Linking grassland management, invertebrates and Northern Lapwing productivity.

Numbers of lapwings (Vanellus vanellus) breeding in Britain and Ireland have declined over the last 20 years. It has been suggested that intensification of agricultural practices has contributed to the decline by reducing food abundance and availability and the suitability of nesting and chick rearing habitat. Much of the previous research has been conducted on arable habitats while very little is still known of the effects of grassland improvement on lapwing food supply and breeding success. This thesis investigates the effects of grassland management techniques, i.e. fertiliser application, drainage and re-seeding on the invertebrate food supply and breeding success of lapwings at the Loch Gruinart Nature Reserve on Islay. The study was carried out using a farm-scale factorial experiment manipulating timing of fertiliser and water levels. The key findings were that both water and fertiliser treatments had a significant effect on earthworm biomass, an important component of adult lapwing diet and surface invertebrates, important in chick diet. Lapwing nest placement was affected by both water and fertiliser treatment, however this was dependent on field. Ditches were selected over rigs as preferred nest sites, probably because chick food supply and availability on ditches is greater than rigs. Sward structure interacted with predator activity to affect nest survival. In fields where predator activity was low nests were more successful in longer sward, in fields where predator activity was high nests were more successful in shorter vegetation, benefiting from early detection of predators. Chick foraging behaviour and condition was influenced by surface invertebrate abundance and vegetation structure. Lapwing broods favoured areas of short sward for foraging; these areas included late fertilised treatments and ditches. Foraging rates in short sward were significantly greater than in long sward, explaining the difference in treatment preference. No effect of treatment was observed in determining egg or clutch size, however chicks which hatched in treatments with abundant food supplies were heavier and survived for longer. The use of the farm-scale experiment has allowed us to demonstrate the complex and multifactorial impacts of two commonly used farming practices on the food supply, behaviour, life history and productivity of a declining farmland bird species

The effect of pulmonary rehabilitation on mortality, balance, and risk of fall in stable patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a systematic review

Objectives: To evaluate the impact of pulmonary rehabilitation on survival and fall (including balance) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at stability. Design: Systematic Review. Methods: OVID, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane Collaboration Library were searched for literature dating from January 1980 up to November 2014 as well as an update in October 2015. Two reviewers screened titles, abstracts and full text records, extracted data and assessed studies for risk of bias; any disagreements were resolved by a third member of the team, and consensus was always sought. Results: Initial searches yielded 3216 records but after review, only 7 studies were included and no studies focused solely on falls. Two cohort studies found some positive benefits of pulmonary rehabilitation on balance but the results were inconsistent across the studies. Regarding survival, two randomised controlled trials were conducted; one study showed significant survival benefit at 1 year while the other one showed non-significant survival benefit at 3 years. Neither were adequately powered and in both, survival was a secondary outcome. Conclusions: There was only limited inconclusive evidence to show that pulmonary rehabilitation has a significant beneficial effect on balance or survival

Pre-natal and post-natal exposure to respiratory infection and atopic diseases development: a historical cohort study

BACKGROUND: According to the hygiene hypothesis, infections in early life protect from allergic diseases. However, in earlier studies surrogate measures of infection rather than clinical infections were associated with decreased frequencies of atopic diseases. Exposure to infection indicating sub-clinical infection rather than clinical infection might protect from atopic diseases. Objective: to investigate whether exposure to acute respiratory infections within pregnancy and the first year of life is associated with atopic conditions at age 5–14 years and to explore when within pregnancy and the first year of life this exposure is most likely to be protective. METHODS: Historical cohort study: Population level data on acute respiratory infections from the routine reporting system of the former German Democratic Republic were linked with individual data from consecutive surveys on atopic diseases in the same region (n = 4672). Statistical analyses included multivariate logistic regression analysis and polynomial distributed lag models. RESULTS: High exposure to acute respiratory infection between pregnancy and age one year was associated with overall reduced odds of asthma, eczema, hay fever, atopic sensitization and total IgE. Exposure in the first 9 months of life showed the most pronounced effect. Adjusted odds ratio's for asthma, hay fever, inhalant sensitization and total IgE were statistical significantly reduced up to around half. CONCLUSION: Exposure to respiratory infection (most likely indicating sub-clinical infection) within pregnancy and the first year of life may be protective in atopic diseases development. The post-natal period thereby seems to be particularly important

Optical Phonon Lasing in Semiconductor Double Quantum Dots

We propose optical phonon lasing for a double quantum dot (DQD) fabricated in a semiconductor substrate. We show that the DQD is weakly coupled to only two LO phonon modes that act as a natural cavity. The lasing occurs for pumping the DQD via electronic tunneling at rates much higher than the phonon decay rate, whereas an antibunching of phonon emission is observed in the opposite regime of slow tunneling. Both effects disappear with an effective thermalization induced by the Franck-Condon effect in a DQD fabricated in a carbon nanotube with a strong electron-phonon coupling.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Zoonoses (Project 1): Wildlife/domestic livestock interactions

The objective of this study was to synthesise the best available scientific knowledge about zoonotic disease transmission through livestock and wildlife interaction (direct or indirect), with emphasis on risk factors, drivers and trajectories of transmission, as well as promising interventions for controlling important zoonoses, based on managing the interaction between domestic livestock and wildlife. A multi-disciplinary team from the International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya, and the Royal Veterinary College, United Kingdom, with expertise in zoonoses, epidemiology, socio-economics, and wildlife, undertook the review. A database of important zoonoses was compiled and used to develop a list of priority zoonoses with a livestock-wildlife interface for developing countries. Spatial relationships between important zoonoses and land use and human population density were explored. A systematic review was carried out focussing on: disease transmission routes, risk factors for disease transmission, drivers of wildlife-livestock interactions, pathogens of wildlife capable of recombining with organisms in livestock, wildlife species that are potential sources of zoonotic pathogens, production and socio-economic factors influencing the risk of transmission, and risk management and control interventions

Zoonosis emergence linked to agricultural intensification and environmental change

A systematic review was conducted by a multidisciplinary team to analyze qualitatively best available scientific evidence on the effect of agricultural intensification and environmental changes on the risk of zoonoses for which there are epidemiological interactions between wildlife and livestock. The study found several examples in which agricultural intensification and/or environmental change were associated with an increased risk of zoonotic disease emergence, driven by the impact of an expanding human population and changing human behavior on the environment. We conclude that the rate of future zoonotic disease emergence or reemergence will be closely linked to the evolution of the agriculture–environment nexus. However, available research inadequately addresses the complexity and interrelatedness of environmental, biological, economic, and social dimensions of zoonotic pathogen emergence, which significantly limits our ability to predict, prevent, and respond to zoonotic disease emergence

Generating Single Microwave Photons in a Circuit

Electromagnetic signals in circuits consist of discrete photons, though conventional voltage sources can only generate classical fields with a coherent superposition of many different photon numbers. While these classical signals can control and measure bits in a quantum computer (qubits), single photons can carry quantum information, enabling non-local quantum interactions, an important resource for scalable quantum computing. Here, we demonstrate an on-chip single photon source in a circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED) architecture, with a microwave transmission line cavity that collects the spontaneous emission of a single superconducting qubit with high efficiency. The photon source is triggered by a qubit rotation, as a photon is generated only when the qubit is excited. Tomography of both qubit and fluorescence photon shows that arbitrary qubit states can be mapped onto the photon state, demonstrating an ability to convert a stationary qubit into a flying qubit. Both the average power and voltage of the photon source are characterized to verify performance of the system. This single photon source is an important addition to a rapidly growing toolbox for quantum optics on a chip.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, hires version at http://www.eng.yale.edu/rslab/papers/single_photon_hires.pd

Luminescence spectra of germanosilicate optical fibres I - radioluminescence and cathodoluminescence

Data are reported on the luminescence spectra generated by X-ray and electron irradiation of optical fibres, fibre preforms and silica. The impurities and imperfections in the fibre core have a higher luminescence efficiency than those in the substrate material. The core luminescence provides a major fraction of the total light emission, despite the fact that the core is a small fraction of the total fibre volume. A wide variety of overlapping emission bands are reported. The spectra are strongly temperature dependent but the component emission bands can generally be linked to either Ge impurities, giving the 400 nm band, exciton emission near 460 nm or other blue/UV bands linked to E'-type defects. Overall, the study of the fibre luminescence provides a sensitive technique for analysis d changes and repeatability of fibre fabrication

Cavity-QED tests of representations of canonical commutation relations employed in field quantization

Various aspects of dissipative and nondissipative decoherence of Rabi oscillations are discussed in the context of field quantization in alternative representations of CCR. Theory is confronted with experiment, and a possibility of more conclusive tests is analyzed.Comment: Discussion of dissipative and nondissipative decoherence is included. Theory is now consistent with the existing data and predictions for new experiments are more reliabl

Influence of maternal and perinatal factors on subsequent hospitalisation for asthma in children: evidence from the Oxford record linkage study

Background: There is much interest in the possibility that perinatal factors may influence the risk of disease in later life. We investigated the influence of maternal and perinatal factors on subsequent hospital admission for asthma in children. Methods: Analysis of data from the Oxford record linkage study (ORLS) to generate a retrospective cohort of 248 612 records of births between 1970 and 1989, with follow-up to records of subsequent hospital admission for 4 017 children with asthma up to 1999. Results: Univariate analysis showed significant associations between an increased risk of admission for asthma and later years of birth (reflecting the increase in asthma in the 1970s and 1980s), low social class, asthma in the mother, unmarried mothers, maternal smoking in pregnancy, subsequent births compared with first-born, male sex, low birth weight, short gestational age, caesarean delivery, forceps delivery and not being breastfed. Multivariate analysis, identifying each risk factor that had a significant effect independently of other risk factors, confirmed associations with maternal asthma (odds ratio (OR) 3.1, 95% confidence interval 2.7-3.6), male sex (versus female, 1.8, 1.7-2.0), low birth weight (1000-2999 g versus 3000-3999 g, 1.2, 1.1-1.3), maternal smoking (1.1, 1.0-1.3) and delivery by caesarean section (1.2; 1.0-1.3). In those first admitted with asthma under two years old, there were associations with having siblings (e.g. second child compared with first-born, OR 1.3, 1.0-1.7) and short gestational age (24-37 weeks versus 38-41 weeks, 1.6, 1.2-2.2). Multivariate analysis confined to those admitted with asthma aged six years or more, showed associations with maternal asthma (OR 3.8, 3.1-4.7), age of mother (under 25 versus 25-34 at birth, OR 1.16, 1.03-1.31; over 35 versus 25-34, OR 1.4, 1.1-1.7); high social class was protective (1 and 2, compared with 3, 0.72; 0.63-0.82). Hospital admission for asthma in people aged over six was more common in males than females (1.4; 1.2-1.5); but, by the teenage years, the sex ratio reversed and admission was more common in females than males. Conclusion: Several maternal characteristics and perinatal factors are associated with an elevated risk of hospital admission for asthma in the child in later life. </p