Perspectives on using remotely-sensed imagery in predictive veterinary epidemiology and global early warning systems

Recent disease epidemics and their spread around the world have illustrated the weaknesses of disease surveillance and early warning systems (EWS), both at national and international levels. These diseases continuously threaten the livestock sector on a worldwide basis, some with major public health impact. EWS and accurate forecasting of new outbreaks of epidemic livestock diseases that may also affect wildlife, and the capacity for spread of such diseases to new areas is an essential pre-requisite to their effective containment and control. Because both the geographical and seasonal distribution of many infectious diseases are linked to climate, the possibility of using climaterelated environmental factors as predictive indicators, in association with regular disease surveillance activities, has proven to be relevant when establishing EWS for climate-related diseases. This article reviews the growing importance of using geographical information systems in predictive veterinary epidemiology and its integration into EWS, with a special focus on Rift Valley fever. It shows that, once fully validated in a country or region, this technology appears highly valuable and could play an increasing role in forecasting major epidemics, providing lead time to national veterinary services to take action to mitigate the impact of the disease in a cost-effective manner

Perspectives on using remotely-sensed imagery in predictive veterinary epidemiology and global early warning systems

Recent disease epidemics and their spread around the world have illustrated the weaknesses of disease surveillance and early warning systems (EWS), both at national and international levels. These diseases continuously threaten the livestock sector on a worldwide basis, some with major public health impact. EWS and accurate forecasting of new outbreaks of epidemic livestock diseases that may also affect wildlife, and the capacity for spread of such diseases to new areas is an essential pre-requisite to their effective containment and control. Because both the geographical and seasonal distribution of many infectious diseases are linked to climate, the possibility of using climaterelated environmental factors as predictive indicators, in association with regular disease surveillance activities, has proven to be relevant when establishing EWS for climate-related diseases. This article reviews the growing importance of using geographical information systems in predictive veterinary epidemiology and its integration into EWS, with a special focus on Rift Valley fever. It shows that, once fully validated in a country or region, this technology appears highly valuable and could play an increasing role in forecasting major epidemics, providing lead time to national veterinary services to take action to mitigate the impact of the disease in a cost-effective manner

Consistent use of proactive control and relation with academic achievement in childhood

As children become older, they better maintain task-relevant information in preparation of upcoming cognitive demands. This is referred to as proactive control, which is a key component of cognitive control development. However, it is still uncertain whether children engage in proactive control consistently across different contexts and how proactive control relates to academic abilities. This study used two common tasks—the AX Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT) and the Cued Task-Switching Paradigm (CTS)—to examine whether proactive control engagement in 102 children (age range: 6.91–10.91 years) converges between the two tasks and predicts academic abilities. Proactive control indices modestly correlated between tasks in higher but not lower working-memory children, suggesting that consistency in proactive control engagement across contexts is relatively low during childhood but increases with working memory capacity. Further, working memory (but not verbal speed) predicted proactive control engagement in both tasks. While proactive control as measured by each task predicted math and reading performance, only proactive control measured by CTS additionally predicted reasoning, suggesting that proactive control can be used as a proxy for academic achievements

The impact of climate change on the epidemiology and control of Rift Valley fever

Climate change is likely to change the frequency of extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones, floods, droughts and hurricanes, and may destabilize and weaken the ecosystem services upon which human society depends. Climate change is also expected to affect animal, human and plant health via indirect pathways: it is likely that the geography of infectious diseases and pests will be altered, including the distribution of vector-borne diseases, such as Rift Valley fever, yellow fever, malaria and dengue, which are highly sensitive to climatic conditions. Extreme weather events might then create the necessary conditions for Rift Valley fever to expand its geographical range northwards and cross the Mediterranean and Arabian seas, with an unexpected impact on the animal and human health of newly affected countries. Strengthening global, regional and national early warning systems is crucial, as are co-ordinated research programmes and subsequent prevention and intervention measures

The impact of climate change on the epidemiology and control of Rift Valley fever

Climate change is likely to change the frequency of extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones, floods, droughts and hurricanes, and may destabilize and weaken the ecosystem services upon which human society depends. Climate change is also expected to affect animal, human and plant health via indirect pathways: it is likely that the geography of infectious diseases and pests will be altered, including the distribution of vector-borne diseases, such as Rift Valley fever, yellow fever, malaria and dengue, which are highly sensitive to climatic conditions. Extreme weather events might then create the necessary conditions for Rift Valley fever to expand its geographical range northwards and cross the Mediterranean and Arabian seas, with an unexpected impact on the animal and human health of newly affected countries. Strengthening global, regional and national early warning systems is crucial, as are co-ordinated research programmes and subsequent prevention and intervention measures

Dust Formation and Survival in Supernova Ejecta

The presence of dust at high redshift requires efficient condensation of grains in SN ejecta, in accordance with current theoretical models. Yet, observations of the few well studied SNe and SN remnants imply condensation efficiencies which are about two orders of magnitude smaller. Motivated by this tension, we have (i) revisited the model of Todini & Ferrara (2001) for dust formation in the ejecta of core collapse SNe and (ii) followed, for the first time, the evolution of newly condensed grains from the time of formation to their survival - through the passage of the reverse shock - in the SN remnant. We find that 0.1 - 0.6 M_sun of dust form in the ejecta of 12 - 40 M_sun stellar progenitors. Depending on the density of the surrounding ISM, between 2-20% of the initial dust mass survives the passage of the reverse shock, on time-scales of about 4-8 x 10^4 yr from the stellar explosion. Sputtering by the hot gas induces a shift of the dust size distribution towards smaller grains. The resulting dust extinction curve shows a good agreement with that derived by observations of a reddened QSO at z =6.2. Stochastic heating of small grains leads to a wide distribution of dust temperatures. This supports the idea that large amounts (~ 0.1 M_sun) of cold dust (T ~ 40K) can be present in SN remnants, without being in conflict with the observed IR emission.Comment: MNRAS accepte

The effect of metacognitive executive function training on children's executive function, proactive control, and academic skills

The current study investigated the effects of metacognitive and executive function (EF) training on childhood EF (inhibition, working memory [WM], cognitive flexibility, and proactive/reactive control) and academic skills (reading, reasoning, and math) among children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Children (N = 134, Mage = 8.70 years) were assigned randomly to the three training groups: (a) metacognitive training of basic EF processes (meta-EF), (b) training of basic EF processes (basic-EF), and (c) active controls (active control). They underwent 16 training sessions over the course of 2 months. No effects of EF and/or metacognitive training were found for academic outcomes. However, both meta-EF and basic-EF groups demonstrated greater gains than the active control group on proactive control engagement and WM, suggesting that EF training promotes a shift to more mature ways of engaging EF. Our findings suggest minimal near- and far-transfer effects of metacognitive training but highlight that proactive engagement of EF can be promoted through EF training in children

Strategies for Biochemical and Pathologic Quality Assurance in a Large Multi-Institutional Biorepository; The Experience of the PROCURE Quebec Prostate Cancer Biobank

Well-characterized, high-quality fresh-frozen prostate tissue is required for prostate cancer research. As part of the PROCURE Prostate Cancer Biobank launched in 2007, four University Hospitals in Quebec joined to bank fresh frozen prostate tissues from radical prostatectomies (RP). As the biobank progressed towards allocation, the nature and quality of the tissues were determined. RP tissues were collected by standardized alternate mirror-image or biopsy-based targeted methods, and frozen for banking. Clinical/pathological parameters were captured. For quality control, two presumed benign and two presumed cancerous frozen, biobanked tissue blocks per case (10/site) were randomly selected during the five years of collection. In a consensus meeting, 4 pathologists blindly evaluated slides (n = 160) and graded quality, Gleason score (GS), and size of cancer foci. The quality of tissue RNA (37/40 cases) was assessed using the RNA Integrity Number. The biobank included 1819 patients of mean age: 62.1 years; serum PSA: 8ng/ml; prostate weight: 47.8 g; GS: 7; and pathological stage: T2 in 64.5%, T3A in 25.5% and T3B in 10% of cases. Of the 157 evaluable slides, 79 and 78 had benign and cancer tissue, respectively. GS for the 37 cancer-positive cases were: 6 in 9, 7 in 18 and > 7 in 10 and, in most instances, in concordance with final GS. In 40% of slides containing cancer, foci occupied ‡ 50% of block surface and 42% had a diameter ‡ 1 cm. Tissue was well preserved and consistently yielded RNA of very good quality with RNA Integrity Number (RIN) > 7 for 97% of cases (mean = 8.7 -0.7) during the five-year collection period. This study confirms the high quality of randomly selected benign and cancerous fresh-frozen prostate tissues of the PROCURE Quebec Prostate Cancer Biobank. These results strengthen the uniqueness of this large prospective resource for prostate cancer research