Metagenomic analysis of nitrogen and methane cycling in the Arabian Sea oxygen minimum zone

Oxygen minimum zones (OMZ) are areas in the global ocean where oxygen concentrations drop to below one percent. Low oxygen concentrations allow alternative respiration with nitrate and nitrite as electron acceptor to become prevalent in these areas, making them main contributors to oceanic nitrogen loss. The contribution of anammox and denitrification to nitrogen loss seems to vary in different OMZs. In the Arabian Sea, both processes were reported. Here, we performed a metagenomics study of the upper and core zone of the Arabian Sea OMZ, to provide a comprehensive overview of the genetic potential for nitrogen and methane cycling. We propose that aerobic ammonium oxidation is carried out by a diverse community of Thaumarchaeota in the upper zone of the OMZ, whereas a low diversity of Scalindua-like anammox bacteria contribute significantly to nitrogen loss in the core zone. Aerobic nitrite oxidation in the OMZ seems to be performed by Nitrospina spp. and a novel lineage of nitrite oxidizing organisms that is present in roughly equal abundance as Nitrospina. Dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonia (DNRA) can be carried out by yet unknown microorganisms harbouring a divergent nrfA gene. The metagenomes do not provide conclusive evidence for active methane cycling; however, a low abundance of novel alkane monooxygenase diversity was detected. Taken together, our approach confirmed the genomic potential for an active nitrogen cycle in the Arabian Sea and allowed detection of hitherto overlooked lineages of carbon and nitrogen cycle bacteria

Adverse Drug Reactions in a Complementary Medicine Hospital: A Prospective, Intensified Surveillance Study

Background. Anthroposophic medicine is one of the widely used approaches of complementary and alternative medicine. However, few prospective studies have generated safety data on its use. Objectives. We aimed to assess adverse drug reactions (ADRs) caused by anthroposophical medicines (AMEDs) in the anthroposophical Community Hospital Havelhoehe, GERMANY. Study Design and Methods. Between May and November 2007, patients of six medical wards were prospectively assessed for ADRs. Suspected ADRs occurring during hospitalization were documented and classified in terms of organ manifestation (WHO SOC-code), causality (according to the Uppsala Monitoring Centre WHO criteria), and severity. Only those ADRs with a severity of grade 2 and higher according to the CTCAE classification system are described here. Results. Of the 3,813 patients hospitalized, 174 patients (4.6%) experienced 211 ADRs (CTCAE grade 2/3 n = 191, 90.5%, CTCAE grade 4/5 n = 20, 9.5%) of which 57 ADRs (27.0%) were serious. The median age of patients with ADRs (62.1% females) was 72.0 (IQR: 61.0; 80.0). Six patients (0.2%) experienced six ADRs (2.8% of ADRs) caused by eight suspected AMEDs, all of which were mild reactions (grade 2). Conclusion. Our data show that ADRs caused by AMEDs occur rarely and are limited to mild symptoms

Аудит промышленной безопасности предприятия

В данное время, когда фактически нет города, где бы не работали предприятия, особый смысл имеет промышленная безопасность. С каждым годом увеличивается количество опасных объектов. Исходя из этого, проблема с безопасностью возведена в ранг основных ценностей на государственном уровне. Часто в промышленно развитых странах установлен жесткий контроль лицензирования ОПО, строительства, эксплуатации и т.д. Безопасность сооружений в этих странах контролируется государственными органами. Промышленная безопасность опасных объектов - это определенная защита общества и страны от различных техногенных катастроф и аварий. Для того, чтобы обеспечить безопасность, проводится комплекс мероприятий, которые ориентированы, прежде всего, на обеспечение безопасности технических объектов. Все организации, которые эксплуатируют опасный производственный объект, должны временами производить вышесказанные мероприятия. Это указано в Федеральном законе «О промышленной безопасности опасных производственных объектов» Цель работы: проверка соответствия установленным требованиям ПБ, подготовка рекомендаций по устранению выявленных нарушений в УНДиПР МЧС России по Томской области.At the moment, when there is virtually no city, where enterprises would not work, industrial safety has a special meaning. Every year the number of dangerous objects increases. Proceeding from this, the security problem is elevated to the rank of basic values at the state level. Often in industrialized countries, strict control of GCO licensing, construction, operation, etc. is established. The safety of facilities in these countries is controlled by government agencies.Industrial safety of hazardous facilities is a certain protection of society and the country from various man-made disasters and accidents. In order to ensure safety, a set of measures is carried out, which are focused, first of all, on ensuring the safety of technical facilities. All organizations that operate a hazardous production facility must at times produce the aforesaid activities. This is indicated in the Federal Law "On Industrial Safety of Hazardous Production Facilities" The purpose of the work: verification of compliance with the established requirements of the PB, the preparation of recommendations for the elimination of identified violations in the UNDiPR of EMERCOM of Russia for the Tomsk region

Infants’ intentionally communicative vocalisations elicit responses from caregivers and are the best predictors of the transition to language: a longitudinal investigation of infants’ vocalisations, gestures, and word production

What aspects of infants’ prelinguistic communication are most valuable for learning to speak, and why? We test whether early vocalisations and gestures drive the transition to word use because, in addition to indicating motoric readiness, they 1) are early instances of intentional communication and 2) elicit verbal responses from caregivers. In study 1, 11-month-olds (N = 134) were observed to coordinate vocalisations and gestures with gaze to their caregiver’s face at above chance rates, indicating that they are plausibly intentionally communicative. Study 2 tested whether those infant communicative acts that were gaze-coordinated best predicted later expressive vocabulary. We report a novel procedure for predicting vocabulary via multi-model inference over a comprehensive set of infant behaviours produced at 11- and 12-months (n = 58). This makes it possible to establish the relative predictive value of different behaviours that are hierarchically organised by level of granularity. Gaze-coordinated vocalisations were the most valuable predictors of expressive vocabulary size up to 24 months. Study 3 established that caregivers were more likely to respond to gaze-coordinated behaviours. Moreover, the dyadic combination of infant gaze-coordinated vocalisation and caregiver response was by far the best predictor of later vocabulary size. We conclude that practice with prelinguistic intentional communication facilitates the leap to symbol use. Learning is optimised when caregivers respond to intentional vocalisations with appropriate language

Study of nucleon resonances with electromagnetic interactions

Recent developments in using electromagnetic meson production reactions to study the structure of nucleon resonances are reviewed. Possible future works are discussed.Comment: 25 pages, 19 figure

Minimally invasive strabismus surgery (MISS) for inferior obliquus recession

PURPOSE: To present a novel, minimally invasive strabismus surgery (MISS) technique for inferior obliquus recessions. METHODS: Graded MISS inferior obliquus recessions were performed in 20 eyes of 15 patients by applying two small conjunctival cuts, one at the insertion of inferior obliquus and another where the scleral anchoring of the muscle occurred. RESULTS: The amount of recession was 12.2 +/- 2.3 mm (range 6 to 14 mm). The vertical deviation, which was measured in 25 degrees of adduction, decreased from preoperatively 12.8 degrees +/- 5.6 degrees to 2.7 degrees +/- 2.2 degrees (p 0.1). In one eye (2.5%) the two cuts had to be joined because of excessive bleeding. Binocular vision improved in eight patients, remained unchanged in six patients, and decreased from 30 to 60 arcsec in one patient (p > 0.1). Conjunctival and lid swelling were hardly visible on the first postoperative day in primary gaze position in 10/20 (50%) of eyes. Five of the eyes (25%) had mild and five (25%) moderate visibility of surgery. One patient out of 15 (7%) needed repeat surgery because of insufficient reduction of the sursoadduction within the first 6 months. The dose-effect relationship 6 months postoperatively for an accommodative near target at 25 degrees adduction was 0.83 degrees +/- 0.43 degrees per mm of recession. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that small-incision, minimal dissection inferior obliquus graded recessions are feasible and effective to improve ocular alignment in patients with strabismus sursoadductorius

Diminished Superoxide Generation Is Associated With Respiratory Chain Dysfunction and Changes in the Mitochondrial Proteome of Sensory Neurons From Diabetic Rats

Readers may use this article as long as the work is properly cited, the use is educational and not for profit, and the work is not altered. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ for details.OBJECTIVE Impairments in mitochondrial function have been proposed to play a role in the etiology of diabetic sensory neuropathy. We tested the hypothesis that mitochondrial dysfunction in axons of sensory neurons in type 1 diabetes is due to abnormal activity of the respiratory chain and an altered mitochondrial proteome. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Proteomic analysis using stable isotope labeling with amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) determined expression of proteins in mitochondria from dorsal root ganglia (DRG) of control, 22-week-old streptozotocin (STZ)-diabetic rats, and diabetic rats treated with insulin. Rates of oxygen consumption and complex activities in mitochondria from DRG were measured. Fluorescence imaging of axons of cultured sensory neurons determined the effect of diabetes on mitochondrial polarization status, oxidative stress, and mitochondrial matrix-specific reactive oxygen species (ROS). RESULTS Proteins associated with mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative phosphorylation, ubiquinone biosynthesis, and the citric acid cycle were downregulated in diabetic samples. For example, cytochrome c oxidase subunit IV (COX IV; a complex IV protein) and NADH dehydrogenase Fe-S protein 3 (NDUFS3; a complex I protein) were reduced by 29 and 36% (P < 0.05), respectively, in diabetes and confirmed previous Western blot studies. Respiration and mitochondrial complex activity was significantly decreased by 15 to 32% compared with control. The axons of diabetic neurons exhibited oxidative stress and depolarized mitochondria, an aberrant adaption to oligomycin-induced mitochondrial membrane hyperpolarization, but reduced levels of intramitochondrial superoxide compared with control. CONCLUSIONS Abnormal mitochondrial function correlated with a downregulation of mitochondrial proteins, with components of the respiratory chain targeted in lumbar DRG in diabetes. The reduced activity of the respiratory chain was associated with diminished superoxide generation within the mitochondrial matrix and did not contribute to oxidative stress in axons of diabetic neurons. Alternative pathways involving polyol pathway activity appear to contribute to raised ROS in axons of diabetic neurons under high glucose concentration.This work was supported by grants from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (#1-2008-280) and the National Institutes of Health to R.T.D. (grants NS-054847 and DK-073594). E.A. was supported by a grant from the National Science and Engineering Research Council (#3311686-06) to P.F. and subsequently by a postgraduate scholarship from the Manitoba Health Research Council. S.K.R.C. and E.Z. were supported by grants to P.F. from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (#MOP-84214) and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (#1-2008-193). D.R.S. was supported by a grant to P.F. from the Manitoba Health Research Council. This work was also funded by the St. Boniface General Hospital and Research Foundation

All-oral low-dose chemotherapy TEPIP is effective and well-tolerated in patients with peripheral T-cell lymphoma

Purpose: Peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) is a rare and heterogenous hematologic malignancy with poor prognosis especially in elderly and frail patients who are not eligible for intensive treatment. The resulting palliative setting necessitates tolerable but effective schedules for outpatient treatment. TEPIP is a locally developed, all-oral low-dose regimen comprising trofosfamide, etoposide, procarbazine, idarubicin, and prednisolone. Methods: In this observational retrospective, single-center study, the safety and efficacy of TEPIP was evaluated in 12 patients (pts.) with PTCL treated at the University Medical Center Regensburg between 2010 and 2022. The endpoints were overall response rate (ORR) and overall survival (OS), and adverse events were individually reported according to the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) criteria. Results: The enrolled cohort was characterized by advanced age (median 70 years), extensive disease (100% Ann Arbor ≥stage 3), and poor prognosis (75% high/high-intermediate international prognostic index). The most common subtype was angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (8/12), and 11/12 patients had relapsed or refractory disease at TEPIP onset with a median of 1.5 prior treatment regimens. After a median of 2.5 TEPIP cycles (total of 83 cycles), the ORR was 42% (complete remission 25%), and the OS reached a median of 185 days. Any grade of adverse event (AE) occurred in 8/12 patients, with four patients showing AE ≥CTCAE grade 3 (33%), and the AEs were mainly non-hematological. Conclusion: TEPIP demonstrated competitive efficacy with a tolerable safety profile in a highly palliative cohort of patients with difficult-to-treat PTCL. The all-oral application, which makes outpatient treatment possible, is particularly noteworthy

Sens-o-Spheres – Mobile, miniaturisierte Sensorplattform für die ortsungebundene Prozessmessung in wässrigen Lösungen

Zur Prozessmessung in Flüssigkeiten wird ein Konzept vorgestellt, das mittels miniaturisierter Sensorkugeln eine ortsveränderliche Aufnahme von Prozessmesssignalen – z. B. der Temperatur – ermöglicht und diese kontinuierlich aus dem Reaktionsvolumen an eine Basisstation überträgt. Das System beinhaltet nicht nur die Miniaturisierung der Messstelle auf einen Kugeldurchmesser von 7,8 mm sondern auch die Abstimmung der Gesamtdichte auf die Prozessbedingungen, um eine gleichmäßige Verteilung der Messpunkte auf das gesamte Reaktionsvolumen zu ermöglichen. Für die Verwendung im Bioprozess wurde eine bio-inerte Kapselung für die gesamte Messelektronik entwickelt und die Funktionstüchtigkeit in mehreren Bioreaktorsystemen demonstriert. Das Messsystem wird mit einer induktiv wieder aufladbaren Energiequelle betrieben und hat eine Reichweite von mehr als 30 cm durch die Flüssigkeitssäule

Search for Doubly-Charged Higgs Boson Production at HERA

A search for the single production of doubly-charged Higgs bosons H^{\pm \pm} in ep collisions is presented. The signal is searched for via the Higgs decays into a high mass pair of same charge leptons, one of them being an electron. The analysis uses up to 118 pb^{-1} of ep data collected by the H1 experiment at HERA. No evidence for doubly-charged Higgs production is observed and mass dependent upper limits are derived on the Yukawa couplings h_{el} of the Higgs boson to an electron-lepton pair. Assuming that the doubly-charged Higgs only decays into an electron and a muon via a coupling of electromagnetic strength h_{e \mu} = \sqrt{4 \pi \alpha_{em}} = 0.3, a lower limit of 141 GeV on the H^{\pm\pm} mass is obtained at the 95% confidence level. For a doubly-charged Higgs decaying only into an electron and a tau and a coupling h_{e\tau} = 0.3, masses below 112 GeV are ruled out.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl