New fossil assemblages from the Early Ordovician Fezouata Biota

The Fezouata Biota (Morocco) is a unique Early Ordovician fossil assemblage. The discovery of this biota revolutionized our understanding of Earth’s early animal diversifications—the Cambrian Explosion and the Ordovician Radiation—by suggesting an evolutionary continuum between both events. Herein, we describe Taichoute, a new fossil locality from the Fezouata Shale. This locality extends the temporal distribution of fossil preservation from this formation into the upper Floian, while also expanding the range of depositional environments to more distal parts of the shelf. In Taichoute, most animals were transported by density flows, unlike the in-situ preservation of animals recovered in previously investigated Fezouata sites. Taichoute is dominated by three-dimensionally preserved, and heavily sclerotized fragments of large euarthropods—possibly representing nektobenthic/nektic bivalved taxa and/or hurdiid radiodonts. Resolving whether this dominance reflects a legitimate aspect of the original ecosystem or a preservational bias requires an in-depth assessment of the environmental conditions at this site. Nevertheless, Taichoute provides novel preservational and palaeontological insights during a key evolutionary transition in the history of life on Earth

Burden and risk factors for Pseudomonas aeruginosa community-acquired pneumonia:a Multinational Point Prevalence Study of Hospitalised Patients

Pseudornonas aeruginosa is a challenging bacterium to treat due to its intrinsic resistance to the antibiotics used most frequently in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). Data about the global burden and risk factors associated with P. aeruginosa-CAP are limited. We assessed the multinational burden and specific risk factors associated with P. aeruginosa-CAP. We enrolled 3193 patients in 54 countries with confirmed diagnosis of CAP who underwent microbiological testing at admission. Prevalence was calculated according to the identification of P. aeruginosa. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify risk factors for antibiotic-susceptible and antibiotic-resistant P. aeruginosa-CAP. The prevalence of P. aeruginosa and antibiotic-resistant P. aeruginosa-CAP was 4.2% and 2.0%, respectively. The rate of P. aeruginosa CAP in patients with prior infection/colonisation due to P. aeruginosa and at least one of the three independently associated chronic lung diseases (i.e. tracheostomy, bronchiectasis and/or very severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) was 67%. In contrast, the rate of P. aeruginosa-CAP was 2% in patients without prior P. aeruginosa infection/colonisation and none of the selected chronic lung diseases. The multinational prevalence of P. aeruginosa-CAP is low. The risk factors identified in this study may guide healthcare professionals in deciding empirical antibiotic coverage for CAP patients

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

Relationship of edge localized mode burst times with divertor flux loop signal phase in JET

A phase relationship is identified between sequential edge localized modes (ELMs) occurrence times in a set of H-mode tokamak plasmas to the voltage measured in full flux azimuthal loops in the divertor region. We focus on plasmas in the Joint European Torus where a steady H-mode is sustained over several seconds, during which ELMs are observed in the Be II emission at the divertor. The ELMs analysed arise from intrinsic ELMing, in that there is no deliberate intent to control the ELMing process by external means. We use ELM timings derived from the Be II signal to perform direct time domain analysis of the full flux loop VLD2 and VLD3 signals, which provide a high cadence global measurement proportional to the voltage induced by changes in poloidal magnetic flux. Specifically, we examine how the time interval between pairs of successive ELMs is linked to the time-evolving phase of the full flux loop signals. Each ELM produces a clear early pulse in the full flux loop signals, whose peak time is used to condition our analysis. The arrival time of the following ELM, relative to this pulse, is found to fall into one of two categories: (i) prompt ELMs, which are directly paced by the initial response seen in the flux loop signals; and (ii) all other ELMs, which occur after the initial response of the full flux loop signals has decayed in amplitude. The times at which ELMs in category (ii) occur, relative to the first ELM of the pair, are clustered at times when the instantaneous phase of the full flux loop signal is close to its value at the time of the first ELM

Factors Associated with Revision Surgery after Internal Fixation of Hip Fractures

Background: Femoral neck fractures are associated with high rates of revision surgery after management with internal fixation. Using data from the Fixation using Alternative Implants for the Treatment of Hip fractures (FAITH) trial evaluating methods of internal fixation in patients with femoral neck fractures, we investigated associations between baseline and surgical factors and the need for revision surgery to promote healing, relieve pain, treat infection or improve function over 24 months postsurgery. Additionally, we investigated factors associated with (1) hardware removal and (2) implant exchange from cancellous screws (CS) or sliding hip screw (SHS) to total hip arthroplasty, hemiarthroplasty, or another internal fixation device. Methods: We identified 15 potential factors a priori that may be associated with revision surgery, 7 with hardware removal, and 14 with implant exchange. We used multivariable Cox proportional hazards analyses in our investigation. Results: Factors associated with increased risk of revision surgery included: female sex, [hazard ratio (HR) 1.79, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.25-2.50; P = 0.001], higher body mass index (fo

Le régime coutumier à l’épreuve des juridictions maliennes : quelle protection des droits réels de tenure foncière ?

International audienc

Storm-induced community dynamics in the Fezouata Biota (Lower Ordovician, Morocco)

In the Central Anti-Atlas (Morocco), the lower part of the Fezouata Shale has yielded locally abundant remains of soft-bodied to lightly sclerotized taxa, occurring in low diversity assemblages characterized by strong spatial and taxonomic heterogeneities, and frequently, by the occurrence of small-sized individuals. Size frequency analyses of Celdobolus sp., Wosekella sp. (both linguliformean brachiopods) and Babinka prima (babinkid bivalve) collected in deposits of the Fezouata Shale and associated with distinct paleoenvironmental conditions show that short-lived communities of epifaunal and shallow infaunal taxa were regularly smothered and killed by distal storm deposits. Small-sized individuals more likely represent juveniles, rather than ‘dwarfed' adults (Lilliput Effect). Consequently, unstable environmental conditions (regular storms, and possibly low oxygenation of the water column) probably explain the unusual community dynamics of late Tremadocian assemblages of the Fezouata Biota (high density of individuals, low α-diversity, and high γ-diversity), interpreted as short-lived, opportunistic populations. This process has wider implications for the understanding of occurrences of small individuals elsewhere in the fossil record

Cambrian explosion and Ordovician biodiversification or Cambrian biodiversification and Ordovician explosion?

International audienceIn this study, we examine how metazoan biodiversity has accumulated from the late Precambrian until the Silurian at various scales of taxonomic organization using compilations of the First Appearance Data (FAD) of global marine Metazoa from the datasets available in the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) and primary literature. The results indicate that all animal phyla appear during the late Precambrian and the earlier parts of the Cambrian, which corresponds to the usual concept of the Cambrian Explosion. However, at lower taxonomic ranks, a significant increase of first appearances is observed during the Ordovician, corresponding to an Ordovician Explosion of animal orders, families and genera. The cumulative counts of metazoan FADs at these lower taxonomic ranks reveal a gradual and long-term increase of diversity, reflecting a single large-scale radiation that started in the late Precambrian and lasted at least until the Silurian. This scenario corroborates recent studies that point towards a single long-term radiation during the early Palaeozoic, without clearly distinguishable global diversity explosions during discrete intervals

FHL1B Interacts with lamin A/C and emerin at the nuclear lamina and is misregulated in Emery-Dreifuss Muscular Dystrophy

BACKGROUND: Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD) is associated with mutations in EMD and LMNA genes, encoding for the nuclear envelope proteins emerin and lamin A/C, indicating that EDMD is a nuclear envelope disease. We recently reported mutations in FHL1 gene in X-linked EDMD. FHL1 encodes FHL1A, and the two minor isoforms FHL1B and FHL1C. So far, none have been described at the nuclear envelope. OBJECTIVE: To gain insight into the pathophysiology of EDMD, we focused our attention on the poorly characterized FHL1B isoform. METHODS: The amount and the localisation of FHL1B were evaluated in control and diseased human primary myoblasts using immunofluorescence and western blotting. RESULTS: We found that in addition to a cytoplasmic localization, this isoform strongly accumulated at the nuclear envelope of primary human myoblasts, like but independently of lamin A/C and emerin. During myoblast differentiation, we observed a major reduction of FHL1B protein expression, especially in the nucleus. Interestingly, we found elevated FHL1B expression level in myoblasts from an FHL1-related EDMD patient where the FHL1 mutation only affects FHL1A, as well as in myoblasts from an LMNA-related EDMD patient. CONCLUSIONS: Altogether, the specific localization of FHL1B and its modulation in disease-patient's myoblasts confirmed FHL1-related EDMD as a nuclear envelope disease