Monkey’s Guide to Healthy Living and NHS Services An evaluation of the implementation of resources designed to support the learning of primary school aged children in England

A team of researchers from the Faculty of Education, Health and Community recently carried out a national evaluation project on behalf of the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement. Colleagues from across the faculty were involved in evaluating the impact of resources provided to every primary school in England. The resources were designed to enable teachers and health professionals to work together to help children learn about the NHS and the range of services they could access if they required acute of emergency care

Functional significance of phylogeographic structure in a toxic benthic marine microbial eukaryote over a latitudinal gradient along the East Australian Current

Genetic diversity in marine microbial eukaryotic populations (protists) drives their ecological success by enabling diverse phenotypes to respond rapidly to changing environmental conditions. Despite enormous population sizes and lack of barriers to gene flow, genetic differentiation that is associated with geographic distance, currents, and environmental gradients has been reported from planktonic protists. However, for benthic protists, which have reduced dispersal opportunities, phylogeography and its phenotypic significance are little known. In recent years, the East Australian Current (EAC) has intensified its southward flow, associated with the tropicalization of temperate waters. Benthic harmful algal species have been increasingly found in south-eastern Australia. Yet little is known about the potential of these species to adapt or extend their range in relation to changing conditions. Here, we examine genetic diversity and functional niche divergence in a toxic benthic dinoflagellate, Ostreopsis cf. siamensis, along a 1,500 km north-south gradient in southeastern Australia. Sixty-eight strains were established from eight sampling sites. The study revealed long-standing genetic diversity among strains established from the northern-most sites, along with large phenotypic variation in observed physiological traits such as growth rates, cell volume, production of palytoxin-like compounds, and photophysiological parameters. Strains from the southern populations were more uniform in both genetic and functional traits, and have possibly colonized their habitats more recently. Our study reports significant genetic and functional trait variability in a benthic harmful algal species, indicative of high adaptability, and a possible climate-driven range extension. The observed high trait variation may facilitate development of harmful algal blooms under dynamic coastal environmental conditions

Estimating benefits of using on-demand oral prep by MSM: A comparative modeling study of the US and Thailand

Background Daily and on-demand pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) are effective at preventing HIV acquisition among men who have sex with men (MSM), but only daily PrEP is approved in the US. On-demand PrEP may improve uptake and adherence. We identify sub-groups of MSM who would benefit from on-demand PrEP and determine effectiveness achieved if individuals used their optimal regimens. Methods Using data from the HPTN 067 study (study period 2012–2014), we created an individual-based stochastic model of HIV risk in two synthetic MSM populations with parameters separately estimated using data from Harlem, US, and Bangkok, Thailand. Agents were assigned daily and on-demand PrEP for six months each. Two personalized PrEP assignments: optimal, based on improved predicted effectiveness and reduced pill burden, and adherence-based, using daily PrEP adherence, were simulated for another six months. Findings Simulated on-demand PrEP was optimal for approximately one-third of MSM. It was assigned mainly to those with low daily PrEP adherence (88% (Harlem), 95% (Bangkok) of MSM with daily PrEP adherence <40%). Mean effectiveness was slightly higher in the full synthetic population with optimal PrEP assignment compared to universal daily PrEP. Among MSM for whom on-demand PrEP was optimal, mean effectiveness improved by 18 (Harlem) and 7 percentage points (Bangkok). Comparable predicted effectiveness was achieved if on-demand PrEP was assigned to the population with daily PrEP adherence <50%. There was no advantage in assigning on-demand PrEP by sex act frequency. Interpretation On-demand PrEP could benefit many MSM by increasing effectiveness or decreasing pill burden with similar effectiveness. On-demand PrEP may be an effective alternative to daily PrEP for individuals with difficulty taking daily PrEP consistently. Results were similar for Harlem and Bangkok, indicating that these conclusions were robust in populations with different overall adherence levels and may inform future public-health policies. Funding US NIH grant UM1 AI068617

On Semiclassical Limits of String States

We explore the relation between classical and quantum states in both open and closed (super)strings discussing the relevance of coherent states as a semiclassical approximation. For the closed string sector a gauge-fixing of the residual world-sheet rigid translation symmetry of the light-cone gauge is needed for the construction to be possible. The circular target-space loop example is worked out explicitly.Comment: 12 page

Re-emerging syphilis: a detrended correspondence analysis of the behaviour of HIV positive and negative gay men

BACKGROUND: Recent syphilis outbreaks in the UK have raised serious concerns about the sexual health of the population. Moreover, syphilis appears more likely to facilitate HIV transmission than any other sexually transmitted infection (STI). METHODS: The sexual and other risk behaviour of a sample of HIV positive and negative gay men with and without syphilis was subjected to a detrended correspondence analysis (DCA). RESULTS: A DCA plot was used to illustrate similarity of individuals in terms of their behaviours, regardless of their infection status. The majority of those with syphilis (78%; 18/23) fell into a high-risk group with more partners, and use of anonymous sex venues and drugs during sex. However, 16% of uninfected controls (8/49) and 62% of HIV positive individuals without syphilis (8/13) also fell into this high-risk group. CONCLUSIONS: Using a statistical technique that is novel for this type of investigation, we demonstrate behavioural overlaps between syphilis-infected individuals in an ongoing UK outbreak and uninfected HIV positive and negative controls. Given the high-risk behaviour of a significant proportion of uninfected individuals, ongoing transmission of syphilis and HIV in this population seems likely

Anomaly/Transport in an Ideal Weyl gas

We study some of the transport processes which are specific to an ideal gas of relativistic Weyl fermions and relate the corresponding transport coefficients to various anomaly coefficients of the system. We propose that these transport processes can be thought of as arising from the continuous injection of chiral states and their subsequent adiabatic flow driven by vorticity. This in turn leads to an elegant expression relating the anomaly induced transport coefficients to the anomaly polynomial of the Ideal Weyl gas.Comment: 35 pages, JHEP forma

Connectivity-based parcellation of the thalamus explains specific cognitive and behavioural symptoms in patients with bilateral thalamic infarct

A novel approach based on diffusion tractography was used here to characterise the cortico-thalamic connectivity in two patients, both presenting with an isolated bilateral infarct in the thalamus, but exhibiting partially different cognitive and behavioural profiles. Both patients (G.P. and R.F.) had a pervasive deficit in episodic memory, but only one of them (R.F.) suffered also from a dysexecutive syndrome. Both patients had an MRI scan at 3T, including a T1-weighted volume. Their lesions were manually segmented. T1-volumes were normalised to standard space, and the same transformations were applied to the lesion masks. Nineteen healthy controls underwent a diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI) scan. Their DTI data were normalised to standard space and averaged. An atlas of Brodmann areas was used to parcellate the prefrontal cortex. Probabilistic tractography was used to assess the probability of connection between each voxel of the thalamus and a set of prefrontal areas. The resulting map of corticothalamic connections was superimposed onto the patients' lesion masks, to assess whether the location of the thalamic lesions in R.F. (but not in G. P.) implied connections with prefrontal areas involved in dysexecutive syndromes. In G.P., the lesion fell within areas of the thalamus poorly connected with prefrontal areas, showing only a modest probability of connection with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Conversely, R.F.'s lesion fell within thalamic areas extensively connected with the ACC bilaterally, with the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and with the left supplementary motor area. Despite a similar, bilateral involvement of the thalamus, the use of connectivity-based segmentation clarified that R.F.'s lesions only were located within nuclei highly connected with the prefrontal cortical areas, thus explaining the patient's frontal syndrome. This study confirms that DTI tractography is a useful tool to examine in vivo the effect of focal lesions on interconnectivity brain patterns

Bulk and Confined Benzene-Cyclohexane Mixtures Studied by an Integrated Total Neutron Scattering and NMR Method

AbstractHerein mixtures of cyclohexane and benzene have been investigated in both the bulk liquid phase and when confined in MCM-41 mesopores. The bulk mixtures have been studied using total neutron scattering (TNS), and the confined mixtures have been studied by a new flow-utilising, integrated TNS and NMR system (Flow NeuNMR), all systems have been analysed using empirical potential structure refinement (EPSR). The Flow NeuNMR setup provided precise time-resolved chemical sample composition through NMR, overcoming the difficulties of ensuring compositional consistency for computational simulation of data ordinarily found in TNS experiments of changing chemical composition—such as chemical reactions. Unique to the liquid mixtures, perpendicularly oriented benzene molecules have been found at short distances from the cyclohexane rings in the regions perpendicular to the carbon–carbon bonds. Upon confinement of the hydrocarbon mixtures, a stronger parallel orientational preference of unlike molecular dimers, at short distances, has been found. At longer first coordination shell distances, the like benzene molecular spatial organisation within the mixture has also found to be altered upon confinement.</jats:p

Climate change promotes parasitism in a coral symbiosis.

Coastal oceans are increasingly eutrophic, warm and acidic through the addition of anthropogenic nitrogen and carbon, respectively. Among the most sensitive taxa to these changes are scleractinian corals, which engineer the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth. Corals' sensitivity is a consequence of their evolutionary investment in symbiosis with the dinoflagellate alga, Symbiodinium. Together, the coral holobiont has dominated oligotrophic tropical marine habitats. However, warming destabilizes this association and reduces coral fitness. It has been theorized that, when reefs become warm and eutrophic, mutualistic Symbiodinium sequester more resources for their own growth, thus parasitizing their hosts of nutrition. Here, we tested the hypothesis that sub-bleaching temperature and excess nitrogen promotes symbiont parasitism by measuring respiration (costs) and the assimilation and translocation of both carbon (energy) and nitrogen (growth; both benefits) within Orbicella faveolata hosting one of two Symbiodinium phylotypes using a dual stable isotope tracer incubation at ambient (26 °C) and sub-bleaching (31 °C) temperatures under elevated nitrate. Warming to 31 °C reduced holobiont net primary productivity (NPP) by 60% due to increased respiration which decreased host %carbon by 15% with no apparent cost to the symbiont. Concurrently, Symbiodinium carbon and nitrogen assimilation increased by 14 and 32%, respectively while increasing their mitotic index by 15%, whereas hosts did not gain a proportional increase in translocated photosynthates. We conclude that the disparity in benefits and costs to both partners is evidence of symbiont parasitism in the coral symbiosis and has major implications for the resilience of coral reefs under threat of global change