Achieving high coverage of larval-stage mosquito surveillance: challenges for a community-based mosquito control programme in urban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Background: Preventing malaria by controlling mosquitoes in their larval stages requires regular sensitive monitoring of vector populations and intervention coverage. The study assessed the effectiveness of operational, community-based larval habitat surveillance systems within the Urban Malaria Control Programme (UMCP) in urban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Methods: Cross-sectional surveys were carried out to assess the ability of community-owned resource persons (CORPs) to detect mosquito breeding sites and larvae in areas with and without larviciding. Potential environmental and programmatic determinants of habitat detection coverage and detection sensitivity of mosquito larvae were recorded during guided walks with 64 different CORPs to assess the accuracy of data each had collected the previous day. Results: CORPs reported the presence of 66.2% of all aquatic habitats (1,963/2,965), but only detected Anopheles larvae in 12.6% (29/230) of habitats that contained them. Detection sensitivity was particularly low for late-stage Anopheles (2.7%, 3/111), the most direct programmatic indicator of malaria vector productivity. Whether a CORP found a wet habitat or not was associated with his/her unfamiliarity with the area (Odds Ratio (OR) [95% confidence interval (CI)] = 0.16 [0.130, 0.203], P < 0.001), the habitat type (P < 0.001) or a fence around the compound (OR [95% CI] = 0.50 [0.386, 0.646], P < 0.001). The majority of mosquito larvae (Anophelines 57.8% (133/230) and Culicines 55.9% (461/825) were not reported because their habitats were not found. The only factor affecting detection of Anopheline larvae in habitats that were reported by CORPs was larviciding, which reduced sensitivity (OR [95% CI] = 0.37 [0.142, 0.965], P = 0.042). Conclusions: Accessibility of habitats in urban settings presents a major challenge because the majority of compounds are fenced for security reasons. Furthermore, CORPs under-reported larvae especially where larvicides were applied. This UMCP system for larval surveillance in cities must be urgently revised to improve access to enclosed compounds and the sensitivity with which habitats are searched for larvae

Environment-Driven Shifts in Inter-Individual Variation and Phenotypic Integration within Subnetworks of the Mussel Transcriptome and Proteome

The environment can alter the magnitude of phenotypic variation among individuals, potentially influencing evolutionary trajectories. However, environmental influences on variation are complex and remain understudied. Populations in heterogeneous environments might exhibit more variation, the amount of variation could differ between benign and stressful conditions, and/or variation might manifest in different ways among stages of the gene-to-protein expression cascade or among physiological functions. Here, we explore these three issues by quantifying patterns of inter-individual variation in both transcript and protein expression levels among California mussels, Mytilus californianus Conrad. Mussels were exposed to five ecologically relevant treatments that varied in the mean and inter-individual heterogeneity of body temperature. To target a diverse set of physiological functions, we assessed variation within 19 expression subnetworks, including canonical stress-response pathways and empirically derived co-expression clusters that represent a diffuse set of cellular processes. Variation in expression was particularly pronounced in the treatments with high mean and heterogeneous body temperatures. However, with few exceptions, environment-dependent shifts of variation in the transcriptome were not reflected in the proteome. A metric of phenotypic integration provided evidence for a greater degree of constraint on relative expression levels (i.e., stronger correlation) within expression subnetworks in benign, homogeneous environments. Our results suggest that environments that are more stressful on average – and which also tend to be more heterogeneous – can relax these expression constraints and reduce phenotypic integration within biochemical subnetworks. Context-dependent \u27unmasking\u27 of functional variation may contribute to inter-individual differences in physiological phenotype and performance in stressful environments

Implementation of higher-order absorbing boundary conditions for the Einstein equations

We present an implementation of absorbing boundary conditions for the Einstein equations based on the recent work of Buchman and Sarbach. In this paper, we assume that spacetime may be linearized about Minkowski space close to the outer boundary, which is taken to be a coordinate sphere. We reformulate the boundary conditions as conditions on the gauge-invariant Regge-Wheeler-Zerilli scalars. Higher-order radial derivatives are eliminated by rewriting the boundary conditions as a system of ODEs for a set of auxiliary variables intrinsic to the boundary. From these we construct boundary data for a set of well-posed constraint-preserving boundary conditions for the Einstein equations in a first-order generalized harmonic formulation. This construction has direct applications to outer boundary conditions in simulations of isolated systems (e.g., binary black holes) as well as to the problem of Cauchy-perturbative matching. As a test problem for our numerical implementation, we consider linearized multipolar gravitational waves in TT gauge, with angular momentum numbers l=2 (Teukolsky waves), 3 and 4. We demonstrate that the perfectly absorbing boundary condition B_L of order L=l yields no spurious reflections to linear order in perturbation theory. This is in contrast to the lower-order absorbing boundary conditions B_L with L<l, which include the widely used freezing-Psi_0 boundary condition that imposes the vanishing of the Newman-Penrose scalar Psi_0.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures. Minor clarifications. Final version to appear in Class. Quantum Grav

DATASET2050 D3.2 - Future Passenger Demand Profile

The FlightPath 2050 goal of enabling 90 per cent of European passengers to complete their door-to-door journey within four hours is a very challenging task. A major objective of the DATASET2050 project is to deliver insight into both current and future processes relating to the European transport system in this context. The deliverable D3.2 "Future Passenger Demand Profile" focuses on the future demand side of European (air) transport. Namely, the first goal is to develop a range of passenger profiles for the year 2035 and to provide implications for passenger profiles for 2050. For this purpose, the development of passenger characteristics - including demographic, geographic, socio-economic and behavioural aspects as well as particular mobility patterns - is analysed using available European data and forecasts. Based on this analysis, on specific mobility behaviour of the different member states (EU28 and EFTA countries) as well as on a high-level-factor identification, six different passenger profiles for 2035 are developed. These six profiles differ by main travel purpose (private, business and leisure, which is the combination of business and leisure trips), predominant age group, income level (low, medium, high) and several other characteristics. Furthermore, a demand model is applied showing the high relevance of gross domestic product (GDP) and education for a steady growth of passenger traffic volume in the EU28 and EFTA countries until 2050. The outcomes of the current deliverable will be put in contrast with those coming from D4.2 (Future supply profile), enabling thus a comprehensive assessment on the European door-to-door mobility in the future. Specifically, the deliverable results will be used in D5.1 (Mobility assessment), D5.2 (Assessment execution) and D5.3 (Novel concept foundations for European mobility)

The enigma of GCIRS 3 - Constraining the properties of the mid-infrared reference star of the central parsec of the Milky Way with optical long baseline interferometry

GCIRS3 is the most prominent MIR source in the central pc of the Galaxy. NIR spectroscopy failed to solve the enigma of its nature. The properties of extreme individual objects of the central stellar cluster contribute to our knowledge of star and dust formation close to a supermassive black hole. We initiated an interferometric experiment to understand IRS3 and investigate its properties as spectroscopic and interferometric reference star at 10um. VISIR imaging separates a compact source from diffuse, surrounding emission. The VLTI/MIDI instrument was used to measure visibilities at 10mas resolution of that compact 10um source, still unresolved by a single VLT. Photometry data were added to enable simple SED- and full radiative transfer-models of the data. The luminosity and size estimates show that IRS3 is probably a cool carbon star enshrouded by a complex dust distribution. Dust temperatures were derived. The coinciding interpretation of multiple datasets confirm dust emission at several spatial scales. The IF data resolve the innermost area of dust formation. Despite observed deep silicate absorption towards IRS3 we favor a carbon rich chemistry of the circumstellar dust shell. The silicate absorption most probably takes place in the outer diffuse dust, which is mostly ignored by MIDI measurements. This indicates physically and chemically distinct conditions of the local dust, changing with the distance to IRS3. We have demonstrated that optical long baseline interferometry at infrared wavelengths is an indispensable tool to investigate sources at the Galactic Center. Our findings suggest further studies of the composition of interstellar dust and the shape of the 10um silicate feature at this outstanding region.Comment: accepted by A&A, now in press; 19 pages, 22 figures, 5 table

Multi-omics Reveals Largely Distinct Transcript- and Protein-Level Responses to the Environment in an Intertidal Mussel

Organismal responses to stressful environments are influenced by numerous transcript- and protein-level mechanisms, and the relationships between expression changes at these levels are not always straightforward. Here, we used paired transcriptomic and proteomic datasets from two previous studies from gill of the California mussel, Mytilus californianus, to explore how simultaneous transcript and protein abundance patterns may diverge under different environmental scenarios. Field-acclimatized mussels were sampled from two disparate intertidal sites; individuals from one site were subjected to three further treatments (common garden, low-intertidal or high-intertidal outplant) that vary in temperature and feeding time. Assessing 1519 genes shared between the two datasets revealed that both transcript and protein expression patterns differentiated the treatments at a global level, despite numerous underlying discrepancies. There were far more instances of differential expression between treatments in transcript only (1451) or protein only (226) than of the two levels shifting expression concordantly (68 instances). Upregulated expression of cilium-associated transcripts (likely related to feeding) was associated with relatively benign field treatments. In the most stressful treatment, transcripts, but not proteins, for several molecular chaperones (including heat shock proteins and endoplasmic reticulum chaperones) were more abundant, consistent with a threshold model for induction of translation of constitutively available mRNAs. Overall, these results suggest that the relative importance of transcript- and protein-level regulation (translation and/or turnover) differs among cellular functions and across specific microhabitats or environmental contexts. Furthermore, the degree of concordance between transcript and protein expression can vary across benign versus acutely stressful environmental conditions

The Beagle 2 optical microscope

Introduction to the Beagle2 optical microscope

A comparative investigation of thickness measurements of ultra-thin water films by scanning probe techniques

The reliable operation of micro and nanomechanical devices necessitates a thorough knowledge of the water film thickness present on the surfaces of these devices with an accuracy in the nm range. In this work, the thickness of an ultra-thin water layer was measured by distance tunnelling spectroscopy and distance dynamic force spectroscopy during desorption in an ultra-high vacuum system, from about 2.5 nm up to complete desorption at 1E-8 mbar. The tunnelling current as well as the amplitude of vibration and the normal force were detected as a function of the probe-sample distance. In these experiments, a direct conversion of the results of both methods is possible. From the standpoint of surface science, taking the state-of-the-art concerning adsorbates on surfaces into consideration, dynamic force spectroscopy provides the most accurate values. The previously reported tunnelling spectroscopy, requiring the application of significantly high voltages, generally leads to values that are 25 times higher than values determined by dynamic force spectroscopy

NACO/SAM observations of sources at the Galactic Center

Sparse aperture masking (SAM) interferometry combined with Adaptive Optics (AO) is a technique that is uniquely suited to investigate structures near the diffraction limit of large telescopes. The strengths of the technique are a robust calibration of the Point Spread Function (PSF) while maintaining a relatively high dynamic range. We used SAM+AO observations to investigate the circumstellar environment of several bright sources with infrared excess in the central parsec of the Galaxy. For our observations, unstable atmospheric conditions as well as significant residuals after the background subtraction presented serious problems for the standard approach of calibrating SAM data via interspersed observations of reference stars. We circumvented these difficulties by constructing a synthesized calibrator directly from sources within the field-of-view. When observing crowded fields, this novel method can boost the efficiency of SAM observations because it renders interspersed calibrator observations unnecessary. Here, we presented the first NaCo/SAM images reconstructed using this method.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures, proceedings of the conference "Astrophysics at High Angular Resolution" (AHAR-2011

The Beagle 2 microscope

The Beagle 2 microscope provides optical images of the Martian surface at a resolution 5x higher than any other experiment currently planned. By using a novel illumination system it images in three colors and can also detect fluorescent materials