The Composition of Human Milk and Infant Faecal Microbiota Over the First Three Months of Life: A Pilot Study

peer-reviewedHuman milk contains a diverse array of bioactives and is also a source of bacteria for the developing infant gut. The aim of this study was to characterize the bacterial communities in human milk and infant faeces over the first 3 months of life, in 10 mother-infant pairs. The presence of viable Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus in human milk was also evaluated. MiSeq sequencing revealed a large diversity of the human milk microbiota, identifying over 207 bacterial genera in milk samples. The phyla Proteobacteria and Firmicutes and the genera Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus and Streptococcus were the predominant bacterial groups. A core of 12 genera represented 81% of the microbiota relative abundance in milk samples at week 1, 3 and 6, decreasing to 73% at week 12. Genera shared between infant faeces and human milk samples accounted for 70–88% of the total relative abundance in infant faecal samples, supporting the hypothesis of vertical transfer of bacteria from milk to the infant gut. In addition, identical strains of Bifidobacterium breve and Lactobacillus plantarum were isolated from the milk and faeces of one mother-infant pair. Vertical transfer of bacteria via breastfeeding may contribute to the initial establishment of the microbiota in the developing infant intestine

USING BIRD STRIKE DATA TO MONITOR BIRD-HAZARD CONTROL

An effective definition of a bird strike is the basis for quantifying the scale of bird hazard problems. Here we present a working definition of a bird strike, which in turn forms the basis of an analysis of 32 years’ data collected at Dublin Airport, Ireland. A variety of datasets are analysed including the number of bird strikes per ten thousand aircraft movements, the mass of the bird species being struck, the time of year at which bird strikes occur and the dimensions of the aircraft utilising the airfield. In addition, we have analysed the mean number of strikes per year and the mean number of birds struck per bird strike. Following a very serious incident involving a Boeing 737-200 which struck a flock of gulls in the mid -1980’s, a new regime of control measures was put in place. Therefore our study permits us to evaluate the effectiveness of this management programme. The results suggest that the most significant impact of control measures is to reduce the number of birds being struck per bird strike

Biodegradability standards for carrier bags and plastic films in aquatic environments: A critical review

© 2018 The Authors. Plastic litter is encountered in aquatic ecosystems across the globe, including polar environments and the deep sea. To mitigate the adverse societal and ecological impacts of this waste, there has been debate on whether ‘biodegradable' materials should be granted exemptions from plastic bag bans and levies. However, great care must be exercised when attempting to define this term, due to the broad and complex range of physical and chemical conditions encountered within natural ecosystems. Here, we review existing international industry standards and regional test methods for evaluating the biodegradability of plastics within aquatic environments (wastewater, unmanaged freshwater and marine habitats). We argue that current standards and test methods are insufficient in their ability to realistically predict the biodegradability of carrier bags in these environments, due to several shortcomings in experimental procedures and a paucity of information in the scientific literature. Moreover, existing biodegradability standards and test methods for aquatic environments do not involve toxicity testing or account for the potentially adverse ecological impacts of carrier bags, plastic additives, polymer degradation products or small (microscopic) plastic particles that can arise via fragmentation. Successfully addressing these knowledge gaps is a key requirement for developing new biodegradability standard(s) for lightweight carrier bags.This article is partially based on a Technical Advisory Group report commissioned by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (summary document delivered to the UK Parliament in December 2015 see: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). 2015 Review of standards for biodegradable plastic carrier bags. See http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carrier-bags-review-of-standards-for-biodegradable-plastic-bags)

Espon-Interstrat. Espon in Integrated Territorial Strategies.

The INTERSTRAT project’s overall aim is “to encourage and facilitate the use of ESPON 2013 Programme findings in the creation and monitoring of Integrated Territorial Development Strategies (ITDS) and to support transnational learning about the actual and potential contribution of ESPON to integrated policy-making.” We defined integrated territorial development as ‘the process of shaping economic, social and environmental change through spatially sensitive policies and programmes’

Effect of using reporting guidelines during peer review on quality of final manuscripts submitted to a biomedical journal: masked randomised trial

Objective To investigate the effect of an additional review based on reporting guidelines such as STROBE and CONSORT on quality of manuscripts

de Sitter Thick Brane Solution in Weyl Geometry

In this paper, we consider a de Sitter thick brane model in a pure geometric Weyl integrable five-dimensional space-time, which is a generalization of Riemann geometry and is invariant under a so-called Weyl rescaling. We find a solution of this model via performing a conformal transformation to map the Weylian structure into a familiar Riemannian one with a conformal metric. The metric perturbations of the model are discussed. For gravitational perturbation, we get the effective modified P$\ddot{\text{o}}$schl-Teller potential in corresponding Schr$\ddot{\text{o}}$dinger equation for Kaluza-Klein (KK) modes of the graviton. There is only one bound state, which is a normalizable massless zero mode and represents a stable 4-dimensional graviton. Furthermore, there exists a mass gap between the massless mode and continuous KK modes. We also find that the model is stable under the scalar perturbation in the metric. The correction to the Newtonian potential on the brane is proportional to $e^{-3 r \beta/2}/r^2$, where $\beta$ is the de Sitter parameter of the brane. This is very different from the correction caused by a volcano-like effective potential.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figures, published versio

Experiences of young people with harmful sexual behaviours in a residential treatment programme: a qualitative study

This qualitative study aimed to explore the experiences of young men who have previously participated in a residential treatment programme based in North Wales for harmful sexual behaviours. In-depth interviews with 25 young men aged between 15 and 33 were conducted and thematically analysed. Findings highlight some key strengths of the treatment programme including building quality relationships with staff and the community and the learning of life skills that are also later employed to manage risk of sexual and non-sexual offending. The study supports recent research [Balfe, M., Hackett, D., Masson, H., & Phillips, J. (2019). Experiences of young people with harmful sexual behaviours in services: A qualitative study. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 28(6), 649–666. https://doi.org/10.1080/10538712.2019.1573390] that more social and psychological supports need to be available for young people post-treatment while in a period of transition and liminality. Finally, the study further supports other research [de Vries Robbe, M., Mann, R. E., Maruna, S., & Thornton, D. (2015). An exploration of protective factors supporting desistance from sexual offending. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 27(1), 16–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/1079063214547582] in that emphasis should be placed on social, interpersonal, and environmental protective factors rather than psychological ones alone