Few studies have used genomic epidemiology to understand tuberculosis (TB) transmission in rural and remote settings – regions often unique in history, geography and demographics. To improve our understanding of TB transmission dynamics in Yukon Territory (YT), a circumpolar Canadian territory, we conducted a retrospective analysis in which we combined epidemiological data collected through routine contact investigations with clinical and laboratory results. Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from all culture-confirmed TB cases in YT (2005–2014) were genotyped using 24-locus Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Units-Variable Number of Tandem Repeats (MIRU-VNTR) and compared to each other and to those from the neighbouring province of British Columbia (BC). Whole genome sequencing (WGS) of genotypically clustered isolates revealed three sustained transmission networks within YT, two of which also involved BC isolates. While each network had distinct characteristics, all had at least one individual acting as the probable source of three or more culture-positive cases. Overall, WGS revealed that TB transmission dynamics in YT are distinct from patterns of spread in other, more remote Northern Canadian regions, and that the combination of WGS and epidemiological data can provide actionable information to local public health teams.

GravityCam is a new concept of ground-based imaging instrument capable of delivering significantly sharper images from the ground than is normally possible without adaptive optics. Advances in optical and near-infrared imaging technologies allow images to be acquired at high speed without significant noise penalty. Aligning these images before they are combined can yield a 2.5–3-fold improvement in image resolution. By using arrays of such detectors, survey fields may be as wide as the telescope optics allows. Consequently, GravityCam enables both wide-field high-resolution imaging and high-speed photometry. We describe the instrument and detail its application to provide demographics of planets and satellites down to Lunar mass (or even below) across the Milky Way. GravityCam is also suited to improve the quality of weak shear studies of dark matter distribution in distant clusters of galaxies and multiwavelength follow-ups of background sources that are strongly lensed by galaxy clusters. The photometric data arising from an extensive microlensing survey will also be useful for asteroseismology studies, while GravityCam can be used to monitor fast multiwavelength flaring in accreting compact objects and promises to generate a unique data set on the population of the Kuiper belt and possibly the Oort cloud.

Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can reveal the presence of exoplanets via the microlensing or eclipsing effects they induce. The international PLANET collaboration is performing such monitoring using a cadre of semi-dedicated telescopes around the world. Their results constrain the number of gas giants orbiting 1–7 AU from the most typical stars in the Galaxy. Upgrades in the program are opening regions of “exoplanet discovery space” – toward smaller masses and larger orbital radii – that are inaccessible to the Doppler velocity technique.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the microbiological quality of liver pâté. During 2012–13, a total of 870 samples, unrelated to the investigation of food-poisoning outbreaks, were collected either at retail (46%), catering (53%) or the point of manufacture (1%) and were tested using standard methods to detect Salmonella spp. or Campylobacter spp., and to enumerate for Listeria spp., including Listeria monocytogenes, Clostridium perfringens, coagulase-positive staphylococci including Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus spp., including Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli, Enterobacteriaceae, and aerobic colony counts (ACCs). Seventy-three percent of samples were of satisfactory microbiological quality, 18% were borderline and 9% unsatisfactory. Salmonella spp. or Campylobacter spp. was not recovered from any sample. The most common causes of unsatisfactory results were elevated ACCs (6% of the samples) and high Enterobacteriaceae counts (4% of samples). The remaining unsatisfactory results were due to elevated counts of: E. coli (three samples); B. cereus (one sample at 2·6 × 105 cfu/g); or L. monocytogenes (one sample at 2·9 × 103 cfu/g). Pâté from retail was less likely to be contaminated with L. monocytogenes than samples collected from catering and samples from supermarkets were of significantly better microbiological quality than those from catering establishments.

Thirty five grants were made during the triennium October 1, 1996 to September 30, 1999. The astronomer, home country, and host country are listed below.

The incidence of reported infections of non-typhoid Salmonella is affected by biases inherent to passive laboratory surveillance, whereas analysis of blood sera may provide a less biased alternative to estimate the force of Salmonella transmission in humans. We developed a mathematical model that enabled a back-calculation of the annual seroincidence of Salmonella based on measurements of specific antibodies. The aim of the present study was to determine the seroincidence in two convenience samples from 2012 (Danish blood donors, n = 500, and pregnant women, n = 637) and a community-based sample of healthy individuals from 2006 to 2007 (n = 1780). The lowest antibody levels were measured in the samples from the community cohort and the highest in pregnant women. The annual Salmonella seroincidences were 319 infections/1000 pregnant women [90% credibility interval (CrI) 210–441], 182/1000 in blood donors (90% CrI 85–298) and 77/1000 in the community cohort (90% CrI 45–114). Although the differences between study populations decreased when accounting for different age distributions the estimates depend on the study population. It is important to be aware of this issue and define a certain population under surveillance in order to obtain consistent results in an application of serological measures for public health purposes.

LOFT (Large Observatory For X-ray Timing) is one of the four candidate missions currently under assessment study for the M3 mission in ESAs Cosmic Vision program to be launched in 2024. LOFT will carry two instruments with prime sensitivity in the 2–30 keV range: a 10 m2 class large area detector (LAD) with a <1° collimated field of view and a wide field monitor (WFM) instrument. The WFM is based on the coded mask principle, and 5 camera units will provide coverage of more than 1/3 of the sky. The prime goal of the WFM is to detect transient sources to be observed by the LAD. With its wide field of view and good energy resolution of <500 eV, the WFM will be an excellent instrument for detecting and studying GRBs and X-ray flashes. The WFM will be able to detect ~150 gamma ray bursts per year, and a burst alert system will enable the distribution of ~100 GRB positions per year with a ~1 arcmin location accuracy within 30 s of the burst.

We have determined the crystal structures of five phases in the Bal-xKxBiO3 system for 0≤x≤0.5 and 10K≤T≤473K. Superconductivity occurs only in a cubic perovskite phase with the maximum Tc at the transition to an orthorhombic, Ibmm, phase. The commensurate structure of this orthorhombic phase, which involves only tilting of the Bi06 octahedra, provides no explanation for its non-metallic behavior. However, an incommensurate structural modulation, observed by electron diffraction, may provide a rationalization. Thus, the maximum Tc at the phase boundary may result from competition between superconductivity and a charge density wave. Further studies of the phase diagram at high temperatures, where controlled oxygen atmospheres are required, reveal an unusual reentrant formation of a potassium-containing impurity phase which explains the need for synthesis techniques that involve initially reacting in a reducing atmosphere, followed by oxygenation at lower temperature.

We have investigated the structure and composition of La2CuO4 (both pure and Sr-doped) and Nd(Ba2−xNdx)Cu3O7 using powder neutron diffraction. In La2−xSrxCuO4, Tc reacnes its maximum at x=0.15, after which vacancies are introduced in the 2D planes and superconductivity is destroyed. Superconductivity in La2CuO4 is not bulk. No evidence for nonstoichlometry in this material can be observed. In the Nd(Ba2−xNdx)Cu3O7 system, Tc is a complex function of oxygen ordering and electronic effects.

Mössbauer effect and neutron diffraction measurements have been made as a function of composition for YBa2(Cu1−xFex)3O7+δ. A chemically driven disordering of the sublattices is observed with increasing Fe concentration which results in a transition from the orthorhombic to a tetragonal phase. However, as the occupancy of the oxygen site 0(1) in the chain is depleted and the site of the ordered vacancy 0(5) between the chains becomes occupied, the total oxygen content is not reduced but remains near seven in contrast to behavior observed in the quenched tetragonal phases. Mössbauer spectra for x =0.05 at temperatures below 15K show magnetic hyperfine splitting which is characteristic of a spin glass; i.e., a distribution of magnetic fields. It is inferred from Mössbauer results that Fe preferentially occupies the Cu(1) site.

High temperature neutron powder diffraction has been used to study the formation of the 110K transition temperature material, Bi2Ca2Sr2Cu3Ox (2223), both from synthetic reaction mixtures and after partial melting. The results indicate that the 80K transition temperature material, Bi2CaSr2Cu2Ox (2122), is the precursor to the (2223) material. The reaction to form the (2122) occurs rapidly at 860°C, while the conversion of this material to the (2223) is much slower.

The phonon densities-of-states (DOS) of superconducting Ba1−xKxBi16O3 and Ba1−xKxBi18O3 (x=0.4) are determined using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and inelastic neutron scattering measurements. The reference isotope-effect exponent is obtained from the mass variation of the first frequency moment of the phonon DOS. The energy gap, oxygen isotope-effect exponent and electron tunneling characteristics are calculated within the framework of Eliashberg theory of electron-phonon coupling.

Atomic displacements from the ideal rock-salt positions in the Tl-, Bi-, and Pb-O layers of the Cu-based high-Tc super-conductors affect the electronic nature of these oxides. When distortions in the Bi-O layers of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 are considered, the bottom of the Bi 6p band is found to lie more than 1 eV above the Fermi level. Displacements in the double Tl-O layers of Tl2Ba2Can−1CunO2n+4 places the bottom of the Tl 6s bands significantly below the Fermi level showing that electrons can be removed from the x2-y2 bands of the CuO2 layers. However, this is not the case for the thallium-oxygen single layers of Tl2Ba2Can−1CunO2n+3. Correlations between the superconducting transition temperatures, Tc, and the in-plane Cu-O bond lengths, rCu−O', of the Tl- and Bi- based copper-oxide super-conductors reveal Tc vs rCu−O characteristics similar to those found for La2−xSrxCuO4.

The use of neutrons for the measurement of stress is complementary to and extends traditional x-ray diffraction methods to new types of problems. This is due to the lower absorption of neutrons compared to x-rays by most engineering materials, which increases the sampling depth from microns to millimeters. It is particularly suitable for triaxial macrostress gradients through the depth of engineering components and volumetric microstresses in composites. In addition, applied stress studies may also be performed. This paper briefly describes the nature of residual stresses, the use of diffraction for stress measurements, experimental aspects of the use of neutrons, and illustrative applications.

We discuss the effects of doping on the Cu chain sites in YBa2Cu3−xMxO6+y. The relationship between bond lengths obtained from neutron scattering and charge transfer is evaluated in terms of bond valence. In particular, it is concluded that removing an oxygen from the chains transfers one electron to the planes.

Incoherent, inelastic neutron scattering has been used to study the vibrational spectra of tetramethylammonium montmorillonite and trimethylammonium vermiculite in the energy range 20–140 meV. For both systems peaks are observed due to the internal modes of the intercalate and to the excitations of the hydroxyl groups within the host layers. For the montmorillonite sample, it is found that the steric constraints imposed on the tetramethylammonium ion by the bounding clay layers contribute an additional 28 meV to the rotational barrier of the methyl groups. This additional barrier is shown to be strongly related to the volume that the tetramethylammonium ion occupies. For the trimethylammonium vermiculite sample normal mode analysis of the internal modes of the intercalated ion shows that the N-H bond is parallel to the c-axis of the host.