Cryopreservation and long-term in vitro maintenance of second-stage larvae of Toxocara canis.

Second stage larvae of Toxocara canis were isolated from developed eggs, frozen in Eagle's Minimal Essential Medium with 5% dimethyl sulfoxide or 10% glycerol as cryoprotectants according to two cooling schedules and maintained in liquid nitrogen for 1 week. After thawing, the previously frozen larvae (FL) and unfrozen controls (CL) were maintained in a chemically defined medium in vitro for 35 weeks. While CL had motility rates around 95% to 97% throughout the experiment, previously frozen larvae (FL) exhibited rates of 48%-58% at the beginning and of 19%-39% at the end of the 35 week in vitro maintenance period. The surviving FL and CL larvae proved to be infective for mice. Excretory/secretory (ES) antigens isolated from several batches of culture medium in which FL and CL had been maintained reacted in the ELISA with human sera containing antibodies against Toxocara. Antigens from FL and CL separated by SDS-PAGE and silver-stained showed some differences in polypeptide patterns. Western-blot analysis revealed that these differences were not related to antigenic polypeptides but were most likely caused by substances without antigenic properties originating from dead and/or degenerating larvae. It can be concluded that ES antigens produced by previously frozen larvae are essentially the same as those derived from unfrozen controls. The value of cryopreservation of T. canis larvae for routine production of ES antigens will be further evaluated

Isolated Eigenvalues of the Ferromagnetic Spin-J XXZ Chain with Kink Boundary Conditions

We investigate the low-lying excited states of the spin J ferromagnetic XXZ chain with Ising anisotropy Delta and kink boundary conditions. Since the third component of the total magnetization, M, is conserved, it is meaningful to study the spectrum for each fixed value of M. We prove that for J>= 3/2 the lowest excited eigenvalues are separated by a gap from the rest of the spectrum, uniformly in the length of the chain. In the thermodynamic limit, this means that there are a positive number of excitations above the ground state and below the essential spectrum

Implementing Quantum Gates using the Ferromagnetic Spin-J XXZ Chain with Kink Boundary Conditions

We demonstrate an implementation scheme for constructing quantum gates using unitary evolutions of the one-dimensional spin-J ferromagnetic XXZ chain. We present numerical results based on simulations of the chain using the time-dependent DMRG method and techniques from optimal control theory. Using only a few control parameters, we find that it is possible to implement one- and two-qubit gates on a system of spin-3/2 XXZ chains, such as Not, Hadamard, Pi-8, Phase, and C-Not, with fidelity levels exceeding 99%.Comment: Updated Acknowledgement

Parallelized Hybrid Monte Carlo Simulation of Stress-Induced Texture Evolution

A parallelized hybrid Monte Carlo (HMC) methodology is devised to quantify the microstructural evolution of polycrystalline material under elastic loading. The approach combines a time explicit material point method (MPM) for the mechanical stresses with a calibrated Monte Carlo (cMC) model for grain boundary kinetics. The computed elastic stress generates an additional driving force for grain boundary migration. The paradigm is developed, tested, and subsequently used to quantify the effect of elastic stress on the evolution of texture in nickel polycrystals. As expected, elastic loading favors grains which appear softer with respect to the loading direction. The rate of texture evolution is also quantified, and an internal variable rate equation is constructed which predicts the time evolution of the distribution of orientations.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure

Transport of interface states in the Heisenberg chain

We demonstrate the transport of interface states in the one-dimensional ferromagnetic Heisenberg model by a time dependent magnetic field. Our analysis is based on the standard Adiabatic Theorem. This is supplemented by a numerical analysis via the recently developed time dependent DMRG method, where we calculate the adiabatic constant as a function of the strength of the magnetic field and the anisotropy of the interaction.Comment: minor revision, final version; 13 pages, 4 figure

International consensus on terminology to be used in the field of echinococcoses

Echinococcoses require the involvement of specialists from nearly all disciplines; standardization of the terminology used in the field is thus crucial. To harmonize echinococcosis terminology on sound scientific and linguistic grounds, the World Association of Echinococcosis launched a Formal Consensus process. Under the coordination of a Steering and Writing Group (SWG), a Consultation and Rating Group (CRG) had the main missions of (1) providing input on the list of terms drafted by the SWG, taking into account the available literature and the participants' experience; and (2) providing independent rating on all debated terms submitted to vote. The mission of the Reading and Review Group (RRG) was to give an opinion about the recommendation paper in terms of readability, acceptability and applicability. The main achievements of this process were: (1) an update of the current nomenclature of Echinococcus spp.; (2) an agreement on three names of diseases due to Echinococcus spp.: Cystic Echinococcosis (CE), Alveolar Echinococcosis (AE) and Neotropical Echinococcosis (NE), and the exclusion of all other names; (3) an agreement on the restricted use of the adjective "hydatid" to refer to the cyst and fluid due to E. granulosus sensu lato; and (4) an agreement on a standardized description of the surgical operations for CE, according to the "Approach, cyst Opening, Resection, and Completeness" (AORC) framework. In addition, 95 "approved" and 60 "rejected" terms were listed. The recommendations provided in this paper will be applicable to scientific publications in English and communication with professionals. They will be used for translation into other languages spoken in endemic countries. [Abstract copyright: © D.A. Vuitton et al., published by EDP Sciences, 2020.

In silico evolution of diauxic growth

The glucose effect is a well known phenomenon whereby cells, when presented with two different nutrients, show a diauxic growth pattern, i.e. an episode of exponential growth followed by a lag phase of reduced growth followed by a second phase of exponential growth. Diauxic growth is usually thought of as a an adaptation to maximise biomass production in an environment offering two or more carbon sources. While diauxic growth has been studied widely both experimentally and theoretically, the hypothesis that diauxic growth is a strategy to increase overall growth has remained an unconfirmed conjecture. Here, we present a minimal mathematical model of a bacterial nutrient uptake system and metabolism. We subject this model to artificial evolution to test under which conditions diauxic growth evolves. As a result, we find that, indeed, sequential uptake of nutrients emerges if there is competition for nutrients and the metabolism/uptake system is capacity limited. However, we also find that diauxic growth is a secondary effect of this system and that the speed-up of nutrient uptake is a much larger effect. Notably, this speed-up of nutrient uptake coincides with an overall reduction of efficiency. Our two main conclusions are: (i) Cells competing for the same nutrients evolve rapid but inefficient growth dynamics. (ii) In the deterministic models we use here no substantial lag-phase evolves. This suggests that the lag-phase is a consequence of stochastic gene expression

Modeling Elasticity in Crystal Growth

A new model of crystal growth is presented that describes the phenomena on atomic length and diffusive time scales. The former incorporates elastic and plastic deformation in a natural manner, and the latter enables access to times scales much larger than conventional atomic methods. The model is shown to be consistent with the predictions of Read and Shockley for grain boundary energy, and Matthews and Blakeslee for misfit dislocations in epitaxial growth.Comment: 4 pages, 10 figure

A Pilot Study on Developing Mucosal Vaccine against Alveolar Echinococcosis (AE) Using Recombinant Tetraspanin 3: Vaccine Efficacy and Immunology

Humans and rodents become infected with E. multilocularis by oral ingesting of the eggs, which then develop into cysts in the liver and progress an endless proliferation. Untreated AE has a fatality rate of >90% in humans. Tetraspanins have been identified in Schistosoma and showed potential as the prospective vaccine candidates. In our recent study, we first identified seven tetraspanins in E. multilocularis and evaluated their protective efficacies as vaccines against AE when subcutaneously administered to BALB/c mice. Mucosal immunization of protective proteins is able to induce strong local and systemic immune responses, which might play a crucial role in protecting humans against E. multilocularis infection via the intestine, blood and liver. We focused on Em-TSP3, which achieved significant vaccine efficacy via both s.c. and i.n. routes. The adjuvanticity of nontoxic CpG OND as i.n. vaccine adjuvant was evaluated. The widespread expression of Em-TSP3 in all the developmental stages of E. multilocularis, and the strong local and systemic immune responses evoked by i.n. administration of rEm-TSP3 with CpG OND adjuvant suggest that this study might open the way for developing efficient, nontoxic human mucosal vaccines against AE