Coast-to-Interior Gradient in Recent Northwest Greenland Precipitation Trends (1952–2012)

The spatial and temporal variability of precipitation on the Greenland ice sheet is an essential component of surface mass balance, which has been declining in recent years with rising temperatures. We present an analysis of precipitation trends in northwest (NW) Greenland (1952–2012) using instrumental (coastal meteorological station) and proxy records (snow pits and ice cores) to characterize the precipitation gradient from the coast to the ice sheet interior. Snow-pit-derived precipitation near the coast (1950–2000) has increased (~7% decade−1, p \u3c 0.01) whereas there is no significant change observed in interior snow pits. This trend holds for 1981–2012, where calculated precipitation changes decrease in magnitude with increasing distance from the coast: 13% decade−1 (2.4 mm water equivalent (w.e.) decade−2) at coastal Thule air base (AB), 8.6% decade−1 (4.7 mm w.e. decade−2) at the 2Barrel ice core site 150 km from Thule AB, −5.2% decade−1 (1.7 mm w.e. decade−2) at Camp Century located 205 km from Thule AB, and 4.4% decade−1 (1.0 mm w.e. decade−2) at B26 located 500 km from Thule AB. In general, annually averaged precipitation and annually and seasonally averaged mean air temperatures observed at Thule AB follow trends observed in composite coastal Greenland time series, with both notably indicating winter as the fastest warming season in recent periods (1981–2012). Trends (1961–2012) in seasonal precipitation differ, specifically with NW Greenland summer precipitation increasing (~0.6 mm w.e. decade−2) in contrast with decreasing summer precipitation in the coastal composite time series (3.8 mm w.e. decade−2). Differences in precipitation trends between NW Greenland and coastal composite Greenland underscore the heterogeneity in climate influences affecting precipitation. In particular, recent (1981–2012) changes in NW Greenland annual precipitation are likely a response to a weakening North Atlantic oscillation

Excess hospitalizations and mortality associated with seasonal influenza in Spain, 2008-2018

Influenza may trigger complications, particularly in at-risk groups, potentially leading to hospitalization or death. However, due to lack of routine testing, influenza cases are infrequently coded with influenza-specific diagnosis. Statistical models using influenza activity as an explanatory variable can be used to estimate annual hospitalizations and deaths associated with influenza. Our study aimed to estimate the clinical and economic burden of severe influenza in Spain, considering such models. The study comprised ten epidemic seasons (2008/2009-2017/2018) and used two approaches: (i) a direct method of estimating the seasonal influenza hospitalization, based on the number of National Health Service hospitalizations with influenza-specific International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes (ICD-9: 487-488; ICD-10: J09-J11), as primary or secondary diagnosis; (ii) an indirect method of estimating excess hospitalizations and deaths using broader groups of ICD codes in time-series models, computed for six age groups and four groups of diagnoses: pneumonia or influenza (ICD-9: 480-488, 517.1; ICD-10: J09-J18), respiratory (ICD-9: 460-519; ICD-10: J00-J99), respiratory or cardiovascular (C&R, ICD-9: 390-459, 460-519; ICD-10: I00-I99, J00-J99), and all-cause. Means, excluding the H1N1pdm09 pandemic (2009/2010), are reported in this study. The mean number of hospitalizations with a diagnosis of influenza per season was 13,063, corresponding to 28.1 cases per 100,000 people. The mean direct annual cost of these hospitalizations was €45.7 million, of which 65.7% was generated by patients with comorbidities. Mean annual influenza-associated C&R hospitalizations were estimated at 34,894 (min: 16,546; max: 52,861), corresponding to 75.0 cases per 100,000 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 63.3-86.3) for all ages and 335.3 (95% CI: 293.2-377.5) in patients aged ≥ 65 years. We estimate 3.8 influenza-associated excess C&R hospitalizations for each hospitalization coded with an influenza-specific diagnosis in patients aged ≥ 65 years. The mean direct annual cost of the estimated excess C&R hospitalizations was €142.9 million for all ages and €115.9 million for patients aged ≥ 65 years. Mean annual influenza-associated all-cause mortality per 100,000 people was estimated at 27.7 for all ages. Results suggest a relevant under-detected burden of influenza mostly in the elderly population, but not neglectable in younger people. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12879-023-08015-3

Collective Animal Behavior from Bayesian Estimation and Probability Matching

Animals living in groups make movement decisions that depend, among other factors, on social interactions with other group members. Our present understanding of social rules in animal collectives is based on empirical fits to observations and we lack first-principles approaches that allow their derivation. Here we show that patterns of collective decisions can be derived from the basic ability of animals to make probabilistic estimations in the presence of uncertainty. We build a decision-making model with two stages: Bayesian estimation and probabilistic matching.
In the first stage, each animal makes a Bayesian estimation of which behavior is best to perform taking into account personal information about the environment and social information collected by observing the behaviors of other animals. In the probability matching stage, each animal chooses a behavior with a probability given by the Bayesian estimation that this behavior is the most appropriate one. This model derives very simple rules of interaction in animal collectives that depend only on two types of reliability parameters, one that each animal assigns to the other animals and another given by the quality of the non-social information. We test our model by obtaining theoretically a rich set of observed collective patterns of decisions in three-spined sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus, a shoaling fish species. The quantitative link shown between probabilistic estimation and collective rules of behavior allows a better contact with other fields such as foraging, mate selection, neurobiology and psychology, and gives predictions for experiments directly testing the relationship between estimation and collective behavior

Performance status is the most powerful risk factor for early death among patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer – Soft Tissue and Bone Sarcoma Group (STBSG) and French Sarcoma Group (FSG) study

BACKGROUND: We investigated prognostic factors (PFs) for 90-day mortality in a large cohort of advanced/metastatic soft tissue sarcoma (STS) patients treated with first-line chemotherapy. METHODS: The PFs were identified by both logistic regression analysis and probability tree analysis in patients captured in the Soft Tissue and Bone Sarcoma Group (STBSG) database (3002 patients). Scores derived from the logistic regression analysis and algorithms derived from probability tree analysis were subsequently validated in an independent study cohort from the French Sarcoma Group (FSG) database (404 patients). RESULTS: The 90-day mortality rate was 8.6 and 4.5% in both cohorts. The logistic regression analysis retained performance status (PS; odds ratio (OR) = 3.83 if PS = 1, OR = 12.00 if PS >= 2), presence of liver metastasis (OR = 2.37) and rare site metastasis (OR = 2.00) as PFs for early death. The CHAID analysis retained PS as a major discriminator followed by histological grade (only for patients with PS >= 2). In both models, PS was the most powerful PF for 90-day mortality. CONCLUSION: Performance status has to be taken into account in the design of further clinical trials and is one of the most important parameters to guide patient management. For those patients with poor PS, expected benefits from therapy should be weighed up carefully against the anticipated toxicities. British Journal of Cancer (2011) 104, 1544-1550. doi: 10.1038/bjc.2011.136 www.bjcancer.com Published online 19 April 2011 (C) 2011 Cancer Research U

The Origins of Concentric Demyelination: Self-Organization in the Human Brain

Baló's concentric sclerosis is a rare atypical form of multiple sclerosis characterized by striking concentric demyelination patterns. We propose a robust mathematical model for Baló's sclerosis, sharing common molecular and cellular mechanisms with multiple sclerosis. A reconsideration of the analogies between Baló's sclerosis and the Liesegang periodic precipitation phenomenon led us to propose a chemotactic cellular model for this disease. Rings of demyelination appear as a result of self-organization processes, and closely mimic Baló lesions. According to our results, homogeneous and concentric demyelinations may be two different macroscopic outcomes of a single fundamental immune disorder. Furthermore, in chemotactic models, cellular aggressivity appears to play a central role in pattern formation

Structure Learning in Human Sequential Decision-Making

Studies of sequential decision-making in humans frequently find suboptimal performance relative to an ideal actor that has perfect knowledge of the model of how rewards and events are generated in the environment. Rather than being suboptimal, we argue that the learning problem humans face is more complex, in that it also involves learning the structure of reward generation in the environment. We formulate the problem of structure learning in sequential decision tasks using Bayesian reinforcement learning, and show that learning the generative model for rewards qualitatively changes the behavior of an optimal learning agent. To test whether people exhibit structure learning, we performed experiments involving a mixture of one-armed and two-armed bandit reward models, where structure learning produces many of the qualitative behaviors deemed suboptimal in previous studies. Our results demonstrate humans can perform structure learning in a near-optimal manner

Adaptative Potential of the Lactococcus Lactis IL594 Strain Encoded in Its 7 Plasmids

The extrachromosomal gene pool plays a significant role both in evolution and in the environmental adaptation of bacteria. The L. lactis subsp. lactis IL594 strain contains seven plasmids, named pIL1 to pIL7, and is the parental strain of the plasmid-free L. lactis IL1403, which is one of the best characterized lactococcal strains of LAB. Complete nucleotide sequences of pIL1 (6,382 bp), pIL2 (8,277 bp), pIL3 (19,244 bp), pIL4 (48,979), pIL5 (23,395), pIL6 (28,435 bp) and pIL7 (28,546) were established and deposited in the generally accessible database (GeneBank). Nine highly homologous repB-containing replicons, belonging to the lactococcal theta-type replicons, have been identified on the seven plasmids. Moreover, a putative region involved in conjugative plasmid mobilization was found on four plasmids, through identification of the presence of mob genes and/or oriT sequences. Detailed bioinformatic analysis of the plasmid nucleotide sequences provided new insight into the repertoire of plasmid-encoded functions in L. lactis, and indicated that plasmid genes from IL594 strain can be important for L. lactis adaptation to specific environmental conditions (e.g. genes coding for proteins involved in DNA repair or cold shock response) as well as for technological processes (e.g. genes encoding citrate and lactose utilization, oligopeptide transport, restriction-modification system). Moreover, global gene analysis indicated cooperation between plasmid- and chromosome-encoded metabolic pathways