An update on feline infectious peritonitis: diagnostics and therapeutics.

This review is concerned with what has been learned about feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) diagnostics and therapeutics since the publication of an extensive overview of literature covering the period 1963-2009. Although progress has been made in both areas, obtaining a definitive diagnosis of FIP remains a problem for those veterinarians and/or cat owners who require absolute certainty. This review will cover both indirect and direct diagnostic tests for the disease and will emphasize their limitations, as well as their specificity and sensitivity. There is still no effective treatment for FIP, although there are both claims that such therapies exist and glimmers of hope coming from new therapies that are under research. FIP has also been identified in wild felids and FIP-like disease is now a growing problem among pet ferrets

Field-induced dissociation of two-dimensional excitons in transition-metal dichalcogenides

Generation of photocurrents in semiconducting materials requires dissociation of excitons into free charge carriers. While thermal agitation is sufficient to induce dissociation in most bulk materials, an additional push is required to induce efficient dissociation of the strongly bound excitons in monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Recently, static in-plane electric fields have proven to be a promising candidate. In the present paper, we introduce a numerical procedure, based on exterior complex scaling, capable of computing field-induced exciton dissociation rates for a wider range of field strengths than previously reported in literature. We present both Stark shifts and dissociation rates for excitons in various TMDs calculated within the Mott-Wannier model. Here, we find that the field induced dissociation rate is strongly dependent on the dielectric screening environment. Furthermore, applying weak-field asymptotic theory (WFAT) to the Keldysh potential, we are able to derive an analytical expression for exciton dissociation rates in the weak-field region

On the domain of the assembly map in algebraic K-theory

We compare the domain of the assembly map in algebraic K-theory with respect to the family of finite subgroups with the domain of the assembly map with respect to the family of virtually cyclic subgroups and prove that the former is a direct summand of the later.Comment: Published by Algebraic and Geometric Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/agt/AGTVol3/agt-3-35.abs.htm

Mechanics of the turbulent/non-turbulent interface of a jet

We report the results of an experimental investigation of the mechanics and transport processes at the bounding interface between the turbulent and nonturbulent regions of flow in a turbulent jet, which shows the existence of a finite jump in the tangential velocity at the interface. This is associated with small-scale eddying motion at the outward propagating interface (nibbling) by which irrotational fluid becomes turbulent, and this implies that large-scale engulfment is not the dominant entrainment process. Interpretation of the jump as a singular structure yields an essential and significant contribution to the mean shear in the jet mixing region. Finally, our observations provide a justification for Prandtl’s original hypothesis of a constant eddy viscosity in the nonturbulent outer jet region

Pathogenesis of feline enteric coronavirus infection.

Fifty-one specific pathogen-free (SPF) cats 10 weeks to 13 years of age were infected with a cat-to-cat fecal-oral passed strain of feline enteric coronavirus (FECV). Clinical signs ranged from unapparent to a mild and self-limiting diarrhea. Twenty-nine of these cats were FECV naïve before infection and followed sequentially for fecal virus shedding and antibody responses over a period of 8-48 months. Fecal shedding, as determined by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) from rectal swabs, appeared within a week and was significantly higher in kittens than older cats. FECV shedding remained at high levels for 2-10 months before eventually evolving into one of three excretion patterns. Eleven cats shed the virus persistently at varying levels over an observation period of 9-24 months. Eleven cats appeared to have periods of virus shedding interlaced with periods of non-shedding (intermittent or recurrent shedders), and seven cats ceased shedding after 5-19 months (average 12 months). There was no change in the patterns of virus shedding among cats that were excreting FECV at the time of a secondary challenge exposure. Four cats, which had ceased shedding, re-manifested a primary type infection when secondarily infected. Cats with higher feline coronavirus (FCoV) antibody titers were significantly more likely to shed virus, while cats with lower titers were significantly less likely to be shedding. Twenty-two kittens born to experimentally infected project queens began shedding virus spontaneously, but never before 9-10 weeks of age. Natural kittenhood infections appeared to be low grade and abortive. However, a characteristic primary type infection occurred following experimental infection with FECV at 12-15 weeks of age. Pregnancy, parturition and lactation had no influence on fecal shedding by queens. Methylprednisolone acetate treatment did not induce non-shedders to shed and shedders to increase shedding

Large N lattice QCD and its extended strong-weak connection to the hypersphere

We calculate an effective Polyakov line action of QCD at large Nc and large Nf from a combined lattice strong coupling and hopping expansion working to second order in both, where the order is defined by the number of windings in the Polyakov line. We compare with the action, truncated at the same order, of continuum QCD on S^1 x S^d at weak coupling from one loop perturbation theory, and find that a large Nc correspondence of equations of motion found in \cite{Hollowood:2012nr} at leading order, can be extended to the next order. Throughout the paper, we review the background necessary for computing higher order corrections to the lattice effective action, in order to make higher order comparisons more straightforward.Comment: 33 pages, 7 figure