Characterization of wild and captive baboon gut microbiota and their antibiotic resistomes

Antibiotic exposure results in acute and persistent shifts in the composition and function of microbial communities associated with vertebrate hosts. However, little is known about the state of these communities in the era before the widespread introduction of antibiotics into clinical and agricultural practice. We characterized the fecal microbiota and antibiotic resistomes of wild and captive baboon populations to understand the effect of human exposure and to understand how the primate microbiota may have been altered during the antibiotic era. We used culture-independent and bioinformatics methods to identify functional resistance genes in the guts of wild and captive baboons and show that exposure to humans is associated with changes in microbiota composition and resistome expansion compared to wild baboon groups. Our results suggest that captivity and lifestyle changes associated with human contact can lead to marked changes in the ecology of primate gut communities.Environmental microbes have harbored the capacity for antibiotic production for millions of years, spanning the evolution of humans and other vertebrates. However, the industrial-scale use of antibiotics in clinical and agricultural practice over the past century has led to a substantial increase in exposure of these agents to human and environmental microbiota. This perturbation is predicted to alter the ecology of microbial communities and to promote the evolution and transfer of antibiotic resistance (AR) genes. We studied wild and captive baboon populations to understand the effects of exposure to humans and human activities (e.g., antibiotic therapy) on the composition of the primate fecal microbiota and the antibiotic-resistant genes that it collectively harbors (the “resistome”). Using a culture-independent metagenomic approach, we identified functional antibiotic resistance genes in the gut microbiota of wild and captive baboon groups and saw marked variation in microbiota architecture and resistomes across habitats and lifeways. Our results support the view that antibiotic resistance is an ancient feature of gut microbial communities and that sharing habitats with humans may have important effects on the structure and function of the primate microbiota

Examining the impact of major life events on the frequency and experience of daily social events

Objective: Life events can impact people's dispositional functioning by changing their state‐level patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behavior. One pathway through which this change may be facilitated is changes in the experience of daily social events. Method: We examined the dynamic relationship between major life events and the subsequent experience of positive and negative daily social events in a year‐long longitudinal study (initial N = 1247). Results: Experiencing positive and negative major life events moderated the effects of positive and negative social events on event‐contingent state well‐being and ill‐being in ways that were mostly (but not always) consistent with both endowment and contrast effects on judgments of well‐being. Furthermore, negative life events predicted an increase in the subsequent trajectory of negative social events, while the experience of daily ill‐being predicted the subsequent experience of negative social events. Conclusions: These findings highlight the possible impact of major life events by explaining how they shape the subsequent experience of daily social events

Examining Associations Between Major Negative Life Events, Changes in Weekly Reports of Post-Traumatic Growth and Global Reports of Eudaimonic Well-Being

Research on post-traumatic growth (PTG) has been compromised by methodological limitations. Recent process-oriented accounts of personality suggest, however, that positive changes may occur through short-term (i.e., state-level) changes in PTG. In the current year-long study, 1,247 participants provided weekly reports of significant negative events as well as state manifestations of PTG (up to 44 assessments per individual; 34,205 total). Trait assessments of eudaimonic well-being (EWB) were administered at intake and Weeks 45 and 52. Experiencing negative life events predicted increases in state PTG, which in turn predicted increases in EWB. However, stability was observed when modeling prospective changes in overall state PTG before and after the initial negative life event or across all negative life events occurring during the study time frame. These findings highlight the importance of studying PTG-related processes using appropriate research designs, analytic strategies, and time frames

Time preferences and risk aversion: tests on domain differences

The design and evaluation of environmental policy requires the incorporation of time and risk elements as many environmental outcomes extend over long time periods and involve a large degree of uncertainty. Understanding how individuals discount and evaluate risks with respect to environmental outcomes is a prime component in designing effective environmental policy to address issues of environmental sustainability, such as climate change. Our objective in this study is to investigate whether subjects' time preferences and risk aversion across the monetary domain and the environmental domain differ. Crucially, our experimental design is incentivized: in the monetary domain, time preferences and risk aversion are elicited with real monetary payoffs, whereas in the environmental domain, we elicit time preferences and risk aversion using real (bee-friendly) plants. We find that subjects' time preferences are not significantly different across the monetary and environmental domains. In contrast, subjects' risk aversion is significantly different across the two domains. More specifically, subjects (men and women) exhibit a higher degree of risk aversion in the environmental domain relative to the monetary domain. Finally, we corroborate earlier results, which document that women are more risk averse than men in the monetary domain. We show this finding to, also, hold in the environmental domain

Eradication of multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii in a female patient with total hip arthroplasty, with debridement and retention: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Multidrug-resistant <it>Acinetobacter baumannii </it>has become a significant cause of healthcare-associated infections, but few reports have addressed <it>Acinetobacter baumannii </it>infections associated with orthopedic devices. The current recommended treatment for complicated infections due to orthopedic devices, including resistant gram-negative rods, consists of antimicrobial therapy with debridement and removal of implants.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>The patient, a 47-year-old woman, had previously had a prior total hip arthroplasty at 16 years of age for a complex femoral neck fracture, and multiple subsequent revisions. This time, she underwent a fifth revision secondary to pain. Surgery was complicated by hypotension resulting in transfer to the intensive care unit and prolonged respiratory failure. She received peri-operative cefazolin but postoperatively developed surgical wound drainage requiring debridement of a hematoma. Cultures of this grew ampicillin-sensitive <it>Enterococcus </it>and <it>Acinetobacter baumannii </it>(sensitive only to amikacin and imipenem). The patient was started on imipenem. Removal of the total hip arthroplasty was not recommended because of the recent surgical complications, and the patient was eventually discharged home. She was seen weekly for laboratory tests and examinations and, after 4 months of therapy, the imipenem was discontinued. She did well clinically for 7 months before recurrent pain led to removal of the total hip arthroplasty. Intra-operative cultures grew ampicillin-sensitive <it>Enterococcus </it>and coagulase-negative <it>Staphylococcus </it>but no multidrug-resistant <it>Acinetobacter baumannii</it>. The patient received ampicillin for 8 weeks and had not had recurrent infection at the time of writing, 37 months after discontinuing imipenem.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We describe the successful treatment of an acute infection from multidrug-resistant <it>Acinetobacter baumannii </it>with debridement and retention of the total hip arthroplasty, using monotherapy with imipenem. This case challenges the general assumption that all orthopedic-device infections due to multidrug-resistant gram-negative organisms will require hardware removal. Further studies are needed to determine if organisms such as multidrug-resistant <it>Acinetobacter baumannii </it>are amenable to treatment with hardware retention.</p

Eradication of multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii in a female patient with total hip arthroplasty, with debridement and retention: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Multidrug-resistant <it>Acinetobacter baumannii </it>has become a significant cause of healthcare-associated infections, but few reports have addressed <it>Acinetobacter baumannii </it>infections associated with orthopedic devices. The current recommended treatment for complicated infections due to orthopedic devices, including resistant gram-negative rods, consists of antimicrobial therapy with debridement and removal of implants.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>The patient, a 47-year-old woman, had previously had a prior total hip arthroplasty at 16 years of age for a complex femoral neck fracture, and multiple subsequent revisions. This time, she underwent a fifth revision secondary to pain. Surgery was complicated by hypotension resulting in transfer to the intensive care unit and prolonged respiratory failure. She received peri-operative cefazolin but postoperatively developed surgical wound drainage requiring debridement of a hematoma. Cultures of this grew ampicillin-sensitive <it>Enterococcus </it>and <it>Acinetobacter baumannii </it>(sensitive only to amikacin and imipenem). The patient was started on imipenem. Removal of the total hip arthroplasty was not recommended because of the recent surgical complications, and the patient was eventually discharged home. She was seen weekly for laboratory tests and examinations and, after 4 months of therapy, the imipenem was discontinued. She did well clinically for 7 months before recurrent pain led to removal of the total hip arthroplasty. Intra-operative cultures grew ampicillin-sensitive <it>Enterococcus </it>and coagulase-negative <it>Staphylococcus </it>but no multidrug-resistant <it>Acinetobacter baumannii</it>. The patient received ampicillin for 8 weeks and had not had recurrent infection at the time of writing, 37 months after discontinuing imipenem.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We describe the successful treatment of an acute infection from multidrug-resistant <it>Acinetobacter baumannii </it>with debridement and retention of the total hip arthroplasty, using monotherapy with imipenem. This case challenges the general assumption that all orthopedic-device infections due to multidrug-resistant gram-negative organisms will require hardware removal. Further studies are needed to determine if organisms such as multidrug-resistant <it>Acinetobacter baumannii </it>are amenable to treatment with hardware retention.</p

Inhibitory control, but not prolonged object-related experience appears to affect physical problem-solving performance of pet dogs

Human infants develop an understanding of their physical environment through playful interactions with objects. Similar processes may influence also the performance of non-human animals in physical problem-solving tasks, but to date there is little empirical data to evaluate this hypothesis. In addition or alternatively to prior experiences, inhibitory control has been suggested as a factor underlying the considerable individual differences in performance reported for many species. Here we report a study in which we manipulated the extent of object-related experience for a cohort of dogs (Canis familiaris) of the breed Border Collie over a period of 18 months, and assessed their level of inhibitory control, prior to testing them in a series of four physical problem-solving tasks. We found no evidence that differences in object-related experience explain variability in performance in these tasks. It thus appears that dogs do not transfer knowledge about physical rules from one physical problem-solving task to another, but rather approach each task as a novel problem. Our results, however, suggest that individual performance in these tasks is influenced in a complex way by the subject’s level of inhibitory control. Depending on the task, inhibitory control had a positive or a negative effect on performance and different aspects of inhibitory control turned out to be the best predictors of individual performance in the different tasks. Therefore, studying the interplay between inhibitory control and problem-solving performance will make an important contribution to our understanding of individual and species differences in physical problem-solving performance

Outcome and Predictors of Treatment Failure in Total Hip/Knee Prosthetic Joint Infections Due to Staphylococcus aureus

The results of the present study suggest that ASA score ≤ 2 and use of rifampin-combination therapy are two independent factors associated with favorable outcome of patients treated for total hip or knee prosthetic infections due to S. aureus

A systematic review of the evidence for single stage and two stage revision of infected knee replacement

BACKGROUND: Periprosthetic infection about the knee is a devastating complication that may affect between 1% and 5% of knee replacement. With over 79 000 knee replacements being implanted each year in the UK, periprosthetic infection (PJI) is set to become an important burden of disease and cost to the healthcare economy. One of the important controversies in treatment of PJI is whether a single stage revision operation is superior to a two-stage procedure. This study sought to systematically evaluate the published evidence to determine which technique had lowest reinfection rates. METHODS: A systematic review of the literature was undertaken using the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases with the aim to identify existing studies that present the outcomes of each surgical technique. Reinfection rate was the primary outcome measure. Studies of specific subsets of patients such as resistant organisms were excluded. RESULTS: 63 studies were identified that met the inclusion criteria. The majority of which (58) were reports of two-stage revision. Reinfection rated varied between 0% and 41% in two-stage studies, and 0% and 11% in single stage studies. No clinical trials were identified and the majority of studies were observational studies. CONCLUSIONS: Evidence for both one-stage and two-stage revision is largely of low quality. The evidence basis for two-stage revision is significantly larger, and further work into direct comparison between the two techniques should be undertaken as a priority