143 research outputs found
Cryptosporidium and Giardia taxa in faecal samples from animals in catchments supplying the city of Melbourne with drinking water (2011 to 2015)
BACKGROUND: In a long-term program to monitor pathogens in water catchments serving the City of Melbourne in the State of Victoria in Australia, we detected and genetically characterised Cryptosporidium and Giardia in faecal samples from various animals in nine water reservoir areas over a period of 4 years (July 2011 to November 2015). METHODS: This work was conducted using PCR-based single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) and phylogenetic analyses of portions of the small subunit of ribosomal RNA (SSU) and 60 kDa glycoprotein (gp60) genes for Cryptosporidium, and triose-phosphate isomerase (tpi) gene for Giardia. RESULTS: The prevalence of Cryptosporidium was 1.62 % (69 of 4,256 samples); 25 distinct sequence types were defined for pSSU, and six for gp60 which represented C. hominis (genotype Ib - subgenotype IbA10G2), C. cuniculus (genotype Vb - subgenotypes VbA26, and VbA25), and C. canis, C. fayeri, C. macropodum, C. parvum, C. ryanae, Cryptosporidium sp. "duck" genotype, C. suis and C. ubiquitum as well as 12 novel SSU sequence types. The prevalence of Giardia was 0.31 % (13 of 4,256 samples); all three distinct tpi sequence types defined represented assemblage A of G. duodenalis. CONCLUSIONS: Of the 34 sequence types (genotypes) characterized here, five and one have been recorded previously for Cryptosporidium and Giardia, respectively, from humans. Novel genotypes of Cryptosporidium and Giardia were recorded for SSU (n = 12), gp60 (n = 4) and tpi (n = 1); the zoonotic potential of these novel genotypes is presently unknown. Future work will continue to monitor the prevalence of Cryptosporidium and Giardia genotypes in animals in these catchments, and expand investigations to humans. Nucleotide sequences reported in this paper are available in the GenBank database under accession nos. KU531647-KU531718
Entanglement preparation using symmetric multiports
We investigate the entanglement produced by a multi-path interferometer that
is composed of two symmetric multiports, with phase shifts applied to the
output of the first multiport. Particular attention is paid to the case when we
have a single photon entering the interferometer. For this situation we derive
a simple condition that characterize the types of entanglement that one can
generate. We then show how one can use the results from the single photon case
to determine what kinds of multi-photon entangled states one can prepare using
the interferometer.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in European Journal of
Physics
Entanglement preparation using symmetric multiports
We investigate the entanglement produced by a multi-path interferometer that
is composed of two symmetric multiports, with phase shifts applied to the
output of the first multiport. Particular attention is paid to the case when we
have a single photon entering the interferometer. For this situation we derive
a simple condition that characterize the types of entanglement that one can
generate. We then show how one can use the results from the single photon case
to determine what kinds of multi-photon entangled states one can prepare using
the interferometer.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in European Journal of
Physics
Wehrl information entropy and phase distributions of Schrodinger cat and cat-like states
The Wehrl information entropy and its phase density, the so-called Wehrl
phase distribution, are applied to describe Schr\"odinger cat and cat-like
(kitten) states. The advantages of the Wehrl phase distribution over the Wehrl
entropy in a description of the superposition principle are presented. The
entropic measures are compared with a conventional phase distribution from the
Husimi Q-function. Compact-form formulae for the entropic measures are found
for superpositions of well-separated states. Examples of Schr\"odinger cats
(including even, odd and Yurke-Stoler coherent states), as well as the cat-like
states generated in Kerr medium are analyzed in detail. It is shown that, in
contrast to the Wehrl entropy, the Wehrl phase distribution properly
distinguishes between different superpositions of unequally-weighted states in
respect to their number and phase-space configuration.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Nonclassical Fields and the Nonlinear Interferometer
We demonstrate several new results for the nonlinear interferometer, which
emerge from a formalism which describes in an elegant way the output field of
the nonlinear interferometer as two-mode entangled coherent states. We clarify
the relationship between squeezing and entangled coherent states, since a weak
nonlinear evolution produces a squeezed output, while a strong nonlinear
evolution produces a two-mode, two-state entangled coherent state. In between
these two extremes exist superpositions of two-mode coherent states manifesting
varying degrees of entanglement for arbitrary values of the nonlinearity. The
cardinality of the basis set of the entangled coherent states is finite when
the ratio is rational, where is the nonlinear strength. We
also show that entangled coherent states can be produced from product coherent
states via a nonlinear medium without the need for the interferometric
configuration. This provides an important experimental simplification in the
process of creating entangled coherent states.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figure
Phylogenomic and biogeographic reconstruction of the Trichinella complex
Trichinellosis is a globally important food-borne parasitic disease of humans caused by roundworms of the Trichinella complex. Extensive biological diversity is reflected in substantial ecological and genetic variability within and among Trichinella taxa, and major controversy surrounds the systematics of this complex. Here we report the sequencing and assembly of 16 draft genomes representing all 12 recognized Trichinella species and genotypes, define protein-coding gene sets and assess genetic differences among these taxa. Using thousands of shared single-copy orthologous gene sequences, we fully reconstruct, for the first time, a phylogeny and biogeography for the Trichinella complex, and show that encapsulated and non-encapsulated Trichinella taxa diverged from their most recent common ancestor ~21 million years ago (mya), with taxon diversifications commencing ~10−7 mya
A genome-wide association study suggests that a locus within the ataxin 2 binding protein 1 gene is associated with hand osteoarthritis: the Treat-OA consortium
To identify the susceptibility gene in hand osteoarthritis (OA) the authors used a two-stage approach genome-wide association study using two discovery samples (the TwinsUK cohort and the Rotterdam discovery subset; a total of 1804 subjects) and four replication samples (the Chingford Study, the Chuvasha Skeletal Aging Study, the Rotterdam replication subset and the Genetics, Arthrosis, and Progression (GARP) Study; a total of 3266 people). Five single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) had a likelihood of association with hand OA in the discovery stage and one of them (rs716508), was successfully confirmed in the replication stage (meta-analysis p = 1.81×10−5). The C allele conferred a reduced risk of 33% to 41% using a case–control definition. The SNP is located in intron 1 of the A2BP1 gene. This study also found that the same allele of the SNP significantly reduced bone density at both the hip and spine (p<0.01), suggesting the potential mechanism of the gene in hand OA might be via effects on subchondral bone. The authors' findings provide a potential new insight into genetic mechanisms in the development of hand OA
Quantum interference in three-photon down-conversion
Published versio
Asymptotic properties of quantum Markov chains
The asymptotic dynamics of quantum Markov chains generated by the most
general physically relevant quantum operations is investigated. It is shown
that it is confined to an attractor space on which the resulting quantum Markov
chain is diagonalizable. A construction procedure of a basis of this attractor
space and its associated dual basis is presented. It applies whenever a
strictly positive quantum state exists which is contracted or left invariant by
the generating quantum operation. Moreover, algebraic relations between the
attractor space and Kraus operators involved in the definition of a quantum
Markov chain are derived. This construction is not only expected to offer
significant computational advantages in cases in which the dimension of the
Hilbert space is large and the dimension of the attractor space is small but it
also sheds new light onto the relation between the asymptotic dynamics of
quantum Markov chains and fixed points of their generating quantum operations.Comment: 10 page
Clear Genetic Distinctiveness between Human- and Pig-Derived Trichuris Based on Analyses of Mitochondrial Datasets
The whipworm, Trichuris trichiura, causes trichuriasis in ∼600 million people worldwide, mainly in developing countries. Whipworms also infect other animal hosts, including pigs (T. suis), dogs (T. vulpis) and non-human primates, and cause disease in these hosts, which is similar to trichuriasis of humans. Although Trichuris species are considered to be host specific, there has been considerable controversy, over the years, as to whether T. trichiura and T. suis are the same or distinct species. Here, we characterised the entire mitochondrial genomes of human-derived Trichuris and pig-derived Trichuris, compared them and then tested the hypothesis that the parasites from these two host species are genetically distinct in a phylogenetic analysis of the sequence data. Taken together, the findings support the proposal that T. trichiura and T. suis are separate species, consistent with previous data for nuclear ribosomal DNA. Using molecular analytical tools, employing genetic markers defined herein, future work should conduct large-scale studies to establish whether T. trichiura is found in pigs and T. suis in humans in endemic regions
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