Heartwater and Control

Heartwater (HW) is an acute, febrile, tick-borne disease of cattle, sheep, goats, and wild ruminants characterized by nervous signs and high mortality. The disease is caused by a rickettsia agent, Erlichia ruminantium, formally classified as Cowdria ruminantium. The disease is transmitted by several ixodid ticks of the genus Ambylomma. Chemoprophylaxis has been used as a method to facilitate the movement of heartwater susceptible stock into heartwater endemic areas while allowing them to acquire immunity by limited tick exposure.

Encoding scheme using quantum dots for single logical qubit information onto four-photon decoherence-free states

We designed an encoding scheme, using quantum dots (QDs), for single logical qubit information by encoding quantum information onto four-photon decoherence-free states to acquire immunity against collective decoherence. The designed scheme comprised of QDs, confined in single-sided cavities (QD-cavity systems), used for arbitrary quantum information, encoded onto four-photon decoherence-free states (logical qubits). For our scheme, which can generate the four-photon decoherence-free states, and can encode quantum information onto logical qubits, high efficiency and reliable performance of the interaction between the photons and QD-cavity systems is essential. Thus, through our analysis of the performance of QD-cavity systems under vacuum noise and sideband leakage, we demonstrate that the encoding scheme for single logical qubit information could be feasibly implemented.

A micro-epidemiological analysis of febrile malaria in Coastal Kenya showing hotspots within hotspots

Malaria transmission is spatially heterogeneous. This reduces the efficacy of control strategies, but focusing control strategies on clusters or ‘hotspots’ of transmission may be highly effective. Among 1500 homesteads in coastal Kenya we calculated (a) the fraction of febrile children with positive malaria smears per homestead, and (b) the mean age of children with malaria per homestead. These two measures were inversely correlated, indicating that children in homesteads at higher transmission acquire immunity more rapidly. This inverse correlation increased gradually with increasing spatial scale of analysis, and hotspots of febrile malaria were identified at every scale. We found hotspots within hotspots, down to the level of an individual homestead. Febrile malaria hotspots were temporally unstable, but 4 km radius hotspots could be targeted for 1 month following 1 month periods of surveillance.

Biomass, abundance and sensitivity to antibiotics and antimycotics of the fungi in the Vistula River with its main tributaries

Mycoplankton of Vistula River and its main tributaries biomass as well as the number and morphotype diversity was studied in summer and autumn 2011. Summer mycoplankton biomass was within the range of 0.2 – 0.5 μg/l, while in the autumn it was two times wider range (0.1 – 1.3μg/l). The number of fungi in river water most often did not exceed 1000 – 2000 CFU/ml. Fungi colonies isolated from rivers water were sensitive to the commonly used amphotericine B (10 μg) and gentamicin (10 μg). It seems to be plausible that aquatic fungi can acquire immunity to drugs as a result of horizontal transfer of a gene responsible for drug resistance or as an effect of antibiotics and antimycotics getting into the aquatic ecosystems from wastewaters.

EFFECT OF PREGNANCY UPON THE IMMUNITY OF MICE VACCINATED AGAINST ST. LOUIS ENCEPHALITIS VIRUS

1. Virgin and pregnant Swiss mice are equally susceptible to intracerebral inoculation of St. Louis encephalitis virus. 2. Following subcutaneous vaccination with the St. Louis virus, the great majority of virgin Swiss mice become immune to subsequent intracerebral injection of 10,000 M.L.D. of the virus. 3. The majority of mice vaccinated during pregnancy do not become immune to even as little as 500 intracerebral M.L.D. of the virus. The depression of the ability to acquire immunity against the virus is most marked when the vaccination is carried out late in pregnancy, but it is also demonstrable when the mice are vaccinated early in the gestation period and during the first 2 weeks postpartum. At 7 weeks postpartum the response to vaccination is more nearly like that of virgin mice. 4. Pregnancy not only interferes with the development of acquired immunity but it also diminishes a previously established immunity. 5. Offspring of the mice vaccinated during pregnancy are not immune to 100 M.L.D. of virus.

Immunity in syphilis

M. g. Doctors have long and well known the fact that people with syphilis, in the vast majority of cases, turn out to be immune to new infection with this disease, in other words, they acquire immunity to syphilis. This fact was based not only on clinical observations, but also on more accurate data, experimental, so-called reinoculation, inoculation of syphilis for people who had previously had syphilis. Despite the fact that in the past this kind of vaccination was carried out very widely, there was a lot of unclear and even contradictory in the study of immunity in syphilis.