Scientific, institutional and personal rivalries among Soviet geographers in the late Stalin era

Scientific, institutional and personal rivalries between three key centres of geographical research and scholarship (the Academy of Sciences Institute of Geography and the Faculties of Geography at Moscow and Leningrad State Universities) are surveyed for the period from 1945 to the early 1950s. It is argued that the debates and rivalries between members of the three institutions appear to have been motivated by a variety of scientific, ideological, institutional and personal factors, but that genuine scientific disagreements were at least as important as political and ideological factors in influencing the course of the debates and in determining their final outcome

On unitarizability in the case of classical p-adic groups

In the introduction of this paper we discuss a possible approach to the unitarizability problem for classical p-adic groups. In this paper we give some very limited support that such approach is not without chance. In a forthcoming paper we shall give additional evidence in generalized cuspidal rank (up to) three.Comment: This paper is a merged and revised version of ealier preprints arXiv:1701.07658 and arXiv:1701.07662. The paper is going to appear in the Proceedings of the Simons Symposium on Geometric Aspects of the Trace Formul

Exploring the Diversity of Plant DNA Viruses and Their Satellites Using Vector-Enabled Metagenomics on Whiteflies

Current knowledge of plant virus diversity is biased towards agents of visible and economically important diseases. Less is known about viruses that have not caused major diseases in crops, or viruses from native vegetation, which are a reservoir of biodiversity that can contribute to viral emergence. Discovery of these plant viruses is hindered by the traditional approach of sampling individual symptomatic plants. Since many damaging plant viruses are transmitted by insect vectors, we have developed “vector-enabled metagenomics” (VEM) to investigate the diversity of plant viruses. VEM involves sampling of insect vectors (in this case, whiteflies) from plants, followed by purification of viral particles and metagenomic sequencing. The VEM approach exploits the natural ability of highly mobile adult whiteflies to integrate viruses from many plants over time and space, and leverages the capability of metagenomics for discovering novel viruses. This study utilized VEM to describe the DNA viral community from whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci) collected from two important agricultural regions in Florida, USA. VEM successfully characterized the active and abundant viruses that produce disease symptoms in crops, as well as the less abundant viruses infecting adjacent native vegetation. PCR assays designed from the metagenomic sequences enabled the complete sequencing of four novel begomovirus genome components, as well as the first discovery of plant virus satellites in North America. One of the novel begomoviruses was subsequently identified in symptomatic Chenopodium ambrosiodes from the same field site, validating VEM as an effective method for proactive monitoring of plant viruses without a priori knowledge of the pathogens. This study demonstrates the power of VEM for describing the circulating viral community in a given region, which will enhance our understanding of plant viral diversity, and facilitate emerging plant virus surveillance and management of viral diseases

Association of IL-10 gene polymorphisms and susceptibility to Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis in Egyptian children and adolescents: a case-control study

BACKGROUND: Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) is the most common chronic arthritis in children worldwide. Among anti-inflammatory cytokines, interleukin-10 (IL-10) is a key immunosuppressive cytokine involved in the pathogenesis of JIA. To date, only a few studies concerned the association of interleukin-10 gene polymorphisms with JIA. In this study, we aimed to investigate 3 cytokine single-nucleotide polymorphisms situated at positions -1082(G/A), −819(C/T), and −592(C/A) in the promoter region of the IL-10 gene to determine whether this polymorphism could be a marker of susceptibility to JIA in Egyptian children and adolescents. We also measured the serum level of IL-10 to assess its relation to such polymorphism. METHODS: This was a case-control study included 100 patients diagnosed with JIA, and matched with age, gender, ethnicity 100 healthy control subjects. Interleukin-10 −1082(G/A), −819(C/T), and −592(C/A) polymorphisms were genotyped by amplification refractory mutation system- polymerase chain reaction (ARMS)-PCR methodology, while the serum IL10 levels were measured by ELISA method. RESULTS: Compared to the controls subjects, the frequency of IL-10- AA genotype and A allele at the –1082 position were overrepresented in patients with JIA (OR = 2.7; 95% CI: 1.1–6.4 for the AA genotype; P <0.05 and OR: 1.5; 95% CI: 1.03–2.3 for the A allele; P <0.05 respectively). On the other hand, no significant differences were found between the 2 groups in the genotype or allele frequencies for the –819 and –592 positions. Of note, we found a significant positive association between the IL-10 (-1082) AA genotype and susceptibility to polyarticular JIA (OR: 4.3; 95% CI: 1.5–12.7; P <0.01). We observed that patients with the IL-10 (-1082) AA genotype had significantly lower serum IL-10 levels (2.3 ± 0.9 pg/ml) compared to those with AG genotype (7.6 ± 1.5 pg/ml) and GG genotype (9.5 ± 1.2 pg/ml); P < 0.01, respectively. CONCLUSION: We demonstrate for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, that the presence of an A allele or AA gene variant at the –1082 position of the promoter region of the interleukin-10 gene may constitute risk factors for developing JIA in Egyptian children and adolescents. Moreover, we observed a significant positive association between the IL10 –1082 AA gene variant and susceptibility to polyarticular JIA