The epizootiology of anatid herpesvirus 1 (AHV-1) infection in waterfowl is poorly understood but apparently involves persistence of the virus in latently infected birds. Epornitics have often ...occurred in captive waterfowl or semiwild ducks in parklike settings, and many wildlife professionals conclude that such ducks may be the source of infection for wild waterfowl. We assessed the prevalence of latent infection and viral shedding from four groups of waterfowl: naturally occurring populations of native waterfowl, captive-reared waterfowl released for shooting, introduced nonmigratory waterfowl (e.g., resident, wild Mallards; Anas platyrhynchos), and semiwild peridomestic waterfowl (e.g., park ducks) in North Carolina and Florida, USA from 2004 to 2009. A nested PCR assay was used to detect viral DNA in trigeminal ganglia and cloacal swabs. Detection of viral DNA in trigeminal ganglia, but not cloacal swabs, was assumed to indicate latent infection, whereas PCR-positive cloacal swabs indicated active shedding of the virus. We collected 2,045 samples from 23 species of native, wild waterfowl, and detected latent infections in nine species. Wild Northern Pintails (Anas acuta), a species reportedly resistant to the virus, had the highest prevalence (8.1%). However, low prevalences were identified in other waterfowl from various families. Cloacal shedding was rarely detected (0.1% prevalence) among native waterfowl and was observed in one Blue-winged Teal (Anas discors) and one Mottled Duck (Anas fulvigula). All captive-reared, released waterfowl (n=13) collected were Mallards and one was latently infected, suggesting that these birds could also serve as a source of AHV-1 for naive waterfowl. All nonmigratory waterfowl sampled (n=90) were also Mallards. None of the resident Mallards were shedding virus, but one was latently infected. The peridomestic waterfowl sampled included breeds of domestic Mallard (n=6) and Muscovy Ducks (Cairina moschata; n=73). One peridomestic Mallard and four Muscovy Ducks were shedding virus at the time they were sampled, but no latently infected, asymptomatic carriers were identified.
The development of six mixed-species, even-aged stands was reconstructed in the eastern Washington Cascade Range. All stands were within the Grand Fir Climax Series and began following stand ...replacement disturbances. Western larch (Larix occidentalis Nutt.) and lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud.), when present, formed an upper stratum over interior Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca (Beissn.) Franco) and grand fir (Abies grandis (Dougl.) Lindl.) in all six stands. Establishment patterns and species composition affected stand development patterns. Douglas-fir benefitted from the absence of lodgepole pine; grand fir benefitted from the absence of Douglas-fir, but apparently not from the absence of lodgepole pine. Lodgepole pine had faster initial diameter growth rates than western larch when it became established relatively early and in large numbers.
This thesis is exactly three papers stapled together that seemed the most related; Section 2 is on BPC22, Section 3 is on Cob24, and Section 4 is on BCF24. The first two projects relate to the ...syzygies of toric varieties – in the first, we give a criterion that checks when a certain family of canonical complexes (including the Eagon-Northcott and Buchsbaum-Rim) associated to a matrix are virtual resolutions, which are “exact enough” to be relevant to the geometry of toric varieties. In the second, we lift machinery for understanding syzygies of curves in projective space to the setting of products of projective spaces. Using this machinery, we show an analogue of an influential result of Gruson, Peskine, and Lazarsfeld that gives a bound on the regularity of a possibly singular curve given its degree and the dimension of the ambient projective space. The last project concerns a variety called the likelihood correspondence whose geometry reflects all characteristics of the maximum likelihood estimation problems on discrete statistical models. We construct the ideal of this variety for some popular examples of statistical models.
Three randomized controlled trials of the effectiveness of pneumococcal vaccine in elderly and chronically ill adults in the United States have failed to show significant protective efficacy during ...44,213 person-years of follow-up. Case-control studies have greater statistical power to detect significant prevention of rare diseases such as pneumococcal bacteremia, but they also have a greater susceptibility to bias, necessitating consistent results from multiple studies. Three case-control studies at two different universities have shown prevention of systemic infection, but another study found no benefit.
Patients with pneumococcal bacteremia who were at least 2 years old and had chronic illness indicating the need for pneumococcal vaccine, or who were at least 65 years old were compared with matched control subjects for frequency of prior vaccination. Matching variables included date of admission, age, sex, race, type and duration of chronic illness serving as the major vaccine indication, number of vaccine indications and number of medical hospitalizations since licensure of the pneumococcal vaccine in 1978, and type of primary medical care.
Pneumococcal vaccination was documented in the records of six (7%) of 85 cases and 26 (17%) of 152 control subjects, suggesting 81% efficacy in conditional logistical regression analysis (95% confidence interval, 34% to 94%, P = .008).
Four case-control studies at three universities have now demonstrated significant protective efficacy of pneumococcal vaccine for preventing pneumococcal bacteremia. The development of antibiotic-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae indicates an urgent need for an increased rate of vaccination among high-risk patients and for the development of more immunogenic conjugate vaccines that may enhance efficacy among elderly and immunocompromised patients as well as infants.
Serum samples and choanal cleft swabs were collected from livetrapped and hunter killed wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) from Martin and Bertie counties, North Carolina (USA). Sera were tested for ...antibodies to Mycoplasma gallisepticum, Mycoplasma synoviae and Mycoplasma meleagridis by hemagglutination inhibition (HI). Sera from 33% (five of 15) of livetrapped turkeys were positive for antibodies to M. gallisepticum by HI, and all were negative for antibodies to M. synoviae and M. meleagridis. Choanal cleft swabs from 22 livetrapped and five hunter killed wild turkeys cultured in Frey's broth medium resulted in 23 mycoplasma isolations. Using direct immunofluorescence, 74% (17/23) were M. gallopavonis, and 26% (six of 23) were unidentified; no isolate was identified as M. gallisepticum, M. synoviae or M. meleagridis.
Haiku in the British Isles DAVID COBB
Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Vol. IX,
10/2015
Book Chapter
Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904, native of the British Isles who took Japanese citizenship) and Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935, English Japanese scholar), both writing around the turn of the twentieth ...century, are thought to be the first to introduce readers in the British Isles to the Japanese haiku. Both employed the older termhokku,rather than ‘haiku’; not a mistake, as the Japanese reformist Masaoki Shiki had only recently preferred the use of ‘haiku’. But they did miss a mark by describing thehokkuas ‘the Japanese epigram’.
Hearn offers ‘a small selection ofhokku’in hisKwaidan - Stories
FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FORMLAFCADIO HEARN (1850–1904, native of the British Isles who took Japanese citizenship) and Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935, English Japanese scholar), both writing ...around the turn of the twentieth century, are thought to be the first to introduce readers in the British Isles to the Japanese haiku. Both employed the older term hokku, rather than ‘haiku’; not a mistake, as the Japanese reformist Masaoki Shiki had only recently preferred the use of ‘haiku’. But they did miss a mark by describing the hokku as ‘the Japanese epigram’.Hearn offers ‘a small selection of hokku ’ in his Kwaidan - Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904); and it is very much as ‘strange things’ he presents these minimalist poems to us. He could use them, he thought, to illustrate ‘Japanese interest in the aesthetic side of the subject’ of butterflies. He has no real belief that the hokku might ever catch on as a form practised by Western poets:The taste for Japanese poetry of the epigrammatic sort is a taste that must be slowly acquired; and it is only by degrees, after patient study, that the possibilities of such composition can be fairly estimated. Hasty criticism has declared that to put forward any serious claim on behalf of seventeen syllables ‘would be absurd’.A hundred years later, James Fenton, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, writing in An Introduction to English Poetry, was still finding the idea of assimilation absurd:The most familiar form of syllabic verse is the haiku, borrowed from the Japanese, in which the poem adds up to seventeen syllables divided into three lines of five, seven and five syllables respectively. To me this seems like an oriental tradition which, however enthusiastically adopted (particularly in schools, I find), is unlikely to have an equivalent effect in the West. A bit like the tea ceremony.This essay will seek to convince the reader that Fenton's opinion is far from the truth.Lafcadio Hearn's versions take the form of a single sentence of prose, not formally presented as a monostich.
Coastal development has significantly reduced available habitat for some nesting seabirds (Charadriiformes), including the black skimmer (Rynchops niger). Population levels of black skimmers in many ...coastal areas are low, and enhancement of reproductive success in these areas is extremely important to recover the species. Factors affecting reproductive success include predation, human disturbance, food availability, pollutants in the environment, habitat loss, and shifts in nesting from ground to roof colony sites. We outline pertinent aspects of black skimmer life history, summarize threats to their reproduction, and recommend management techniques to protect and enhance nesting areas. Although recommended specifically for skimmer colonies, these suggestions also would benefit other beach- and roof-nesting birds in any coastal region.
