An on-going investigation into the ecological determinants of Lyme disease in the South Downs National Park, South East England: the potential for 'One Health' based interventions

Lyme borreliosis (LB) is a tick-borne infectious disease, with UK annual diagnoses trebling over the last two decades. The widening UK distribution of the main LB tick vector (Ixodes ricinus) has been linked to deer population expansion. However, the wider ecological determinants that affect the density of infected ticks are poorly understood. Deer have key roles in most, but not all, UK LB disease systems, but they are non-competent hosts for the pathogen itself, and small mammals or birds are usually obligatory disease reservoirs. In addition, the relapsing fever spirochete Borrelia miyomotoi was detected in the UK in 2014, but the spread and extent of this emerging human pathogen is still unknown. To date, five sites have been drag-sampled across the South Downs National Park (SDNP); with ticks being successfully obtained from all sites. In addition, ticks have been collected from a further sixteen sites where individual or multiple deer were sampled. Currently, ticks are undergoing genetic analysis to determine the host animals involved in the disease cycle, and the presence of Borrelia sp. The study aims to provide a mapped assessment of LB risk across the South Downs National Park, and identify the disease reservoir community composition. The results will help elucidate the causal factors in the SDNP, and support development of policies that avoid or minimise conflicts between public and ecosystem health

Ecological determinants of Lyme borreliosis hazard in the South Downs National Park and the potential for One Health based interventions (work in progress)

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Modeling the instantaneous response of glaciers after the collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf

Following the disintegration of the Larsen B Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, in 2002, regular surveillance of its ∼20 tributary glaciers has revealed a response which is varied and complex in both space and time. The major outlets have accelerated and thinned, smaller glaciers have shown little or no change, and glaciers flowing into the remnant Scar Inlet Ice Shelf have responded with delay. In this study we present the first areawide numerical analysis of glacier dynamics before and immediately after the collapse of the ice shelf, combining new data sets and a state‐of‐the‐art numerical ice flow model. We simulate the loss of buttressing at the grounding line and find a good qualitative agreement between modeled changes in glacier flow and observations. Through this study, we seek to improve confidence in our numerical models and their ability to capture the complex mechanical coupling between floating ice shelves and grounded ice

Hyper-velocity impact test and simulation of a double-wall shield concept for the Wide Field Monitor aboard LOFT

The space mission LOFT (Large Observatory For X-ray Timing) was selected in 2011 by ESA as one of the candidates for the M3 launch opportunity. LOFT is equipped with two instruments, the Large Area Detector (LAD) and the Wide Field Monitor (WFM), based on Silicon Drift Detectors (SDDs). In orbit, they would be exposed to hyper-velocity impacts by environmental dust particles, which might alter the surface properties of the SDDs. In order to assess the risk posed by these events, we performed simulations in ESABASE2 and laboratory tests. Tests on SDD prototypes aimed at verifying to what extent the structural damages produced by impacts affect the SDD functionality have been performed at the Van de Graaff dust accelerator at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK) in Heidelberg. For the WFM, where we expect a rate of risky impacts notably higher than for the LAD, we designed, simulated and successfully tested at the plasma accelerator at the Technical University in Munich (TUM) a double-wall shielding configuration based on thin foils of Kapton and Polypropylene. In this paper we summarize all the assessment, focussing on the experimental test campaign at TUM.Comment: Proc. SPIE 9144, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 91446

Effects of impurity scattering on electron-phonon resonances in semiconductor superlattice high-field transport

A non-equilibrium Green's function method is applied to model high-field quantum transport and electron-phonon resonances in semiconductor superlattices. The field-dependent density of states for elastic (impurity) scattering is found non-perturbatively in an approach which can be applied to both high and low electric fields. I-V curves, and specifically electron-phonon resonances, are calculated by treating the inelastic (LO phonon) scattering perturbatively. Calculations show how strong impurity scattering suppresses the electron-phonon resonance peaks in I-V curves, and their detailed sensitivity to the size, strength and concentration of impurities.Comment: 7 figures, 1 tabl