14,007 research outputs found
Should we be treating animal schistosomiasis in Africa? The need for a One Health economic evaluation of schistosomiasis control in people and their livestock
A One Health economic perspective allows informed decisions to be made regarding control priorities and/or implementation strategies for infectious diseases. Schistosomiasis is a major and highly resilient disease of both humans and livestock. The zoonotic component of transmission in sub-Saharan Africa appears to be more significant than previously assumed, and may thereby affect the recently revised WHO vision to eliminate schistosomiasis as a public health problem by 2025. Moreover, animal schistosomiasis is likely to be a significant cost to affected communities due to its direct and indirect impact on livelihoods. We argue here for a comprehensive evaluation of the economic burden of livestock and zoonotic schistosomiasis in sub-Saharan Africa in order to determine if extending treatment to include animal hosts in a One Health approach is economically, as well as epidemiologically, desirable
Quasar-galaxy associations
There is controversy about the measurement of statistical associations
between bright quasars and faint, presumably foreground galaxies. We look at
the distribution of galaxies around an unbiased sample of 63 bright, moderate
redshift quasars using a new statistic based on the separation of the quasar
and its nearest neighbour galaxy. We find a significant excess of close
neighbours at separations less than about 10 arcsec which we attribute to the
magnification by gravitational lensing of quasars which would otherwise be too
faint to be included in our sample. About one quarter to one third of the
quasars are so affected although the allowed error in this fraction is large.Comment: uuencoded Postscript file (including figures and tables), SUSSEX-AST
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Introgressed Animal Schistosomes Schistosoma curassoni and S. bovis Naturally Infecting Humans
First-principles calculation of the intersublattice exchange interactions and Curie temperatures of full Heusler alloys Ni2MnX (X=Ga, In, Sn, Sb)
The interatomic exchange interactions and Curie temperatures in Ni-based full
Heusler alloys Ni2MnX with X=Ga, In, Sn and Sb are studied within the framework
of the density-functional theory. The calculation of the exchange parameters is
based on the frozen-magnon approach. Despite closeness of the experimental
Curie temperatures for all four systems their magnetism appeared to differ
strongly. This difference involves both the Mn-Mn and Mn-Ni exchange
interactions. The Curie temperatures, Tc, are calculated within the mean-field
approximation by solving a matrix equation for a multi-sublattice system. Good
agreement with experiment for all four systems is obtained. The role of
different exchange interactions in the formation of Tc of the systems is
discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
The effects of subcurative praziquantel treatment on life-history traits and trade-offs in drug-resistant Schistosoma mansoni
Natural selection acts on all organisms, including parasites, to maximise reproductive fitness. Drug resistance traits are often associated with life-history costs in the absence of treatment. Schistosomiasis control programmes rely on mass drug administration to reduce human morbidity and mortality. Although hotspots of reduced drug efficacy have been reported, resistance is not widespread. Using Bayesian State-Space Models (SSMs) fitted to data from an in vivo laboratory system, we tested the hypothesis that the spread of resistant Schistosoma may be limited by life-history costs not present in susceptible counterparts. Schistosoma mansoni parasites from a praziquantel–susceptible (S), a praziquantel–resistant (R) or a mixed line of originally resistant and susceptible parasites (RS) were exposed to a range of praziquantel doses. Parasite numbers at each life stage were quantified in their molluscan intermediate and murine definitive hosts across four generations, and SSMs were used to estimate key life-history parameters for each experimental group over time. Model outputs illustrated that parasite adult survival and fecundity in the murine host decreased across all lines, including R, with increasing drug pressure. Trade-offs between adult survival and fecundity were observed in all untreated lines, and these remained strong in S with praziquantel pressure. In contrast, trade-offs between adult survival and fecundity were lost under praziquantel pressure in R. As expected, parasite life-history traits within the molluscan host were complex, but trade-offs were demonstrated between parasite establishment and cercarial output. The observed trade-offs between generations within hosts, which were modified by praziquantel treatment in the R line, could limit the spread of R parasites under praziquantel pressure. Whilst such complex life-history costs may be difficult to detect using standard empirical methods, we demonstrate that SSMs provide robust estimates of life history parameters, aiding our understanding of costs and trade-offs of resistant parasites within this system and beyond
A Novel Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone 1 (Gnrh1) Enhancer-Derived Noncoding RNA Regulates Gnrh1 Gene Expression in GnRH Neuronal Cell Models.
Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), a neuropeptide released from a small population of neurons in the hypothalamus, is the central mediator of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, and is required for normal reproductive development and function. Evolutionarily conserved regulatory elements in the mouse, rat, and human Gnrh1 gene include three enhancers and the proximal promoter, which confer Gnrh1 gene expression specifically in GnRH neurons. In immortalized mouse hypothalamic GnRH (GT1-7) neurons, which show pulsatile GnRH release in culture, RNA sequencing and RT-qPCR revealed that expression of a novel long noncoding RNA at Gnrh1 enhancer 1 correlates with high levels of GnRH mRNA expression. In GT1-7 neurons, which contain a transgene carrying 3 kb of the rat Gnrh1 regulatory region, both the mouse and rat Gnrh1 enhancer-derived noncoding RNAs (GnRH-E1 RNAs) are expressed. We investigated the characteristics and function of the endogenous mouse GnRH-E1 RNA. Strand-specific RT-PCR analysis of GnRH-E1 RNA in GT1-7 cells revealed GnRH-E1 RNAs that are transcribed in the sense and antisense directions from distinct 5' start sites, are 3' polyadenylated, and are over 2 kb in length. These RNAs are localized in the nucleus and have a half-life of over 8 hours. In GT1-7 neurons, siRNA knockdown of mouse GnRH-E1 RNA resulted in a significant decrease in the expression of the Gnrh1 primary transcript and Gnrh1 mRNA. Over-expression of either the sense or antisense mouse GnRH-E1 RNA in immature, migratory GnRH (GN11) neurons, which do not express either GnRH-E1 RNA or GnRH mRNA, induced the transcriptional activity of co-transfected rat Gnrh1 gene regulatory elements, where the induction requires the presence of the rat Gnrh1 promoter. Together, these data indicate that GnRH-E1 RNA is an inducer of Gnrh1 gene expression. GnRH-E1 RNA may play an important role in the development and maturation of GnRH neurons
Providing a Discipline-Based Higher Education Qualification
This paper highlights the growing need for the provision of discipline-based flexible online courses for teachers in Higher Education as well as acknowledging the significance of interdisciplinary cooperation in this endeavour. It describes the approaches taken in designing and delivering these courses and discusses some of the challenges inherent in developing, implementing and evaluating such discipline-based Higher Education courses, through examining the Graduate Certificate in Law Teaching (GCLT) Course in the Faculty of Law at Monash University, Australia
Role of the conduction electrons in mediating exchange interactions in Heusler alloys
Because of large spatial separation of the Mn atoms in Heusler alloys the Mn
3d states belonging to different atoms do not overlap considerably. Therefore
an indirect exchange interaction between Mn atoms should play a crucial role in
the ferromagnetism of the systems. To study the nature of the ferromagnetism of
various Mn-based semi- and full-Heusler alloys we perform a systematic
first-principles calculation of the exchange interactions in these materials.
The calculation of the exchange parameters is based on the frozen-magnon
approach. The calculations show that the magnetism of the Mn-based Heusler
alloys depends strongly on the number of conduction electrons, their spin
polarization and the position of the unoccupied Mn 3d states with respect to
the Fermi level. Various magnetic phases are obtained depending on the
combination of these characteristics. The Anderson's s-d model is used to
perform a qualitative analysis of the obtained results. The conditions leading
to diverse magnetic behavior are identified. If the spin polarization of the
conduction electrons at the Fermi energy is large and the unoccupied Mn 3d
states lie well above the Fermi level, an RKKY-type ferromagnetic interaction
is dominating. On the other hand, the contribution of the antiferromagnetic
superexchange becomes important if unoccupied Mn 3d states lie close to the
Fermi energy. The resulting magnetic behavior depends on the competition of
these two exchange mechanisms. The calculational results are in good
correlation with the conclusions made on the basis of the Anderson s-d model
which provides useful framework for the analysis of the results of
first-principles calculations and helps to formulate the conditions for high
Curie temperature.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, 2 table
Obstructions to embeddability into hyperquadrics and explicit examples
We give series of explicit examples of Levi-nondegenerate real-analytic
hypersurfaces in complex spaces that are not transversally holomorphically
embeddable into hyperquadrics of any dimension. For this, we construct
invariants attached to a given hypersurface that serve as obstructions to
embeddability. We further study the embeddability problem for real-analytic
submanifolds of higher codimension and answer a question by Forstneri\v{c}.Comment: Revised version, appendix and references adde
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