1,123 research outputs found
Modern approaches to understanding stress and disease susceptibility: A review with special emphasis on respiratory disease
Studies in animals and humans link both physical and psychological stress with an increased incidence and severity of respiratory infections. For this manuscript we define stress as the physiological responses an individual undergoes while adjusting to a continually changing environment. It is known that stressors of various types (psychological/physical) can alter the physiological levels of certain hormones, chemokines and cytokines. These alterations send information to the central nervous system to take necessary action which then sends messages to appropriate organs/tissues/cells to respond. These messages can either activate or suppress the immune system as needed and failure to compensate for this by the body can lead to serious health-related problems. Little is known how stress affects disease susceptibility, yet understanding this mechanism is important for developing effective treatments, and for improving health and food quality. The current review focuses on (a) the effects of psychological stressors in humans and animals, (b) various methodologies employed to understand stress responses and their outcomes, and (c) the current status of the attempts to correlate stress and disease with respiratory disease as model system. The methodologies included in this review span traditional epidemiological, behavioral and immunological studies to current high throughput genomic, proteomic, metabolomic/metabonomic approaches. With the advent of various newer omics and bioinformatics methodologies we postulate that it will become feasible to understand the mechanisms through which stress can influence disease onset. Although the literature in this area is limited because of the infancy of this research area, the objective of this review is to illustrate the power of new approaches to address complex biological questions. These new approaches will also aid in our understanding how these processes are related to the dynamics and kinetics of changes in expression of multiple genes at various levels
Smolyak's algorithm: A powerful black box for the acceleration of scientific computations
We provide a general discussion of Smolyak's algorithm for the acceleration
of scientific computations. The algorithm first appeared in Smolyak's work on
multidimensional integration and interpolation. Since then, it has been
generalized in multiple directions and has been associated with the keywords:
sparse grids, hyperbolic cross approximation, combination technique, and
multilevel methods. Variants of Smolyak's algorithm have been employed in the
computation of high-dimensional integrals in finance, chemistry, and physics,
in the numerical solution of partial and stochastic differential equations, and
in uncertainty quantification. Motivated by this broad and ever-increasing
range of applications, we describe a general framework that summarizes
fundamental results and assumptions in a concise application-independent
manner
Reactivation of temperature-sensitive and non-temperature-sensitive infectious bovine rhinotracheitis vaccine virus with dexamethasone
Latent infections by a temperature-sensitive (ts) infectious bovine rhinotracheitis virus vaccine was produced as frequently as by non-ts vaccine virus. Thus, virus could be reactivated in seven of eight ts vaccinates and six of eight non-ts vaccinates after dexamethasone treatment. Virus excretion could be detectable for 1 to 8 days at a level of 2 X 106 to 3 X 108 plaque-forming units per ml of nasal secretions. The reactivated virus was shown to be the same as the original virus used for vaccination by its inability to grow at the restrictive temperature (39°C) as well as by its restriction endonuclease cleavage pattern
Non-invasive methods of identifying and tracking wild squid
The ability to identify individual free-living animals in the field is an important method for studying their behavior. Apart from invasive external or internal tags, which may cause injury or abnormal behavior, most cephalopods cannot be tagged, as their skin is too soft and delicate for tag retention. Additionally, cephalopods remove many types of tags. However, body markings have been successfully used as a non invasive method to identify individuals of many different species of animals, including whale sharks, grey whales, seals, and zebras. We developed methods to sex and individually identify Caribbean reef squid, Sepiotheuthis sepioidea. Males showed distinct bright dots on their fins on a Basic Brown background and have a light line at the fin edge while the females had a gradual transition from Brown to Pale towards the edge of their fins without showing distinct fin-dots or lines. In the field we used four characters to distinguish individual S. sepioidea from each other – sex, relative size to each other, scars, and patterns of light-colored dots on their mantles and fins. These dot patterns are individually unique and constant in location through time. Observations in the field were backed up by an image database using illustrations and photography
Non-invasive methods of identifying and tracking wild squid
The ability to identify individual free-living animals in the field is an important method for studying their behavior. Apart from invasive external or internal tags, which may cause injury or abnormal behavior, most cephalopods cannot be tagged, as their skin is too soft and delicate for tag retention. Additionally, cephalopods remove many types of tags. However, body markings have been successfully used as a non invasive method to identify individuals of many different species of animals, including whale sharks, grey whales, seals, and zebras. We developed methods to sex and individually identify Caribbean reef squid, Sepiotheuthis sepioidea. Males showed distinct bright dots on their fins on a Basic Brown background and have a light line at the fin edge while the females had a gradual transition from Brown to Pale towards the edge of their fins without showing distinct fin-dots or lines. In the field we used four characters to distinguish individual S. sepioidea from each other – sex, relative size to each other, scars, and patterns of light-colored dots on their mantles and fins. These dot patterns are individually unique and constant in location through time. Observations in the field were backed up by an image database using illustrations and photography
On the analogy between streamlined magnetic and solid obstacles
Analogies are elaborated in the qualitative description of two systems: the
magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow moving through a region where an external local
magnetic field (magnetic obstacle) is applied, and the ordinary hydrodynamic
flow around a solid obstacle. The former problem is of interest both
practically and theoretically, and the latter one is a classical problem being
well understood in ordinary hydrodynamics. The first analogy is the formation
in the MHD flow of an impenetrable region -- core of the magnetic obstacle --
as the interaction parameter , i.e. strength of the applied magnetic field,
increases significantly. The core of the magnetic obstacle is streamlined both
by the upstream flow and by the induced cross stream electric currents, like a
foreign insulated insertion placed inside the ordinary hydrodynamic flow. In
the core, closed streamlines of the mass flow resemble contour lines of
electric potential, while closed streamlines of the electric current resemble
contour lines of pressure. The second analogy is the breaking away of attached
vortices from the recirculation pattern produced by the magnetic obstacle when
the Reynolds number , i.e. velocity of the upstream flow, is larger than a
critical value. This breaking away of vortices from the magnetic obstacle is
similar to that occurring past a real solid obstacle. Depending on the inlet
and/or initial conditions, the observed vortex shedding can be either symmetric
or asymmetric.Comment: minor changes, accepted for PoF, 26 pages, 7 figure
Core of the Magnetic Obstacle
Rich recirculation patterns have been recently discovered in the electrically
conducting flow subject to a local external magnetic termed "the magnetic
obstacle" [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007), 144504]. This paper continues the study
of magnetic obstacles and sheds new light on the core of the magnetic obstacle
that develops between magnetic poles when the intensity of the external field
is very large. A series of both 3D and 2D numerical simulations have been
carried out, through which it is shown that the core of the magnetic obstacle
is streamlined both by the upstream flow and by the induced cross stream
electric currents, like a foreign insulated insertion placed inside the
ordinary hydrodynamic flow. The closed streamlines of the mass flow resemble
contour lines of electric potential, while closed streamlines of the electric
current resemble contour lines of pressure. New recirculation patterns not
reported before are found in the series of 2D simulations. These are composed
of many (even number) vortices aligned along the spanwise line crossing the
magnetic gap. The intensities of these vortices are shown to vanish toward to
the center of the magnetic gap, confirming the general conclusion of 3D
simulations that the core of the magnetic obstacle is frozen. The implications
of these findings for the case of turbulent flow are discussed briefly.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Journal of Turbulenc
Direct and Inverse Results on Bounded Domains for Meshless Methods via Localized Bases on Manifolds
This article develops direct and inverse estimates for certain finite
dimensional spaces arising in kernel approximation. Both the direct and inverse
estimates are based on approximation spaces spanned by local Lagrange functions
which are spatially highly localized. The construction of such functions is
computationally efficient and generalizes the construction given by the authors
for restricted surface splines on . The kernels for which the
theory applies includes the Sobolev-Mat\'ern kernels for closed, compact,
connected, Riemannian manifolds.Comment: 29 pages. To appear in Festschrift for the 80th Birthday of Ian Sloa
Upside-down fluxes Down Under: CO2 net sink in winter and net source in summer in a temperate evergreen broadleaf forest
Predicting the seasonal dynamics of ecosystem carbon fluxes is challenging in broadleaved evergreen forests because of their moderate climates and subtle changes in canopy phenology. We assessed the climatic and biotic drivers of the seasonality of net ecosystem–atmosphere CO2 exchange (NEE) of a eucalyptus-dominated forest near Sydney, Australia, using the eddy covariance method. The climate is characterised by a mean annual precipitation of 800mm and a mean annual temperature of 18°C, hot summers and mild winters, with highly variable precipitation. In the 4-year study, the ecosystem was a sink each year (−225gCm−2yr−1 on average, with a standard deviation of 108gCm−2yr−1); inter-annual variations were not related to meteorological conditions. Daily net C uptake was always detected during the cooler, drier winter months (June through August), while net C loss occurred during the warmer, wetter summer months (December through February). Gross primary productivity (GPP) seasonality was low, despite longer days with higher light intensity in summer, because vapour pressure deficit (D) and air temperature (Ta) restricted surface conductance during summer while winter temperatures were still high enough to support photosynthesis. Maximum GPP during ideal environmental conditions was significantly correlated with remotely sensed enhanced vegetation index (EVI; r2 = 0.46) and with canopy leaf area index (LAI; r2= 0.29), which increased rapidly after mid-summer rainfall events. Ecosystem respiration (ER) was highest during summer in wet soils and lowest during winter months. ER had larger seasonal amplitude compared to GPP, and therefore drove the seasonal variation of NEE. Because summer carbon uptake may become increasingly limited by atmospheric demand and high temperature, and because ecosystem respiration could be enhanced by rising temperatures, our results suggest the potential for large-scale seasonal shifts in NEE in sclerophyll vegetation under climate change.The Australian Education Investment Fund,
Australian Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, Australian
Research Council and Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment
at Western Sydney University supported this work. We thank
Jason Beringer, Helen Cleugh, Ray Leuning and Eva van Gorsel for
advice and support. Senani Karunaratne provided soil classification
details
Jump at the onset of saltation
We reveal a discontinuous transition in the saturated flux for aeolian
saltation by simulating explicitly particle motion in turbulent flow. The
discontinuity is followed by a coexistence interval with two metastable
solutions. The modification of the wind profile due to momentum exchange
exhibits a second maximum at high shear strength. The saturated flux depends on
the strength of the wind as
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