SARS-CoV-2 Mitigation Strategies, Testing, and Cases at 254 Jails in the US Southeast, October 2020 to May 2021

Objectives. To characterize severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) mitigation strategies, testing, and cases across county jails in the Southeastern United States, examining variability by jail characteristics. Methods. We administered a 1-time telephone survey to personnel of 254 jails in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina between October 2020 and May 2021. Results. Some SARS-CoV-2 mitigation strategies (e.g., screening at intake, isolation and masking for symptomatic persons) were commonly reported (≥ 75% of jails). Other measures, such as masking regardless of symptoms (52%) and screening at release (26%), were less common and varied by jail state or population size. Overall, 41% of jails reported no SARS-CoV-2 testing in the past 30 days. Jails with testing (59%) tested a median of 6 per 100 incarcerated persons; of those jails, one third reported 1 or more cases of positive tests. Although most jails detected no cases, in the 20% of all jails with 1 or more case in the past 30 days, 1 in 5 tests was positive. Conclusions. There was low testing coverage and variable implementation of SARS-CoV-2 mitigation strategies in Southeastern US jails during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic

Do Frogs Get Their Kicks on Route 66? Continental U.S. Transect Reveals Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis Infection

The chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) has been devastating amphibians globally. Two general scenarios have been proposed for the nature and spread of this pathogen: Bd is an epidemic, spreading as a wave and wiping out individuals, populations, and species in its path; and Bd is endemic, widespread throughout many geographic regions on every continent except Antarctica. To explore these hypotheses, we conducted a transcontinental transect of United States Department of Defense (DoD) installations along U.S. Highway 66 from California to central Illinois, and continuing eastward to the Atlantic Seaboard along U.S. Interstate 64 (in sum from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California to Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia). We addressed the following questions: 1) Does Bd occur in amphibian populations on protected DoD environments? 2) Is there a temporal pattern to the presence of Bd? 3) Is there a spatial pattern to the presence of Bd? and 4) In these limited human-traffic areas, is Bd acting as an epidemic (i.e., with evidence of recent introduction and/or die-offs due to chytridiomycosis), or as an endemic (present without clinical signs of disease)? Bd was detected on 13 of the 15 bases sampled. Samples from 30 amphibian species were collected (10% of known United States' species); half (15) tested Bd positive. There was a strong temporal (seasonal) component; in total, 78.5% of all positive samples came in the first (spring/early-summer) sampling period. There was also a strong spatial component—the eleven temperate DoD installations had higher prevalences of Bd infection (20.8%) than the four arid (<60 mm annual precipitation) bases (8.5%). These data support the conclusion that Bd is now widespread, and promote the idea that Bd can today be considered endemic across much of North America, extending from coast-to-coast, with the exception of remote pockets of naïve populations

COMBINED MEASURE OF SMOOTH PURSUIT EYE-MOVEMENTS AND VENTRICLE-BRAIN RATIO IN SCHIZOPHRENIC DISORDERS

Smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) were examined in 67 schizophrenic patients and 101 control subjects. Our study confirms that eye tracking in schizophrenic patients is impaired compared to that in controls. The similar pattern of distribution of SPEM abnormalities in Italian patients as in ethnically different populations strengthens the hypothesis that these abnormalities may be a biological marker for schizophrenia. We also examined the relationship between SPEM abnormalities and the ventricle-brain ratio (VBR), which is also considered useful for differentiating schizophrenic subgroups. Our preliminary results indicate that there is an inverse correlation between abnormal SPEM performance and ventricular enlargement, suggesting that these abnormalities mark distinct subgroups of patients

Stratigraphic and petrological data on the Late Cretaceous Durkan Complex (North Makran domain, SE Iran): an example of plume-type ophiolite.

Ophiolitic basaltic and metabasaltic rocks are widespread within accretionary and collisional belts and their tectono-stratigraphic setting and petrological features are sensitive to different geodynamic settings of formation. Among these different basaltic rocks, those with oceanic island basalt (OIB) chemical affinity are of special interest as they may represent remnants of deformed oceanic seamounts or, in other words, plume-type ophiolites (sensu Dilek and Furnes, 2011). It follows that multidisciplinary studies including stratigraphic and petrological data are fundamental to constraint the tectono-magmatic setting of formation and the geodynamic significance of the basaltic rocks within accretionary and collisional belts. In the Makran Accretionary Prism (SE Iran), the North Makran domain consists of distinct tectonic units representing remnants of the Cretaceous-Paleocene accretionary-subduction complex formed in response to the northward subduction of the Neo-Tethys oceanic lithosphere. Among these units, the Durkan Complex shows abundant basaltic and meta-basaltic rocks as well as volcaniclastic rocks. We present here a summary of the results of geological and stratigraphic studies, as well as petrological investigations of the volcanic rocks forming the Durkan Complex. The latter is composed by distinct tectonic slices showing either non-metamorphic or slightly metamorphosed successions, which record volcanic activity and sedimentation during the Late Cretaceous in a seamount cap, seamount slope, and nascent seamount. Basaltic and metabasaltic rocks display transitional chemical affinity with compositions resembling those of plume-type mid-oceanic ridge basalts and within-plate OIB compositions with a clear alkaline affinity. Trace element and REE petrogenetic models show that the Durkan basaltic rocks were generated from the partial melting of depleted sub-oceanic mantle source that was metasomatized by OIB-type chemical components in a within-plate oceanic setting. Collectively, these multidisciplinary data indicate that the Durkan Complex include fragments of oceanic seamount and can be regarded as a plume-type ophiolite, possibly formed in association to a Late Cretaceous mantle plume activity in the Neo-Tethys Ocean