Screening the importance of soil micro-organisms on radionuclides mobility

Abstract. In surface soils, the native physical and chemical properties of the abiotic components control most of the sorption-desorption processes. Moreover, micro-organisms may significantly modify the speciation of trace elements and/or radionuclides and subsequently determine their fate, to a large extent. Micro-organisms, mainly bacteria and fungi, develop many strategies that may affect indirectly or directly the behaviour of trace elements. Due to their activity, changes in the pore-water composition, e.g. pH, redox-potential, may occur in relation with organic acid production or solid phase alteration, reduction or oxidation of metallic oxi-hydroxides, and mineralization of organo-metallic complexes. Micro-organisms may also directly modify the speciation of radionuclides as a result of bio-accumulation in living cells, biosorption on cellular components, direct reduction or oxidation, biomethylation, etc. Each one of these microbial processes may either increase or decrease radionuclide mobility, depending on the element, the soil reactivity and the environmental conditions. The resulting effect of these processes is still poorly known. This literature review intends to present a comprehensive overview of the role of micro-organisms on radionuclide mobility. It aims at classifying these elements, regarding to their potential sensitivity to these microbial processes. It summarizes the theoretical effect of these mechanisms, resulting in a potential increase or decrease of the solid-liquid distribution. The environmental significance of such processes for various biogeochemical radionuclides cycles still remains to be confirmed by experiments. (This study is part of a research program supported by Andra)

Effect of a collector bag for measurement of postpartum blood loss after vaginal delivery: cluster randomised trial in 13 European countries

Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of the systematic use of a transparent plastic collector bag to measure postpartum blood loss after vaginal delivery in reducing the incidence of severe postpartum haemorrhage

Multifaceted intervention to decrease the rate of severe postpartum haemorrhage: the PITHAGORE6 cluster-randomised controlled trial.: Intervention to decrease severe postpartum haemorrhage

International audienceOBJECTIVE: Decreasing the prevalence of severe postpartum haemorrhages (PPH) is a major obstetrical challenge. These are often considered to be associated with substandard initial care. Strategies to increase the appropriateness of early management of PPH must be assessed. We tested the hypothesis that a multifaceted intervention aimed at increasing the translation into practice of a protocol for early management of PPH, would reduce the incidence of severe PPH. DESIGN: Cluster-randomised trial. POPULATION: 106 maternity units in six French regions. METHODS: Maternity units were randomly assigned to receive the intervention, or to have the protocol passively disseminated. The intervention combined outreach visits to discuss the protocol in each local context, reminders, and peer reviews of severe incidents, and was implemented in each maternity hospital by a team pairing an obstetrician and a midwife. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was the incidence of severe PPH, defined as a composite of one or more of: transfusion, embolisation, surgical procedure, transfer to intensive care, peripartum haemoglobin decrease of 4 g/dl or more, death. The main secondary outcomes were PPH management practices. RESULTS: The mean rate of severe PPH was 1.64% (SD 0.80) in the intervention units and 1.65% (SD 0.96) in control units; difference not significant. Some elements of PPH management were applied more frequently in intervention units-help from senior staff (P = 0.005), or tended to - second-line pharmacological treatment (P = 0.06), timely blood test (P = 0.09). CONCLUSION: This educational intervention did not affect the rate of severe PPH as compared with control units, although it improved some practices

The Oxytocin Product Correlates with Total Oxytocin Received during Labor: A Research Methods Study

Objective Total dose of oxytocin received during labor is an important variable in studies of human labor but is difficult to calculate. We sought to identify a surrogate measure for total dose of oxytocin received. Study Design For each subject receiving oxytocin during labor, the oxytocin total dose received in labor was calculated as the area under the curve. Maximal oxytocin infusion rate, total duration of oxytocin infusion, and the product of both, defined as the oxytocin product, were then each correlated with the total dose of oxytocin received using the Pearson's correlation coefficient. Results Oxytocin dosing data were available from 402 women at Duke and 6,907 women from Pithagore6. The two variables alone, or combined as the oxytocin product, demonstrated a high correlation with the oxytocin total dose (r > 0.7), with the oxytocin product demonstrating the highest (r > 0.9). This was true whether labor was induced or augmented and whether delivery was vaginal or cesarean. Conclusion The oxytocin product, composed of two easily obtained variables, demonstrated a very high correlation with total oxytocin dose received in labor and represents a simple and accurate surrogate for total dose of oxytocin received during labor. The oxytocin product can be used in clinical studies in which oxytocin dose is an important variable

Anaphylaxis in pregnancy : a population-based multinational European study

Funding Information: M‐P B, OA, and GV had equal contributions to this study. We thank T. Schapp, J. Zwart and E. Overtoom in the NethOSS team; C. Daoui from the French SFAR Research Network; the B.OSS team and Belgian maternity units involved in this study. The work was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Nuffield Department of Population Health. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the MRC. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the article. Permission for the use and sharing of registry and medical records was obtained from the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Finland. Approval was acquired from the B.OSS and NethOSS steering committee for the data collection and sharing of anonymous data for this anaphylaxis study. The French Data Protection Authority approved the collection of the data (CNIL 1985389). All the women in France were informed of anonymised data collection during the study. B.oSS gained approval for data collection from the Ghent University Ethics Committee as central EC (2015/1470, amendment 23/06/2016, B670201526875), and gained informed consent of all women included in the study. The Central University Research Ethics Committee, University of Oxford gave approval to complete this prospective observational study (Reference R46400/RE001). Data sharing statement: Data cannot be shared publicly due to confidentiality issues arising from small numbers of cases in mainland European countries. Requests for access to the UK dataset will be considered by the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit Data Sharing committee. Access to the data can be requested from [email protected] . No other external funding or competing interests declared. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Authors. Anaesthesia published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association of Anaesthetists Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A total blood volume or more transfused during pregnancy or after childbirth: Individual patient data from six international population-based observational studies.

BackgroundThis study aimed to compare incidence, management and outcomes of women transfused their blood volume or more within 24 hours during pregnancy or following childbirth.MethodsCombined analysis of individual patient data, prospectively collected in six international population-based studies (France, United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, the Netherlands and Denmark). Massive transfusion in major obstetric haemorrhage was defined as transfusion of eight or more units of red blood cells within 24 hours in a pregnant or postpartum woman. Causes, management and outcomes of women with massive transfusion were compared across countries using descriptive statistics.FindingsThe incidence of massive transfusion was approximately 21 women per 100,000 maternities for the United Kingdom, Australia and Italy; by contrast Denmark, the Netherlands and France had incidences of 82, 66 and 69 per 100,000 maternities, respectively. There was large variation in obstetric and haematological management across countries. Fibrinogen products were used in 86% of women in Australia, while the Netherlands and Italy reported lower use at 35-37% of women. Tranexamic acid was used in 75% of women in the Netherlands, but in less than half of women in the UK, Australia and Italy. In all countries, women received large quantities of colloid/crystalloid fluids during resuscitation (>3·5 litres). There was large variation in the use of compression sutures, embolisation and hysterectomy across countries. There was no difference in maternal mortality; however, variable proportions of women had cardiac arrests, renal failure and thrombotic events from 0-16%.InterpretationThere was considerable variation in the incidence of massive transfusion associated with major obstetric haemorrhage across six high-income countries. There were also large disparities in both transfusion and obstetric management between these countries. There is a requirement for detailed evaluation of evidence underlying current guidance. Furthermore, cross-country comparison may empower countries to reference their clinical care against that of other countries

Perinatal health monitoring in Europe: results from the EURO-PERISTAT project

Data about deliveries, births, mothers and newborn babies are collected extensively to monitor the health and care of mothers and babies during pregnancy, delivery and the post-partum period, but there is no common approach in Europe. We analysed the problems related to using the European data for international comparisons of perinatal health. We made an inventory of relevant data sources in 25 European Union (EU) member states and Norway, and collected perinatal data using a previously defined indicator list. The main sources were civil registration based on birth and death certificates, medical birth registers, hospital discharge systems, congenital anomaly registers, confidential enquiries and audits. A few countries provided data from routine perinatal surveys or from aggregated data collection systems. The main methodological problems were related to differences in registration criteria and definitions, coverage of data collection, problems in combining information from different sources, missing data and random variation for rare events. Collection of European perinatal health information is feasible, but the national health information systems need improvements to fill gaps. To improve international comparisons, stillbirth definitions should be standardised and a short list of causes of fetal and infant deaths should be developed

Community-based benchmarking improves spike rate inference from two-photon calcium imaging data

In recent years, two-photon calcium imaging has become a standard tool to probe the function of neural circuits and to study computations in neuronal populations. However, the acquired signal is only an indirect measurement of neural activity due to the comparatively slow dynamics of fluorescent calcium indicators. Different algorithms for estimating spike rates from noisy calcium measurements have been proposed in the past, but it is an open question how far performance can be improved. Here, we report the results of the spikefinder challenge, launched to catalyze the development of new spike rate inference algorithms through crowd-sourcing. We present ten of the submitted algorithms which show improved performance compared to previously evaluated methods. Interestingly, the top-performing algorithms are based on a wide range of principles from deep neural networks to generative models, yet provide highly correlated estimates of the neural activity. The competition shows that benchmark challenges can drive algorithmic developments in neuroscience

Algorithms for enhancing public health utility of national causes-of-death data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Coverage and quality of cause-of-death (CoD) data varies across countries and time. Valid, reliable, and comparable assessments of trends in causes of death from even the best systems are limited by three problems: a) changes in the <it>International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems </it>(ICD) over time; b) the use of tabulation lists where substantial detail on causes of death is lost; and c) many deaths assigned to causes that cannot or should not be considered underlying causes of death, often called garbage codes (GCs). The Global Burden of Disease Study and the World Health Organization have developed various methods to enhance comparability of CoD data. In this study, we attempt to build on these approaches to enhance the utility of national cause-of-death data for public health analysis.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Based on careful consideration of 4,434 country-years of CoD data from 145 countries from 1901 to 2008, encompassing 743 million deaths in ICD versions 1 to 10 as well as country-specific cause lists, we have developed a public health-oriented cause-of-death list. These 56 causes are organized hierarchically and encompass all deaths. Each cause has been mapped from ICD-6 to ICD-10 and, where possible, they have also been mapped to the <it>International List of Causes of Death </it>1-5. We developed a typology of different classes of GCs. In each ICD revision, GCs have been identified. Target causes to which these GCs should be redistributed have been identified based on certification practice and/or pathophysiology. Proportionate redistribution, statistical models, and expert algorithms have been developed to redistribute GCs to target codes for each age-sex group.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The fraction of all deaths assigned to GCs varies tremendously across countries and revisions of the ICD. In general, across all country-years of data available, GCs have declined from more than 43% in ICD-7 to 24% in ICD-10. In some regions, such as Australasia, GCs in 2005 are as low as 11%, while in some developing countries, such as Thailand, they are greater than 50%. Across different age groups, the composition of GCs varies tremendously - three classes of GCs steadily increase with age, but ambiguous codes within a particular disease chapter are also common for injuries at younger ages. The impact of redistribution is to change the number of deaths assigned to particular causes for a given age-sex group. These changes alter ranks across countries for any given year by a number of different causes, change time trends, and alter the rank order of causes within a country.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>By mapping CoD through different ICD versions and redistributing GCs, we believe the public health utility of CoD data can be substantially enhanced, leading to an increased demand for higher quality CoD data from health sector decision-makers.</p