Domestic feline cutaneous leishmaniasis in the municipality of Ribas do Rio Pardo, Mato Grosso do Sul state, Brazil: a case report

Cutaneous leishmaniases are anthropozoonoses that involve many species of Leishmania and a wide variety of wild mammalian hosts, thus presenting high importance to public health. This study reports the second case of feline leishmaniasis in Mato Grosso do Sul state, in which Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis was found in a domestic cat from Ribas do Rio Pardo. Clinical signs were similar to those observed in other diseases commonly diagnosed in cats, such as cryptococcosis and sporotrichosis. Cutaneous leishmaniasis should, therefore, be added to differential diagnoses by feline veterinary practitioners, and also adequate investigations should be carried out to verify the relevance of domestic cats as L. amazonensis reservoirs

Comparison of DeLorme with Oxford resistance training techniques: effects of training on muscle damage markers

Aim: The purpose of this study was comparing DeLorme with Oxford methods through ten repetition maximum (10 RM) performance and serum creatine kinase (CK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity. Methods: Before and after four weeks of training with the DEL (n=16) or OXF (n=16) resistance training (RT) methods, rest and post exercise serum CK activity, serum LDH activity and 10 RM performance were measured and compared. Results: Both methods provide higher 10 RM results after training without significant differences between groups (p<0.05). Rest and post exercise CK and LDH activity was less after training with DeLorme (DEL) and Oxford (OXF), but the magnitude of the relative peak response (48-hr our 72-hr post exercise, respectively) was higher after each training protocol. Comparisons of CK activity between groups display non-significant differences. Conclusion: DEL or OXF training methods cause the same improvement on muscle performance and both alters CK activity without differences between methods in a 4-week RT program

Contribution of ULF Wave Activity to the Global Recovery of the Outer Radiation Belt During the Passage of a High-Speed Solar Wind Stream Observed in September 2014

Energy coupling between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere can affect the electron population in the outer radiation belt. However, the precise role of different internal and external mechanisms that leads to changes of the relativistic electron population is not entirely known. This paper describes how ultralow frequency (ULF) wave activity during the passage of Alfvénic solar wind streams contributes to the global recovery of the relativistic electron population in the outer radiation belt. To investigate the contribution of the ULF waves, we searched the Van Allen Probes data for a period in which we can clearly distinguish the enhancement of electron fluxes from the background. We found that the global recovery that started on 22 September 2014, which coincides with the corotating interaction region preceding a high-speed stream and the occurrence of persistent substorm activity, provides an excellent scenario to explore the contribution of ULF waves. To support our analyses, we employed ground- and space-based observational data and global magnetohydrodynamic simulations and calculated the ULF wave radial diffusion coefficients employing an empirical model. Observations show a gradual increase of electron fluxes in the outer radiation belt and a concomitant enhancement of ULF activity that spreads from higher to lower L-shells. Magnetohydrodynamic simulation results agree with observed ULF wave activity in the magnetotail, which leads to both fast and Alfvén modes in the magnetospheric nightside sector. The observations agree with the empirical model and are confirmed by phase space density calculations for this global recovery period

Searching for serial refreshing in working memory:Using response times to track the content of the focus of attention over time

One popular idea is that, to support maintenance of a set of elements over brief periods of time, the focus of attention rotates among the different elements thereby serially refreshing the content of Working Memory (WM). In the research reported here, probe letters were presented between to-be-remembered letters. Response times to these probes were used to infer the status of the different items in WM. If the focus of attention cycles from one item to the next, its content should be different at different points in time and this should be reflected in a change in the response time patterns over time. Across a set of four experiments, we demonstrate a striking pattern of invariance in the response time patterns over time, suggesting that either the content of the focus of attention did not change over time or that response times cannot be used to infer the content of the focus of attention. We discuss how this pattern constrains models of WM, attention, and human information processing

Asteroseismology and Interferometry

Asteroseismology provides us with a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of stellar structure and evolution. Recent developments, including the first systematic studies of solar-like pulsators, have boosted the impact of this field of research within Astrophysics and have led to a significant increase in the size of the research community. In the present paper we start by reviewing the basic observational and theoretical properties of classical and solar-like pulsators and present results from some of the most recent and outstanding studies of these stars. We centre our review on those classes of pulsators for which interferometric studies are expected to provide a significant input. We discuss current limitations to asteroseismic studies, including difficulties in mode identification and in the accurate determination of global parameters of pulsating stars, and, after a brief review of those aspects of interferometry that are most relevant in this context, anticipate how interferometric observations may contribute to overcome these limitations. Moreover, we present results of recent pilot studies of pulsating stars involving both asteroseismic and interferometric constraints and look into the future, summarizing ongoing efforts concerning the development of future instruments and satellite missions which are expected to have an impact in this field of research.Comment: Version as published in The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review, Volume 14, Issue 3-4, pp. 217-36

The long-term consequences of retrieval demands during working memory

Although it is well known that distraction impairs immediate retrieval of items maintained in working memory (WM; e.g., during complex span tasks), some evidence suggests that these items are more likely to be recalled from episodic memory (EM) compared with items that were studied without any distraction (e.g., during simple span tasks). One account for this delayed advantage of complex span over simple span, or the McCabe effect (McCabe, Journal of Memory and Language, 58[2], 480–494, 2008), is that complex span affords covert retrieval opportunities that facilitate later retrieval from EM by cumulatively reactivating each successively presented item after distraction. This explanation focuses on the processing that occurs during presentation and maintenance of the items, but no work to date has explored whether the differential demands of immediate retrieval between simple and complex span may explain the effect. Accordingly, these experiments examined the impact of immediate retrieval demands on the McCabe effect by comparing typical immediate serial-recall instructions (i.e., recalling the words in their exact order of presentation) to immediate free-recall (Experiments 1–2) and no-recall (Experiments 2 and 3) instructions. The results suggested that the nature of retrieval may constrain the McCabe effect in some situations (Experiments 1–2), but its demands do not drive the McCabe effect given that it was observed in both serial-recall and no-recall conditions (Experiment 3). Instead, activities such as covert retrieval during the processing phase may underlie the McCabe effect, thus further evidencing the importance of processing in WM for the long-term retention of information

Measurement of the t(t)over-bar production cross section in the dilepton channel in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV

The top-antitop quark (t (t) over bar) production cross section is measured in proton-proton collisions at root s = 8 TeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC, using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.3 fb(-1). The measurement is performed by analysing events with a pair of electrons or muons, or one electron and one muon, and at least two jets, one of which is identified as originating from hadronisation of a bottom quark. The measured cross section is 239 +/- 2 (stat.) +/- 11 (syst.) +/- 6 (lum.) pb, for an assumed top-quark mass of 172.5 GeV, in agreement with the prediction of the standard model