Development of the preterm infant gut microbiome: a research priority.

The very low birth weight (VLBW) infant is at great risk for marked dysbiosis of the gut microbiome due to multiple factors, including physiological immaturity and prenatal/postnatal influences that disrupt the development of a normal gut flora. However, little is known about the developmental succession of the microbiota in preterm infants as they grow and mature. This review provides a synthesis of our understanding of the normal development of the infant gut microbiome and contrasts this with dysbiotic development in the VLBW infant. The role of human milk in normal gut microbial development is emphasized, along with the role of the gut microbiome in immune development and gastroenteric health. Current research provides evidence that the gut microbiome interacts extensively with many physiological systems and metabolic processes in the developing infant. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are currently no studies prospectively mapping the gut microbiome of VLBW infants through early childhood. This knowledge gap must be filled to inform a healthcare system that can provide for the growth, health, and development of VLBW infants. The paper concludes with speculation about how the VLBW infants' gut microbiome might function through host-microbe interactions to contribute to the sequelae of preterm birth, including its influence on growth, development, and general health of the infant host

Wiki or Word? Evaluating Tools for Collaborative Writing and Editing

Businesses and other organizations are relying increasingly on virtual teams to perform a range of business activities. A key challenge in utilizing virtual teams is to support collaboration among team members who are separated by distance and/or time. In this paper we use a research model based on a combination of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Task Technology Fit (TTF) model to examine two approaches to supporting students in collaboratively creating and editing a report for an introductory course in information systems. In our study, one group of students used MS Word with Track Changes turned on combined with emailing the document among students. A second group was provided access to a wiki where they created the report. Results show that students found the Word and email combination more useful and easier to use than the wiki environment in completing the project. Further, there was no perceived difference in the effort of collaboration between the two methods. This study raises questions about the widely held belief that web-based collaboration platforms are superior to emailing documents among collaborators

Observation of prompt single muons and of missing energy associated with μ+μ−\mu^{+}\mu^{-} pairs produced in hadronic interactions

In a study of interactions of 400 GeV protons in a totally absorbing iron calorimeter the authors report two observations indicating the hadronic production of heavy short-lived weakly decaying particles. First they have observed a prompt muon signal in the region .8<p/sub t /<2.5 GeV/c. The rate is comparable in magnitude to the prompt 2 mu rate in the same kinematic region. In addition to detecting mu /sup +/ mu /sup -/ events arising from electromagnetic sources (e.g. rho to mu /sup +/ mu /sup -/, psi to mu /sup +/ mu /sup -/ etc.) they have observed mu /sup +/ mu /sup -/ pairs associated with a significant amount of missing energy indicative of final state neutrinos. Interpreting these data as production of DD pairs followed by single or double muonic decays leads to a model dependent estimate of total production cross-section of order 15 mu b. (14 refs)

Parental transfer of the antimicrobial protein LBP/BPI protects Biomphalaria glabrata eggs against oomycete infections

Copyright: © 2013 Baron et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was funded by ANR (ANR-07-BLAN-0214 and ANR-12-EMMA-00O7-01), CNRS and INRA. PvW was financially supported by the BBSRC. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Constraints on Light Gluinos from Tevatron Dijet Data

The effects of light, long-lived gluinos on $2\to 2$ processes at hadron colliders are examined. Such particles can mediate single squark resonant production via q\glu\to\sq\to q\glu which would significantly modify the dijet data sample. We find that squark masses in the range $130<m_{\tilde q}< 694, 595, 573$ GeV are excluded for gluino masses of $0.4, 1.3, 5.0$ GeV from existing UA2 and Tevatron data on dijet bump searches and angular distributions. Run II of the Tevatron has the capability of excluding this scenario for squark masses up to $\sim 1$ TeV.Comment: Includes new dijet analysis from D0. LaTex, 16 pages, 4 fig

Analysis of C3 Suggests Three Periods of Positive Selection Events and Different Evolutionary Patterns between Fish and Mammals

BACKGROUND: The third complement component (C3) is a central protein of the complement system conserved from fish to mammals. It also showed distinct characteristics in different animal groups. Striking features of the fish complement system were unveiled, including prominent levels of extrahepatic expression and isotypic diversity of the complement components. The evidences of the involvement of complement system in the enhancement of B and T cell responses found in mammals indicated that the complement system also serves as a bridge between the innate and adaptive responses. For the reasons mentioned above, it is interesting to explore the evolutionary process of C3 genes and to investigate whether the huge differences between aquatic and terrestrial environments affected the C3 evolution between fish and mammals. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Analysis revealed that these two groups of animals had experienced different evolution patterns. The mammalian C3 genes were under purifying selection pressure while the positive selection pressure was detected in fish C3 genes. Three periods of positive selection events of C3 genes were also detected. Two happened on the ancestral lineages to all vertebrates and mammals, respectively, one happened on early period of fish evolutionary history. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Three periods of positive selection events had happened on C3 genes during history and the fish and mammals C3 genes experience different evolutionary patterns for their distinct living environments