The human ehrlichioses in the United States.

The emerging tick-borne zoonoses human monocytic ehrlichiosis (HME) and human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE) are under reported in the United States. From 1986 through 1997, 1,223 cases (742 HME, 449 HGE, and 32 not ascribed to a specific ehrlichial agent) were reported by state health departments. HME was most commonly reported from southeastern and southcentral states, while HGE was most often reported from northeastern and upper midwestern states. The annual number of reported cases increased sharply, from 69 in 1994 to 364 in 1997, coincident with an increase in the number of states making these conditions notifiable. From 1986 through 1997, 827 probable and confirmed cases were diagnosed by serologic testing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although how many of these cases were also reported by states is not known. Improved national surveillance would provide a better assessment of the public health importance of ehrlichiosis

Measuring the principal Hugoniot of inertial-confinement-fusion-relevant TMPTA plastic foams

Wetted-foam layers are of significant interest for inertial-confinement-fusion capsules, due to the control they provide over the convergence ratio of the implosion and the opportunity this affords to minimize hydrodynamic instability growth. However, the equation of state for fusion-relevant foams are not well characterized, and many simulations rely on modeling such foams as a homogeneous medium with the foam average density. To address this issue, an experiment was performed using the VULCAN Nd:glass laser at the Central Laser Facility. The aim was to measure the principal Hugoniot of TMPTA plastic foams at 260mg/cm3, corresponding to the density of liquid DT-wetted-foam layers, and their “hydrodynamic equivalent” capsules. A VISAR was used to obtain the shock velocity of both the foam and an α-quartz reference layer, while streaked optical pyrometry provided the temperature of the shocked material. The measurements confirm that, for the 20–120 GPa pressure range accessed, this material can indeed be well described using the equation of state of the homogeneous medium at the foam density

Фрагменти до біографії І. Мазепи

Мета цієї статті увести до наукового обігу три документи, які стосуються життя й діяльності І. Мазепи. Перший з них нами було виявлено у польських архівосховищах. Автором цього листа, адресованого, очевидно, королеві Яну III Собеському, був учасник посольства Речі Посполитої до Москви, яке очолював вармінський біскуп і коронний канцлер Августин Міхал Радзейовський. Лист важливий тим, що проливає світло на малознаний період біографії Івана Мазепи, коли той був генеральним осавулом на лівобічній Гетьманщині. Другий і третій документи мають меншу цінність. Один з них - це типова рукописна газета - “новина”, у якій повідомляється про польсько-російські переговори у Варшаві у 1695 р. у зв’язку з азово-дніпровськими походами, у котрих визначну роль відіграли українські війська на чолі з гетьманом Іваном Мазепою. Автором наступного документа був Лаврентій Крщонович, визначний церковний діяч, ігумен деяких православних монастирів Гетьманщини, зокрема Свято-Троїцького Іллінського у Чернігові

Blastomycosis in Man after Kinkajou Bite

We report transmission of Blastomyces dermatitidis fungal infection from a pet kinkajou to a man. When treating a patient with a recalcitrant infection and a history of an animal bite, early and complete animal necropsy and consideration of nonbacterial etiologies are needed

Rickettsia parkeri in Amblyomma americanum Ticks, Tennessee and Georgia, USA

To determine the geographic distribution of the newly recognized human pathogen Rickettsia parkeri, we looked for this organism in ticks from Tennessee and Georgia, USA. Using PCR and sequence analysis, we identified R. parkeri in 2 Amblyomma americanum ticks. This rickettsiosis may be underdiagnosed in the eastern United States

Temperature and velocity measurements and predictive model comparisons in the near-field region of surface thermal discharges

Simultaneous temperature and velocity measurements were made in the near- field region of the surface thermal discharge at the Point Beach Unit 1 and Palisades Nuclear Power Plants on Lake Michigan. Data collected include measurements of temperature and velocity at the 0.5-, 1.0-, 1.5-, 2.0-, 2.5-, and 3.0-m depths, along with measurements of ambient lake and metenrological conditions. Bottom depth was also measured at variouss locations. four such surveys were made at the Point Beach plant, three at the Palisades plant. To examine the jet features from the abpve surveys and facilitate a comparison with analytical model predictions, a computer program was written to smooth the data, extracting such jet characteristics as trajectory, centerline temperature decay and temperature half-widths, centerline velocitv decay and velocity half-widths, temperature and velocity half-depths, and isotherm areas. Four near-field analytical models often used in environmental impact evaluations of power-plant surface discharges are compared to the jet characteristics determined from the smoothed jet data. The Pritchard model compares rather well with these limited data and is often conservative when model-data discrepancies exist. The Stolzenbach -Harleman and Prych models predict too rapid a temperature and velocity decay accompanying too great a lateral spread. The Motz --Benedict model is too sensitive to an entrainment coefficient E with little consistent data available for its determination for accurate prediction. Recommendations for future research, encompassing the field-data acquisition, the smoothing procedure, and the presently available models are included. (30 references) (auth

Optimizing Egg Recovery From Wild Northern Corn Rootworm Beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

The northern corn rootworm, Diabrotica barberi Smith & Lawrence (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), is one of the most important insect pests in the U.S. Corn Belt. Efforts to obtain eggs from wild northern corn rootworm populations using techniques developed for other rootworm species have been unsuccessful due to lack of oviposition. In 2016, we evaluated four oviposition media in choice tests within each of three female densities in 30.5 × 30.5 × 30.5 cm BugDorm cages. The number of eggs laid per female was significantly affected by female density and the interaction of female density × oviposition media, but oviposition was relatively poor in all oviposition media (1.2 eggs per female when averaging the three female densities and all oviposition media). Single females were also evaluated in nonchoice assays in 6 cm × 6 cm × 8 cm clear plastic boxes and averaged up to 108 eggs per female depending on the oviposition media. In 2017, the cumulative number of eggs laid per female in boxes with one female was not significantly different from the number of eggs laid per female in boxes with 3 females. In 2018, the cumulative number of eggs laid per female was not significantly different between female densities of 1, 3, 5, or 10 females per box. Total egg production per box therefore increased as female density increased. More than 27,000 wild northern corn rootworm eggs were collected from just 190 females when collected relatively early in the field season. We now have an efficient and robust system for obtaining eggs from wild northern corn rootworm females

Engineering the Redox Potential over a Wide Range within a New Class of FeS Proteins

Abstract: MitoNEET is a newly discovered mitochondrial protein and a target of the TZD class of antidiabetes drugs. MitoNEET is homodimeric with each protomer binding a [2Fe-2S] center through a rare 3-Cys and 1-His coordination geometry. Both the fold and the coordination of the [2Fe-2S] centers suggest that it could have novel properties compared to other known [2Fe-2S] proteins. We tested the robustness of mitoNEET to mutation and the range over which the redox potential (EM) could be tuned. We found that the protein could tolerate an array of mutations that modified the EM of the [2Fe-2S] center over a range of ∼700 mV, which is the largest EM range engineered in an FeS protein and, importantly, spans the cellular redox range (+200 to-300 mV). These properties make mitoNEET potentially useful for both physiological studies and industrial applications as a stable, water-soluble, redox agent

Linking Scottish vital event records using family groups

Funding: This work was supported by ESRC Grants ES/K00574X/2 “Digitising Scotland” and ES/L007487/1 “Administrative Data Research Centre – Scotland.”The reconstitution of populations through linkage of historical records is a powerful approach to generate longitudinal historical microdata resources of interest to researchers in various fields. Here we consider automated linking of the vital events recorded in the civil registers of birth, death and marriage compiled in Scotland, to bring together the various records associated with the demographic events in the life course of each individual in the population. From the histories, the genealogical structure of the population can then be built up. Rather than apply standard linkage techniques to link the individuals on the available certificates, we explore an alternative approach, inspired by the family reconstitution techniques adopted by historical demographers, in which the births of siblings are first linked to form family groups, after which intergenerational links between families can be established. We report a small-scale evaluation of this approach, using two district-level data sets from Scotland in the late nineteenth century, for which sibling links have already been created by demographers. We show that quality measures of up to 83% can be achieved on these data sets (using F-Measure, a combination of precision and recall). In the future, we intend to compare the results with a standard linkage approach and to investigate how these various methods may be used in a project which aims to link the entire Scottish population from 1856 to 1973.PostprintPeer reviewe