scholarly journals Transcriptome Profiles of Anopheles Gambiae Harboring Natural Low-Level Plasmodium Infection Reveal Adaptive Advantages For The Mosquito

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Carr ◽  
David C. Rinker ◽  
Yuemei Dong ◽  
George Dimopoulos ◽  
Laurence J. Zwiebel
Keyword(s):  
Anopheles Gambiae ◽  
Transcript Abundance ◽  
Plasmodium Infection ◽  
Molecular Physiology ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Olfactory Acuity ◽  
Evolutionary Success ◽  
Transmission Stage ◽  
Open Question ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Anopheline mosquitoes are the sole vectors for the Plasmodium pathogens responsible for malaria, which is among the oldest and most devastating of human diseases. The continuing global impact of malaria reflects the evolutionary success of a complex vector-pathogen relationship that accordingly has been the long-term focus of both debate and study. An open question in the biology of malaria transmission is the impact of naturally occurring low-level Plasmodium infections of the vector on the mosquito’s health and longevity as well as critical behaviors such as host-preference/seeking. To begin to answer this, we have completed a comparative RNAseq-based transcriptome profile study examining the effect of biologically salient, salivary gland transmission-stage Plasmodium infection on the molecular physiology of Anopheles gambiae s.s. head, sensory appendage, and salivary glands. When compared with their uninfected counterparts, Plasmodium infected mosquitoes exhibit increased transcript abundance of genes associated with olfactory acuity as well as a range of synergistic processes that align with increased fitness based on both anti-aging and reproductive advantages. Taken together, these data argue against the long-held paradigm that malaria infection is pathogenic for anophelines and, instead, suggests there are biological and evolutionary advantages for the mosquito that drive the preservation of its high vectorial capacity.

scholarly journals Transcriptome Profiles of Anopheles gambiae Harboring Natural Low-Level Plasmodium Infection Reveal Adaptive Advantages for the Mosquito

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann L Carr ◽  
David Rinker ◽  
Yuemei Dong ◽  
George Dimopoulos ◽  
LJ Zwiebel
Keyword(s):  
Anopheles Gambiae ◽  
Transcript Abundance ◽  
Plasmodium Infection ◽  
Anopheles Gambiae S.S ◽  
Molecular Physiology ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Olfactory Acuity ◽  
Evolutionary Success ◽  
Open Question ◽  
The Impact

Anopheline mosquitoes are the sole vectors for the Plasmodium pathogens responsible for malaria, which is among the oldest and most devastating of human diseases. The continuing global impact of malaria reflects the evolutionary success of a complex vector-pathogen relationship that accordingly has been the long-term focus of both debate and study. An open question in the biology of malaria transmission is the impact of naturally occurring low-level Plasmodium infections of the vector on mosquito health and longevity as well as critical behaviors such as host-preference/seeking. To begin to answer this, we have completed a comparative RNAseq-based transcriptome profile study examining the effect of biologically salient, salivary gland transmission-stage Plasmodium infection on the molecular physiology of Anopheles gambiae s.s. head, sensory appendage, and salivary glands. When compared with their uninfected counterparts, Plasmodium infected mosquitoes exhibit increased transcript abundance of genes associated with olfactory acuity as well as a range of synergistic processes that align with increased fitness based on both anti-aging and reproductive advantages. Taken together, these data argue against the long-held paradigm that malaria infection is pathogenic for anophelines and, instead, suggests there are biological and evolutionary advantages for the mosquito that drive the preservation of its high vectorial capacity.

scholarly journals Transcriptome profiles of Anopheles gambiae harboring natural low-level Plasmodium infection reveal adaptive advantages for the mosquito

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann L. Carr ◽  
David C. Rinker ◽  
Yuemei Dong ◽  
George Dimopoulos ◽  
Laurence J. Zwiebel
Keyword(s):  
Anopheles Gambiae ◽  
Transcript Abundance ◽  
Molecular Physiology ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Olfactory Acuity ◽  
Evolutionary Success ◽  
Transmission Stage ◽  
Open Question ◽  
The Impact

AbstractAnopheline mosquitoes are the sole vectors for the Plasmodium pathogens responsible for malaria, which is among the oldest and most devastating of human diseases. The continuing global impact of malaria reflects the evolutionary success of a complex vector-pathogen relationship that accordingly has been the long-term focus of both debate and study. An open question in the biology of malaria transmission is the impact of naturally occurring low-level Plasmodium infections of the vector on the mosquito’s health and longevity as well as critical behaviors such as host-preference/seeking. To begin to answer this, we have completed a comparative RNAseq-based transcriptome profile study examining the effect of biologically salient, salivary gland transmission-stage Plasmodium infection on the molecular physiology of Anopheles gambiae s.s. head, sensory appendages, and salivary glands. When compared with their uninfected counterparts, Plasmodium infected mosquitoes exhibit increased transcript abundance of genes associated with olfactory acuity as well as a range of synergistic processes that align with increased fitness based on both anti-aging and reproductive advantages. Taken together, these data argue against the long-held paradigm that malaria infection is pathogenic for anophelines and, instead suggests there are biological and evolutionary advantages for the mosquito that drive the preservation of its high vectorial capacity.

Incentivizing Peace

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaroslav Tir ◽  
Johannes Karreth
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
East Timor ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Tools ◽  
The Impact

Civil wars are one of the most pressing problems facing the world. Common approaches such as mediation, intervention, and peacekeeping have produced some results in managing ongoing civil wars, but they fall short in preventing civil wars in the first place. This book argues for considering civil wars from a developmental perspective to identify steps to assure that nascent, low-level armed conflicts do not escalate to full-scale civil wars. We show that highly structured intergovernmental organizations (IGOs, e.g. the World Bank or IMF) are particularly well positioned to engage in civil war prevention. Such organizations have both an enduring self-interest in member-state peace and stability and potent (economic) tools to incentivize peaceful conflict resolution. The book advances the hypothesis that countries that belong to a larger number of highly structured IGOs face a significantly lower risk that emerging low-level armed conflicts on their territories will escalate to full-scale civil wars. Systematic analyses of over 260 low-level armed conflicts that have occurred around the globe since World War II provide consistent and robust support for this hypothesis. The impact of a greater number of memberships in highly structured IGOs is substantial, cutting the risk of escalation by over one-half. Case evidence from Indonesia’s East Timor conflict, Ivory Coast’s post-2010 election crisis, and from the early stages of the conflict in Syria in 2011 provide additional evidence that memberships in highly structured IGOs are indeed key to understanding why some low-level armed conflicts escalate to civil wars and others do not.

scholarly journals Assessing the impact of previous experience on lie effects through a transfer paradigm

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Mazzuca ◽  
Mariagrazia Benassi ◽  
Roberto Nicoletti ◽  
Giuseppe Sartori ◽  
Luisa Lugli
Keyword(s):  
Training Session ◽  
Spatial Task ◽  
Dual Processes ◽  
Transfer Effects ◽  
Transfer Paradigm ◽  
Compatible Condition ◽  
Open Question ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cognitive Cost ◽  
Spatial Training

AbstractInfluential lines of research propose dual processes-based explanations to account for both the cognitive cost implied in lying and for that entailed in the resolution of the conflict posited by Simon tasks. The emergence and consistency of the Simon effect has been proved to be modulated by both practice effects and transfer effects. Although several studies provided evidence that the lying cognitive demand may vary as a function of practice, whether and how transfer effects could also play a role remains an open question. We addressed this question with one experiment in which participants completed a Differentiation of Deception Paradigm twice (baseline and test sessions). Crucially, between the baseline and the test sessions, participants performed a training session consisting in a spatial compatibility task with incompatible (condition 1) or compatible (condition 2) mapping, a non-spatial task (condition 3) and a no task one (condition 4). Results speak in favour of a modulation of individual performances by means of an immediate prior experience, and specifically with an incompatible spatial training.

scholarly journals Driver Liability Assessment in Vehicle Collisions in Spain

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1475
Author(s):  
Almudena Sanjurjo-de-No ◽  
Blanca Arenas-Ramírez ◽  
José Mira ◽  
Francisco Aparicio-Izquierdo
Keyword(s):  
Road Safety ◽  
Accurate Estimation ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Self Organizing Maps ◽  
Safety Measures ◽  
Vehicle Collisions ◽  
Promising Tool ◽  
Visual Clustering ◽  
Open Question ◽  
The Impact

An accurate estimation of exposure is essential for road collision rate estimation, which is key when evaluating the impact of road safety measures. The quasi-induced exposure method was developed to estimate relative exposure for different driver groups based on its main hypothesis: the not-at-fault drivers involved in two-vehicle collisions are taken as a random sample of driver populations. Liability assignment is thus crucial in this method to identify not-at-fault drivers, but often no liability labels are given in collision records, so unsupervised analysis tools are required. To date, most researchers consider only driver and speed offences in liability assignment, but an open question is if more information could be added. To this end, in this paper, the visual clustering technique of self-organizing maps (SOM) has been applied to better understand the multivariate structure in the data, to find out the most important variables for driver liability, analyzing their influence, and to identify relevant liability patterns. The results show that alcohol/drug use could be influential on liability and further analysis is required for disability and sudden illness. More information has been used, given that a larger proportion of the data was considered. SOM thus appears as a promising tool for liability assessment.

scholarly journals Nitrate-dominated PM<sub>2.5</sub> and elevation of particle pH observed in urban Beijing during the winter of 2017

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 5019-5033 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuning Xie ◽  
Gehui Wang ◽  
Xinpei Wang ◽  
Jianmin Chen ◽  
Yubao Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atmospheric Aerosols ◽  
Ammonia Concentration ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Molar Ratio ◽  
Effective Control ◽  
Nitrate Content ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Low Level ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Pollution Episodes

Abstract. The Chinese government has exerted strict emission controls to mitigate air pollution since 2013, which has resulted in significant decreases in the concentrations of air pollutants such as SO2. Strict pollution control actions also reduced the average PM2.5 concentration to the low level of 39.7 µg m−3 in urban Beijing during the winter of 2017. To investigate the impact of such changes on the physiochemical properties of atmospheric aerosols in China, we conducted a comprehensive observation focusing on PM2.5 in Beijing during the winter of 2017. Compared with the historical record (2014–2017), SO2 decreased to the low level of 3.2 ppbv in the winter of 2017, but the NO2 level was still high (21.4 ppbv in the winter of 2017). Accordingly, the contribution of nitrate (23.0 µg m−3) to PM2.5 far exceeded that of sulfate (13.1 µg m−3) during the pollution episodes, resulting in a significant increase in the nitrate-to-sulfate molar ratio. The thermodynamic model (ISORROPIA II) calculation results showed that during the PM2.5 pollution episodes particle pH increased from 4.4 (moderate acidic) to 5.4 (more neutralized) when the molar ratio of nitrate to sulfate increased from 1 to 5, indicating that aerosols were more neutralized as the nitrate content elevated. Controlled variable tests showed that the pH elevation should be attributed to nitrate fraction increase other than crustal ion and ammonia concentration increases. Based on the results of sensitivity tests, future prediction for the particle acidity change was discussed. We found that nitrate-rich particles in Beijing at low and moderate humid conditions (RH: 20 %–50 %) can absorb twice the amount of water that sulfate-rich particles can, and the nitrate and ammonia with higher levels have synergetic effects, rapidly elevating particle pH to merely neutral (above 5.6). As moderate haze events might occur more frequently under abundant ammonia and nitrate-dominated PM2.5 conditions, the major chemical processes during haze events and the control target should be re-evaluated to obtain the most effective control strategy.

scholarly journals A CloudSat–CALIPSO View of Cloud and Precipitation Properties across Cold Fronts over the Global Oceans

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (17) ◽  
pp. 6743-6762 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine M. Naud ◽  
Derek J. Posselt ◽  
Susan C. van den Heever
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Cold Front ◽  
Conveyor Belt ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Scale Parameters ◽  
Convective Clouds ◽  
Cold Fronts ◽  
Surface Front ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The distribution of cloud and precipitation properties across oceanic extratropical cyclone cold fronts is examined using four years of combined CloudSat radar and CALIPSO lidar retrievals. The global annual mean cloud and precipitation distributions show that low-level clouds are ubiquitous in the postfrontal zone while higher-level cloud frequency and precipitation peak in the warm sector along the surface front. Increases in temperature and moisture within the cold front region are associated with larger high-level but lower mid-/low-level cloud frequencies and precipitation decreases in the cold sector. This behavior seems to be related to a shift from stratiform to convective clouds and precipitation. Stronger ascent in the warm conveyor belt tends to enhance cloudiness and precipitation across the cold front. A strong temperature contrast between the warm and cold sectors also encourages greater post-cold-frontal cloud occurrence. While the seasonal contrasts in environmental temperature, moisture, and ascent strength are enough to explain most of the variations in cloud and precipitation across cold fronts in both hemispheres, they do not fully explain the differences between Northern and Southern Hemisphere cold fronts. These differences are better explained when the impact of the contrast in temperature across the cold front is also considered. In addition, these large-scale parameters do not explain the relatively large frequency in springtime postfrontal precipitation.

scholarly journals Energy metabolism affects susceptibility of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes to Plasmodium infection

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 349-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Henrique M. Oliveira ◽  
Renata L.S. Gonçalves ◽  
Giselle A. Oliveira ◽  
Pedro L. Oliveira ◽  
Marcus F. Oliveira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Metabolism ◽  
Anopheles Gambiae ◽  
Plasmodium Infection

scholarly journals The Impact of Forcing Datasets on the High-Resolution Simulation of Tropical Storm Ivan (2004) in the Southern Appalachians

2012 ◽  
Vol 140 (10) ◽  
pp. 3300-3326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoming Sun ◽  
Ana P. Barros
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Global Analysis ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Tropical Storm ◽  
Southern Appalachians ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Simulated Precipitation ◽  
Forced Simulation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Resolution Simulation

Abstract The influence of large-scale forcing on the high-resolution simulation of Tropical Storm Ivan (2004) in the southern Appalachians was investigated using the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF). Two forcing datasets were employed: the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR; 32 km × 32 km) and the NCEP Final Operational Global Analysis (NCEP FNL; 1° × 1°). Simulated fields were evaluated against rain gauge, radar, and satellite data; sounding observations; and the best track from the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Overall, the NCEP FNL forced simulation (WRF_FNL) captures storm structure and evolution more accurately than the NARR forced simulation (WRF_NARR), benefiting from the hurricane initialization scheme in the NCEP FNL. Further, the performance of WRF_NARR is also negatively affected by a previously documented low-level warm bias in NARR. These factors lead to excessive precipitation in the Piedmont region, delayed rainfall in Alabama, as well as spatially displaced and unrealistically extreme rainbands during its passage over the southern Appalachians. Spatial filtering of the simulated precipitation fields confirms that the storm characteristics inherited from the forcing are critical to capture the storm’s impact at local places. Compared with the NHC observations, the storm is weaker in both NARR and NCEP FNL (up to Δp ~ 5 hPa), yet it is persistently deeper in all WRF simulations forced by either dataset. The surface wind fields are largely overestimated. This is attributed to the underestimation of surface roughness length over land, leading to underestimation of surface drag, reducing low-level convergence, and weakening the dissipation of the simulated cyclone.

Examining Terrain Effects on an Upstate New York Tornado Event Utilizing a High-Resolution Model Simulation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke J. LeBel ◽  
Brian H. Tang ◽  
Ross A. Lazear
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Wind Shear ◽  
Model Simulation ◽  
Wrf Model ◽  
Severe Weather ◽  
Streamwise Vorticity ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Severe Convection ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe complex terrain at the intersection of the Mohawk and Hudson valleys of New York has an impact on the development and evolution of severe convection in the region. Specifically, previous research has concluded that terrain-channeled flow in the Mohawk and Hudson valleys likely contributes to increased low-level wind shear and instability in the valleys during severe weather events such as the historic 31 May 1998 event that produced a strong (F3) tornado in Mechanicville, New York.The goal of this study is to further examine the impact of terrain channeling on severe convection by analyzing a high-resolution WRF model simulation of the 31 May 1998 event. Results from the simulation suggest that terrain-channeled flow resulted in the localized formation of an enhanced low-level moisture gradient, resembling a dryline, at the intersection of the Mohawk and Hudson valleys. East of this boundary, the environment was characterized by stronger low-level wind shear and greater low-level moisture and instability, increasing tornadogenesis potential. A simulated supercell intensified after crossing the boundary, as the larger instability and streamwise vorticity of the low-level inflow was ingested into the supercell updraft. These results suggest that terrain can have a key role in producing mesoscale inhomogeneities that impact the evolution of severe convection. Recognition of these terrain-induced boundaries may help in anticipating where the risk of severe weather may be locally enhanced.

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