Transcriptome-wide analysis reveals different categories of response to a standardised immune challenge in a wild rodent

Individuals vary in their immune response and, as a result, some are more susceptible to infectious disease than others. Little is known about the nature of this individual variation in natural populations, or which components of immune pathways are most responsible, but defining this underlying landscape of variation is an essential first step to understanding the drivers of this variation and, ultimately, predicting the outcome of infection. We describe transcriptome-wide variation in response to a standardised immune challenge in wild field voles. We find that markers can be categorised into a limited number of types. For the majority of markers, the response of an individual is dependent on its baseline expression level, with significant enrichment in this category for conventional immune pathways. Another, moderately sized, category contains markers for which the responses of different individuals are also variable but independent of their baseline expression levels. This category lacks any enrichment for conventional immune pathways. We further identify markers which display particularly high individual variability in response, and could be used as markers of immune response in larger studies. Our work shows how a standardised challenge performed on a natural population can reveal the patterns of natural variation in immune response

Phase transitions and the internal noise structure of nonlinear Schr\"odi nger equation solitons

We predict phase-transitions in the quantum noise characteristics of systems described by the quantum nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, showing them to be related to the solitonic field transition at half the fundamental soliton amplitude. These phase-transitions are robust with respect to Raman noise and scattering losses. We also describe the rich internal quantum noise structure of the solitonic fields in the vicinity of the phase-transition. For optical coherent quantum solitons, this leads to the prediction that eliminating the peak side-band noise due to the electronic nonlinearity of silica fiber by spectral filtering leads to the optimal photon-number noise reduction of a fundamental soliton.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Quantum limits to center-of-mass measurements

We discuss the issue of measuring the mean position (center-of-mass) of a group of bosonic or fermionic quantum particles, including particle number fluctuations. We introduce a standard quantum limit for these measurements at ultra-low temperatures, and discuss this limit in the context of both photons and ultra-cold atoms. In the case of fermions, we present evidence that the Pauli exclusion principle has a strongly beneficial effect, giving rise to a 1/N scaling in the position standard-deviation -- as opposed to a $1/\sqrt{N}$ scaling for bosons. The difference between the actual mean-position fluctuation and this limit is evidence for quantum wave-packet spreading in the center-of-mass. This macroscopic quantum effect cannot be readily observed for non-interacting particles, due to classical pulse broadening. For this reason, we also study the evolution of photonic and matter-wave solitons, where classical dispersion is suppressed. In the photonic case, we show that the intrinsic quantum diffusion of the mean position can contribute significantly to uncertainties in soliton pulse arrival times. We also discuss ways in which the relatively long lifetimes of attractive bosons in matter-wave solitons may be used to demonstrate quantum interference between massive objects composed of thousands of particles.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to PRA. Revised to include more references as well as a discussion of fermionic center-of-mas

Conoscopic interferometry of wafers for surface-acoustic wave devices

We show that in interpreting the conoscopic interference fringes, one should exercise care in employing approximate expressions which fail for certain crystal cuts. In this paper, we study 64°- and 128°-rotated Y-cut and Z-cut LiNbO3 wafers. We show that the error made in using the approximate formulae for the samples is more than 25% and that one has to use exact formulae in order to attain quantitative agreement with the experimental data.Peer reviewe

The application of graph theory and percolation analysis for assessing change in the spatial configuration of pond networks

Pond networks support high levels of biodiversity when compared to other freshwater ecosystems such as rivers, lakes and streams. The persistence of species in these small, sometimes ephemeral, aquatic habitats depends on the dispersal of individuals among ponds in the landscape. However, the number of ponds across the landscape is at a historical low as urbanisation and intensified agricultural practices have led to a substantial loss of ponds (nodes in the pond network) over more than a century. Here, we examine the extent and drivers of pond loss in a heavily urbanised landscape (Birmingham, UK) over 105 years and determine how pond loss influences key structural properties of the pond network using graph theoretic approaches. Specifically, we calculated minimum spanning trees (MST) and performed percolation analyses to determine changes in both the spatial configuration and resilience of the pond network through time. Pond numbers declined by 82% between ca1904 and 2009, such that pond density decreased from 7.1 km-2 to 1.3 km-2. The MST analyses revealed increased distance between ponds in the network (i.e. edge length increased) by up to 49% over the 105-year period, indicating that ponds in the modern landscape (2009) were considerably more isolated, with fewer neighbours. This study demonstrates that graph theory has an excellent potential to inform the management of pond networks in order to support ecological communities that are less vulnerable to environmental change

Preparation Of Cationic Polymer Surfaces By Grafting Polymerization

A cationic polymer surface with extensive capacity for adsorption of anionic surfactants was prepared by graft polymerization of vinyl pyridine onto a plasma‐treated polypropylene surface. The nitrogen was quaternized in order to obtain the cationic sites. The concentration dependence of adsorption from high eletrolyte solution of the anionic surfactant was similar to the one a solid surface from solutions with no added electrolyte. The hydrophobic contribution to the adsorption was experienced at surfactant concentrations far below its critical micellization. Copyright © 1982 John Wiley & Sons, Inc

The Integration of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning into the Discipline of Communication Sciences and Disorders

McKinney (2018) has argued that for the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) to advance within a discipline, the integration of SoTL must be closely examined and opportunities for growth in SoTL must be recognized and discussed. To that end, this paper reflects on the degree to which SoTL is integrated into communication sciences and disorders (CSD) by examining a variety of topics: perspectives and theories historically valued by our discipline, existing supports for SoTL at various levels (i.e., individual teacher-scholars, departments, institutions, and the CSD discipline as a whole), the application of SoTL findings in teaching and learning. Four specific recommendations are made because of this examination and reflection