285 research outputs found
Searching for Lyme borreliosis in Australia: Results of a canine sentinel study
Background: Lyme borreliosis is a common tick-borne disease of the northern hemisphere that is caused by bacterial spirochaetes of the Borrelia burgdorferi (sensu lato) (Bbsl) complex. To date, there has been no convincing evidence for locally-acquired Lyme borreliosis on the Australian continent and there is currently a national debate concerning the nature and distributions of zoonotic tick-transmitted infectious disease in Australia. In studies conducted in Europe and the United States, dogs have been used as sentinels for tick-associated illness in people since they readily contact ticks that may harbour zoonotic pathogens. Applying this principle, we used a combination of serological assays to test dogs living in tick 'hot spots' and exposed to the Australian paralysis tick, Ixodes holocyclus, for evidence of exposure to B. burgdorferi (s.l.) antigens and other vector-borne pathogens. Results: Altogether, 555 dogs from four demographic groups were recruited into this study. One dog had evidence of exposure to Anaplasma spp. but no other dog was positive in screening tests. A total of 122 dogs (22.0%) had a kinetic ELISA (KELA) unit value > 100, and one dog with a high titre (399.9 KELA units) had been vaccinated against B. burgdorferi (sensu stricto) before travelling to Australia. Older dogs and those with a history of tick paralysis were significantly more likely to have a KELA unit value > 100. Line immunoassay analysis revealed moderate-to-weak (equivocal) bands in 27 (4.9%) dogs. Conclusions: Except for a single dog presumed to have been exposed to Anaplasma platys, infection with Anaplasma spp. B. burgdorferi (s.l.), Ehrlichia spp., and Dirofilaria immitis, was not detected in the cohort of Australian dogs evaluated in this study. These results provide further evidence that Lyme borreliosis does not exist in Australia but that cross-reacting antibodies (false positive results) are common and may be caused by the transmission of other tick-associated organisms
High resolution temporal transcriptomics of mouse embryoid body development reveals complex expression dynamics of coding and noncoding loci.
Cellular responses to stimuli are rapid and continuous and yet the vast majority of investigations of transcriptional responses during developmental transitions typically use long interval time courses; limiting the available interpretive power. Moreover, such experiments typically focus on protein-coding transcripts, ignoring the important impact of long noncoding RNAs. We therefore evaluated coding and noncoding expression dynamics at unprecedented temporal resolution (6-hourly) in differentiating mouse embryonic stem cells and report new insight into molecular processes and genome organization. We present a highly resolved differentiation cascade that exhibits coding and noncoding transcriptional alterations, transcription factor network interactions and alternative splicing events, little of which can be resolved by long-interval developmental time-courses. We describe novel short lived and cycling patterns of gene expression and dissect temporally ordered gene expression changes in response to transcription factors. We elucidate patterns in gene co-expression across the genome, describe asynchronous transcription at bidirectional promoters and functionally annotate known and novel regulatory lncRNAs. These findings highlight the complex and dynamic molecular events underlying mammalian differentiation that can only be observed though a temporally resolved time course
The Isgur-Wise function in a relativistic model for system
We use the Dirac equation with a ``(asymptotically free) Coulomb + (Lorentz
scalar) linear '' potential to estimate the light quark wavefunction for mesons in the limit . We use these wavefunctions to
calculate the Isgur-Wise function for orbital and radial
ground states in the phenomenologically interesting range . We find a simple expression for the zero-recoil slope, , where is the energy eigenvalue
of the light quark, which can be identified with the parameter
of the Heavy Quark Effective Theory. This result implies an upper bound of
for the slope . Also, because for a very light quark the size of the meson is determined mainly by the
``confining'' term in the potential , the shape of
is seen to be mostly sensitive to the dimensionless
ratio . We present results for the ranges of
parameters , and
light quark masses and compare to existing
experimental data and other theoretical estimates. Fits to the data give:
,
and [ARGUS
'93]; , and
[CLEO '93]; ${\bar\Lambda_{u,d}}^2/Comment: 22 pages, Latex, 4 figures (not included) available by fax or via
email upon reques
Relativistic Heavy--Ion Collisions in the Dynamical String--Parton Model
We develop and extend the dynamical string parton model. This model, which is
based on the salient features of QCD, uses classical Nambu-Got\=o strings with
the endpoints identified as partons, an invariant string breaking model of the
hadronization process, and interactions described as quark-quark interactions.
In this work, the original model is extended to include a phenomenological
quantization of the mass of the strings, an analytical technique for treating
the incident nucleons as a distribution of string configurations determined by
the experimentally measured structure function, the inclusion of the gluonic
content of the nucleon through the introduction of purely gluonic strings, and
the use of a hard parton-parton interaction taken from perturbative QCD
combined with a phenomenological soft interaction. The limited number of
parameters in the model are adjusted to and -- data. Utilizing
these parameters, the first calculations of the model for -- and
-- collisions are presented and found to be in reasonable agreement with
a broad set of data.Comment: 26 pages of text with 23 Postscript figures placed in tex
Scaling anomaly in cosmic string background
We show that the classical scale symmetry of a particle moving in cosmic
string background is broken upon inequivalent quantization of the classical
system, leading to anomaly. The consequence of this anomaly is the formation of
single bound state in the coupling interval \gamma\in(-1,1). The inequivalent
quantization is characterized by a 1-parameter family of self-adjoint extension
parameter \omega. It has been conjectured that the formation of loosely bound
state in cosmic string background may lead to the so called anomalous
scattering cross section for the particles, which is usually seen in molecular
physics.Comment: 4 pages,1 figur
New limits on nucleon decays into invisible channels with the BOREXINO Counting Test Facility
The results of background measurements with the second version of the
BOREXINO Counting Test Facility (CTF-II), installed in the Gran Sasso
Underground Laboratory, were used to obtain limits on the instability of
nucleons, bounded in nuclei, for decays into invisible channels ():
disappearance, decays to neutrinos, etc. The approach consisted of a search for
decays of unstable nuclides resulting from and decays of parents
C, C and O nuclei in the liquid scintillator and the water
shield of the CTF. Due to the extremely low background and the large mass (4.2
ton) of the CTF detector, the most stringent (or competitive) up-to-date
experimental bounds have been established: y, y, y and y, all at 90% C.L.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures,submitted to Phys.Lett.
Dynamic testing and transfer: An examination of children's problem-solving strategies
This study examined the problem-solving behaviour of 104 children (aged 7–8 years) when tackling construction-analogy tasks. Children were allocated to one of two conditions: either a form of unguided practice alone or this in combination with training based on graduated prompt techniques. Children's ability to solve figural open-ended analogy-problems was investigated as well as their ability to construct new analogy problems themselves. We examined children's progression in solving analogy problems and the variability in their strategy-use. Results showed that the group that received training made greater progress in solving analogy problems than children who only received unguided practice opportunities. However, the training appeared to give no additional improvement in performance on the transfer task over that of repeated unguided practice alone. Findings from this study demonstrate that an open construction task can provide additional information about children's cognitive learning potential
Concordance and factor structure of subthreshold positive symptoms in youth at clinical high risk for psychosis
Prevailing models of psychosis risk incorporate positive subthreshold symptoms as defining features of risk or transition to psychotic disorders. Despite this, relatively few studies have focused on characterizing longitudinal symptom features, such as prevalence, concordance and structure, which may aid in refining methods and enhancing classification and prediction efforts. The present study aimed to fill these gaps using longitudinal 24-month follow-up data from the well-characterized NAPLS-2 multi-site investigation of youth at clinical high risk (CHR) who had (n = 86) and had not (n = 268) transitioned to a threshold psychotic disorder since baseline. At baseline, among sub-delusional ideas, unusual thought content and suspicious/persecutory thinking were very common in CHR youth, and were highly concordant. Perceptual abnormalities (P4) were also common across youth regardless of symptom course and eventual transition to psychosis. Grandiose ideas were rare. Exploratory factor analysis extracted two constituent factors at multiple follow-up intervals, but there was marked instability in the structure over 24 months, and clear indicators for a single positive symptom factor. Together these findings support suggestions to combine sub-delusional symptoms into a single symptom category for classification purposes, in efforts to reduce clinical heterogeneity and ease measurement burden
- …