Tallgrass prairie soil fungal communities are resilient to climate change

Climate models for central United States predict increasing temperatures and greater variability in precipitation. Combined, these shifts in environmental conditions impact many ecosystem properties and services. Long‐term climate change experiments, such as the Rainfall Manipulation Plots (RaMPs), can be used to address soil community responses to simultaneous manipulation of temperature and temporal variability in precipitation. The RaMPs experiment is located in a native tallgrass prairie at the Konza Prairie Biological Station and has been operational since 1998 providing the potential to address responses to long‐term environmental manipulations. To test whether community composition, richness, or diversity respond to environmental change, more than 40,000 fungal amplicons were analyzed from soil samples collected in 2006. The data suggest that soil fungal communities are compositionally resilient to predicted environmental change. This is the case both for the community composition overall as inferred from ordination analyses as well as analyses of variance for each of the most common Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs). However, while this study suggests compositional resilience, further studies are required to address functional attributes of these communities and their responses to environmental manipulations

Evaluation of uncomplicated acute respiratory tract infection management in veterans: A national utilization review.

BackgroundAntibiotics are overprescribed for acute respiratory tract infections (ARIs). Guidelines provide criteria to determine which patients should receive antibiotics. We assessed congruence between documentation of ARI diagnostic and treatment practices with guideline recommendations, treatment appropriateness, and outcomes.MethodsA multicenter quality improvement evaluation was conducted in 28 Veterans Affairs facilities. We included visits for pharyngitis, rhinosinusitis, bronchitis, and upper respiratory tract infections (URI-NOS) that occurred during the 2015-2016 winter season. A manual record review identified complicated cases, which were excluded. Data were extracted for visits meeting criteria, followed by analysis of practice patterns, guideline congruence, and outcomes.ResultsOf 5,740 visits, 4,305 met our inclusion criteria: pharyngitis (n = 558), rhinosinusitis (n = 715), bronchitis (n = 1,155), URI-NOS (n = 1,475), or mixed diagnoses (>1 ARI diagnosis) (n = 402). Antibiotics were prescribed in 68% of visits: pharyngitis (69%), rhinosinusitis (89%), bronchitis (86%), URI-NOS (37%), and mixed diagnosis (86%). Streptococcal diagnostic testing was performed in 33% of pharyngitis visits; group A Streptococcus was identified in 3% of visits. Streptococcal tests were ordered less frequently for patients who received antibiotics (28%) than those who did not receive antibiotics 44%; P < .01). Although 68% of visits for rhinosinusitis had documentation of symptoms, only 32% met diagnostic criteria for antibiotics. Overall, 39% of patients with uncomplicated ARIs received appropriate antibiotic management. The proportion of 30-day return visits for ARI care was similar for appropriate (11%) or inappropriate (10%) antibiotic management (P = .22).ConclusionsAntibiotics were prescribed in most uncomplicated ARI visits, indicating substantial overuse. Practice was frequently discordant with guideline diagnostic and treatment recommendations

Exchange Interaction Between Three and Four Coupled Quantum Dots: Theory and Applications to Quantum Computing

Several prominent proposals have suggested that spins of localized electrons could serve as quantum computer qubits. The exchange interaction has been invoked as a means of implementing two qubit gates. In this paper, we analyze the strength and form of the exchange interaction under relevant conditions. We find that, when several spins are engaged in mutual interactions, the quantitative strengths or even qualitative forms of the interactions can change. It is shown that the changes can be dramatic within a Heitler-London model. Hund-Mulliken calculations are also presented, and support the qualititative conclusions from the Heitler-London model. The effects need to be considered in spin-based quantum computer designs, either as a source of gate error to be overcome or a new interaction to be exploited.Comment: 16 pages, 16 figures. v3: Added Hund-Mulliken calculations in 3-dots case. A few small corrections. This version submitted to PR

Targeted interplay between bacterial pathogens and host autophagy

Due to the critical role played by autophagy in pathogen clearance, pathogens have developed diverse strategies to subvert autophagy. Despite previous key findings of bacteria-autophagy interplay, a systems level insight into selective targeting by the host and autophagy modulation by the pathogens is lacking. We predicted potential interactions between human autophagy proteins and effector proteins from 56 pathogenic bacterial species by identifying bacterial proteins predicted to have recognition motifs for selective autophagy receptors p62/NDP52 and LC3. Conversely, using structure-based interaction prediction methods, we identified bacterial effector proteins that could putatively modify core autophagy components. Our analysis revealed that autophagy receptors in general potentially target mostly genus specific proteins, and not those present in multiple genera. We also show that the complementarity between the predicted p62 and NDP52 targets, which has been shown for Salmonella, Listeria and Shigella, could be observed across other pathogens. Using literature evidence, we hypothesize that this complementarity potentially leave the host more susceptible to chronic infections upon the mutation of one of the autophagy receptors. To check any bias caused by our pathogenic protein selection criteria, control analysis using proteins derived from entero-toxigenic and non-toxigenic Bacillus outer membrane vesicles indicated that autophagy targets pathogenic proteins rather than non-pathogenic ones. We also observed a pathogen specific pattern as to which autophagy phase could be modulated by specific genera. We found intriguing examples of bacterial proteins which could modulate autophagy, and in turn capable of being targeted by the autophagy receptors and LC3 as a host defence mechanism. To demonstrate the validity of our predictions, we confirmed experimentally with in vitro Salmonella invasion assays the bi-directional interactions underlying the interplay between a Salmonella protease, YhjJ and autophagy. Our comparative meta-analysis points out key commonalities and differences in how pathogens could affect autophagy and how autophagy potentially recognises these pathogenic effectors

Analyses of Socioeconomic Factors influencing on-farm Conservation of Remnant Forest Tree Species: Evidence from Ghana

The contribution of remnant trees in traditional agro forestry systems in recent times has attracted significant attention from policy makers, stakeholders, and academicians due to their important role in conserving biodiversity within agricultural systems, reserves of genetic resources and provision of other important environmental services. The study seeks to determine socioeconomic factors influencing farmers’ decision to maintain remnant trees in agricultural landscape. Data was solicited from 220 households in three rural communities through structured interviews and on farm visitations. We employed Poison and Negative Binomial Regressions to determine factors influencing rural farm households’ decision to retain remnants forest tree species in agro ecosystem. The regression results indicated that the key factors strongly affecting farmers’ on-farm conservation decision to retain remnant forest trees in agricultural landscape were age, gender, years of schooling, religion, land tenure, farmers’ perceptions to current environmental problems, distance to farm land, erosion and the size of the landholdings. The study recommends that forest governance with focus on collaborative forest resource management and equitable distribution of benefits generated from extraction of forest resources should be given high impetus in policy formulation. The needs and concerns of forest fringe communities should feature paramount in this regard

Endogenous neurosteroids influence synaptic GABA_Areceptors during post-natal development

GABA plays a key role in both embryonic and neonatal brain development. For example, during early neonatal nervous system maturation, synaptic transmission, mediated by GABA A receptors (GABA ARs), undergoes a temporally specific form of synaptic plasticity to accommodate the changing requirements of maturing neural networks. Specifically, the duration of miniature inhibitory postsynaptic currents (mIPSCs), resulting from vesicular GABA activating synaptic GABA ARs, is reduced, permitting neurones to appropriately influence the window for postsynaptic excitation. Conventionally, programmed expression changes to the subtype of synaptic GABA AR are primarily implicated in this plasticity. However, it is now evident that, in developing thalamic and cortical principal- and inter-neurones, an endogenous neurosteroid tone (eg, allopregnanolone) enhances synaptic GABA AR function. Furthermore, a cessation of steroidogenesis, as a result of a lack of substrate, or a co-factor, appears to be primarily responsible for early neonatal changes to GABAergic synaptic transmission, followed by further refinement, which results from subsequent alterations of the GABA AR subtype. The timing of this cessation of neurosteroid influence is neurone-specific, occurring by postnatal day (P)10 in the thalamus but approximately 1 week later in the cortex. Neurosteroid levels are not static and change dynamically in a variety of physiological and pathophysiological scenarios. Given that GABA plays an important role in brain development, abnormal perturbations of neonatal GABA AR-active neurosteroids may have not only a considerable immediate, but also a longer-term impact upon neural network activity. Here, we review recent evidence indicating that changes in neurosteroidogenesis substantially influence neonatal GABAergic synaptic transmission. We discuss the physiological relevance of these findings and how the interference of neurosteroid-GABA AR interaction early in life may contribute to psychiatric conditions later in life. </p