State of the California current 2013-14: El niño looming

In 2013, the California current was dominated by strong coastal upwelling and high productivity. Indices of total cumulative upwelling for particular coastal locations reached some of the highest values on record. Chlorophyll a levels were high throughout spring and summer. Catches of upwelling-related fish species were also high. After a moderate drop in upwelling during fall 2013, the California current system underwent a major change in phase. Three major basin-scale indicators, the PDO, the NPGO, and the ENSO-MEI, all changed phase at some point during the winter of 2013/14. The PDO changed to positive values, indicative of warmer waters in the North Pacific; the NPGO to negative values, indicative of lower productivity along the coast; and the MEI to positive values, indicative of an oncoming El Niño. Whereas the majority of the California Current system appears to have transitioned to an El Niño state by August 2014, based on decreases in upwelling and chlorophyll a concentration, and increases in SST, there still remained pockets of moderate upwelling, cold water, and high chlorophyll a biomass at various central coast locations, unlike patterns seen during the more major El Niños (e.g., the 97-98 event). Catches of rockfish, market squid, euphausiids, and juvenile sanddab remained high along the central coast, whereas catches of sardine and anchovy were low throughout the CCS. 2014 appears to be heading towards a moderate El Niño state, with some remaining patchy regions of upwellingdriven productivity along the coast. Superimposed on this pattern, three major regions have experienced possibly non-El Niño-related warming since winter: the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, and offshore of southern California. It is unclear how this warming may interact with the predicted El Niño, but the result will likely be reduced growth or reproduction for many key fisheries species

Multiscale photosynthetic exciton transfer

Photosynthetic light harvesting provides a natural blueprint for bioengineered and biomimetic solar energy and light detection technologies. Recent evidence suggests some individual light harvesting protein complexes (LHCs) and LHC subunits efficiently transfer excitons towards chemical reaction centers (RCs) via an interplay between excitonic quantum coherence, resonant protein vibrations, and thermal decoherence. The role of coherence in vivo is unclear however, where excitons are transferred through multi-LHC/RC aggregates over distances typically large compared with intra-LHC scales. Here we assess the possibility of long-range coherent transfer in a simple chromophore network with disordered site and transfer coupling energies. Through renormalization we find that, surprisingly, decoherence is diminished at larger scales, and long-range coherence is facilitated by chromophoric clustering. Conversely, static disorder in the site energies grows with length scale, forcing localization. Our results suggest sustained coherent exciton transfer may be possible over distances large compared with nearest-neighbour (n-n) chromophore separations, at physiological temperatures, in a clustered network with small static disorder. This may support findings suggesting long-range coherence in algal chloroplasts, and provides a framework for engineering large chromophore or quantum dot high-temperature exciton transfer networks.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. A significantly updated version is now published online by Nature Physics (2012

Injectable Poly-l-Lactic Acid: A Novel Sculpting Agent for the Treatment of Dermal Fat Atrophy After Severe Acne

Acne vulgaris affects up to 80% of people 11 to 30 years of age, and scarring can occur for up to 95% of these patients. Scarring may be pitted or hypertrophic in nature, although in most cases it is atrophic. Atrophic acne scarring follows dermal collagen and fat loss after moderate to severe acne infection. Injectable poly-L-acid (PLLA) is a biocompatible, biodegradable, synthetic polymer device that is hypothesized to enhance dermal volume via the endogenous production of fibroblasts and, subsequently, collagen. The gradual improvements in cutaneous volume observed after treatment with injectable PLLA have been noted to last up to 2 years. The case studies presented describe the use of injectable PLLA to correct dermal fat loss in macular atrophic acne scarring of the cheeks. Two female patients underwent three treatment sessions with injectable PLLA over a 12-week period. At each treatment session, the reconstituted product was injected into the deep dermis under the depressed portion of the scar. Both patients were extremely pleased with their results at, respectively, 1- and 4-year follow-up evaluations. Patients experienced minimal swelling and redness after injection and no product-related adverse events such as papule and/or nodule formation. The author believes these data suggest that injectable PLLA is a good treatment option for the correction of macular atropic scarring with thin dermis (off-label use), particularly compared with other injectable fillers currently used for this indication that have shorter durations of effect

Middleborns disadvantaged? testing birth-order effects on fitness in pre-industrial finns

Parental investment is a limited resource for which offspring compete in order to increase their own survival and reproductive success. However, parents might be selected to influence the outcome of sibling competition through differential investment. While evidence for this is widespread in egg-laying species, whether or not this may also be the case in viviparous species is more difficult to determine. We use pre-industrial Finns as our model system and an equal investment model as our null hypothesis, which predicts that (all else being equal) middleborns should be disadvantaged through competition. We found no overall evidence to suggest that middleborns in a family are disadvantaged in terms of their survival, age at first reproduction or lifetime reproductive success. However, when considering birth-order only among same-sexed siblings, first-, middle-and lastborn sons significantly differed in the number of offspring they were able to rear to adulthood, although there was no similar effect among females. Middleborn sons appeared to produce significantly less offspring than first-or lastborn sons, but they did not significantly differ from lastborn sons in the number of offspring reared to adulthood. Our results thus show that taking sex differences into account is important when modelling birth-order effects. We found clear evidence of firstborn sons being advantaged over other sons in the family, and over firstborn daughters. Therefore, our results suggest that parents invest differentially in their offspring in order to both preferentially favour particular offspring or reduce offspring inequalities arising from sibling competition

Life after prostate cancer diagnosis: protocol for a UK-wide patient-reported outcomes study

Background: Prostate cancer and its treatment may impact physically, psychologically and socially; affecting the health-related quality of life of men and their partners/spouses. The Life After Prostate Cancer Diagnosis (LAPCD) study is a UK-wide patient-reported outcomes study which will generate information to improve the health and well-being of men with prostate cancer. Methods and analysis: Postal surveys will be sent to prostate cancer survivors (18–42 months postdiagnosis) in all 4 UK countries (n=∼70 000). Eligible men will be identified and/or verified through cancer registration systems. Men will be surveyed twice, 12 months apart, to explore changes in outcomes over time. Second, separate cohorts will be surveyed once and the design will include evaluation of the acceptability of online survey tools. A comprehensive patient-reported outcome measure has been developed using generic and specific instruments with proven psychometric properties and relevance in national and international studies. The outcome data will be linked with administrative health data (eg, treatment information from hospital data). To ensure detailed understanding of issues of importance, qualitative interviews will be undertaken with a sample of men who complete the survey across the UK (n=∼150) along with a small number of partners/spouses (n=∼30). Ethics and dissemination: The study has received the following approvals: Newcastle and North Tyneside 1 Research Ethics Committee (15/NE/0036), Health Research Authority Confidentiality Advisory Group (15/CAG/0110), NHS Scotland Public Benefit and Privacy Panel (0516-0364), Office of Research Ethics Northern Ireland (16/NI/0073) and NHS R&D approval from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Using traditional and innovative methods, the results will be made available to men and their partners/spouses, the funders, the NHS, social care, voluntary sector organisations and other researchers

Bacteraemia among severely malnourished children infected and uninfected with the human immunodeficiency virus-1 in Kampala, Uganda

BACKGROUND: To establish the magnitude of bacteraemia in severely malnourished children, and describe the types of bacteria and antimicrobial sensitivity by HIV status. METHOD: Isolates were recovered from 76 blood specimens. Antibiotic susceptibility tests were performed using commercial antibiotic disks and demographic and clinical findings were recorded. RESULTS: Of the 450 children 63% were male; median age 17.0 months (inter quartile range, IQR 12–24) and 57% had oedema. 151 (36.7 %) of 411 tested HIV-positive; 76 (17.1%) of 445 blood specimens grew bacterial isolates; 58% were Gram negative – S. typhimurium (27.6%) and S. enteriditis (11.8%). Staph. aureus (26.3%) and Strep. pneumoniae (13.2%) were the main Gram positive organisms. There was no difference in the risk of bacteraemia by HIV status, age < 24 months, male sex, or oedema, except for oral thrush (OR 2.3 CI 1.0–5.1) and hypoalbuminaemia (OR 3.5 CI 1.0–12.1). Isolates from severely immuno-suppressed children (CD4% <15%) were more likely to grow Salmonella enteriditis (OR 5.4; CI 1.6 – 17.4). The isolates were susceptible (≥ 80%) to ciprofloxacin, ceftriaxone and gentamicin; with low susceptibility to chlorampenicol, ampicillin (< 50%) and co-trimoxazole (<25%). Suspicion of bacteraemia had 95.9% sensitivity and 99.2% specificity. Among bacteraemic children, mortality was higher (43.5% vs 20.5%) in the HIV-positive; OR 3.0 (95%CI 1.0, 8.6). CONCLUSION: Bacteraemia affects 1 in every 6 severely malnourished children and carries high mortality especially among the HIV-positive. Given the high level of resistance to common antibiotics, there is need for clinical trials to determine the best combinations of antibiotics for management of bacteraemia in severely malnourished children

How do you say ‘hello’? Personality impressions from brief novel voices

On hearing a novel voice, listeners readily form personality impressions of that speaker. Accurate or not, these impressions are known to affect subsequent interactions; yet the underlying psychological and acoustical bases remain poorly understood. Furthermore, hitherto studies have focussed on extended speech as opposed to analysing the instantaneous impressions we obtain from first experience. In this paper, through a mass online rating experiment, 320 participants rated 64 sub-second vocal utterances of the word ‘hello’ on one of 10 personality traits. We show that: (1) personality judgements of brief utterances from unfamiliar speakers are consistent across listeners; (2) a two-dimensional ‘social voice space’ with axes mapping Valence (Trust, Likeability) and Dominance, each driven by differing combinations of vocal acoustics, adequately summarises ratings in both male and female voices; and (3) a positive combination of Valence and Dominance results in increased perceived male vocal Attractiveness, whereas perceived female vocal Attractiveness is largely controlled by increasing Valence. Results are discussed in relation to the rapid evaluation of personality and, in turn, the intent of others, as being driven by survival mechanisms via approach or avoidance behaviours. These findings provide empirical bases for predicting personality impressions from acoustical analyses of short utterances and for generating desired personality impressions in artificial voices

Review and publication of protocol submissions to Trials - what have we learned in 10 years?

Abstract Trials has 10 years of experience in providing open access publication of protocols for randomised controlled trials. In this editorial, the senior editors and editors-in-chief of Trials discuss editorial issues regarding managing trial protocol submissions, including the content and format of the protocol, timing of submission, approaches to tracking protocol amendments, and the purpose of peer reviewing a protocol submission. With the clarification and guidance provided, we hope we can make the process of publishing trial protocols more efficient and useful to trial investigators and readers

Variation analysis and gene annotation of eight MHC haplotypes: The MHC Haplotype Project

The human major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is contained within about 4 Mb on the short arm of chromosome 6 and is recognised as the most variable region in the human genome. The primary aim of the MHC Haplotype Project was to provide a comprehensively annotated reference sequence of a single, human leukocyte antigen-homozygous MHC haplotype and to use it as a basis against which variations could be assessed from seven other similarly homozygous cell lines, representative of the most common MHC haplotypes in the European population. Comparison of the haplotype sequences, including four haplotypes not previously analysed, resulted in the identification of >44,000 variations, both substitutions and indels (insertions and deletions), which have been submitted to the dbSNP database. The gene annotation uncovered haplotype-specific differences and confirmed the presence of more than 300 loci, including over 160 protein-coding genes. Combined analysis of the variation and annotation datasets revealed 122 gene loci with coding substitutions of which 97 were non-synonymous. The haplotype (A3-B7-DR15; PGF cell line) designated as the new MHC reference sequence, has been incorporated into the human genome assembly (NCBI35 and subsequent builds), and constitutes the largest single-haplotype sequence of the human genome to date. The extensive variation and annotation data derived from the analysis of seven further haplotypes have been made publicly available and provide a framework and resource for future association studies of all MHC-associated diseases and transplant medicine

Completeness and Changes in Registered Data and Reporting Bias of Randomized Controlled Trials in ICMJE Journals after Trial Registration Policy

We assessed the adequacy of randomized controlled trial (RCT) registration, changes to registration data and reporting completeness for articles in ICMJE journals during 2.5 years after registration requirement policy.For a set of 149 reports of 152 RCTs with ClinicalTrials.gov registration number, published from September 2005 to April 2008, we evaluated the completeness of 9 items from WHO 20-item Minimum Data Set relevant for assessing trial quality. We also assessed changes to the registration elements at the Archive site of ClinicalTrials.gov and compared published and registry data.RCTs were mostly registered before 13 September 2005 deadline (n = 101, 66.4%); 118 (77.6%) started recruitment before and 31 (20.4%) after registration. At the time of registration, 152 RCTs had a total of 224 missing registry fields, most commonly 'Key secondary outcomes' (44.1% RCTs) and 'Primary outcome' (38.8%). More RCTs with post-registration recruitment had missing Minimum Data Set items than RCTs with pre-registration recruitment: 57/118 (48.3%) vs. 24/31 (77.4%) (χ(2) (1) = 7.255, P = 0.007). Major changes in the data entries were found for 31 (25.2%) RCTs. The number of RCTs with differences between registered and published data ranged from 21 (13.8%) for Study type to 118 (77.6%) for Target sample size.ICMJE journals published RCTs with proper registration but the registration data were often not adequate, underwent substantial changes in the registry over time and differed in registered and published data. Editors need to establish quality control procedures in the journals so that they continue to contribute to the increased transparency of clinical trials