An investigation of horizontal transfer of feed introduced DNA to the aerobic microbiota of the gastrointestinal tract of rats

Background: Horizontal gene transfer through natural transformation of members of the microbiota of the lower gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of mammals has not yet been described. Insufficient DNA sequence similarity for homologous recombination to occur has been identified as the major barrier to interspecies transfer of chromosomal DNA in bacteria. In this study we determined if regions of high DNA similarity between the genomes of the indigenous bacteria in the GIT of rats and feed introduced DNA could lead to homologous recombination and acquisition of antibiotic resistance genes. Results: Plasmid DNA with two resistance genes (nptII and aadA) and regions of high DNA similarity to 16S rRNA and 23S rRNA genes present in a broad range of bacterial species present in the GIT, where constructed and added to standard rat feed. Six rats, with a normal microbiota, were fed DNA containing pellets daily over four days before sampling of the microbiota from the different GI compartments (stomach, small intestine, cecum and colon). In addition, two rats were included as negative controls. Antibiotic resistant colonies growing on selective media were screened for recombination with feed introduced DNA by PCR targeting unique sites in the putatively recombined regions. Conclusions: The analyses showed that extensive ingestion of DNA (100 \ub5g plasmid) per day did not lead to increased proportions of kanamycin resistant bacteria, nor did it produce detectable transformants among the aerobic microbiota examined for 6 rats (detection limit <1 transformant per 1.1 x 108 cultured bacteria). The key methodological challenges to HGT detection in animal feedings trials are identified and discussed

Crowdfunding in the Cultural Industries

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Risk Based Decision for Reinvestments in Distribution Systems

This paper illustrates the challenges associated with risk assessment for reinvestments decisions. A holistic framework for risk assessment in electricity distribution systems will be described first and then used to structure the analysis and decision making in a case study concerning cable reinvestment. These decisions are generally multi criteria decisions, including risks related to e.g.; economy, environment, reputation, safety and quality of supply. The paper describes the use of different types of decision support tools used to aid reinvestment decision making in electricity distribution systems, with emphasis on multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA).acceptedVersio

An Estimation of Pore Pressure in Shales from Sonic Velocities

Pore pressure in shaly formations is difficult to measure due to their extremely low permeability. For this reason, indirect methods of pore pressure estimation in shales are crucially important. Overpressured zones in shales are currently identified by deviation of sonic log velocities from the velocities obtained from generic or regional compaction trends. As such trends can be extremely variable, such comparison can only give an approximate estimation of the pore pressure. Here we compare sonic log velocities measured in overpressured shale with the velocities obtained from a rock physics model, that has been shown to predict shale velocities quite accurately for regions with normal compaction trends. The model is based on the parameters measurable in the same well and, thus, provides more detailed information than generic/regional velocity trends. Here we show that for a vertical well with abnormally high pore pressure, the modeled velocities strongly overestimate sonic log velocities. The difference between the measured sonic velocities and the modeled ones is used to estimate pore pressure. To this end, results of laboratory measurements of elastic properties at different effective stresses are used

Prediction of sonic velocities in shale from porosity and clay fraction obtained from logs - A North Sea well case study

Prediction of sonic velocities in shales from well logs is important for seismic to log ties if the sonic log is absent for a shaly section, for pore pressure anomaly detection, and for data quality control. An anisotropic differential effective medium (DEM) was used to simulate elastic properties of shales from elastic properties and volume fractions of silt and wet clay (a hypothetical composite material that includes all clay minerals and water). Anisotropic elastic coefficients of the wet clay were assumed as a first-order approximation to be linearly dependent on wet clay porosity (WCP). Here, by WCP we mean a ratio of a pore volume occupied by water to a total volume of the wet clay. Effects of silt inclusions on elastic coefficients of shales were taken into account by using the anisotropic differential effective medium model. Silt inclusions were modeled as spherical quartz particles. Simulated elastic coefficients of shales were used to calculate compressional and shear velocities, and these were in a good agreement with the sonic velocities observed on a test data set from an offshore Mid-Norway well penetrating a 500-m vertical section of shale. To further study the elastic properties of wet clays, elastic coefficients calculated from compressional and sonic velocities measured in shales were inverted for vertical profiles of wet clay elastic coefficients. Analysis of these coefficients found that in the well considered, the increase in elastic coefficients of shales was controlled by the increase of silt fraction with depth. Elastic coefficients of wet clay found no increase with depth. The inverted elastic moduli of wet clay found much stronger correlation with WCP than do the moduli of shale. This confirmed the hypothesis that silt fraction is one of the key parameters for the modeling of elastic properties of shale

Abstract Anonymization of General Practioner Medical Records

The Electronic Patient Record (EPR) is both a legal document and a tool for use by physicians and other health personnel during provision of health care. Its primary purpose is to provide and store information about the patient in clinical settings, but it’s also a source of medical knowledge (e.g. epidemiology and quality of care). Due to the sensitive nature of the data they must be handled in a secure manner with a high awareness of privacy concerns. This problem can be partially avoided by applying an anonymization procedure to the data. For large volumes of data (e.g. thousands of patient records) such a procedure must be partially automated. We aim to develop techniques and methods for semi-automated anonymization of medical record information. We first present the requirements and goals of anonymization. Relevant goals for designing an anonymization method are: complying with national laws, and making the anonymization as automated as possible. We discuss anonymization challenges, including linguistic issues (e.g. spelling and ambiguity) and determining which parts of the data that is sensitive. Finally we propose methods including utilization of database structure, dictionaries, heuristics and natural language processing for anonymizing patient records in general, but with focus on general practioner records gathered from a Profdoc Vision database