Know Your Monkey: Identifying Primate Conservation Challenges in an Indigenous Kichwa Community Using an Ethnoprimatological Approach

© 2016 The Author(s) Increasing pressure on tropical forests is continually highlighting the need to find new solutions that mitigate the impact of human populations on biodiversity. However, developing solutions that can tackle the drivers of anthropogenic pressure, or at least take them into account, hinges upon building a good understanding of the culture and perceptions of local people. This study aims to provide an overview of the ethnoprimatology of an indigenous Kichwa community in the Ecuadorian Amazon that maintains a traditional lifestyle but also has good access to markets. We examine whether primates are seen as a distinctive group and their relative importance as sources of bushmeat and as household pets. Pile-sorting exercises revealed that although locals generally group members of the order Primates together, tree-dwelling nonprimates including sloths, coatis, kinkajous and tamanduas are also frequently classified as 'monkeys'. The perceived importance of primates to the forest and the community lay more in their potential as bushmeat, and only 1 respondent identified an ecological role for the group in terms of seed dispersal. Gaining a better understanding of local perceptions will allow for better-informed conservation decisions that are more aware of potential impacts and are more likely to gain community support

Bluetongue Virus Serotype 1 Outbreak in the Basque Country (Northern Spain) 2007–2008. Data Support a Primary Vector Windborne Transport

BACKGROUND: Bluetongue (BT) is a vector-borne disease of ruminants that has expanded its traditional global distribution in the last decade. Recently, BTV-1 emerged in Southern Spain and caused several outbreaks in livestock reaching the north of the country. The aim of this paper was to review the emergence of BTV-1 in the Basque Country (Northern Spain) during 2007 and 2008 analyzing the possibility that infected Culicoides were introduced into Basque Country by winds from the infected areas of Southern Spain. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We use a complex HYSPLIT (Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory) model to draw wind roses and backward wind trajectories. The analysis of winds showed September 28 to October 2 as the only period for the introduction of infected midges in the Basque Country. These wind trajectories crossed through the areas affected by serotype 1 on those dates in the South of the Iberian Peninsula. Additionally meteorological data, including wind speed and humidity, and altitude along the trajectories showed suitable conditions for Culicoides survival and dispersion. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: An active infection in medium-long distance regions, wind with suitable speed, altitude and trajectory, and appropriate weather can lead to outbreaks of BTV-1 by transport of Culicoides imicola, not only over the sea (as reported previously) but also over the land. This shows that an additional factor has to be taken into account for the control of the disease which is currently essentially based on the assumption that midges will only spread the virus in a series of short hops. Moreover, the epidemiological and serological data cannot rule out the involvement of other Culicoides species in the spread of the infection, especially at a local level

Low specificity of determine HIV1/2 RDT using whole blood in south west Tanzania

Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic performance of two rapid detection tests (RDTs) for HIV 1/2 in plasma and in whole blood samples. Methods: More than 15,000 study subjects above the age of two years participated in two rounds of a cohort study to determine the prevalence of HIV. HIV testing was performed using the Determine HIV 1/2 test (Abbott) in the first (2006/2007) and the HIV 1/2 STAT-PAK Dipstick Assay (Chembio) in the second round (2007/2008) of the survey. Positive results were classified into faint and strong bands depending on the visual appearance of the test strip and confirmed by ELISA and Western blot. Results: The sensitivity and specificity of the Determine RDT were 100% (95% confidence interval = 86.8 to 100%) and 96.8% (95.9 to 97.6%) in whole blood and 100% (99.7 to 100%) and 97.9% (97.6 to 98.1%) in plasma respectively. Specificity was highly dependent on the tested sample type: when using whole blood, 67.1% of positive results were false positive, as opposed to 17.4% in plasma. Test strips with only faint positive bands were more often false positive than strips showing strong bands and were more common in whole blood than in plasma. Evaluation of the STAT-PAK RDT in plasma during the second year resulted in a sensitivity of 99.7% (99.1 to 99.9%) and a specificity of 99.3% (99.1 to 99.4%) with 6.9% of the positive results being false. Conclusions: Our study shows that the Determine HIV 1/2 strip test with its high sensitivity is an excellent tool to screen for HIV infection, but that – at least in our setting – it can not be recommended as a confirmatory test in VCT campaigns where whole blood is used

Combining dispersion modelling with synoptic patterns to understand the wind-borne transport into the UK of the bluetongue disease vector

Bluetongue, an economically important animal disease, can be spread over long distances by carriage of insect vectors (Culicoides biting midges) on the wind. The weather conditions which influence the midge’s flight are controlled by synoptic scale atmospheric circulations. A method is proposed that links wind-borne dispersion of the insects to synoptic circulation through the use of a dispersion model in combination with principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis. We illustrate how to identify the main synoptic situations present during times of midge incursions into the UK from the European continent. A PCA was conducted on high-pass-filtered mean sea-level pressure data for a domain centred over north-west Europe from 2005 to 2007. A clustering algorithm applied to the PCA scores indicated the data should be divided into five classes for which averages were calculated, providing a classification of the main synoptic types present. Midge incursion events were found to mainly occur in two synoptic categories; 64.8% were associated with a pattern displaying a pressure gradient over the North Atlantic leading to moderate south-westerly flow over the UK and 17.9% of the events occurred when high pressure dominated the region leading to south-easterly or easterly winds. The winds indicated by the pressure maps generally compared well against observations from a surface station and analysis charts. This technique could be used to assess frequency and timings of incursions of virus into new areas on seasonal and decadal timescales, currently not possible with other dispersion or biological modelling methods

A review of African horse sickness and its implications for Ireland

African horse sickness is an economically highly important non-contagious but infectious Orbivirus disease that is transmitted by various species of Culicoides midges. The equids most severely affected by the virus are horses, ponies, and European donkeys; mules are somewhat less susceptible, and African donkeys and zebra are refractory to the devastating consequences of infection. In recent years, Bluetongue virus, an Orbivirus similar to African horse sickness, which also utilises Culicoides spp. as its vector, has drastically increased its range into previously unaffected regions in northern Europe, utilising indigenous vector species, and causing widespread economic damage to the agricultural sector. Considering these events, the current review outlines the history of African horse sickness, including information concerning virus structure, transmission, viraemia, overwintering ability, and the potential implications that an outbreak would have for Ireland. While the current risk for the introduction of African horse sickness to Ireland is considered at worst ‘very low’, it is important to note that prior to the 2006 outbreak of Bluetongue in northern Europe, both diseases were considered to be of equal risk to the United Kingdom (‘medium-risk’). It is therefore likely that any outbreak of this disease would have serious socio-economic consequences for Ireland due to the high density of vulnerable equids and the prevalence of Culicoides species, potentially capable of vectoring the virus

Visualizing size-dependent deformation mechanism transition in Sn

Displacive deformation via dislocation slip and deformation twinning usually plays a dominant role in the plasticity of crystalline solids at room temperature. Here we report in situ quantitative transmission electron microscope deformation tests of single crystal Sn samples. We found that when the sample size was reduced from 450 nm down to 130 nm, diffusional deformation replaces displacive plasticity as the dominant deformation mechanism at room temperature. At the same time, the strength-size relationship changed from “smaller is stronger” to “smaller is much weaker”. The effective surface diffusivity calculated based on our experimental data matches well with that reported in literature for boundary diffusion. The observed change in the deformation mode arises from the sample size-dependent competition between the Hall-Petch-like strengthening of displacive processes and Coble diffusion softening processes. Our findings have important implications for the stability and reliability of nanoscale devices such as metallic nanogaps.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CMMI-0728069)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (DMR-1008104)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (DMR-1120901)United States. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-08-1-0325

Pairwise statistical significance of local sequence alignment using multiple parameter sets and empirical justification of parameter set change penalty

Background: Accurate estimation of statistical significance of a pairwise alignment is an important problem in sequence comparison. Recently, a comparative study of pairwise statistical significance with database statistical significance was conducted. In this paper, we extend the earlier work on pairwise statistical significance by incorporating with it the use of multiple parameter sets. Results: Results for a knowledge discovery application of homology detection reveal that using multiple parameter sets for pairwise statistical significance estimates gives better coverage than using a single parameter set, at least at some error levels. Further, the results of pairwise statistical significance using multiple parameter sets are shown to be significantly better than database statistical significance estimates reported by BLAST and PSI-BLAST, and comparable and at times significantly better than SSEARCH. Using non-zero parameter set change penalty values give better performance than zero penalty. Conclusion: The fact that the homology detection performance does not degrade when using multiple parameter sets is a strong evidence for the validity of the assumption that the alignment score distribution follows an extreme value distribution even when using multiple parameter sets. Parameter set change penalty is a useful parameter for alignment using multiple parameter sets. Pairwise statistical significance using multiple parameter sets can be effectively used to determine the relatedness of a (or a few) pair(s) of sequences without performing a time-consuming database search

In vitro selectivity, in vivo biodistribution and tumour uptake of annexin V radiolabelled with a positron emitting radioisotope

The availability of a noninvasive method to detect and quantify apoptosis in tumours will enable tumour response to several cancer therapies to be assessed. We have synthesised two radiotracers, annexin V and the N-succinimidyl-3-iodobenzoic acid (SIB) derivative of annexin V, labelled with radio-iodine (124I and 125I) and provided proof of the concept by assessing specific binding and biodistribution of these probes to apoptotic cells and tumours. We have also assessed the tumour uptake of [124I]annexin V in a mouse model of apoptosis. RIF-1 cells induced to undergo apoptosis in vitro showed a drug concentration-dependent increased binding of [125I]annexin V and [125I]SIB–annexin V. In the same model system, there was an increase in terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated nick end labelling (TUNEL)-positive cells and a decrease in clonogenic survival. Radiotracer binding was completely inhibited by preincubation with unlabelled annexin V. In RIF-1 tumour-bearing mice, rapid distribution of [125I]SIB–annexin V-derived radioactivity to kidneys was observed and the radiotracer accumulated in urine. The binding of [125I]SIB–annexin V to RIF-1 tumours increased by 2.3-fold at 48 h after a single intraperitoneal injection of 5-fluorouracil (165 mg kg−1 body weight), compared to a 4.4-fold increase in TUNEL-positive cells measured by immunostaining. Positron emission tomography images with both radiotracers demonstrated intense localisation in the kidneys and bladder. Unlike [124I]SIB–annexin V, [124I]annexin V also showed localisation in the thyroid region presumably due to deiodination of the radiolabel. [124I]SIB–annexin V is an attractive candidate for in vivo imaging of apoptosis by PET

Measurement of the Forward-Backward Asymmetry in the B -> K(*) mu+ mu- Decay and First Observation of the Bs -> phi mu+ mu- Decay

We reconstruct the rare decays $B^+ \to K^+\mu^+\mu^-$, $B^0 \to K^{*}(892)^0\mu^+\mu^-$, and $B^0_s \to \phi(1020)\mu^+\mu^-$ in a data sample corresponding to $4.4 {\rm fb^{-1}}$ collected in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=1.96 {\rm TeV}$ by the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. Using $121 \pm 16$ $B^+ \to K^+\mu^+\mu^-$ and $101 \pm 12$ $B^0 \to K^{*0}\mu^+\mu^-$ decays we report the branching ratios. In addition, we report the measurement of the differential branching ratio and the muon forward-backward asymmetry in the $B^+$ and $B^0$ decay modes, and the $K^{*0}$ longitudinal polarization in the $B^0$ decay mode with respect to the squared dimuon mass. These are consistent with the theoretical prediction from the standard model, and most recent determinations from other experiments and of comparable accuracy. We also report the first observation of the $B^0_s \to \phi\mu^+\mu^- decay and measure its branching ratio${\mathcal{B}}(B^0_s \to \phi\mu^+\mu^-) = [1.44 \pm 0.33 \pm 0.46] \times 10^{-6}$using$27 \pm 6$signal events. This is currently the most rare$B^0_s$ decay observed.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Search for a New Heavy Gauge Boson Wprime with Electron + missing ET Event Signature in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV

We present a search for a new heavy charged vector boson $W^\prime$ decaying to an electron-neutrino pair in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96\unit{TeV}. The data were collected with the CDF II detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 5.3\unit{fb}^{-1}. No significant excess above the standard model expectation is observed and we set upper limits on $\sigma\cdot{\cal B}(W^\prime\to e\nu)$. Assuming standard model couplings to fermions and the neutrino from the $W^\prime$ boson decay to be light, we exclude a $W^\prime$ boson with mass less than 1.12\unit{TeV/}c^2 at the 95\unit{%} confidence level.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures Submitted to PR