290 research outputs found
As-yet-uncultivated oral bacteria: breadth and association with oral and extra-oral diseases
It has been shown that 40–60% of the bacteria found in different healthy and diseased oral sites still remain to be grown in vitro, phenotypically characterized, and formally named as species. The possibility exists that these as-yet-uncultivated bacteria play important ecological roles in oral bacterial communities and may participate in the pathogenesis of several oral infectious diseases. There is also a potential for these as-yet-uncultivated oral bacteria to take part in extra-oral infections. For a comprehensive characterization of physiological and pathogenic properties as well as antimicrobial susceptibility of individual bacterial species, strains need to be grown in pure culture. Advances in culturing techniques have allowed the cultivation of several oral bacterial taxa only previously known by a 16S rRNA gene sequence signature, and novel species have been proposed. There is a growing need for developing improved methods to cultivate and characterize the as-yet-uncultivated portion of the oral microbiome so as to unravel its role in health and disease
Spin states of asteroids in the Eos collisional family
Eos family was created during a catastrophic impact about 1.3 Gyr ago.
Rotation states of individual family members contain information about the
history of the whole population. We aim to increase the number of asteroid
shape models and rotation states within the Eos collision family, as well as to
revise previously published shape models from the literature. Such results can
be used to constrain theoretical collisional and evolution models of the
family, or to estimate other physical parameters by a thermophysical modeling
of the thermal infrared data. We use all available disk-integrated optical data
(i.e., classical dense-in-time photometry obtained from public databases and
through a large collaboration network as well as sparse-in-time individual
measurements from a few sky surveys) as input for the convex inversion method,
and derive 3D shape models of asteroids together with their rotation periods
and orientations of rotation axes. We present updated shape models for 15
asteroids and new shape model determinations for 16 asteroids. Together with
the already published models from the publicly available DAMIT database, we
compiled a sample of 56 Eos family members with known shape models that we used
in our analysis of physical properties within the family. Rotation states of
asteroids smaller than ~20 km are heavily influenced by the YORP effect, whilst
the large objects more or less retained their rotation state properties since
the family creation. Moreover, we also present a shape model and bulk density
of asteroid (423) Diotima, an interloper in the Eos family, based on the
disk-resolved data obtained by the Near InfraRed Camera (Nirc2) mounted on the
W.M. Keck II telescope.Comment: Accepted for publication in ICARUS Special Issue - Asteroids: Origin,
Evolution & Characterizatio
Conducting sexualities research: An outline of emergent issues and case studies from ten wellcome-funded projects [version 1; peer review: 3 approved]
© 2019 Kneale D et al. This letter seeks to synthesise methodological challenges encountered in a cohort of Wellcome Trust-funded research projects focusing on sexualities and health. The ten Wellcome Trust projects span a diversity of gender and sexual orientations and identities, settings; institutional and non-institutional contexts, lifecourse stages, and explore a range of health-related interventions. As researchers, we originate from a breadth of disciplinary traditions, use a variety of research methods and data sources. Despite this breadth, four common themes are found across the projects: (i) inclusivity representations and representativeness, (ii) lumping together of diverse groups, (iii) institutions and closed settings (iv) ethical and governance barriers
Conducting sexualities research: an outline of emergent issues and case studies from ten Wellcome-funded projects [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]
This letter seeks to synthesise methodological challenges encountered in a cohort of Wellcome Trust-funded research projects focusing on sexualities and health. The ten Wellcome Trust projects span a diversity of gender and sexual orientations and identities, settings; institutional and non-institutional contexts, lifecourse stages, and explore a range of health-related interventions. As researchers, we originate from a breadth of disciplinary traditions, use a variety of research methods and data sources. Despite this breadth, four common themes are found across the projects: (i) inclusivity, representations and representativeness, (ii) lumping together of diverse groups, (iii) institutions and closed settings (iv) ethical and governance barriers
Quality assurance, benchmarking, assessment and mutual international recognition of qualifications
publishersversionPeer reviewe
CORE: A Phylogenetically-Curated 16S rDNA Database of the Core Oral Microbiome
Comparing bacterial 16S rDNA sequences to GenBank and other large public databases via BLAST often provides results of little use for identification and taxonomic assignment of the organisms of interest. The human microbiome, and in particular the oral microbiome, includes many taxa, and accurate identification of sequence data is essential for studies of these communities. For this purpose, a phylogenetically curated 16S rDNA database of the core oral microbiome, CORE, was developed. The goal was to include a comprehensive and minimally redundant representation of the bacteria that regularly reside in the human oral cavity with computationally robust classification at the level of species and genus. Clades of cultivated and uncultivated taxa were formed based on sequence analyses using multiple criteria, including maximum-likelihood-based topology and bootstrap support, genetic distance, and previous naming. A number of classification inconsistencies for previously named species, especially at the level of genus, were resolved. The performance of the CORE database for identifying clinical sequences was compared to that of three publicly available databases, GenBank nr/nt, RDP and HOMD, using a set of sequencing reads that had not been used in creation of the database. CORE offered improved performance compared to other public databases for identification of human oral bacterial 16S sequences by a number of criteria. In addition, the CORE database and phylogenetic tree provide a framework for measures of community divergence, and the focused size of the database offers advantages of efficiency for BLAST searching of large datasets. The CORE database is available as a searchable interface and for download at http://microbiome.osu.edu
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