Relating soil organic matter composition to soil water repellency for soil biopore surfaces different in history from two Bt horizons of a Haplic Luvisol

This study was funded by the “German Research Foundation (DFG),”Bonn, under Grant PAK 888. We thank Timo Kautz and the staff of the Institute of Organic Agriculture in Bonn for assistance with the field work. Thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. We sincerely thank Prof. Dr. MB Kirkham/USA for valuable comments and the final control of the English language.Peer reviewedPostprin

Menge, Verteilung und Zusammensetzung organischer Bodensubstanz auf Oberflächen von Makroporen in Bt-Horizonten

In strukturierten Unterböden können die Oberflächen von Makroporen (Aggregatränder und Bioporen) in Folge von präferenzieller Verlagerung und Stabilisierungsprozessen mit organischer Bodensubstanz (OBS) angereichert sein. Menge, Verteilung und Zusammensetzung der OBS beeinflussen über die physiko-chemischen Oberflächeneigenschaften der Makroporen den präferenziellen Transport und den Massentransfer zwischen Fließweg und Bodenmatrix. Darüber hinaus führt eine räumlich diskrete Verteilung von OBS auf Oberflächen von Makroporen zu - in Unterböden wenig erforschten - „hot spots“ mit erhöhten Umsatzraten. Die Analyse der OBS-Zusammensetzung gestattet außerdem Rückschlüsse auf die Landnutzung, so deutet z.B. das Auftreten von Benzonitril und Naphtalen (BN+NA) auf Biomasse-Verbrennung hin. Ziel der Arbeit war die Quantifizierung von organischem Kohlenstoff (Corg) und BN+NA auf intakten Makroporen-Oberflächen in Bt-Horizonten von Parabraunerden aus Löss und Geschiebemergel. Die zweidimensionale (2D), mm-skalige Verteilung von Corg und BN+NA auf verschiedenen Makroporen-Typen wurde mittels Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform (DRIFT) Spektroskopie in Kombination mit Corg-Messungen und Pyrolyse-Feldionisation Massenspektrometrie (Py-FIMS) quantitativ beschrieben. Für eine Horizont-bezogene Quantifizierung wurden die Porenverteilungen und Porenraum-Geometrien mit Röntgen-Computertomographie (CT) dreidimensional (3D) analysiert. Erhöhte Gehalte an Corg- und BN+NA korrelierten mit dem Auftreten von Ton-haltigen Kutanen und Porenfüllungen. Die Kombination von 2D- und 3D-Daten zeigte Unterschiede in der räumlichen Verteilung von Corg bzw. OBS sowie von BN+NA in Abhängigkeit der Makroporen-Typen und Standorte bzw. bodenbildenden Substrate. Die Ergebnisse tragen zur genaueren Beschreibung von Stoffumsetzungsprozessen und Stofftransporten in strukturierten Unterböden bei und ermöglichen darüber hinaus Schlüsse auf die Genese von Bt-Horizonten in Parabraunerden

Carbon ion therapy for ameloblastic carcinoma

Ameloblastic carcinomas are rare odontogenic tumors. Treatment usually consists of surgical resection and sometimes adjuvant radiation. We report the case of a 71 year-old male patient undergoing carbon ion therapy for extensive local relapse of ameloblastic carcinoma. Treatment outcome was favourable with a complete remission at 6 weeks post completion of radiotherapy while RT-treatment itself was tolerated well with only mild side effects. High dose radiation hence is a potential alternative for patients unfit or unwilling to undergo extensive surgery or in cases when only a subtotal resection is planned or the resection is mutilating

Effect of tuberculosis screening and retention interventions on early antiretroviral therapy mortality in Botswana: a stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial.

BACKGROUND: Undiagnosed tuberculosis (TB) remains the most common cause of HIV-related mortality. Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) is being rolled out globally to improve TB diagnostic capacity. However, previous Xpert impact trials have reported that health system weaknesses blunted impact of this improved diagnostic tool. During phased Xpert rollout in Botswana, we evaluated the impact of a package of interventions comprising (1) additional support for intensified TB case finding (ICF), (2) active tracing for patients missing clinic appointments to support retention, and (3) Xpert replacing sputum-smear microscopy, on early (6-month) antiretroviral therapy (ART) mortality. METHODS: At 22 clinics, ART enrollees >?12?years old were eligible for inclusion in three phases: a retrospective standard of care (SOC), prospective enhanced care (EC), and prospective EC plus Xpert (EC+X) phase. EC and EC+X phases were implemented as a stepped-wedge trial. Participants in the EC phase received SOC plus components 1 (strengthened ICF) and 2 (active tracing) of the intervention package, and participants in the EC+X phase received SOC plus all three intervention package components. Primary and secondary objectives were to compare all-cause 6-month ART mortality between SOC and EC+X and between EC and EC+X phases, respectively. We used adjusted analyses, appropriate for study design, to control for baseline differences in individual-level factors and intra-facility correlation. RESULTS: We enrolled 14,963 eligible patients: 8980 in SOC, 1768 in EC, and 4215 in EC+X phases. Median age of ART enrollees was 35 and 64% were female. Median CD4 cell count was lower in SOC than subsequent phases (184/?L in SOC, 246/?L in EC, and 241/?L in EC+X). By 6?months of ART, 461 (5.3%) of SOC, 54 (3.2%) of EC, and 121 (3.0%) of EC+X enrollees had died. Compared with SOC, 6-month mortality was lower in the EC+X phase (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.77; 95% confidence interval, 0.61-0.97, p?=?0.029). Compared with EC enrollees, 6-month mortality was similar among EC+X enrollees. CONCLUSIONS: Interventions to strengthen ICF and retention were associated with lower early ART mortality. This new evidence highlights the need to strengthen ICF and retention in many similar settings. Similar to other trials, no additional mortality benefit of replacing sputum-smear microscopy with Xpert was observed. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Retrospectively registered: ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02538952)

Two-Week versus Six-Month Sampling Interval in a Short-Term Natural History Study of Oral HPV Infection in an HIV-Positive Cohort

BACKGROUND: Oral HPV infections detected six-months apart were compared to those detected bi-weekly, in an HIV-positive cohort, during the intervening months to elucidate systematic biases introduced into natural history studies by sampling interval. METHODS: Fourteen consecutive oral rinse samples were collected every two weeks for six months from an HIV-positive cohort (n = 112) and evaluated for the presence of 37 HPV types. The cumulative probability of type-specific HPV detection at visits 1 through 14 was determined as a function of infection categorized at visits 1 and 14 as persistent, newly detected, cleared or absent. Transition models were used to evaluate the effect of HPV viral load (measured by RT-PCR for HPV 16, 18, 31, 33, 35) on infection persistence. RESULTS: The average point prevalence of oral HPV infection was similar at two-week and six-month sampling intervals (45% vs. 47%, p = 0.52), but cumulative prevalence was higher with the former (82% vs. 53%, p<0.001) as was the cumulative prevalence of type-specific infections (9.3% vs 3.8%, p<0.0001). Type-specific infections persistent under a six-month sampling interval had a high probability (0.93, 95%CI 0.83-0.98) of detection at 50% or more of the intervening visits and infections that were absent had a high probability (0.94, 95% CI 0.93-0.95) of no interval detection. The odds of detection at any visit significantly increased for each unit increase in HPV viral load at the previous visit. CONCLUSIONS: Six-month sampling is appropriate to model factors associated with type-specific oral HPV infection persistence but may misclassify HPV-exposed individuals as unexposed

Searches at HERA for Squarks in R-Parity Violating Supersymmetry

A search for squarks in R-parity violating supersymmetry is performed in e^+p collisions at HERA at a centre of mass energy of 300 GeV, using H1 data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 37 pb^(-1). The direct production of single squarks of any generation in positron-quark fusion via a Yukawa coupling lambda' is considered, taking into account R-parity violating and conserving decays of the squarks. No significant deviation from the Standard Model expectation is found. The results are interpreted in terms of constraints within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), the constrained MSSM and the minimal Supergravity model, and their sensitivity to the model parameters is studied in detail. For a Yukawa coupling of electromagnetic strength, squark masses below 260 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level in a large part of the parameter space. For a 100 times smaller coupling strength masses up to 182 GeV are excluded.Comment: 32 pages, 14 figures, 3 table