Faster Control Plane Experimentation with Horse

Simulation and emulation are popular approaches for experimentation in Computer Networks. However, due to their respective inherent drawbacks, existing solutions cannot perform both fast and realistic control plane experiments. To close this gap, we introduce Horse. Horse is a hybrid solution with an emulated control plane, for realism, and simulated data plane, for speed. Our decoupling of the control and data plane allows us to speed up the experiments without sacrificing control plane realism

Objects in contact with classical scrapie sheep act as a reservoir for scrapie transmission

Classical scrapie is an environmentally transmissible prion disease of sheep and goats. Prions can persist and remain potentially infectious in the environment for many years and thus pose a risk of infecting animals after re-stocking. In vitro studies using serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification (sPMCA) have suggested that objects on a scrapie- affected sheep farm could contribute to disease transmission. This in vivo study aimed to determine the role of field furniture (water troughs, feeding troughs, fencing, and other objects that sheep may rub against) used by a scrapie-infected sheep flock as a vector for disease transmission to scrapie-free lambs with the prion protein genotype VRQ/VRQ, which is associated with high susceptibility to classical scrapie. When the field furniture was placed in clean accommodation, sheep became infected when exposed to either a water trough (four out of five) or to objects used for rubbing (four out of seven). This field furniture had been used by the scrapie-infected flock 8 weeks earlier and had previously been shown to harbor scrapie prions by sPMCA. Sheep also became infected (20 out of 23) through exposure to contaminated field furniture placed within pasture not used by scrapie-infected sheep for 40 months, even though swabs from this furniture tested negative by PMCA. This infection rate decreased (1 out of 12) on the same paddock after replacement with clean field furniture. Twelve grazing sheep exposed to field furniture not in contact with scrapie-infected sheep for 18 months remained scrapie free. The findings of this study highlight the role of field furniture used by scrapie-infected sheep to act as a reservoir for disease re-introduction although infectivity declines considerably if the field furniture has not been in contact with scrapie-infected sheep for several months. PMCA may not be as sensitive as VRQ/VRQ sheep to test for environmental contamination

HEPCloud, a New Paradigm for HEP Facilities: CMS Amazon Web Services Investigation

Historically, high energy physics computing has been performed on large purpose-built computing systems. These began as single-site compute facilities, but have evolved into the distributed computing grids used today. Recently, there has been an exponential increase in the capacity and capability of commercial clouds. Cloud resources are highly virtualized and intended to be able to be flexibly deployed for a variety of computing tasks. There is a growing nterest among the cloud providers to demonstrate the capability to perform large-scale scientific computing. In this paper, we discuss results from the CMS experiment using the Fermilab HEPCloud facility, which utilized both local Fermilab resources and virtual machines in the Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud. We discuss the planning, technical challenges, and lessons learned involved in performing physics workflows on a large-scale set of virtualized resources. In addition, we will discuss the economics and operational efficiencies when executing workflows both in the cloud and on dedicated resources.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure

Different prion disease phenotypes result from inoculation of cattle with two temporally separated sources of sheep scrapie from Great Britain

BACKGROUND: Given the theoretical proposal that bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) could have originated from sheep scrapie, this study investigated the pathogenicity for cattle, by intracerebral (i.c.) inoculation, of two pools of scrapie agents sourced in Great Britain before and during the BSE epidemic. Two groups of ten cattle were each inoculated with pools of brain material from sheep scrapie cases collected prior to 1975 and after 1990. Control groups comprised five cattle inoculated with sheep brain free from scrapie, five cattle inoculated with saline, and for comparison with BSE, naturally infected cattle and cattle i.c. inoculated with BSE brainstem homogenate from a parallel study. Phenotypic characterisation of the disease forms transmitted to cattle was conducted by morphological, immunohistochemical, biochemical and biological methods. RESULTS: Disease occurred in 16 cattle, nine inoculated with the pre-1975 inoculum and seven inoculated with the post-1990 inoculum, with four cattle still alive at 83 months post challenge (as at June 2006). The different inocula produced predominantly two different disease phenotypes as determined by histopathological, immunohistochemical and Western immunoblotting methods and biological characterisation on transmission to mice, neither of which was identical to BSE. Whilst the disease presentation was uniform in all scrapie-affected cattle of the pre-1975 group, the post-1990 inoculum produced a more variable disease, with two animals sharing immunohistochemical and molecular profile characteristics with animals in the pre-1975 group. CONCLUSION: The study has demonstrated that cattle inoculated with different pooled scrapie sources can develop different prion disease phenotypes, which were not consistent with the phenotype of BSE of cattle and whose isolates did not have the strain typing characteristics of the BSE agent on transmission to mice

Enhanced Long-Path Electrical Conduction in ZnO Nanowire Array Devices Grown via Defect-Driven Nucleation

Vertical arrays of nanostructures have been widely used as major components in some of the most ground-breaking modern research-based devices, and ZnO nanowires have received particular attention because of their favorable electronic properties. Using a local multiprobe technique to measure the properties of individual ZnO nanowires in vertical arrays, we show for the first time that for metal-catalyzed ZnO nanowire growth the electrical contribution of individual wires to a device is highly dependent on the fate of the catalyst nanoparticle during growth. To overcome the limitations of metal-catalyzed growth, nanowires grown from a defect-driven nucleation process are shown to provide high-quality device structures with excellent long-path electrical conduction

Emergence and spread of novel H5N8, H5N5 and H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4 highly pathogenic avian influenza in 2020

Analyses of HPAI H5 viruses from poultry outbreaks across a wide Eurasian region since July 2020 including the Russian Federation, Republics of Iraq and Kazakhstan, and recent detections in migratory waterfowl in the Netherlands, revealed undetected maintenance of H5N8, likely in galliform poultry since 2017/18 and both H5N5 and H5N1. All viruses belong to A/H5 clade 2.3.4.4b with closely related HA genes. Heterogeneity in Eurasian H5Nx HPAI emerging variants threatens poultry production, food security and veterinary public health

Geographical and temporal distribution of SARS-CoV-2 clades in the WHO European Region, January to June 2020

We show the distribution of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) genetic clades over time and between countries and outline potential genomic surveillance objectives. We applied three genomic nomenclature systems to all sequence data from the World Health Organization European Region available until 10 July 2020. We highlight the importance of real-time sequencing and data dissemination in a pandemic situation, compare the nomenclatures and lay a foundation for future European genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2

State capture and decorporatization of financial elites in Ecuador

Objetivo/contexto: El artículo analiza la relación entre el Estado y las élites financieras en Ecuador durante el gobierno de Rafael Correa (2007-2014), enmarcado en lo que se conoce como giro a la izquierda. Este gobierno emprendió una lucha descorporativizadora para desacoplar la gestión estatal de los intereses privados que habían capturado al Estado durante el ciclo neoliberal. Esto implicó dos movimientos simultáneos: quebrar la institucionalidad vigente en distintos ámbitos de política pública (educación, finanzas, salud, medios de comunicación, entre otros) regentados por actores de veto con intereses particulares y, al mismo tiempo, edificar una nueva institucionalidad capaz de responder a intereses y demandas más amplias, en una clave democrática e inclusiva. Metodología: La exploración empírica de este caso se efectuó con una metodología cualitativa basada en el análisis hemerográfico y normativo y el rastreo de procesos, lo cual permitió ofrecer evidencia sobre mecanismos de captura y descorporativización del Estado, en el marco de gobiernos cuyos adversarios predilectos son las élites económicas comprometidas con el neoliberalismo. Conclusiones: La reconfiguración institucional llevada adelante por la Revolución Ciudadana en el ámbito de las finanzas consiguió mayores márgenes de autonomía estatal, a través de nuevos diseños institucionales de organismos del sistema financiero, como las Juntas Monetaria y Bancaria, para evitar que los intereses privados de los banqueros permeen la gestión estatal. Originalidad: El texto aportó elementos para suplir el vacío que se encuentra en los estudios sobre élites en América Latina y su relación con el Estado, específicamente, acerca de los mecanismos de captura y “des-captura” de la gestión estatal.Objective/context: The article analyzes the relationship between the State and financial elites in Ecuador during the government of Rafael Correa (2007-2014), framed by what is known as the turn to the left. This government carried out a decorporatizing fight to delink state management from private interests that had captured the State during the neoliberal cycle. This entailed two simultaneous movements: breaking the institutionality in force in different spheres of public policy (education, finance, health, communications media, among others) governed by actors with veto powers and special interests and, at the same time, building a new institutionality capable of responding to wider interests and demands, within a democratic and inclusive spirit. Methodology: The empirical exploration of this case was performed with a qualitative methodology based on an analysis of the press and regulations and the tracking of processes, which allowed offering evidence regarding the mechanisms for the capture and decorporatization of the State, within the framework of governments whose favorite adversaries are the economic elites committed to neoliberalism. Conclusions: The institutional reconfiguration carried out by the Citizen’s Revolution within the sphere of finance achieved greater margins of state autonomy, through new institutional designs of financial system bodies, such as the Monetary and Banking Boards, to keep the private interests of bankers from permeating state management. Originality: The text contributed elements to bridge the gap found in studies on elites in Latin America and their relationship with the State, specifically, regarding the mechanisms for the capture and “de-capture” of state management.Fil: Coronel, Valeria. Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales; EcuadorFil: Stoessel, Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación. Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales; ArgentinaFil: Guanche, Julio César. Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales; EcuadorFil: Cadahia, María Luciana. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana; Colombi