Importance of species‐specific antigens in the serodiagnosis of Chlamydia trachomatis reactive arthritis

Objectives. To determine the most sensitive and specific method of anti‐Chlamydia antibody measurement for the serodiagnosis of Chlamydia trachomatis reactive arthritis. Methods. Immunoblotting, enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assays using six synthetic peptides or recombinant antigens and a microimmunofluorescence test were used to determine the presence of IgG, IgM and IgA in serum samples from 17 patients with C. trachomatis reactive arthritis. Twenty patients with other inflammatory arthropathies without evidence of urogenital C. trachomatis infection were used as controls. Results. The best association of sensitivity (76%) and specificity (85%) was obtained when IgG and/or IgA reactivity to two species‐specific antigens was determined. These antigens were synthetic peptides, derived from species‐specific epitopes in the variable domain IV of the major outer membrane protein (MOMP) (Labsystems, Finland) and recombinant polypeptide encoded by open reading frame 3 of the plasmid (pgp3). Conclusions. IgG and/or IgA anti‐MOMP‐derived peptides and anti‐pgp3 could be useful for the diagnosis of probable C. trachomatis reactive arthriti

Reaching the quantum limit of sensitivity in electron spin resonance

We report pulsed electron-spin resonance (ESR) measurements on an ensemble of Bismuth donors in Silicon cooled at 10mK in a dilution refrigerator. Using a Josephson parametric microwave amplifier combined with high-quality factor superconducting micro-resonators cooled at millikelvin temperatures, we improve the state-of-the-art sensitivity of inductive ESR detection by nearly 4 orders of magnitude. We demonstrate the detection of 1700 bismuth donor spins in silicon within a single Hahn echo with unit signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio, reduced to just 150 spins by averaging a single Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill sequence. This unprecedented sensitivity reaches the limit set by quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field instead of thermal or technical noise, which constitutes a novel regime for magnetic resonance.Comment: Main text : 10 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary text : 16 pages, 8 figure

Electrical activation and electron spin resonance measurements of implanted bismuth in isotopically enriched silicon-28

We have performed continuous wave and pulsed electron spin resonance measurements of implanted bismuth donors in isotopically enriched silicon-28. Donors are electrically activated via thermal annealing with minimal diffusion. Damage from bismuth ion implantation is repaired during thermal annealing as evidenced by narrow spin resonance linewidths (B_pp=12uT and long spin coherence times T_2=0.7ms, at temperature T=8K). The results qualify ion implanted bismuth as a promising candidate for spin qubit integration in silicon.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Phenotypic analysis of heat stress in Holsteins using test-day production records and NASA POWER meteorological data.

Weather station data and test-day production records can be combined to quantify the effects of heat stress on production traits in dairy cattle. However, meteorological data sets that are retrieved from ground-based weather stations can be limited by spatial and temporal data gaps. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resources (NASA POWER) database provides meteorological data over regions where surface measurements are sparse or nonexistent. The first aim of this study was to determine whether NASA POWER data are a viable alternative resource of weather data for studying heat stress in Canadian Holsteins. The results showed that average, minima, and maxima ambient temperature and dewpoint temperature as well as 4 different types of temperature-humidity index (THI) values from NASA POWER were highly correlated to the corresponding values from weather stations (regression R2 > 0.80). However, the NASA POWER values for the daily average, minima, and maxima wind speed and relative humidity were poorly correlated to the corresponding weather station values (regression R2 = 0.10 to 0.49). The second aim of this study was to quantify the influence of heat stress on Canadian dairy cattle. This was achieved by determining the THI values at which milk, protein, and fat yield started to decline due to heat stress as well as the rates of decline in these traits after the respective thresholds, using segmented polynomial regression models. This was completed for both primiparous and multiparous cows from 5 regions in Canada (Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, the Prairies, and the Atlantic Maritime). The results showed that all production traits were negatively affected by heat stress and that the patterns of responses for milk, fat, and protein yields to increasing THI differed from each other. We found 3 THI thresholds for milk yield, 1 for fat yield, and 2 for protein yield. All thresholds marked a change in rate of decrease in production yield per unit THI, except for the first milk yield threshold, which marked a greater rate of increase. The first thresholds for milk yield ranged between 47 and 50, the second thresholds ranged between 61 and 69, and the third thresholds ranged between 72 and 76 THI units. The single THI threshold for fat yield ranged between 48 and 55 THI units. Finally, the first and second thresholds ranged between 58 and 62 THI units and 72 and 73 THI units for protein yield, respectively

Stark shift and field ionization of arsenic donors in 28^{28}Si-SOI structures

We develop an efficient back gate for silicon-on-insulator (SOI) devices operating at cryogenic temperatures, and measure the quadratic hyperfine Stark shift parameter of arsenic donors in isotopically purified $^{28}$Si-SOI layers using such structures. The back gate is implemented using MeV ion implantation through the SOI layer forming a metallic electrode in the handle wafer, enabling large and uniform electric fields up to $\sim$ 2 V/$\mu$m to be applied across the SOI layer. Utilizing this structure we measure the Stark shift parameters of arsenic donors embedded in the $^{28}$Si SOI layer and find a contact hyperfine Stark parameter of $\eta_a=-1.9\pm0.2\times10^{-3} \mu$m$^2$/V$^2$. We also demonstrate electric-field driven dopant ionization in the SOI device layer, measured by electron spin resonance.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Machine learning classification of breeding protocol descriptions from Canadian Holsteins.

Dairy farmers are motivated to ensure cows become pregnant in an optimal and timely manner. Although timed artificial insemination (TAI) is a successful management tool in dairy cattle, it masks an animal's innate fertility performance, likely reducing the accuracy of genetic evaluations for fertility traits. Therefore, separating fertility traits based on the recorded management technique involved in the breeding process or adding the breeding protocol as an effect to the model can be viable approaches to address the potential bias caused by such management decisions. Nevertheless, there is a lack of specificity and uniformity in the recording of breeding protocol descriptions by dairy farmers. Therefore, this study investigated the use of 8 supervised machine learning algorithms to classify 1,835 unique breeding protocol descriptions from 981 herds into the following 2 classes: TAI or other than TAI. Our results showed that models that used a stacking classifier algorithm had the highest Matthews correlation coefficient (0.94 ± 0.04, mean ± SD) and maximized precision and recall (F1-score = 0.96 ± 0.03) on test data. Nonetheless, their F1-scores on test data were not different from 5 out of the other 7 algorithms considered. Altogether, results presented herein suggest machine learning algorithms can be used to produce robust models that correctly identify TAI protocols from dairy cattle breeding records, thus opening the opportunity for unbiased genetic evaluation of animals based on their natural fertility

Short-Pulse, Compressed Ion Beams at the Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment

We have commenced experiments with intense short pulses of ion beams on the Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment (NDCX-II) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with 1-mm beam spot size within 2.5 ns full-width at half maximum. The ion kinetic energy is 1.2 MeV. To enable the short pulse duration and mm-scale focal spot radius, the beam is neutralized in a 1.5-meter-long drift compression section following the last accelerator cell. A short-focal-length solenoid focuses the beam in the presence of the volumetric plasma that is near the target. In the accelerator, the line-charge density increases due to the velocity ramp imparted on the beam bunch. The scientific topics to be explored are warm dense matter, the dynamics of radiation damage in materials, and intense beam and beam-plasma physics including select topics of relevance to the development of heavy-ion drivers for inertial fusion energy. Below the transition to melting, the short beam pulses offer an opportunity to study the multi-scale dynamics of radiation-induced damage in materials with pump-probe experiments, and to stabilize novel metastable phases of materials when short-pulse heating is followed by rapid quenching. First experiments used a lithium ion source; a new plasma-based helium ion source shows much greater charge delivered to the target.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. Submitted to the proceedings for the Ninth International Conference on Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications, IFSA 201

Estimation of Genetic Parameters of Heat Tolerance for Production Traits in Canadian Holsteins Cattle.

Understanding how cows respond to heat stress has helped to provide effective herd management practices to tackle this environmental challenge. The possibility of selecting animals that are genetically more heat tolerant may provide additional means to maintain or even improve the productivity of the Canadian dairy industry, which is facing a shifting environment due to climate changes. The objective of this study was to estimate the genetic parameters for heat tolerance of milk, fat, and protein yields in Canadian Holstein cows. A total of 1.3 million test-day records from 195,448 first-parity cows were available. A repeatability test-day model fitting a reaction norm on the temperature-humidity index (THI) was used to estimate the genetic parameters. The estimated genetic correlations between additive genetic effect for production and for heat tolerance ranged from -0.13 to -0.21, indicating an antagonistic relationship between the level of production and heat tolerance. Heritability increased marginally as THI increased above its threshold for milk yield (0.20 to 0.23) and protein yield (0.14 to 0.16) and remained constant for fat yield (0.17). A Spearman rank correlation between the estimated breeding values under thermal comfort and under heat stress showed a potential genotype by environmental interaction. The existence of a genetic variability for heat tolerance allows for the selection of more heat tolerant cows

Wavefront sets and polarizations on supermanifolds

In this paper we develop the foundations for microlocal analysis on supermanifolds. Making use of pseudodifferential operators on supermanifolds as introduced by Rempel and Schmitt, we define a suitable notion of super wavefront set for superdistributions which generalizes Dencker's polarization sets for vector-valued distributions to supergeometry. In particular, our super wavefront sets detect polarization information of the singularities of superdistributions. We prove a refined pullback theorem for superdistributions along supermanifold morphisms, which as a special case establishes criteria when two superdistributions may be multiplied. As an application of our framework, we study the singularities of distributional solutions of a supersymmetric field theory