Towards a resource-based habitat approach for spatial modelling of vector-borne disease risks

Given the veterinary and public health impact of vector-borne diseases, there is a clear need to assess the suitability of landscapes for the emergence and spread of these diseases. Current approaches for predicting disease risks neglect key features of the landscape as components of the functional habitat of vectors or hosts, and hence of the pathogen. Empirical–statistical methods do not explicitly incorporate biological mechanisms, whereas current mechanistic models are rarely spatially explicit; both methods ignore the way animals use the landscape (i.e. movement ecology). We argue that applying a functional concept for habitat, i.e. the resource-based habitat concept (RBHC), can solve these issues. The RBHC offers a framework to identify systematically the different ecological resources that are necessary for the completion of the transmission cycle and to relate these resources to (combinations of) landscape features and other environmental factors. The potential of the RBHC as a framework for identifying suitable habitats for vector-borne pathogens is explored and illustrated with the case of bluetongue virus, a midge-transmitted virus affecting ruminants. The concept facilitates the study of functional habitats of the interacting species (vectors as well as hosts) and provides new insight into spatial and temporal variation in transmission opportunities and exposure that ultimately determine disease risks. It may help to identify knowledge gaps and control options arising from changes in the spatial configuration of key resources across the landscape. The RBHC framework may act as a bridge between existing mechanistic and statistical modelling approaches

The magnetic field and geometry of the oblique shock in the jet of 3C 346

We investigate the brightest regions of the kpc-scale jet in the powerful radio galaxy 3C 346, using new optical HST ACS/F606W polarimetry together with Chandra X-ray data and 14.9 GHz and 22.5 GHz VLA radio polarimetry. The jet shows a close correspondence in optical and radio morphology, while the X-ray emission shows an 0.80 +/- 0.17 kpc offset from the optical and radio peak positions. Optical and radio polarimetry show the same apparent magnetic field position angle and fractional polarization at the brightest knot, where the jet undergoes a large kink of almost 70 degrees in the optical and radio images. The apparent field direction here is well-aligned with the new jet direction, as predicted by earlier work that suggested the kink was the result of an oblique shock. We have explored models of the polarization from oblique shocks to understand the geometry of the 3C 346 jet, and find that the upstream flow is likely to be highly relativistic (0.91 +0.05 / -0.07 c), where the plane of the shock front is inclined at an angle of 51 (+/- 11) degrees to the upstream flow which is at an angle 14 (+8 / -7) degrees to our line of sight. The actual deflection angle of the jet in this case is only 22 degrees.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by MNRA

Constraining the optical emission from the double pulsar system J0737-3039

We present the first optical observations of the unique system J0737-3039 (composed of two pulsars, hereafter PSR-A and PSR-B). Ultra-deep optical observations, performed with the High Resolution Camera of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the Hubble Space Telescope could not detect any optical emission from the system down to m_F435W=27.0 and m_F606W=28.3. The estimated optical flux limits are used to constrain the three-component (two thermal and one non-thermal) model recently proposed to reproduce the XMM-Newton X-ray spectrum. They suggest the presence of a break at low energies in the non-thermal power law component of PSR-A and are compatible with the expected black-body emission from the PSR-B surface. The corresponding efficiency of the optical emission from PSR-A's magnetosphere would be comparable to that of other Myr-old pulsars, thus suggesting that this parameter may not dramatically evolve over a time-scale of a few Myr.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, ApJ accepte

Анализ целесообразности применения модели LCL с источником высших гармонических тока при исследовании явлений резонанса в сетях питания

The paper considers a power system model of a plant with one capacitor bank and with one current source of higher harmonics for higher power factor. The laboratory research results of this system and practical application of the proposed model are given in the paper.Данная статья рассматривает модель промышленной энергетической сети с одной конденсаторной батареей и источником высших гармоник тока с целью увеличения коэффициента реактивной мощности. В статье представлены результаты лабораторных исследований и рекомендации по практическому применению предложенной модели

Efficacy and safety of dasatinib vs. Imatinib in Latin american subpopulation from the dasision trial in patients with newly diagnosed chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in chronic phase (CP)

sem informação100120th Congress of European-Hematology-Associationsem informaçã

Intravascular lymphoma: Clinical presentation, natural history, management and prognostic factors in a series of 38 cases, with special emphasis on the 'cutaneous variant'

Despite its recognition as a distinct, extremely rare entity, no large studies of intravascular lymphoma (IVL) have been reported. The clinico-pathological characteristics of 38 human immunodeficiency virus-negative patients with IVL diagnosed in Western countries were reviewed to better delineate clinical presentation, clinical variants, natural history and optimal therapy. The IVL is an aggressive and usually disseminated disease (Ann Arbor stage IV in 68% of cases) that predominantly affects elderly patients (median age 70 years, range: 34-90; male:female ratio 0.9), resulting in poor Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status (ECOG-PS >1 in 61%), B symptoms (55%), anaemia (63%) and high serum lactate dehydrogenase level (86%). The brain and skin are the most common sites of disease. In contrast to previous reports, hepatosplenic involvement (26%) and bone marrow infiltration (32%) were found to be common features in IVL, while nodal disease was confirmed as rare (11% of cases). Patients with disease limited to the skin ('cutaneous variant'; 26% of cases) were invariably females with a normal platelet count, and exhibited a significantly better outcome than the remaining patients, which deserves further investigation. Overall survival was usually poor; however, the early use of intensive therapies could improve outcome in young patients with unfavourable features. ECOG-PS >1, 'cutaneous variant', stage I and chemotherapy use were independently associated with improved survival

The Massive Star Content of NGC 3603

We investigate the massive star content of NGC 3603, the closest known giant H II region. We have obtained spectra of 26 stars in the central cluster using the Baade 6.5-m telescope (Magellan I). Of these 26 stars, 16 had no previous spectroscopy. We also obtained photometry of all of the stars with previous or new spectroscopy, primarily using archival HST ACS/HRC images. We use these data to derive an improved distance to the cluster, and to construct an H-R diagram for discussing the masses and ages of the massive star content of this cluster.Comment: Accepted by the Astronomical Journal. This revision updates the coordinates in Table 1 by (-0.18sec, +0.2") to place them on the UCAC2 syste