Vaginal yeasts in the era of "over the counter" antifungals

OBJECTIVE: To establish whether there has been any rise in the prevalence of non-albicans Candida species isolated from vaginal swabs since the introduction of “over the counter” antifungal treatments. METHOD: A retrospective review looking at all positive vaginal yeast isolates collected from women attending one genitourinary medicine clinic during the 6 year period from 1993 to 1998 inclusive. All positive vaginal yeast isolates were included, regardless of whether or not the patients were symptomatic. Isolates from HIV positive women were excluded from the analysis. RESULT: No increase in non-albicans vaginal yeast isolates was shown during the period studied. The proportion of non-albicans yeasts remained constant at approximately 5% of the total yeasts isolated. The most common non-albicans yeast isolated was C glabrata. CONCLUSION: There is no evidence from this study to suggest that the increasing use of “over the counter” antifungal treatment has selected for atypical, possibly inherently azole resistant, strains of vaginal yeasts in HIV seronegative women

Combined EISCAT radar and optical multispectral and tomographic observations of black aurora

Black auroras are recognized as spatially well-defined regions within a uniform diffuse auroral background where the optical emission is significantly reduced. Black auroras typically appear post-magnetic midnight and during the substorm recovery phase, but not exclusively so. We report on the first combined multimonochromatic optical imaging, bistatic white-light TV recordings and incoherent scatter radar observations of black aurora by EISCAT of the phenomenon. From the relatively larger reduction in luminosity at 4278 Å than at 8446 Å we show that nonsheared black auroras are most probably not caused by downward directed electrical fields at low altitude. From the observations, we determine this by relating the height and intensity of the black aurora to precipitating particle energy within the surrounding background diffuse aurora. The observations are more consistent with an energy selective loss cone. Hence the mechanism causing black aurora is most probably active in the magnetosphere rather than close to Earth

Temperament and Character in Cross-Cultural Comparisons between Swedish and Iranian People and Iranian Refugees in Sweden – Personality in Transition?

The aim of the study was a cross-cultural comparison of personality traits between individuals from two very different cultures and refugees who resettled several years before from one to the other. Four hundred forty four Swedish individuals of the normal population; and 100 Iranian refugees in Sweden, and a group of 335 individuals from Tehran, capital of Iran, were investigated by means of the Temperament and Character Inventory, a questionnaire to assess temperament and character. Iranians are those that are most frequently correctly classified followed by the Swedish based on temperament scores by means of a Discriminance analyses. Iranian refugees in Sweden were classified to about 50 per cent as Swedish and to slightly more then one-third as Iranians. Especially concerning character, 4 per cent only could be correctly classified as refugees. The results give some perspective on the adaptation process and personality changes in refugees several years after resettlement in another country with a complete different culture

How do we know the level of inbreeding in our animals? - comparison of different methods

Syftet med denna litteraturstudie är att belysa de olika metoder som används för att mäta ina-velskoefficient (F) hos olika djurslag. Avel har använts under mycket lång tid för att förbättra de fenotypiska egenskaper som våra djur har. Den intensiva aveln har lett till inavel hos våra produktions-, sport- och sällskapsdjur vilket i sin tur har lett till negativa effekter så som re-cessiva genetiska sjukdomar. För att övervaka, kontrollera och begränsa inavel behövs meto-der för att mäta den. Tre vanliga metoder för att beräkna inavelsgrad är genom härstamnings-information, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP) och mikrosatelliter. Att beräkna ina-velsgraden med hjälp av härstamningsinformation har länge varit det klassiska sättet att göra det på men ju fler tekniska framsteg som görs desto vanligare blir det att beräkna inavelsgrad med hjälp av genomisk information. Ett stort antal studier inom olika djurslag har gjorts där de olika metoderna har jämförts. Enligt de olika studierna kan både härstamningsinformation och genomisk information vara fördelaktigt att använda men en avgörande faktor är vilken population som ska undersökas.The aim of this literature review is to elucidate the different methods used to measure in-breeding in various animal species. Breeding has been used for a very long time in order to improve the phenotypic traits of our animals. The intense breeding schemes have led to in-breeding in our production and sport animals as well as our pets, which in turn has led to neg-ative effects such as recessive genetic disorders. To limit inbreeding and to be able to keep it under good supervision and control, methods are needed to measure it. Three common meth-ods for calculating inbreeding is through pedigree information, Single Nucleotide Polymor-phisms (SNP) and microsatellites. Using pedigree information has been the classic way to do it but with more technical progress; the more common it is to calculate inbreeding using ge-nomic information. A large number of studies in various animal species have been made in which the various methods have been compared. According to the different studies, both ped-igree information and genomic information are of good use but a crucial factor is what type of population that is studied

Multi‐Point Measurements of the Plasma Properties Inside an Aurora From the SPIDER Sounding Rocket

The Small Payloads for Investigation of Disturbances in Electrojet by Rockets (SPIDER) sounding rocket was launched on February 2nd, 2016 (21:09 UT), deploying 10 free falling units (FFUs) inside a westward traveling auroral surge. Each FFUs deployed spherical electric field and Langmuir probes on wire-booms, providing in situ multi-point recordings of the electric field and plasma properties. The analytical retrieval of the plasma parameters, namely the electron density, electron temperature and plasma potential, from the Langmuir probe measurements was non-trivial due to sheath effects and detailed explanation are discussed in this article. An empirical assumption on the sheath thickness was required, which was confirmed by simulating the plasma environment around the FFU using the Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Software (SPIS). In addition, the retrieved electron density and temperature are also in agreement with the simultaneous incoherent scatter radar measurements from the EISCAT facility. These two independent confirmations provided a good level of confidence in the plasma parameters obtained from the FFUs, and events observed during the flight are discussed in more details. Hints of drift-wave instabilities and increased currents inside a region of enhanced density were observed by the FFUs

Auroral alert version 1.0: two-step automatic detection of sudden aurora intensification from all-sky JPEG images

A sudden and significant intensification of the auroral arc with expanding motion (we call it “local-arc breaking” hereafter) is an important event in many aspects but easy to miss for real-time watching due to its short rise time. To ease this problem, a real-time alert system for local-arc breaking was developed for the Kiruna all-sky camera (ASC) using ASC images in the JPEG format. The identification of the local-arc breaking is made in two steps using the “expert system” in both steps: (1) explicit criteria for classification of each pixel and simple calculations afterward are applied to each ASC image to obtain a simple set of numbers, or the “ASC auroral index”, representing the occupancy of aurora pixels and characteristic intensity of the brightest aurora in the image; (2) using this ASC auroral index, the level of auroral activity is estimated, aiming for Level 6 as clear local-arc breaking and Level 4 as a precursor for it (reserving Levels 1–3 for less active aurora and Level 5 for less intense sudden intensification). The first step is further divided into two stages. Stage (1a) uses simple criteria for R (red), G (green), and B (blue) values in the RGB color code and the H (hue) value calculated from these RGB values, each pixel of a JPEG image is classified into three aurora categories (from brightest to faintest, “strong aurora”, “green arc”, and “visible diffuse (aurora)”) and three non-aurora light source categories (“cloud”, “artificial light”, and “Moon”). Here, strong aurora means that the ordinary green color by atomic oxygen's 558 nm emission is either nearly saturated or mixed with red color at around 670 nm emitted, by molecular nitrogen. In stage (1b), the percentage of the occupying area (pixel coverage) for each category and the characteristic intensity of the strong aurora pixels are calculated. The obtained ASC auroral index is posted in both an ASCII format and plots in real time (https://www.irf.se/alis/allsky/nowcast/, last access: 11 April 2023). When Level 6 (local-arc breaking) is detected, an automatic alert email is sent out to the registered addresses immediately. The alert system started on 5 November 2021, and the results (both Level 6 detection and Level 4 detection) were compared to the manual (eye) identification of the auroral activity in the ASC during the rest of the aurora season of the Kiruna ASC (i.e., all images during a total of 5 months until April 2022 were examined and occasionally double-checked in the sky). Unless the Moon or the cloud blocks the brightened region, a nearly one-to-one correspondence between Level 6 and eye-identified local-arc breaking in the ASC images is achieved with an uncertainty of under 10 min.</p

Case study of the development of polar stratospheric clouds using bistatic imaging

International audienceThe formation of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) is closely related to wave activity on different scales since waves propagating into the stratosphere perturb the temperature profile. We present here a case study of the development of visible PSCs (mother-of-pearl clouds), appearing at the polar vortex edge on 9 January 1997, under-taken by means of ground-based cameras. It is shown that the presence of stratospheric clouds may be detected semi-automatically and that short-term dynamics such as altitude variations can be tracked in three dimensions. The PSC field showed distinct features separated by approximately 20 km, which implies wave-induced temperature variations on that scale. The wave-induced characteristics were further emphasised by the fact that the PSCs moved within a sloping spatial surface. The appearance of visible mother-of-pearl clouds seems to be related to leewave-induced cooling of air masses, where the synoptic temperature has been close to (but not necessarily below) the threshold temperatures for PSC condensation