Risk factors for high anti-HHV-8 antibody titers (≥1:51,200) in black, HIV-1 negative South African cancer patients: a case control study

Background: Infection with human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) is the necessary causal agent in the development of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS). Infection with HIV-1, male gender and older age all increase risk for KS. However, the geographic distribution of HHV-8 and KS both prior to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and with HIV/AIDS suggest the presence of an additional co-factor in the development of KS. Methods: Between January 1994 and October 1997, we interviewed 2576 black in-patients with cancer in Johannesburg and Soweto, South Africa. Blood was tested for antibodies against HIV-1 and HHV-8 and the study was restricted to 2191 HIV-1 negative patients. Antibodies against the latent nuclear antigen of HHV-8 encoded by orf73 were detected with an indirect immunofluorescence assay. We examined the relationship between high anti-HHV-8 antibody titers (≥1:51,200) and sociodemographic and behavioral factors using unconditional logistic regression models. Variables that were significant at p = 0.10 were included in multivariate analysis. Results: Of the 2191 HIV-1 negative patients who did not have Kaposi's sarcoma, 854 (39.0%) were positive for antibodies against HHV-8 according to the immunofluorescent assay. Among those seropositive for HHV-8, 530 (62.1%) had low titers (1:200), 227 (26.6%) had medium titers (1:51,200) and 97 (11.4%) had highest titers (1:204,800). Among the 2191 HIV-1 negative patients, the prevalence of high anti-HHV-8 antibody titers (≥1:51,200) was independently associated with increasing age (ptrend = 0.04), having a marital status of separated or divorced (p = 0.003), using wood, coal or charcoal as fuel for cooking 20 years ago instead of electricity (p = 0.02) and consuming traditional maize beer more than one time a week (p = 0.02; p-trend for increasing consumption = 0.05) although this may be due to chance given the large number of predictors considered in this analysis. Conclusions: Among HIV-negative subjects, patients with high anti-HHV-8 antibody titers are characterized by older age. Other associations that may be factors in the development of high anti- HHV-8 titers include exposure to poverty or a low socioeconomic status environment and consumption of traditional maize beer. The relationship between these variables and high anti- HHV-8 titers requires further, prospective study

Disease control tools to secure animal and public health in a densely populated world

Animal health is a prerequisite for global health, economic development, food security, food quality, and poverty reduction, while mitigating against climate change and biodiversity loss. We did a qualitative review of 53 infectious diseases in terrestrial animals with data from DISCONTOOLS, a specialist database and prioritisation model focusing on research gaps for improving infectious disease control in animals. Many diseases do not have any appropriate control tools, but the prioritisation model suggests that we should focus international efforts on Nipah virus infection, African swine fever, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, peste des petits ruminants, sheeppox and goatpox, avian influenza, Rift Valley fever, foot and mouth disease, and bovine tuberculosis, for the greatest impact on the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Easy to use and accurate diagnostics are available for many animal diseases. However, there is an urgent need for the development of stable and durable diagnostics that can differentiate infected animals from vaccinated animals, to exploit rapid technological advances, and to make diagnostics widely available and affordable. Veterinary vaccines are important for dealing with endemic, new, and emerging diseases. However, fundamental research is needed to improve the convenience of use and duration of immunity, and to establish performant marker vaccines. The largest gap in animal pharmaceuticals is the threat of pathogens developing resistance to available drugs, in particular for bacterial and parasitic (protozoal, helminth, and arthropod) pathogens. We propose and discuss five research priorities for animal health that will help to deliver a sustainable and healthy planet: vaccinology, antimicrobial resistance, climate mitigation and adaptation, digital health, and epidemic preparedness

Academic Performance and Behavioral Patterns

Identifying the factors that influence academic performance is an essential part of educational research. Previous studies have documented the importance of personality traits, class attendance, and social network structure. Because most of these analyses were based on a single behavioral aspect and/or small sample sizes, there is currently no quantification of the interplay of these factors. Here, we study the academic performance among a cohort of 538 undergraduate students forming a single, densely connected social network. Our work is based on data collected using smartphones, which the students used as their primary phones for two years. The availability of multi-channel data from a single population allows us to directly compare the explanatory power of individual and social characteristics. We find that the most informative indicators of performance are based on social ties and that network indicators result in better model performance than individual characteristics (including both personality and class attendance). We confirm earlier findings that class attendance is the most important predictor among individual characteristics. Finally, our results suggest the presence of strong homophily and/or peer effects among university students

Highlights from the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world's largest cosmic ray observatory. Our current exposure reaches nearly 40,000 km$^2$ str and provides us with an unprecedented quality data set. The performance and stability of the detectors and their enhancements are described. Data analyses have led to a number of major breakthroughs. Among these we discuss the energy spectrum and the searches for large-scale anisotropies. We present analyses of our X$_{max}$ data and show how it can be interpreted in terms of mass composition. We also describe some new analyses that extract mass sensitive parameters from the 100% duty cycle SD data. A coherent interpretation of all these recent results opens new directions. The consequences regarding the cosmic ray composition and the properties of UHECR sources are briefly discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figures, talk given at the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference, Rio de Janeiro 201

Ultrahigh-energy neutrino follow-up of Gravitational Wave events GW150914 and GW151226 with the Pierre Auger Observatory

On September 14, 2015 the Advanced LIGO detectors observed their first gravitational-wave (GW) transient GW150914. This was followed by a second GW event observed on December 26, 2015. Both events were inferred to have arisen from the merger of black holes in binary systems. Such a system may emit neutrinos if there are magnetic fields and disk debris remaining from the formation of the two black holes. With the surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory we can search for neutrinos with energy above 100 PeV from point-like sources across the sky with equatorial declination from about -65 deg. to +60 deg., and in particular from a fraction of the 90% confidence-level (CL) inferred positions in the sky of GW150914 and GW151226. A targeted search for highly-inclined extensive air showers, produced either by interactions of downward-going neutrinos of all flavors in the atmosphere or by the decays of tau leptons originating from tau-neutrino interactions in the Earth's crust (Earth-skimming neutrinos), yielded no candidates in the Auger data collected within $\pm 500$ s around or 1 day after the coordinated universal time (UTC) of GW150914 and GW151226, as well as in the same search periods relative to the UTC time of the GW candidate event LVT151012. From the non-observation we constrain the amount of energy radiated in ultrahigh-energy neutrinos from such remarkable events.Comment: Published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Added Report Numbe

Multi-resolution anisotropy studies of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory

We report a multi-resolution search for anisotropies in the arrival directions of cosmic rays detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory with local zenith angles up to $80^\circ$ and energies in excess of 4 EeV ($4 \times 10^{18}$ eV). This search is conducted by measuring the angular power spectrum and performing a needlet wavelet analysis in two independent energy ranges. Both analyses are complementary since the angular power spectrum achieves a better performance in identifying large-scale patterns while the needlet wavelet analysis, considering the parameters used in this work, presents a higher efficiency in detecting smaller-scale anisotropies, potentially providing directional information on any observed anisotropies. No deviation from isotropy is observed on any angular scale in the energy range between 4 and 8 EeV. Above 8 EeV, an indication for a dipole moment is captured; while no other deviation from isotropy is observed for moments beyond the dipole one. The corresponding $p$-values obtained after accounting for searches blindly performed at several angular scales, are $1.3 \times 10^{-5}$ in the case of the angular power spectrum, and $2.5 \times 10^{-3}$ in the case of the needlet analysis. While these results are consistent with previous reports making use of the same data set, they provide extensions of the previous works through the thorough scans of the angular scales.Comment: Published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Added Report Numbe

Calibration of the Logarithmic-Periodic Dipole Antenna (LPDA) Radio Stations at the Pierre Auger Observatory using an Octocopter

An in-situ calibration of a logarithmic periodic dipole antenna with a frequency coverage of 30 MHz to 80 MHz is performed. Such antennas are part of a radio station system used for detection of cosmic ray induced air showers at the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory, the so-called Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA). The directional and frequency characteristics of the broadband antenna are investigated using a remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) carrying a small transmitting antenna. The antenna sensitivity is described by the vector effective length relating the measured voltage with the electric-field components perpendicular to the incoming signal direction. The horizontal and meridional components are determined with an overall uncertainty of 7.4^{+0.9}_{-0.3} % and 10.3^{+2.8}_{-1.7} % respectively. The measurement is used to correct a simulated response of the frequency and directional response of the antenna. In addition, the influence of the ground conductivity and permittivity on the antenna response is simulated. Both have a negligible influence given the ground conditions measured at the detector site. The overall uncertainties of the vector effective length components result in an uncertainty of 8.8^{+2.1}_{-1.3} % in the square root of the energy fluence for incoming signal directions with zenith angles smaller than 60{\deg}.Comment: Published version. Updated online abstract only. Manuscript is unchanged with respect to v2. 39 pages, 15 figures, 2 table

Azimuthal asymmetry in the risetime of the surface detector signals of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The azimuthal asymmetry in the risetime of signals in Auger surface detector stations is a source of information on shower development. The azimuthal asymmetry is due to a combination of the longitudinal evolution of the shower and geometrical effects related to the angles of incidence of the particles into the detectors. The magnitude of the effect depends upon the zenith angle and state of development of the shower and thus provides a novel observable, $(\sec \theta)_\mathrm{max}$, sensitive to the mass composition of cosmic rays above $3 \times 10^{18}$ eV. By comparing measurements with predictions from shower simulations, we find for both of our adopted models of hadronic physics (QGSJETII-04 and EPOS-LHC) an indication that the mean cosmic-ray mass increases slowly with energy, as has been inferred from other studies. However, the mass estimates are dependent on the shower model and on the range of distance from the shower core selected. Thus the method has uncovered further deficiencies in our understanding of shower modelling that must be resolved before the mass composition can be inferred from $(\sec \theta)_\mathrm{max}$.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO