Microbiomes of an oyster are shaped by metabolism and environment.

Microbiomes can both influence and be influenced by metabolism, but this relationship remains unexplored for invertebrates. We examined the relationship between microbiome and metabolism in response to climate change using oysters as a model marine invertebrate. Oysters form economies and ecosystems across the globe, yet are vulnerable to climate change. Nine genetic lineages of the oyster Saccostrea glomerata were exposed to ambient and elevated temperature and PCO2 treatments. The metabolic rate (MR) and metabolic by-products of extracellular pH and CO2 were measured. The oyster-associated bacterial community in haemolymph was characterised using 16 s rRNA gene sequencing. We found a significant negative relationship between MR and bacterial richness. Bacterial community composition was also significantly influenced by MR, extracellular CO2 and extracellular pH. The effects of extracellular CO2 depended on genotype, and the effects of extracellular pH depended on CO2 and temperature treatments. Changes in MR aligned with a shift in the relative abundance of 152 Amplicon Sequencing Variants (ASVs), with 113 negatively correlated with MR. Some spirochaete ASVs showed positive relationships with MR. We have identified a clear relationship between host metabolism and the microbiome in oysters. Altering this relationship will likely have consequences for the 12 billion USD oyster economy

Reductions in cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory mortality following the national Irish smoking ban: Interrupted time-series analysis

Copyright @ 2013 Stallings-Smith 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.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Previous studies have shown decreases in cardiovascular mortality following the implementation of comprehensive smoking bans. It is not known whether cerebrovascular or respiratory mortality decreases post-ban. On March 29, 2004, the Republic of Ireland became the first country in the world to implement a national workplace smoking ban. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of this policy on all-cause and cause-specific, non-trauma mortality. Methods: A time-series epidemiologic assessment was conducted, utilizing Poisson regression to examine weekly age and gender-standardized rates for 215,878 non-trauma deaths in the Irish population, ages ≥35 years. The study period was from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2007, with a post-ban follow-up of 3.75 years. All models were adjusted for time trend, season, influenza, and smoking prevalence. Results: Following ban implementation, an immediate 13% decrease in all-cause mortality (RR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.76-0.99), a 26% reduction in ischemic heart disease (IHD) (RR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.63-0.88), a 32% reduction in stroke (RR: 0.68; 95% CI: 0.54-0.85), and a 38% reduction in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (RR: 0.62; 95% CI: 0.46-0.83) mortality was observed. Post-ban reductions in IHD, stroke, and COPD mortalities were seen in ages ≥65 years, but not in ages 35-64 years. COPD mortality reductions were found only in females (RR: 0.47; 95% CI: 0.32-0.70). Post-ban annual trend reductions were not detected for any smoking-related causes of death. Unadjusted estimates indicate that 3,726 (95% CI: 2,305-4,629) smoking-related deaths were likely prevented post-ban. Mortality decreases were primarily due to reductions in passive smoking. Conclusions: The national Irish smoking ban was associated with immediate reductions in early mortality. Importantly, post-ban risk differences did not change with a longer follow-up period. This study corroborates previous evidence for cardiovascular causes, and is the first to demonstrate reductions in cerebrovascular and respiratory causes

A Longitudinal Study of Medicaid Coverage for Tobacco Dependence Treatments in Massachusetts and Associated Decreases in Hospitalizations for Cardiovascular Disease

Thomas Land and colleagues show that among Massachusetts Medicaid subscribers, use of a comprehensive tobacco cessation pharmacotherapy benefit was followed by a substantial decrease in claims for hospitalizations for acute myocardial infarction and acute coronary heart disease

Effect of solution saturation state and temperature on diopside dissolution

Steady-state dissolution rates of diopside are measured as a function of solution saturation state using a titanium flow-through reactor at pH 7.5 and temperature ranging from 125 to 175°C. Diopside dissolved stoichiometrically under all experimental conditions and rates were not dependent on sample history. At each temperature, rates continuously decreased by two orders of magnitude as equilibrium was approached and did not exhibit a dissolution plateau of constant rates at high degrees of undersaturation. The variation of diopside dissolution rates with solution saturation can be described equally well with a ion exchange model based on transition state theory or pit nucleation model based on crystal growth/dissolution theory from 125 to 175°C. At 175°C, both models over predict dissolution rates by two orders of magnitude indicating that a secondary phase precipitated in the experiments. The ion exchange model assumes the formation of a Si-rich, Mg-deficient precursor complex. Lack of dependence of rates on steady-state aqueous calcium concentration supports the formation of such a complex, which is formed by exchange of protons for magnesium ions at the surface. Fit to the experimental data yields [Formula: see text] where the Mg-H exchange coefficient, n = 1.39, the apparent activation energy, E(a )= 332 kJ mol(-1), and the apparent rate constant, k = 10(41.2 )mol diopside cm(-2 )s(-1). Fits to the data with the pit nucleation model suggest that diopside dissolution proceeds through retreat of steps developed by nucleation of pits created homogeneously at the mineral surface or at defect sites, where homogeneous nucleation occurs at lower degrees of saturation than defect-assisted nucleation. Rate expressions for each mechanism (i) were fit to [Formula: see text] where the step edge energy (α) for homogeneously nucleated pits were higher (275 to 65 mJ m(-2)) than the pits nucleated at defects (39 to 65 mJ m(-2)) and the activation energy associated with the temperature dependence of site density and the kinetic coefficient for homogeneously nucleated pits (E(b-homogeneous )= 2.59 × 10(-16 )mJ K(-1)) were lower than the pits nucleated at defects (E(b-defect assisted )= 8.44 × 10(-16 )mJ K(-1))

Corrosion of the International Simple Glass under acidic to hyperalkaline conditions

Assessment of glass dissolution kinetics, under disposal relevant temperature and pH environments, is required to credibly estimate radionuclide release rates from vitrified radioactive waste. Leaching of the International Simple Glass (ISG) under acidic to hyperalkaline conditions was examined. Forward rate measurements have been obtained using the dynamic leaching SPFT protocol and rate parameters for B, Na and Si in the basic regime; errors in rates predicted using these parameters at high pH and temperature are significant because the fitting uses logarithmic data. Longer term behaviour under hyperalkaline conditions, representative of some disposal environments, was investigated using the PCT and MCC-1 static leaching protocols with Ca(OH)2 solutions for up to 120 days (PCT) and 720 days (MCC-1). In hyperalkaline conditions dissolution was incongruent for all elements and the presence of alternating zirconia-rich and zirconia-poor alteration layers was observed on all leached monoliths, indicating the occurrence of a self-organisation phenomenon during leaching

Improving calculation, interpretation and communication of familial colorectal cancer risk: Protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Contains fulltext : 88114.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: Individuals with multiple relatives with colorectal cancer (CRC) and/or a relative with early-onset CRC have an increased risk of developing CRC. They are eligible for preventive measures, such as surveillance by regular colonoscopy and/or genetic counselling. Currently, most at-risk individuals do not follow the indicated follow-up policy. In a new guideline on familial and hereditary CRC, clinicians have new tasks in calculating, interpreting, and communicating familial CRC risk. This will lead to better recognition of individuals at an increased familial CRC risk, enabling them to take effective preventive measures. This trial compares two implementation strategies (a common versus an intensive implementation strategy), focussing on clinicians' risk calculation, interpretation, and communication, as well as patients' uptake of the indicated follow-up policy. METHODS: A clustered randomized controlled trial including an effect, process, and cost evaluation will be conducted in eighteen hospitals. Nine hospitals in the control group will receive the common implementation strategy (i.e., dissemination of the guideline). In the intervention group, an intensive implementation strategy will be introduced. Clinicians will receive education and tools for risk calculation, interpretation, and communication. Patients will also receive these tools, in addition to patient decision aids. The effect evaluation includes assessment of the number of patients for whom risk calculation, interpretation, and communication is performed correctly, and the number of patients following the indicated follow-up policy. The actual exposure to the implementation strategies and users' experiences will be assessed in the process evaluation. In a cost evaluation, the costs of the implementation strategies will be determined. DISCUSSION: The results of this study will help determine the most effective method as well as the costs of improving the recognition of individuals at an increased familial CRC risk. It will provide insight into the experiences of both patients and clinicians with these strategies.The knowledge gathered in this study can be used to improve the recognition of familial and hereditary CRC at both the national and international level, and will serve as an example to improve care for patients and their relatives worldwide. Our results may also be useful in improving healthcare in other diseases. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00929097

A Functional Role for Modality-Specific Perceptual Systems in Conceptual Representations

Theories of embodied cognition suggest that conceptual processing relies on the same neural resources that are utilized for perception and action. Evidence for these perceptual simulations comes from neuroimaging and behavioural research, such as demonstrations of somatotopic motor cortex activations following the presentation of action-related words, or facilitation of grasp responses following presentation of object names. However, the interpretation of such effects has been called into question by suggestions that neural activation in modality-specific sensorimotor regions may be epiphenomenal, and merely the result of spreading activations from “disembodied”, abstracted, symbolic representations. Here, we present two studies that focus on the perceptual modalities of touch and proprioception. We show that in a timed object-comparison task, concurrent tactile or proprioceptive stimulation to the hands facilitates conceptual processing relative to control stimulation. This facilitation occurs only for small, manipulable objects, where tactile and proprioceptive information form part of the multimodal perceptual experience of interacting with such objects, but facilitation is not observed for large, nonmanipulable objects where such perceptual information is uninformative. Importantly, these facilitation effects are independent of motor and action planning, and indicate that modality-specific perceptual information plays a functionally constitutive role in our mental representations of objects, which supports embodied assumptions that concepts are grounded in the same neural systems that govern perception and action

Thermodynamics of mixing in diopside-jadeite, CaMgSi2O6-NaAlSi2O6, solid solution from staticlattice energy calculations

Static lattice energy calculations (SLEC), based on empirical interatomic potentials, have beenperformed for a set of 800 different structures in a 2 2 4 supercell of C2/c diopside with compositionsbetween diopside and jadeite, and with different states of order of the exchangeable Na/Ca and Mg/Al cations. Excess static energies of these structures have been cluster expanded in a basis set of 37 pair-interaction parameters. These parameters have been used to constrain Monte Carlo simulations of temperature-dependent properties in the range of 273?2,023 K and to calculate a temperature?composition phase diagram. The simulations predict the order?disorder transition in omphacite at1,150 20C in good agreement with the experimental data of Carpenter (Mineral Petrol 78:433?440, 1981). The stronger ordering of Mg/Al within the M1 site than of Ca/Na in the M2 site is attributed to the shorter M1?M1 nearest-neighbor distance, and, consequently, the stronger ordering force. The comparison of the simulated relationship between the order parameters corresponding to M1 and M2 sites with the X-ray refinement data on natural omphacites (Boffa Ballaran et al. in Am Mineral83:419?433, 1998) suggests that the cation ordering becomes kinetically ineffective at about 600C

Lynch syndrome: barriers to and facilitators of screening and disease management

Background Lynch syndrome is a hereditary cancer with confirmed carriers at high risk for colorectal (CRC) and extracolonic cancers. The purpose of the current study was to develop a greater understanding of the factors influencing decisions about disease management post-genetic testing. Methods The study used a grounded theory approach to data collection and analysis as part of a multiphase project examining the psychosocial and behavioral impact of predictive DNA testing for Lynch syndrome. Individual and small group interviews were conducted with individuals from 10 families with the MSH2 intron 5 splice site mutation or exon 8 deletion. The data from confirmed carriers (n = 23) were subjected to re-analysis to identify key barriers to and/or facilitators of screening and disease management. Results Thematic analysis identified personal, health care provider and health care system factors as dominant barriers to and/or facilitators of managing Lynch syndrome. Person-centered factors reflect risk perceptions and decision-making, and enduring screening/disease management. The perceived knowledge and clinical management skills of health care providers also influenced participation in recommended protocols. The health care system barriers/facilitators are defined in terms of continuity of care and coordination of services among providers. Conclusions Individuals with Lynch syndrome often encounter multiple barriers to and facilitators of disease management that go beyond the individual to the provider and health care system levels. The current organization and implementation of health care services are inadequate. A coordinated system of local services capable of providing integrated, efficient health care and follow-up, populated by providers with knowledge of hereditary cancer, is necessary to maintain optimal health