Rabies in Iowa and the Upper Midwest: What a Rural Practitioner Should Know

A thorough history of rabies in the United States has been written by Steele,1 who begins by writing that the first reference to rabies in the United States occurred, in dogs, in Virginia and North Carolina, in 1753 and 1762, respectively. An outbreak that occurred in Boston and other North American towns in 1768 is considered the first major epizootic in North America. Canine madness, as it was called, raged allover colonial North America throughout the late 1700\u27s. Rabies reappeared in the eastern US in 1810 and in Ohio assumed an epizootic character affecting dogs, foxes, and wolves. Steele goes on to report that, following the Civil War, rabies was widespread across most of the USA. Mad dogs were reported in many urban as well as rural areas. Sylvatic rabies was recognized in the eastern US in the 18th century, and in the 19th century the disease was seen in foxes throughout the eastern part of the country

Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) Local Action Strategy (LAS) Project 3B “Southeast Florida Coral Reef Fishery-Independent Baseline Assessment” – 2012-2013 Interim Report

Reef fishes are important biologic, ecologic, and economic resources of the marine ecosystem which must be managed for sustainability. Until recently there was no long-term monitoring program in place to assess the condition of fish resources of the northern Florida Reef Tract (FRT) (northern Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Martin counties). An assessment/monitoring plan for the northern Florida reef tract was designed through a joint cooperative effort by scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, NOAA-Southeast Fisheries Science Center and Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center (NSUOC). This report is a synoptic compilation of the two-year data collection from all partner agencies, and includes data from the 234 and 354 sites or Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) sampled in 2012 and 2013, respectively. The majority of the field work was accomplished through funding granted to NSUOC. Significant amounts of data were also collected by multiple partner agencies that were able to dedicate their time and resources to the project. In 2012 funding for the first year of data collection was awarded by Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) to NSUOC on July 1st, 2012. Funding for a second year of sampling was awarded by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) to NSUOC through the National Coral Reef Institute Cooperative Agreement on June 18, 2013. Field sampling for each year began in May and ran through October. Funding for a third year of data collection (2014) and a final report was awarded by NOAA CRCP to NSUOC. Over the course of the two-year study period for this interim report, \u3e170,000 individual fish of 266 species were recorded. Total mean density for all sites and strata combined for both years was 162 fishes/SSU. For 2012, mean density was 151 fishes/SSU; in 2013 it was 168 fishes/SSU. However, in general, 2012 counts were higher at most sites. When low vs. high slope strata were compared, the high slope strata showed higher fish density. Likewise, species richness was higher at most sites in 2012 than 2013 and was also significantly higher for both years on sites with high slope. Multivariate analyses showed patterns in the reef fish communities associated with benthic habitats. Water depth was a primary determinant of fish distribution with differences in assemblages between shallow and deep sites. Also most of the surveys in the southern regions (Broward-Miami, Deerfield, and South Palm Beach) clustered tightly together indicating high similarity between communities in the deep habitats within these regions. Conversely, fish communities in North Palm Beach and Martin were much more variable and mostly separated in disparate areas of the plot. This suggests that the Martin and North Palm Beach fish communities are distinctly different from the southern regions. The dataset, in its entirety, provides the opportunity for further mining to examine individual species and reef fish assemblage correlations with a host of abiotic and biotic variables. Thus, from both management and ecological-sciences perspectives, it is a valuable resource. It is already clear there are significant differences in the geographic distribution of reef fishes at local and regional scales. There are interacting strata and latitudinal differences in total reef fish abundance, species distribution, sizes, and assemblage structure. The combination of data from all three years will provide a complete regional baseline fishery-independent assessment

Accurate <i>ab initio</i> ro-vibronic spectroscopy of the X²&#8719; CCN radical using explicitly correlated methods

Explicitly correlated CCSD(T)-F12b calculations have been carried out with systematic sequences of correlation consistent basis sets to determine accurate near-equilibrium potential energy surfaces for the X&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;&#8719; and a&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt;&#931;&lt;sup&gt;−&lt;/sup&gt; electronic states of the CCN radical. After including contributions due to core correlation, scalar relativity, and higher order electron correlation effects, the latter utilizing large-scale multireference configuration interaction calculations, the resulting surfaces were employed in variational calculations of the ro-vibronic spectra. These calculations also included the use of accurate spin-orbit and dipole moment matrix elements. The resulting ro-vibronic transition energies, including the Renner-Teller sub-bands involving the bending mode, agree with the available experimental data to within 3 cm&lt;sup&gt;−1&lt;/sup&gt; in all cases. Full sets of spectroscopic constants are reported using the usual second-order perturbation theory expressions. Integrated absorption intensities are given for a number of selected vibronic band origins. A computational procedure similar to that used in the determination of the potential energy functions was also utilized to predict the formation enthalpy of CCN, &#916;H&lt;sub&gt;f&lt;/sub&gt;(0K) = 161.7 &#177; 0.5 kcal/mol

Southeast Florida Coral Reef Fishery-Independent Baseline Assessment

Reef fishes are important biologic, ecologic, and economic resources of the marine ecosystem which must be managed for sustainability. Until recently, there was no long-term monitoring program in place to assess the condition of reef fish resources of the northern Florida Reef Tract (FRT) (northern Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Martin counties). An assessment/monitoring plan for the northern portion of the Florida reef tract was designed through a joint cooperative effort by scientists at the University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) and Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center (NSUOC). This report is a synoptic compilation of a three-year data collection from all partner agencies, and includes data from the 232, 324, and 308 sites or Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) sampled in 2012, 2013, and 2014, respectively. The majority of the field work was accomplished through funding provided to NSUOC by the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP), with supplementary funding provided by FDEP-CRCP. Significant amounts of data were also collected by multiple Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative (SEFCRI) partner agencies that were able to dedicate their time and resources to the project. Field sampling for each year began in May and ran through October. During the three-year study period, \u3e560,000 individual fish of 289 species were recorded. Total mean density for all sites and strata combined for all three years was 170 fishes/SSU (Second-Stage Sample Unit = SSU or site, 177 m2). For 2012, mean density was 151 fishes/SSU; in 2013 it was 168 fishes/SSU; and in 2014 it was 186 fishes/SSU. When low vs. high slope strata were compared, the high slope strata showed higher fish density. Multivariate analyses showed patterns in the reef fish communities associated with benthic habitats. Water depth was a primary determinant of fish distribution with differences in assemblages between shallow and deep sites. Also most of the surveys in the southern regions (Broward-Miami, Deerfield, and South Palm Beach) clustered tightly together indicating high similarity between communities in the deep habitats within these regions. Conversely, fish communities in North Palm Beach and Martin were much more variable and mostly separated in disparate areas of the plot. This suggests that the Martin and North Palm Beach fish communities are distinctly different from the southern regions. The dataset, in its entirety, provides the opportunity for further mining to examine individual species and reef fish assemblage correlations with a host of abiotic and biotic variables. Thus, from both management and ecological-sciences perspectives, these data are a valuable resource. It is already clear there are significant differences in the geographic distribution of reef fishes at local and regional scales. There are interacting strata and latitudinal differences in total reef fish abundance, species distribution, sizes, and assemblage structure. The combination of data from all three years provides a complete regional baseline fishery-independent assessment

B and I-band optical micro-variability observations of the BL Lac objects S5 2007+777 and 3C371

We have observed S5 2007+777 and 3C371 in the B and I bands for 13 and 8 nights, respectively, during various observing runs in 2001, 2002 and 2004. The observations resulted in almost evenly sampled light curves, 6-9 hours long. We do not detect any flares within the observed light curves, but we do observe small amplitude, significant variations, in both bands, on time scales of hours and days. The average variability amplitude on time scales of minutes/hours is 2.5% and 1-1.5% in the case of S5 2007+777 and 3C371, respectively. The average amplitudes increase to 5-12% and 4-6%, respectively, on time scales of days. We find that the B and I band variations are highly correlated, on both short and long time scales. During the 2004 observations, which resulted in the longest light curves, we observe two well defined flux-decay and rising trends in the light curves of both objects. When the flux decays, we observe significant delays, with the B band flux decaying faster than the flux in the I band. As a result, we also observe significant, flux related spectral variations as well. The flux-spectral relation is rather complicated, with loop-like structures forming during the flux evolution. The presence of spectral variations imply that the observed variability is not caused by geometric effects. On the other hand, our results are fully consistent with the hypothesis that the observed variations are caused by perturbations which affect different regions in the jet of the sources.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Substrate-mediated regulation of the arginine transporter of Toxoplasma gondii

Intracellular parasites, such as the apicomplexan Toxoplasma gondii, are adept at scavenging nutrients from their host. However, there is little understanding of how parasites sense and respond to the changing nutrient environments they encounter during an infection. TgApiAT1, a member of the apicomplexan ApiAT family of amino acid transporters, is the major uptake route for the essential amino acid L-arginine (Arg) in T. gondii. Here, we show that the abundance of TgApiAT1, and hence the rate of uptake of Arg, is regulated by the availability of Arg in the parasite's external environment, increasing in response to decreased [Arg]. Using a luciferase-based 'biosensor' strain of T. gondii, we demonstrate that the expression of TgApiAT1 varies between different organs within the host, indicating that parasites are able to modulate TgApiAT1-dependent uptake of Arg as they encounter different nutrient environments in vivo. Finally, we show that Arg-dependent regulation of TgApiAT1 expression is post-transcriptional, mediated by an upstream open reading frame (uORF) in the TgApiAT1 transcript, and we provide evidence that the peptide encoded by this uORF is critical for mediating regulation. Together, our data reveal the mechanism by which an apicomplexan parasite responds to changes in the availability of a key nutrient