Dodecahedral space topology as an explanation for weak wide-angle temperature correlations in the cosmic microwave background

Cosmology's standard model posits an infinite flat universe forever expanding under the pressure of dark energy. First-year data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) confirm this model to spectacular precision on all but the largest scales (Bennett {\it et al.}, 2003 ; Spergel {\it et al.}, 2003). Temperature correlations across the microwave sky match expectations on scales narrower than $60^{\circ}$, yet vanish on scales wider than $60^{\circ}$. Researchers are now seeking an explanation of the missing wide-angle correlations (Contaldi {\it et al.}, 2003 ; Cline {\it et al.}, 2003). One natural approach questions the underlying geometry of space, namely its curvature (Efstathiou, 2003) and its topology (Tegmark {\it et al.}, 2003). In an infinite flat space, waves from the big bang would fill the universe on all length scales. The observed lack of temperature correlations on scales beyond $60^{\circ}$ means the broadest waves are missing, perhaps because space itself is not big enough to support them. Here we present a simple geometrical model of a finite, positively curved space -- the Poincar\'e dodecahedral space -- which accounts for WMAP's observations with no fine-tuning required. Circle searching (Cornish, Spergel and Starkman, 1998) may confirm the model's topological predictions, while upcoming Planck Surveyor data may confirm its predicted density of $\Omega_0 \simeq 1.013 > 1$. If confirmed, the model will answer the ancient question of whether space is finite or infinite, while retaining the standard Friedmann-Lema\^\i{}tre foundation for local physics.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures. This is a slightly longer version of the paper published in Nature 425, p. 593, 200

The Role of Individual Variables, Organizational Variables and Moral Intensity Dimensions in Libyan Management Accountants’ Ethical Decision Making

This study investigates the association of a broad set of variables with the ethical decision making of management accountants in Libya. Adopting a cross-sectional methodology, a questionnaire including four different ethical scenarios was used to gather data from 229 participants. For each scenario, ethical decision making was examined in terms of the recognition, judgment and intention stages of Rest’s model. A significant relationship was found between ethical recognition and ethical judgment and also between ethical judgment and ethical intention, but ethical recognition did not significantly predict ethical intention—thus providing support for Rest’s model. Organizational variables, age and educational level yielded few significant results. The lack of significance for codes of ethics might reflect their relative lack of development in Libya, in which case Libyan companies should pay attention to their content and how they are supported, especially in the light of the under-development of the accounting profession in Libya. Few significant results were also found for gender, but where they were found, males showed more ethical characteristics than females. This unusual result reinforces the dangers of gender stereotyping in business. Personal moral philosophy and moral intensity dimensions were generally found to be significant predictors of the three stages of ethical decision making studied. One implication of this is to give more attention to ethics in accounting education, making the connections between accounting practice and (in Libya) Islam. Overall, this study not only adds to the available empirical evidence on factors affecting ethical decision making, notably examining three stages of Rest’s model, but also offers rare insights into the ethical views of practising management accountants and provides a benchmark for future studies of ethical decision making in Muslim majority countries and other parts of the developing world

ALG: Automated Genotype Calling of Luminex Assays

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are the most commonly used polymorphic markers in genetics studies. Among the different platforms for SNP genotyping, Luminex is one of the less exploited mainly due to the lack of a robust (semi-automated and replicable) freely available genotype calling software. Here we describe a clustering algorithm that provides automated SNP calls for Luminex genotyping assays. We genotyped 3 SNPs in a cohort of 330 childhood leukemia patients, 200 parents of patient and 325 healthy individuals and used the Automated Luminex Genotyping (ALG) algorithm for SNP calling. ALG genotypes were called twice to test for reproducibility and were compared to sequencing data to test for accuracy. Globally, this analysis demonstrates the accuracy (99.6%) of the method, its reproducibility (99.8%) and the low level of no genotyping calls (3.4%). The high efficiency of the method proves that ALG is a suitable alternative to the current commercial software. ALG is semi-automated, and provides numerical measures of confidence for each SNP called, as well as an effective graphical plot. Moreover ALG can be used either through a graphical user interface, requiring no specific informatics knowledge, or through command line with access to the open source code. The ALG software has been implemented in R and is freely available for non-commercial use either at http://alg.sourceforge.net or by request to [email protected]

Energy allocation and behaviour in the growing broiler chicken

Broiler chickens are increasingly at the forefront of global meat production but the consequences of fast growth and selection for an increase in body mass on bird health are an ongoing concern for industry and consumers. To better understand the implications of selection we evaluated energetics and behaviour over the 6-week hatch-to-slaughter developmental period in a commercial broiler. The effect of posture on resting metabolic rate becomes increasingly significant as broilers grow, as standing became more energetically expensive than sitting. The proportion of overall metabolic rate accounted for by locomotor behaviour decreased over development, corresponding to declining activity levels, mean and peak walking speeds. These data are consistent with the inference that broilers allocate energy to activity within a constrained metabolic budget and that there is a reducing metabolic scope for exercise throughout their development. Comparison with similarly sized galliforms reveals that locomotion is relatively energetically expensive in broilers

Giant spin Hall effect in graphene grown by chemical vapour deposition

Advances in large-area graphene synthesis via chemical vapour deposition on metals like copper were instrumental in the demonstration of graphene-based novel, wafer-scale electronic circuits and proof-of-concept applications such as flexible touch panels. Here, we show that graphene grown by chemical vapour deposition on copper is equally promising for spintronics applications. In contrast to natural graphene, our experiments demonstrate that chemically synthesized graphene has a strong spin-orbit coupling as high as 20 meV giving rise to a giant spin Hall effect. The exceptionally large spin Hall angle ∼0.2 provides an important step towards graphene-based spintronics devices within existing complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology. Our microscopic model shows that unavoidable residual copper adatom clusters act as local spin-orbit scatterers and, in the resonant scattering limit, induce transverse spin currents with enhanced skew-scattering contribution. Our findings are confirmed independently by introducing metallic adatoms-copper, silver and gold on exfoliated graphene samples

Neural circuits controlling behavior and autonomic functions in medicinal leeches

In the study of the neural circuits underlying behavior and autonomic functions, the stereotyped and accessible nervous system of medicinal leeches, Hirudo sp., has been particularly informative. These leeches express well-defined behaviors and autonomic movements which are amenable to investigation at the circuit and neuronal levels. In this review, we discuss some of the best understood of these movements and the circuits which underlie them, focusing on swimming, crawling and heartbeat. We also discuss the rudiments of decision-making: the selection between generally mutually exclusive behaviors at the neuronal level

Dimerization of Hepatitis E Virus Capsid Protein E2s Domain Is Essential for Virus–Host Interaction

Hepatitis E virus (HEV), a non-enveloped, positive-stranded RNA virus, is transmitted in a faecal-oral manner, and causes acute liver diseases in humans. The HEV capsid is made up of capsomeres consisting of homodimers of a single structural capsid protein forming the virus shell. These dimers are believed to protrude from the viral surface and to interact with host cells to initiate infection. To date, no structural information is available for any of the HEV proteins. Here, we report for the first time the crystal structure of the HEV capsid protein domain E2s, a protruding domain, together with functional studies to illustrate that this domain forms a tight homodimer and that this dimerization is essential for HEV–host interactions. In addition, we also show that the neutralizing antibody recognition site of HEV is located on the E2s domain. Our study will aid in the development of vaccines and, subsequently, specific inhibitors for HEV

Risk behaviors in a rural community with a known point-source exposure to chronic wasting disease

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The emergence and continuing spread of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in cervids has now reached 14 U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, and South Korea, producing a potential for transmission of CWD prions to humans and other animals globally. In 2005, CWD spread for the first time from the Midwest to more densely populated regions of the East Coast. As a result, a large cohort of individuals attending a wild game feast in upstate New York were exposed to a deer that was subsequently confirmed positive for CWD.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Eighty-one participants who ingested or otherwise were exposed to a deer with chronic wasting disease at a local New York State sportsman's feast were recruited for this study. Participants were administered an exposure questionnaire and agreed to follow-up health evaluations longitudinally over the next six years.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results indicate two types of risks for those who attended the feast, a <it>Feast Risk </it>and a G<it>eneral Risk</it>. The larger the number of risk factors, the greater the risk to human health if CWD is transmissible to humans. Long-term surveillance of feast participants exposed to CWD is ongoing.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The risk data from this study provide a relative scale for cumulative exposure to CWD-infected tissues and surfaces, and those in the upper tiers of cumulative risk may be most at risk if CWD is transmissible to humans.</p

Rapid Evolution of Coral Proteins Responsible for Interaction with the Environment

Christian R. Voolstra is with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Shinichi Sunagawa is with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Mikhail V. Matz is with UT Austin, Till Bayer is with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Manuel Aranda is with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Emmanuel Buschiazzo is with University of California Merced, Michael K. DeSalvo is with University of California San Francisco, Erika Lindquist is with the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, Alina M. Szmant is with University of North Carolina Wilmington, Mary Alice Coffroth is with State University of New York at Buffalo, Mónica Medina is with University of California Merced.Background -- Corals worldwide are in decline due to climate change effects (e.g., rising seawater temperatures), pollution, and exploitation. The ability of corals to cope with these stressors in the long run depends on the evolvability of the underlying genetic networks and proteins, which remain largely unknown. A genome-wide scan for positively selected genes between related coral species can help to narrow down the search space considerably. Methodology/Principal Findings -- We screened a set of 2,604 putative orthologs from EST-based sequence datasets of the coral species Acropora millepora and Acropora palmata to determine the fraction and identity of proteins that may experience adaptive evolution. 7% of the orthologs show elevated rates of evolution. Taxonomically-restricted (i.e. lineage-specific) genes show a positive selection signature more frequently than genes that are found across many animal phyla. The class of proteins that displayed elevated evolutionary rates was significantly enriched for proteins involved in immunity and defense, reproduction, and sensory perception. We also found elevated rates of evolution in several other functional groups such as management of membrane vesicles, transmembrane transport of ions and organic molecules, cell adhesion, and oxidative stress response. Proteins in these processes might be related to the endosymbiotic relationship corals maintain with dinoflagellates in the genus Symbiodinium. Conclusion/Relevance -- This study provides a birds-eye view of the processes potentially underlying coral adaptation, which will serve as a foundation for future work to elucidate the rates, patterns, and mechanisms of corals' evolutionary response to global climate change.This work was supported by DEB-1054766 to M.V.M. and National Science Foundation grants IOS-0644438 and OCE-0313708 to M.M., and by a Collaborative Travel Fund to C.R.V. made by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). The work conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Biological Sciences, School o

Crystal Structure of the Heteromolecular Chaperone, AscE-AscG, from the Type III Secretion System in Aeromonas hydrophila

10.1371/journal.pone.0019208PLoS ONE64