Viral etiology, seasonality and severity of hospitalized patients with severe acute respiratory infections in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, 2007-2014.

INTRODUCTION: Little is known about the role of viral respiratory pathogens in the etiology, seasonality or severity of severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. METHODS: Sentinel surveillance for SARI was conducted from December 2007 through February 2014 at 20 hospitals in Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Qatar and Yemen. Nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs were collected from hospitalized patients meeting SARI case definitions and were analyzed for infection with influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), adenovirus (AdV), human metapneumovirus (hMPV) and human parainfluenza virus types 1-3 (hPIV1-3). We analyzed surveillance data to calculate positivity rates for viral respiratory pathogens, describe the seasonality of those pathogens and determine which pathogens were responsible for more severe outcomes requiring ventilation and/or intensive care and/or resulting in death. RESULTS: At least one viral respiratory pathogen was detected in 8,753/28,508 (30.7%) samples tested for at least one pathogen and 3,497/9,315 (37.5%) of samples tested for all pathogens-influenza in 3,345/28,438 (11.8%), RSV in 3,942/24,503 (16.1%), AdV in 923/9,402 (9.8%), hMPV in 617/9,384 (6.6%), hPIV1 in 159/9,402 (1.7%), hPIV2 in 85/9,402 (0.9%) and hPIV3 in 365/9,402 (3.9%). Multiple pathogens were identified in 501/9,316 (5.4%) participants tested for all pathogens. Monthly variation, indicating seasonal differences in levels of infection, was observed for all pathogens. Participants with hMPV infections and participants less than five years of age were significantly less likely than participants not infected with hMPV and those older than five years of age, respectively, to experience a severe outcome, while participants with a pre-existing chronic disease were at increased risk of a severe outcome, compared to those with no reported pre-existing chronic disease. CONCLUSIONS: Viral respiratory pathogens are common among SARI patients in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. Ongoing surveillance is important to monitor changes in the etiology, seasonality and severity of pathogens of interest

Competition for Cooperation: variability, benefits and heritability of relational wealth in hunter-gatherers

Many defining human characteristics including theory of mind, culture and language relate to our sociality, and facilitate the formation and maintenance of cooperative relationships. Therefore, deciphering the context in which our sociality evolved is invaluable in understanding what makes us unique as a species. Much work has emphasised group-level competition, such as warfare, in moulding human cooperation and sociality. However, competition and cooperation also occur within groups; and inter-individual differences in sociality have reported fitness implications in numerous non-human taxa. Here we investigate whether differential access to cooperation (relational wealth) is likely to lead to variation in fitness at the individual level among BaYaka hunter-gatherers. Using economic gift games we find that relational wealth: a) displays individual-level variation; b) provides advantages in buffering food risk, and is positively associated with body mass index (BMI) and female fertility; c) is partially heritable. These results highlight that individual-level processes may have been fundamental in the extension of human cooperation beyond small units of related individuals, and in shaping our sociality. Additionally, the findings offer insight in to trends related to human sociality found from research in other fields such as psychology and epidemiology

Optics and Quantum Electronics

Contains table of contents for Section 3 and reports on eighteen research projects.Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/MIT Lincoln Laboratory Contract MDA972-92-J-1038Joint Services Electronics Program Grant DAAH04-95-1-0038National Science Foundation Grant ECS 94-23737U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Contract F49620-95-1-0221U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-95-1-0715MIT Center for Material Science and EngineeringNational Center for Integrated Photonics Technology Contract DMR 94-00334National Center for Integrated Photonics TechnologyU.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (MFEL) Contract N00014-94-1-0717National Institutes of Health Grant 9-R01-EY11289MIT Lincoln Laboratory Contract BX-5098Electric Power Research Institute Contract RP3170-25ENEC

Adenovirus-5-Vectored P. falciparum Vaccine Expressing CSP and AMA1. Part B: Safety, Immunogenicity and Protective Efficacy of the CSP Component

Background: A protective malaria vaccine will likely need to elicit both cell-mediated and antibody responses. As adenovirus vaccine vectors induce both these responses in humans, a Phase 1/2a clinical trial was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of an adenovirus serotype 5-vectored malaria vaccine against sporozoite challenge.\ud \ud Methodology/Principal Findings: NMRC-MV-Ad-PfC is an adenovirus vector encoding the Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 circumsporozoite protein (CSP). It is one component of a two-component vaccine NMRC-M3V-Ad-PfCA consisting of one adenovector encoding CSP and one encoding apical membrane antigen-1 (AMA1) that was evaluated for safety and immunogenicity in an earlier study (see companion paper, Sedegah et al). Fourteen Ad5 seropositive or negative adults received two doses of NMRC-MV-Ad-PfC sixteen weeks apart, at 1x1010 particle units per dose. The vaccine was safe and well tolerated. All volunteers developed positive ELISpot responses by 28 days after the first immunization (geometric mean 272 spot forming cells/million[sfc/m]) that declined during the following 16 weeks and increased after the second dose to levels that in most cases were less than the initial peak (geometric mean 119 sfc/m). CD8+ predominated over CD4+ responses, as in the first clinical trial. Antibody responses were poor and like ELISpot responses increased after the second immunization but did not exceed the initial peak. Pre-existing neutralizing antibodies (NAb) to Ad5 did not affect the immunogenicity of the first dose, but the fold increase in NAb induced by the first dose was significantly associated with poorer antibody responses after the second dose, while ELISpot responses remained unaffected. When challenged by the bite of P. falciparum-infected mosquitoes, two of 11 volunteers showed a delay in the time to patency compared to infectivity controls, but no volunteers were sterilely protected.\ud \ud Significance: The NMRC-MV-Ad-PfC vaccine expressing CSP was safe and well tolerated given as two doses, but did not provide sterile protection

The violent crime linkage analysis system:a test of interrater reliability

The interrater reliability of an internationally renowned crime linkage system—the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS)—was tested. Police officers (N = 10) were presented with a case file and asked to complete a ViCLAS booklet. The level of occurrence agreement between each officer was calculated. Results showed a 30.77% level of agreement across the 106 variables examined. Agreement ranged from 2.36% for weapon variables to 62.87% for administration variables. Only 11 (10.38%) of the variables reached an acceptable level of agreement. Concerns pertaining to the validity of inferences produced using ViCLAS data are discussed, along with potential explanations for the findings, limitations of the study, and future research directions

New Recombination Methods for Sinorhizobium meliloti Genetics

The availability of bacterial genome sequences has created a need for improved methods for sequence-based functional analysis to facilitate moving from annotated DNA sequence to genetic materials for analyzing the roles that postulated genes play in bacterial phenotypes. A powerful cloning method that uses lambda integrase recombination to clone and manipulate DNA sequences has been adapted for use with the gram-negative α-proteobacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti in two ways that increase the utility of the system. Adding plasmid oriT sequences to a set of vehicles allows the plasmids to be transferred to S. meliloti by conjugation and also allows cloned genes to be recombined from one plasmid to another in vivo by a pentaparental mating protocol, saving considerable time and expense. In addition, vehicles that contain yeast Flp recombinase target recombination sequences allow the construction of deletion mutations where the end points of the deletions are located at the ends of the cloned genes. Several deletions were constructed in a cluster of 60 genes on the symbiotic plasmid (pSymA) of S. meliloti, predicted to code for a denitrification pathway. The mutations do not affect the ability of the bacteria to form nitrogen-fixing nodules on Medicago sativa (alfalfa) roots

Genetic characterisation of multidrug-resistant <i>Salmonella enterica</i> serotypes isolated from poultry in Cairo, Egypt

Background: Food-borne diseases pose serious health problems, affecting public health and economic development worldwide. Methods: Salmonella was isolated from samples of chicken parts, skin samples of whole chicken carcasses, raw egg yolks, eggshells and chicken faeces. Resulting isolates were characterised by serogrouping, serotyping, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and detection of extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) production. Antibiotic resistance genes and integrons were identified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results: The detection rates of Salmonella were 60%, 64% and 62% in chicken parts, skin, and faeces, respectively, whereas the egg yolks and eggshells were uniformly negative. Salmonella Kentucky and S. Enteritidis serotypes comprised 43.6% and 2.6% of the isolates, respectively, whilst S. Typhimurium was absent. Variable resistance rates were observed against 16 antibiotics; 97% were resistant to sulfamethoxazole, 96% to nalidixic acid and tetracycline and 76% to ampicillin. Multidrug resistance was detected in 82% (64/78) of the isolates and ESBL production was detected in 8% (6/78). The β-lactamase blaTEM-1 gene was detected in 57.6% and blaSHV-1 in 6.8% of the isolates, whilst the blaOXA gene was absent. The sul1gene was detected in 97.3% and the sul2 gene in 5.3% of the isolates. Sixty-four of the 78 isolates (82%) were positive for the integrase gene (int I) from class 1 integrons, whilst int II was absent. Conclusion: This study reveals the presence of an alarming number of multidrug-resistant Salmonella isolates in the local poultry markets in Cairo. The high levels of drug resistance suggest an emerging problem that could impact negatively on efforts to prevent and treat poultry and poultry-transmitted human diseases in Egypt

Construction and Expression of Sugar Kinase Transcriptional Gene Fusions by Using the Sinorhizobium meliloti ORFeome▿

The Sinorhizobium meliloti ORFeome project cloned 6,314 open reading frames (ORFs) into a modified Gateway entry vector system from which the ORFs could be transferred to destination vectors in vivo via bacterial conjugation. In this work, a reporter gene destination vector, pMK2030, was constructed and used to generate ORF-specific transcriptional fusions to β-glucuronidase (gusA) and green fluorescent protein (gfp) reporter genes. A total of 6,290 ORFs were successfully transferred from the entry vector library into pMK2030. To demonstrate the utility of this system, reporter plasmids corresponding to 30 annotated sugar kinase genes were integrated into the S. meliloti SM1021 and/or SM8530 genome. Expression of these genes was measured using a high-throughput β-glucuronidase assay to track expression on nine different carbon sources. Six ORFs integrated into SM1021 and SM8530 had different basal levels of expression in the two strains. The annotated activities of three other sugar kinases were also confirmed