Multistate product traceforward investigation to link imported romaine lettuce to a US cyclosporiasis outbreak – Nebraska, Texas, and Florida, June–August 2013

During June–August 2013, 25 US states reported 631 cyclosporiasis cases including Nebraska and Iowa where a regional investigation implicated common-source imported salad mix served in two chain restaurants. At least two common-origin growing fields were likely sources of contaminated romaine lettuce. Using producer- and distributor-provided data, we conducted a grower-specific traceforward investigation to reveal exposures of ill US residents elsewhere who reported symptom onset during 11 June–1 July 2013, the time period established in the Nebraska and Iowa investigation. Romaine lettuce shipped on 2–6 June from one of these Mexico-origin growing fields likely caused cyclosporiasis in 78 persons reporting illness onsets from 11 June to 1 July in Nebraska, Texas, and Florida. Nationwide, 97% (314/324) of persons confirmed with cyclosporiasis with symptom onset from 11 June to 1 July 2013 resided in 11 central and eastern US states receiving approximately two-thirds of romaine lettuce from this field. This grower’s production practices should be investigated to determine potential sources of contamination and to develop recommendations to prevent future illnesses

KK-duality for self-similar groupoid actions on graphs

We extend Nekrashevych's $KK$-duality for $C^*$-algebras of regular, recurrent, contracting self-similar group actions to regular, contracting self-similar groupoid actions on a graph, removing the recurrence condition entirely and generalising from a finite alphabet to a finite graph. More precisely, given a regular and contracting self-similar groupoid $(G,E)$ acting faithfully on a finite directed graph $E$, we associate two $C^*$-algebras, $\mathcal{O}(G,E)$ and $\widehat{\mathcal{O}}(G,E)$, to it and prove that they are strongly Morita equivalent to the stable and unstable Ruelle C*-algebras of a Smale space arising from a Wieler solenoid of the self-similar limit space. That these algebras are Spanier-Whitehead dual in $KK$-theory follows from the general result for Ruelle algebras of irreducible Smale spaces proved by Kaminker, Putnam, and the last author.Comment: File updated to make several corrections. Example 8.15 adde

Barriers to enrollment in a randomized controlled trial of hydrocortisone for cardiovascular insufficiency in term and late preterm newborn infants.

ObjectiveTo analyze reasons for low enrollment in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the effect of hydrocortisone for cardiovascular insufficiency on survival without neurodevelopmental impairment (NDI) in term/late preterm newborns.Study designThe original study was a multicenter RCT. Eligibility: ⩾34 weeks' gestation, <72 h old, mechanically ventilated, receiving inotrope. Primary outcome was NDI at 2 years; infants with diagnoses at high risk for NDI were excluded. This paper presents an analysis of reasons for low patient enrollment.ResultsTwo hundred and fifty-seven of the 932 otherwise eligible infants received inotropes; however, 207 (81%) had exclusionary diagnoses. Only 12 infants were randomized over 10 months; therefore, the study was terminated. Contributing factors included few eligible infants after exclusions, open-label steroid therapy and a narrow enrollment window.ConclusionDespite an observational study to estimate the population, very few infants were enrolled. Successful RCTs of emergent therapy may require fewer exclusions, a short-term primary outcome, waiver of consent and/or other alternatives

Abundances in Stars from the Red Giant Branch Tip to the Near Main Sequence in M71: II. Iron Abundance

We present [Ffe/H] abundance results that involve a sample of stars with a wide range in luminosity from luminous giants to stars near the turnoff in a globular cluster. Our sample of 25 stars in M71 includes 10 giant stars more luminous than the RHB, 3 horizontal branch stars, 9 giant stars less luminous than the RHB, and 3 stars near the turnoff. We analyzed both Fe I and Fe II lines in high dispersion spectra observed with HIRES at the W. M. Keck Observatory. We find that the [Fe/H] abundances from both Fe I and Fe II lines agree with each other and with earlier determinations. Also the [Fe/H] obtained from Fe I and Fe II lines is constant within the rather small uncertainties for this group of stars over the full range in Teff and luminosity, suggesting that NLTE effects are negligible in our iron abundance determination. In this globular cluster, there is no difference among the mean [Fe/H] of giant stars located at or above the RHB, RHB stars, giant stars located below the RHB and stars near the turnoff.Comment: Minor changes to conform to version accepted for publication, with several new figures (Paper 2 of a pair

Adaptive Evolution of the Myo6 Gene in Old World Fruit Bats (Family: Pteropodidae)

PMCID: PMC3631194This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

¹¹ C radiolabeling of anle253b: A putative PET tracer for Parkinson's disease that binds to α-synuclein fibrils in vitro and crosses the blood-brain barrier.

There is an urgent clinical need for imaging of α-synuclein (αSyn) fibrils, the hallmark biomarker for Parkinson's disease, in neurodegenerative disorders. Despite immense efforts, promising tracer candidates for nuclear imaging of αSyn are rare. Diphenyl pyrazoles are known modulators of αSyn aggregation and thus bear potential for non-invasive detection of this biomarker in vivo. Here we demonstrate high-affinity binding of the family member anle253b to fibrillar αSyn and present a high-yielding site-selective radiosynthesis route for 11 C radiolabeling using in-situ generated [11 C]formaldehyde and reductive methylation. Radio-HPLC of the tracer after incubation with rat serum in vitro shows excellent stability of the molecule. Positron emission tomography in healthy animals is used to assess the pharmacokinetics and biodistribution of the tracer, showing good penetration of the blood-brain barrier and low background binding to the non-pathological brain