High sero-prevalence of caseous lymphadenitis identified in slaughterhouse samples as a consequence of deficiencies in sheep farm management in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Caseous lymphadenitis (CLA), caused by <it>Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis</it>, is one of the most important diseases of sheep and goats, causing considerable economic losses for herd owners.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We assessed the seroprevalence of infection with <it>C. pseudotuberculosis </it>in 805 sheep from 23 sheep farms that supply slaughterhouses in the state of Minas Gerais; we also analyzed management practices that could be associated with CLA occurrence, used on these and nearby farms that also supplied animals to the slaughterhouse (n = 60). The serum samples for assaying CLA infection were taken at the slaughterhouse. Frequency of infection with <it>C. pseudotuberculosis </it>was estimated at 43.7%, and farm frequency was estimated at 100%. Management practices were analyzed through a questionnaire. All farmers (60/60) had extensive/semi-extensive rearing system; 70.0% (42/60) identified sheep individually; 11.7% (7/60) had periodical technical assistance; 41.7% (25/60) disinfected the facilities; 86.7% (52/60) used barbed wire fences and did not implement adequate CLA control measures; only 11.7% (7/60) of breeders reported vaccination against <it>C. pseudotuberculosis</it>; 13.3% (8/60) took note of animals with clinical signs of CLA; 1.7% (1/60) opened and sanitized abscesses, and isolated the infected animals; 10.0% (6/60) knew the zoonotic potential of this disease and 1.7% (1/60) of the farmers culled animals in case of recurrence of abscesses.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>It can be concluded that <it>C. pseudotuberculosis </it>infection is widely spread in sheep flocks in Minas Gerais state in Brazil and that there is a lack of good management measures and vaccination, allowing transmission of this infectious agent throughout the production network.</p

Predictive feedback control and Fitts' law

Fitts’ law is a well established empirical formula, known for encapsulating the “speed-accuracy trade-off”. For discrete, manual movements from a starting location to a target, Fitts’ law relates movement duration to the distance moved and target size. The widespread empirical success of the formula is suggestive of underlying principles of human movement control. There have been previous attempts to relate Fitts’ law to engineering-type control hypotheses and it has been shown that the law is exactly consistent with the closed-loop step-response of a time-delayed, first-order system. Assuming only the operation of closed-loop feedback, either continuous or intermittent, this paper asks whether such feedback should be predictive or not predictive to be consistent with Fitts law. Since Fitts’ law is equivalent to a time delay separated from a first-order system, known control theory implies that the controller must be predictive. A predictive controller moves the time-delay outside the feedback loop such that the closed-loop response can be separated into a time delay and rational function whereas a non- predictive controller retains a state delay within feedback loop which is not consistent with Fitts’ law. Using sufficient parameters, a high-order non-predictive controller could approximately reproduce Fitts’ law. However, such high-order, “non-parametric” controllers are essentially empirical in nature, without physical meaning, and therefore are conceptually inferior to the predictive controller. It is a new insight that using closed-loop feedback, prediction is required to physically explain Fitts’ law. The implication is that prediction is an inherent part of the “speed-accuracy trade-off”

Explosive Nucleosynthesis: What we learned and what we still do not understand

This review touches on historical aspects, going back to the early days of nuclear astrophysics, initiated by B$^2$FH and Cameron, discusses (i) the required nuclear input from reaction rates and decay properties up to the nuclear equation of state, continues (ii) with the tools to perform nucleosynthesis calculations and (iii) early parametrized nucleosynthesis studies, before (iv) reliable stellar models became available for the late stages of stellar evolution. It passes then through (v) explosive environments from core-collapse supernovae to explosive events in binary systems (including type Ia supernovae and compact binary mergers), and finally (vi) discusses the role of all these nucleosynthesis production sites in the evolution of galaxies. The focus is put on the comparison of early ideas and present, very recent, understanding.Comment: 11 pages, to appear in Springer Proceedings in Physics (Proc. of Intl. Conf. "Nuclei in the Cosmos XV", LNGS Assergi, Italy, June 2018

Consequences of replacing native savannahs with acacia plantations for the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic α- and β-diversity of bats in the northern Brazilian Amazon

Across the globe, millions of hectares of native vegetation have been replaced by commercial plantations, with negative consequences for biodiversity. The effects of the replacement of native vegetation with commercial plantations on the functional and phylogenetic diversity of bat assemblages remain understudied, and most studies have focused exclusively on the taxonomic component of diversity. Here, we investigate how the replacement of natural savannahs by acacia plantations affects the α- and β-diversity of bat assemblages. We sampled bats, using mist-nets at ground level, in natural forest, savannah areas and acacia plantations, in the Lavrados de Roraima in the northern Brazilian Amazon. Our results show that, in general, acacia is less diverse than native forests in terms of taxonomic and functional diversity, and is also less taxonomically diverse than the savannah matrix which it substitutes. The observed patterns of α- and β-diversity found in the present study are in large part driven by the superabundance of one generalist and opportunistic species, Carollia perspicillata, in the acacia plantations. Taken together, our results show that the replacement of areas of natural savannah by acacia plantations causes a regional loss in diversity across all diversity dimensions: taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic. However, further studies are required to fully understand the ecological and conservation implications of this landscape change

Consistent phenological shifts in the making of a biodiversity hotspot: the Cape flora

Background The best documented survival responses of organisms to past climate change on short (glacial-interglacial) timescales are distributional shifts. Despite ample evidence on such timescales for local adaptations of populations at specific sites, the long-term impacts of such changes on evolutionary significant units in response to past climatic change have been little documented. Here we use phylogenies to reconstruct changes in distribution and flowering ecology of the Cape flora - South Africa's biodiversity hotspot - through a period of past (Neogene and Quaternary) changes in the seasonality of rainfall over a timescale of several million years. Results Forty-three distributional and phenological shifts consistent with past climatic change occur across the flora, and a comparable number of clades underwent adaptive changes in their flowering phenology (9 clades; half of the clades investigated) as underwent distributional shifts (12 clades; two thirds of the clades investigated). Of extant Cape angiosperm species, 14-41% have been contributed by lineages that show distributional shifts consistent with past climate change, yet a similar proportion (14-55%) arose from lineages that shifted flowering phenology. Conclusions Adaptive changes in ecology at the scale we uncover in the Cape and consistent with past climatic change have not been documented for other floras. Shifts in climate tolerance appear to have been more important in this flora than is currently appreciated, and lineages that underwent such shifts went on to contribute a high proportion of the flora's extant species diversity. That shifts in phenology, on an evolutionary timescale and on such a scale, have not yet been detected for other floras is likely a result of the method used; shifts in flowering phenology cannot be detected in the fossil record

Schr\"odinger Holography with and without Hyperscaling Violation

We study the properties of the Schr\"odinger-type non-relativistic holography for general dynamical exponent z with and without hyperscaling violation exponent \theta. The scalar correlation function has a more general form due to general z as well as the presence of \theta, whose effects also modify the scaling dimension of the scalar operator. We propose a prescription for minimal surfaces of this "codimension 2 holography," and demonstrate the (d-1) dimensional area law for the entanglement entropy from (d+3) dimensional Schr\"odinger backgrounds. Surprisingly, the area law is violated for d+1 < z < d+2, even without hyperscaling violation, which interpolates between the logarithmic violation and extensive volume dependence of entanglement entropy. Similar violations are also found in the presence of the hyperscaling violation. Their dual field theories are expected to have novel phases for the parameter range, including Fermi surface. We also analyze string theory embeddings using non-relativistic branes.Comment: 62 pages and 6 figures, v2: several typos in section 5 corrected, references added, v3: typos corrected, references added, published versio

Mucociliary and long-term particle clearance in airways of patients with immotile cilia

Spherical monodisperse ferromagnetic iron oxide particles of 1.9 μm geometric and 4.2 μm aerodynamic diameter were inhaled by seven patients with primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) using the shallow bolus technique, and compared to 13 healthy non-smokers (NS) from a previous study. The bolus penetration front depth was limiting to the phase1 dead space volume. In PCD patients deposition was 58+/-8 % after 8 s breath holding time. Particle retention was measured by the magnetopneumographic method over a period of nine months. Particle clearance from the airways showed a fast and a slow phase. In PCD patients airway clearance was retarded and prolonged, 42+/-12 % followed the fast phase with a mean half time of 16.8+/-8.6 hours. The remaining fraction was cleared slowly with a half time of 121+/-25 days. In healthy NS 49+/-9 % of particles were cleared in the fast phase with a mean half time of 3.0+/-1.6 hours, characteristic of an intact mucociliary clearance. There was no difference in the slow clearance phase between PCD patients and healthy NS. Despite non-functioning cilia the effectiveness of airway clearance in PCD patients is comparable to healthy NS, with a prolonged kinetics of one week, which may primarily reflect the effectiveness of cough clearance. This prolonged airway clearance allows longer residence times of bacteria and viruses in the airways and may be one reason for increased frequency of infections in PCD patients

Behaviour in therapeutic medical care: evidence from general practitioners in Austria

Aim: The present study examines monetary effects of general practioners’ behaviour in therapeutic medical care to identify sample characteristics that allow differentiating between the individual general practitioner and the basic population. Subjects and methods: Medical services, provided by 3,919 general practitioners in Austria, were operationalized by means of the dependent variable “costs per patient”. Statistical outliers were identified using Chebyshev’s inequality and categorized by investigating bivariate correlations between the dependent variable and the personal characteristics of each physician. Results: Variables that relate to the size of the customer base such as number of consultations (r = 0.385) and office days (r = 0.376), correlate positively with the costs for medical services. By analyzing the portfolio of the general practitioners, we found a correlation of 0.451 between this coefficient and the costs. Statistical outliers feature an average portfolio of 44.5 different services, compared to 30.45 among non-outliers. Laboratory services especially were identified as cost drivers (r = 0.408). Statistical outliers generate at least one laboratory parameter for 44.34% of their patients, opposed to 27.2% within the rest of the sample. Consequently outliers produce higher laboratory costs than their counterparts. Conclusion: We found some evidence that physicians have influence in the provision of their services. Considering entrepreneurial objectives, the extension of the portfolio can increase their profit. Our findings indicate supplier-induced demand for several groups of services. We assume that the effect is consolidated by the fee for service system and could be compensated by adequate reform

Deep-Inelastic Inclusive ep Scattering at Low x and a Determination of alpha_s

A precise measurement of the inclusive deep-inelastic e^+p scattering cross section is reported in the kinematic range 1.5<= Q^2 <=150 GeV^2 and 3*10^(-5)<= x <=0.2. The data were recorded with the H1 detector at HERA in 1996 and 1997, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 20 pb^(-1). The double differential cross section, from which the proton structure function F_2(x,Q^2) and the longitudinal structure function F_L(x,Q^2) are extracted, is measured with typically 1% statistical and 3% systematic uncertainties. The measured partial derivative (dF_2(x,Q^2)/dln Q^2)_x is observed to rise continuously towards small x for fixed Q^2. The cross section data are combined with published H1 measurements at high Q^2 for a next-to-leading order DGLAP QCD analysis.The H1 data determine the gluon momentum distribution in the range 3*10^(-4)<= x <=0.1 to within an experimental accuracy of about 3% for Q^2 =20 GeV^2. A fit of the H1 measurements and the mu p data of the BCDMS collaboration allows the strong coupling constant alpha_s and the gluon distribution to be simultaneously determined. A value of alpha _s(M_Z^2)=0.1150+-0.0017 (exp) +0.0009-0.0005 (model) is obtained in NLO, with an additional theoretical uncertainty of about +-0.005, mainly due to the uncertainty of the renormalisation scale.Comment: 68 pages, 24 figures and 18 table