In order to determine the location of the gamma-ray emission site in blazars, we investigate the time-domain relationship between their radio and gamma-ray emission. Light curves for the brightest ...detected blazars from the first 3 yr of the mission of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope are cross-correlated with 4 yr of 15 GHz observations from the Owens Valley Radio Observatory 40 m monitoring programme. The large sample and long light-curve duration enable us to carry out a statistically robust analysis of the significance of the cross-correlations, which is investigated using Monte Carlo simulations including the uneven sampling and noise properties of the light curves. Modelling the light curves as red noise processes with power-law power spectral densities, we find that only one of 41 sources with high-quality data in both bands shows correlations with significance larger than 3σ (AO 0235+164), with only two more larger than even 2.25σ (PKS 1502+106 and B2 2308+34). Additionally, we find correlated variability in Mrk 421 when including a strong flare that occurred in 2012 July–September. These results demonstrate very clearly the difficulty of measuring statistically robust multiwavelength correlations and the care needed when comparing light curves even when many years of data are used. This should be a caution. In all four sources, the radio variations lag the gamma-ray variations, suggesting that the gamma-ray emission originates upstream of the radio emission. Continuous simultaneous monitoring over a longer time period is required to obtain high significance levels in cross-correlations between gamma-ray and radio variability in most blazars.
Highlights ► In 2000, varicella incidence dramatically declined to 70% of the prevaccine rate. ► HZ reports significantly increased among adults aged 20–69 years from 2000 to 2001. ► Children with a ...prior history of varicella demonstrated HZ rates similar to adults. ► By 2002, the efficacy of the varicella vaccination had declined well below 80%. ► HZ morbidity costs have exceeded the cost savings from varicella-disease reductions.
Domination of the global biosphere by human beings is unprecedented in the history of the planet, and our impact is such that substantive changes in ecosystems, and the global environment as a whole, ...are now becoming apparent. Our activity drives the steady increase in global temperature observed in recent decades. The realization of the adverse effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the environment, together with declining petroleum reserves, has ensured that the quest for sustainable and environmentally benign sources of energy for our industrial economies and consumer societies has become urgent in recent years. Consequently, there is renewed interest in the production and use of fuels from plants. The 'first-generation' biofuels made from starch and sugar appear unsustainable because of the potential stress that their production places on food commodities. Second-generation biofuels, produced from cheap and abundant plant biomass, are seen as the most attractive solution to this problem, but a number of technical hurdles must be overcome before their potential is realized. This review will focus on the underpinning research necessary to enable the cost-effective production of liquid fuels from plant biomass, with a particular focus on aspects related to plant cell walls and their bioconversion.
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•Variation in susceptibility/exposure responds to selection by natural infection.•Selection on susceptibility/exposure flattens epidemic curves.•Models with incomplete heterogeneity ...overestimate intervention impacts.•Individual variation lowered the natural herd immunity threshold for SARS-CoV-2.
Individual variation in susceptibility and exposure is subject to selection by natural infection, accelerating the acquisition of immunity, and reducing herd immunity thresholds and epidemic final sizes. This is a manifestation of a wider population phenomenon known as “frailty variation”. Despite theoretical understanding, public health policies continue to be guided by mathematical models that leave out considerable variation and as a result inflate projected disease burdens and overestimate the impact of interventions. Here we focus on trajectories of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in England and Scotland until November 2021. We fit models to series of daily deaths and infer relevant epidemiological parameters, including coefficients of variation and effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions which we find in agreement with independent empirical estimates based on contact surveys. Our estimates are robust to whether the analysed data series encompass one or two pandemic waves and enable projections compatible with subsequent dynamics. We conclude that vaccination programmes may have contributed modestly to the acquisition of herd immunity in populations with high levels of pre-existing naturally acquired immunity, while being crucial to protect vulnerable individuals from severe outcomes as the virus becomes endemic.
The Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource (DSPR) is a newly developed multifounder advanced intercross panel consisting of >1600 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) designed for the genetic dissection ...of complex traits. Here, we describe the inference of the underlying mosaic founder structure for the full set of RILs from a dense set of semicodominant restriction-site-associated DNA (RAD) markers and use simulations to explore how variation in marker density and sequencing coverage affects inference. For a given sequencing effort, marker density is more important than sequence coverage per marker in terms of the amount of genetic information we can infer. We also assessed the power of the DSPR by assigning genotypes at a hidden QTL to each RIL on the basis of the inferred founder state and simulating phenotypes for different experimental designs, different genetic architectures, different sample sizes, and QTL of varying effect sizes. We found the DSPR has both high power (e.g., 84% power to detect a 5% QTL) and high mapping resolution (e.g., ∼1.5 cM for a 5% QTL).
Toxicants have both sub-lethal and lethal effects on aquatic biota, influencing organism fitness and community composition. However, toxicant effects within ecosystems may be altered by interactions ...with abiotic and biotic ecosystem components, including biological interactions. Collectively, this generates the potential for toxicant sensitivity to be highly context dependent, with significantly different outcomes in ecosystems than laboratory toxicity tests predict. We experimentally manipulated stream macroinvertebrate communities in 32 mesocosms to examine how communities from a low-salinity site were influenced by interactions with those from a high-salinity site along a gradient of salinity. Relative to those from the low-salinity site, organisms from the high-salinity site were expected to have greater tolerance and fitness at higher salinities. This created the potential for both salinity and tolerant-sensitive organism interactions to influence communities. We found that community composition was influenced by both direct toxicity and tolerant-sensitive organism interactions. Taxon and context-dependent responses included: (i) direct toxicity effects, irrespective of biotic interactions; (ii) effects that were owing to the addition of tolerant taxa, irrespective of salinity; (iii) toxicity dependent on sensitive-tolerant taxa interactions; and (iv) toxic effects that were increased by interactions. Our results reinforce that ecological processes require consideration when examining toxicant effects within ecosystems.This article is part of the theme issue 'Salt in freshwaters: causes, ecological consequences and future prospects'.
It is challenging to screen for and treat pancreatic cancer (PC), an extremely malignant tumor, both early in the course of the disease and as part of the later stages of treatment. In this article, ...a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) technique for detecting PC early, particularly when assessing PC staging, is suggested. With this, clinical staff will be better equipped to give a treatment plan and can intervene with therapy early on as a result. This article addresses the process of effectively segmenting and classifying a pancreatic tumor using a deep learning (DL) network by following the four stages outlined below. Initially, computed tomography (CT) images are used for diagnosis, which is obtained from TCIA public access. Following the raw image acquisition, these images need to be pre-processed using the Boosted Anisotropic Diffusion Filter (BADF) and Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE). Then, using the DMFCM segmentation approach, the images are segmented. Through Bag of Visual Words (BOVW) and Support Vector Machine (SVM), features are extracted, and the best features are given as input to the classifier. Eventually, classification is carried out using optimized 3D convoluted neural networks (3D CNN) using Improved Harris Hawks Optimization (IHHO). The implemented model achieved better results of 98.32% accuracy, 99% sensitivity, and 99% specificity. The proposed model is compared to some cutting-edge models such as normal CNNs, LSTMs, RESNETs, RNNs, and 3D CNNs to determine which one performs well. In terms of specificity, sensitivity, accuracy, and recall, the proposed model scored better than other models.
ABSTRACT
We present an optical transmission spectrum for WASP-94A b, the first atmospheric characterization of this highly-inflated hot Jupiter. The planet has a reported radius of ...$1.72^{+0.06}_{-0.05}$ RJup, a mass of only $0.456^{+0.032}_{-0.036}$ MJup, and an equilibrium temperature of 1508 ± 75 K. We observed the planet transit spectroscopically with the EFOSC2 instrument on the ESO New Technology Telescope (NTT) at La Silla, Chile: the first use of NTT/EFOSC2 for transmission spectroscopy. We achieved an average transit-depth precision of 128 ppm for bin widths of ∼200 Å. This high precision was achieved in part by linking Gaussian Process hyperparameters across all wavelength bins. The resulting transmission spectrum, spanning a wavelength range of 3800–7140 Å, exhibits a sodium absorption with a significance of 4.9σ, suggesting a relatively cloud-free atmosphere. The sodium signal may be broadened, with a best-fitting width of $78_{-32}^{+67}$ Å in contrast to the instrumental resolution of 27.2 ± 0.2 Å. We also detect a steep slope in the blue end of the transmission spectrum, indicating the presence of Rayleigh scattering in the atmosphere of WASP-94A b. Retrieval models show evidence for the observed slope to be super-Rayleigh and potential causes are discussed. Finally, we find narrow absorption cores in the CaII H&K lines of WASP-94A, suggesting the star is enshrouded in gas escaping the hot Jupiter.
Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease caused by inherited and/or acquired deficiency in production of insulin by the pancreas, and by resistance to insulin's effects. Such a deficiency results in ...increased concentrations of glucose and other metabolites in the blood, which in turn damages many of the body's systems, in particular the eyes, kidneys, nerves, heart and blood vessels. There are two major types of diabetes mellitus: Type 1 diabetes (insulin-dependent diabetes, IDDM or juvenile onset diabetes) and Type 2 diabetes (non-insulin-dependent diabetes, NIDDM or adult-onset). Chronic hyperglycemia is a major initiator of diabetic micro- and cardiovascular complications, such as retinopathy, neuropathy and nephropathy. Several hyperglycemia-induced mechanisms may induce vascular dysfunctions, which include increased polyol pathway flux, altered cellular redox state, increased formation of diacylglycerol (DAG) and the subsequent activation of protein kinase C (PKC) isoforms and accelerated non-enzymatic formation of advanced glycated end products. It is likely that each of these mechanisms may contribute to the known pathophysiologic features of diabetic complications. Others and we have shown that activation of the DAG–PKC pathway is associated with many vascular abnormalities in the retinal, renal, neural and cardiovascular tissues in diabetes mellitus. DAG–PKC pathway affects cardiovascular function in many ways, such as the regulation of endothelial permeability, vasoconstriction, extracellular matrix (ECM) synthesis/turnover, cell growth, angiogenesis, cytokine activation and leucocyte adhesion, to name a few. Increased DAG levels and PKC activity, especially α, β1/2 and δ isoforms in retina, aorta, heart, renal glomeruli and circulating macrophages have been reported in diabetes. Increased PKC activation have been associated with changes in blood flow, basement membrane thickening, extracellular matrix expansion, increases in vascular permeability, abnormal angiogenesis, excessive apoptosis and changes in enzymatic activity alterations such as Na
+–K
+–ATPase, cPLA
2, PI3Kinase and MAP kinase. Inhibition of PKC, especially the β1/2 isoform has been reported to prevent or normalize many vascular abnormalities in the tissues described above. Clinical studies have shown that ruboxistaurin, a PKCβ isoform selective inhibitor, normalize endothelial dysfunction, renal glomerular filtration rate and prevented loss of visual acuity in diabetic patients. Thus, PKC activation involving several isoforms is likely to be responsible for some of the pathologies in diabetic retinopathy, nephropathy and cardiovascular disease. PKC isoform selective inhibitors are likely new therapeutics, which can delay the onset or stop the progression of diabetic vascular disease with very little side effects.
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