweak gauge symmetry breaking and the induced effective
couplings , and are
presented. Analytic expressions for the tree level contributions of all these
operators to the observables and at LEP I,
and at LEP II,
and at the NLC, as well as
at the Tevatron upgrade, are provided.
The effects of these operators on different electroweak observables are
discussed and numerical examples presented. Numerical analyses show that in the
coupling region allowed by and at LEP I, some of the new
physics operators can still have significant contributions at LEP II, the
Tevatron and the NLC.Comment: 25 page
Analysis of nucleic acids extracted from rapid diagnostic tests reveals a significant proportion of false positive test results associated with recent malaria treatment
Background: Surveillance programmes often use malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) to determine the proportion of the population carrying parasites in their peripheral blood to assess the malaria transmission intensity. Despite an increasing number of reports on false-negative and false-positive RDT results, there is a lack of systematic quality control activities for RDTs deployed in malaria surveillance programmes. Methods: The diagnostic performance of field-deployed RDTs used for malaria surveys was assessed by retrospective molecular analysis of the blood retained on the tests. Results: Of the 2865 RDTs that were collected in 2018 on Bioko Island and analysed in this study, 4.7% had a falsenegative result. These false-negative RDTs were associated with low parasite density infections. In 16.6% of analysed samples, masked pfhrp2 and pfhrp3 gene deletions were identified, in which at least one Plasmodium falciparum strain carried a gene deletion. Among all positive RDTs analysed, 28.4% were tested negative by qPCR and therefore considered to be false-positive. Analysing the questionnaire data collected from the participants, this high proportion of false-positive RDTs could be explained by P. falciparum histidine rich protein 2 (PfHRP2) antigen persistence after recent malaria treatment. Conclusion: Malaria surveillance depending solely on RDTs needs well-integrated quality control procedures to assess the extent and impact of reduced sensitivity and specificity of RDTs on malaria control programmes
Amicus Brief: Kumho Tire v. Carmichael
This brief addresses the issue of jury performance and jury responses to expert testimony. It reviews and summaries a substantial body of research evidence about jury behavior that has been produced over the past quarter century. The great weight of that evidence challenges the view that jurors abdicate their responsibilities as fact finders when faced with expert evidence or that they are pro-plaintiff, anti-defendant, and anti-business.
The Petitioners and amici on behalf of petitioners make a number of overlapping, but empirically unsupported, assertions about jury behavior in response to expert testimony, namely that juries are frequently incapable of critically evaluation expert testimony, are easily confused, give inordinate weight to expert testimony, are awed by science, defer to the opinions of unreliable experts, and, implicitly, that in civil trials juries tilt in favor of plaintiffs and against corporations
Anomalous Single Top Production at the LHeC Based gamma p Collider
The top quark could provide very important information for the Standard Model
extentions due to its large mass close to the electroweak symmetry breaking
scale. In this work, anomalous single top production is studied by using gamma
p-->W^{+}b process at the LHeC based gamma p collider. The sensitivity to
anomalous coupling kappa/Lambda could be reached down to 0.01 TeV^{-1}.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, 3 table
Top-Charm Associated Production in High Energy Collisions
The possibility of exploring the flavor changing neutral current
couplings in the production vertex for the reaction \epem\to
t\bar c + \bar tc is examined. Using a model independent parameterization for
the effective Lagrangian to describe the most general three-point interactions,
production cross sections are found to be relatively small at LEP II, but
potentially sizeable at higher energy \epem colliders. The kinematic
characteristics of the signal are studied and a set of cuts are devised for
clean separation of the signal from background. The resulting sensitivity to
anomalous flavor changing couplings at LEP II with an integrated luminosity of
pb is found to be comparable to their present indirect
constraints from loop processes, while at higher energy colliders with
TeV center-of-mass energy and 50-200 fb luminosity, one expects to reach
a sensitivity at or below the percentage level.Comment: Latex, 22 page
Direct Top Quark Production at Hadron Colliders as a Probe of New Physics
We examine the effect of an anomalous flavor changing chromomagnetic moment
which allows direct top quark production (two partons combining into an
unaccompanied single top quark in the s-channel) at hadron colliders. We
consider both t-c-g and t-u-g couplings. We find that the anomalous charm quark
coupling parameter can be measured down to ) at the Tevatron with the Main Injector upgrade(LHC).
The anomalous up quark coupling parameter can be measured
to ) at the Tevatron(LHC).Comment: 14 pages, Latex, requires feynm
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