1,501 research outputs found
Transformation and fate of microphytobenthos carbon in subtropical, intertidal sediments: potential for long-term carbon retention revealed by <sup>13</sup>C-labeling
Microphytobenthos (MPB) are ubiquitous in coastal sediments, but the fate of
their production (carbon biomass) is poorly defined. The processing and fate
of MPB-derived carbon in subtropical intertidal sediments was investigated
through in situ labeling with <sup>13</sup>C-bicarbonate. Of the added <sup>13</sup>C,
100% was fixed within ~ 4 h, suggesting that MPB
productivity was limited by inorganic carbon availability. Although there
was rapid transfer of <sup>13</sup>C to bacteria (within 12 h), a relatively small
fraction of <sup>13</sup>C was transferred to heterotrophs (up to 12.5% of
total fixed <sup>13</sup>C into bacteria and 0.01% into foraminifera). MPB was
the major reservoir for <sup>13</sup>C throughout the study, suggesting that
production of extracellular polymeric substances was limited and/or MPB
recycled <sup>13</sup>C. This retention of <sup>13</sup>C was reflected in remarkably
slow estimated turnover times for the MPB community (66â100 d). Over 31 d,
~ 70% of the <sup>13</sup>C was lost from sediments. This was
primarily via resuspension (~ 55%), enhanced by elevated
freshwater flow following rainfall. A further ~ 13% was
lost via fluxes of dissolved inorganic carbon during inundation. However,
<sup>13</sup>C losses via dissolved organic carbon fluxes from inundated sediments
(0.5%) and carbon dioxide fluxes from exposed sediments (<0.1%) were minimal. The retention of ~ 30% of the carbon
fixed by MPB within one tidal exposure after > 30 d, despite high
resuspension, demonstrates the potentially substantial longer term retention
of MPB-derived carbon in unvegetated sediments and suggests that MPB may
contribute to carbon burial ("blue carbon")
Evidence for Pervasive Adaptive Protein Evolution in Wild Mice
The relative contributions of neutral and adaptive substitutions to molecular evolution has been one of the most controversial issues in evolutionary biology for more than 40 years. The analysis of within-species nucleotide polymorphism and between-species divergence data supports a widespread role for adaptive protein evolution in certain taxa. For example, estimates of the proportion of adaptive amino acid substitutions (alpha) are 50% or more in enteric bacteria and Drosophila. In contrast, recent estimates of alpha for hominids have been at most 13%. Here, we estimate alpha for protein sequences of murid rodents based on nucleotide polymorphism data from multiple genes in a population of the house mouse subspecies Mus musculus castaneus, which inhabits the ancestral range of the Mus species complex and nucleotide divergence between M. m. castaneus and M. famulus or the rat. We estimate that 57% of amino acid substitutions in murids have been driven by positive selection. Hominids, therefore, are exceptional in having low apparent levels of adaptive protein evolution. The high frequency of adaptive amino acid substitutions in wild mice is consistent with their large effective population size, leading to effective natural selection at the molecular level. Effective natural selection also manifests itself as a paucity of effectively neutral nonsynonymous mutations in M. m. castaneus compared to humans
Treatment of enteric fever (typhoid and paratyphoid fever) with cephalosporins
Background
Typhoid and paratyphoid (enteric fever) are febrile bacterial illnesses common in many lowâ and middleâincome countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) currently recommends treatment with azithromycin, ciprofloxacin, or ceftriaxone due to widespread resistance to older, firstâline antimicrobials. Resistance patterns vary in different locations and are changing over time. Fluoroquinolone resistance in South Asia often precludes the use of ciprofloxacin. Extensively drugâresistant strains of enteric fever have emerged in Pakistan. In some areas of the world, susceptibility to old firstâline antimicrobials, such as chloramphenicol, has reâappeared. A Cochrane Review of the use of fluoroquinolones and azithromycin in the treatment of enteric fever has previously been undertaken, but the use of cephalosporins has not been systematically investigated and the optimal choice of drug and duration of treatment are uncertain.
Objectives
To evaluate the effectiveness of cephalosporins for treating enteric fever in children and adults compared to other antimicrobials.
Search methods
We searched the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group Specialized Register, CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, LILACS, the WHO ICTRP and ClinicalTrials.gov up to 24 November 2021. We also searched reference lists of included trials, contacted researchers working in the field, and contacted relevant organizations.
Selection criteria
We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in adults and children with enteric fever that compared a cephalosporin to another antimicrobial, a different cephalosporin, or a different treatment duration of the intervention cephalosporin. Enteric fever was diagnosed on the basis of blood culture, bone marrow culture, or molecular tests.
Data collection and analysis
We used standard Cochrane methods. Our primary outcomes were clinical failure, microbiological failure and relapse. Our secondary outcomes were time to defervescence, duration of hospital admission, convalescent faecal carriage, and adverse effects. We used the GRADE approach to assess certainty of evidence for each outcome.
Main results
We included 27 RCTs with 2231 total participants published between 1986 and 2016 across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Caribbean, with comparisons between cephalosporins and other antimicrobials used for the treatment of enteric fever in children and adults. The main comparisons are between antimicrobials in most common clinical use, namely cephalosporins compared to a fluoroquinolone and cephalosporins compared to azithromycin.
Cephalosporin (cefixime) versus fluoroquinolones
Clinical failure, microbiological failure and relapse may be increased in patients treated with cefixime compared to fluoroquinolones in three small trials published over 14 years ago: clinical failure (risk ratio (RR) 13.39, 95% confidence interval (CI) 3.24 to 55.39; 2 trials, 240 participants; lowâcertainty evidence); microbiological failure (RR 4.07, 95% CI 0.46 to 36.41; 2 trials, 240 participants; lowâcertainty evidence); relapse (RR 4.45, 95% CI 1.11 to 17.84; 2 trials, 220 participants; lowâcertainty evidence). Time to defervescence in participants treated with cefixime may be longer compared to participants treated with fluoroquinolones (mean difference (MD) 1.74 days, 95% CI 0.50 to 2.98, 3 trials, 425 participants; lowâcertainty evidence).
Cephalosporin (ceftriaxone) versus azithromycin
Ceftriaxone may result in a decrease in clinical failure compared to azithromycin, and it is unclear whether ceftriaxone has an effect on microbiological failure compared to azithromycin in two small trials published over 18 years ago and in one more recent trial, all conducted in participants under 18 years of age: clinical failure (RR 0.42, 95% CI 0.11 to 1.57; 3 trials, 196 participants; lowâcertainty evidence); microbiological failure (RR 1.95, 95% CI 0.36 to 10.64, 3 trials, 196 participants; very lowâcertainty evidence). It is unclear whether ceftriaxone increases or decreases relapse compared to azithromycin (RR 10.05, 95% CI 1.93 to 52.38; 3 trials, 185 participants; very lowâcertainty evidence). Time to defervescence in participants treated with ceftriaxone may be shorter compared to participants treated with azithromycin (mean difference of â0.52 days, 95% CI â0.91 to â0.12; 3 trials, 196 participants; lowâcertainty evidence).
Cephalosporin (ceftriaxone) versus fluoroquinolones
It is unclear whether ceftriaxone has an effect on clinical failure, microbiological failure, relapse, and time to defervescence compared to fluoroquinolones in three trials published over 28 years ago and two more recent trials: clinical failure (RR 3.77, 95% CI 0.72 to 19.81; 4 trials, 359 participants; very lowâcertainty evidence); microbiological failure (RR 1.65, 95% CI 0.40 to 6.83; 3 trials, 316 participants; very lowâcertainty evidence); relapse (RR 0.95, 95% CI 0.31 to 2.92; 3 trials, 297 participants; very lowâcertainty evidence) and time to defervescence (MD 2.73 days, 95% CI â0.37 to 5.84; 3 trials, 285 participants; very lowâcertainty evidence). It is unclear whether ceftriaxone decreases convalescent faecal carriage compared to the fluoroquinolone gatifloxacin (RR 0.18, 95% CI 0.01 to 3.72; 1 trial, 73 participants; very lowâcertainty evidence) and length of hospital stay may be longer in participants treated with ceftriaxone compared to participants treated with the fluoroquinolone ofloxacin (mean of 12 days (range 7 to 23 days) in the ceftriaxone group compared to a mean of 9 days (range 6 to 13 days) in the ofloxacin group; 1 trial, 47 participants; lowâcertainty evidence).
Authors' conclusions
Based on very lowâ to lowâcertainty evidence, ceftriaxone is an effective treatment for adults and children with enteric fever, with few adverse effects. Trials suggest that there may be no difference in the performance of ceftriaxone compared with azithromycin, fluoroquinolones, or chloramphenicol. Cefixime can also be used for treatment of enteric fever but may not perform as well as fluoroquinolones.
We are unable to draw firm general conclusions on comparative contemporary effectiveness given that most trials were small and conducted over 20 years previously. Clinicians need to take into account current, local resistance patterns in addition to route of administration when choosing an antimicrobial
Extracting science from surveys of our Galaxy
Our knowledge of the Galaxy is being revolutionised by a series of
photometric, spectroscopic and astrometric surveys. Already an enormous body of
data is available from completed surveys, and data of ever increasing quality
and richness will accrue at least until the end of this decade. To extract
science from these surveys we need a class of models that can give probability
density functions in the space of the observables of a survey -- we should not
attempt to "invert" the data from the space of observables into the physical
space of the Galaxy. Currently just one class of model has the required
capability, so-called "torus models". A pilot application of torus models to
understanding the structure of the Galaxy's thin and thick discs has already
produced two significant results: a major revision of our best estimate of the
Sun's velocity with respect to the Local Standard of Rest, and a successful
prediction of the way in which the vertical velocity dispersion in the disc
varies with distance from the Galactic plane.Comment: 13 pages. Invited review to appear in Pramana - journal of physics
(Indian Academy of Sciences
Nurturing the young shoots of talent: Using action research for exploration and theory building
This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 19(4), 433-450, 2011, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1350293X.2011.623515.This paper reports the outcomes of a set of action research projects carried out by teacher researchers in 14 local education authorities in England, working collaboratively with university tutors, over a period of three years. The common aim of all the projects was to explore practical ways of nurturing the gifts and talents of children aged fourâseven years. The project was funded by the Department of Education and Skills in England as part of the government's gifted and talented programme. The project teachers felt that their understanding of issues relating to nurturing the gifts and talents of younger children was enhanced through their engagement in the project. It was possible to map the findings of the projects to the English government's National Quality Standards for gifted and talented education which include: (1) identification; (2) effective provision in the classroom; (3) enabling curriculum entitlement and choice; (4) assessment for learning; (5) engaging with community, families and beyond. The findings are also analysed within the framework of good practice in educating children in the first years of schooling. Participating practitioners felt that action research offered them a suitable methodology to explore the complexity of the topic of giftedness through cycles of planning, action and reflection and personal theory building
Fine mapping seronegative and seropositive rheumatoid arthritis to shared and distinct HLA alleles by adjusting for the effects of heterogeneity
Despite progress in defining human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles for anti-citrullinated-protein-autoantibody-positive (ACPA(+)) rheumatoid arthritis (RA), identifying HLA alleles for ACPA-negative (ACPA(-)) RA has been challenging because of clinical heterogeneity within clinical cohorts. We imputed 8,961 classical HLA alleles, amino acids, and SNPs from Immunochip data in a discovery set of 2,406 ACPA(-) RA case and 13,930 control individuals. We developed a statistical approach to identify and adjust for clinical heterogeneity within ACPA(-) RA and observed independent associations for serine and leucine at position 11 in HLA-DRbeta1 (p = 1.4 x 10(-13), odds ratio [OR] = 1.30) and for aspartate at position 9 in HLA-B (p = 2.7 x 10(-12), OR = 1.39) within the peptide binding grooves. These amino acid positions induced associations at HLA-DRB1( *)03 (encoding serine at 11) and HLA-B( *)08 (encoding aspartate at 9). We validated these findings in an independent set of 427 ACPA(-) case subjects, carefully phenotyped with a highly sensitive ACPA assay, and 1,691 control subjects (HLA-DRbeta1 Ser11+Leu11: p = 5.8 x 10(-4), OR = 1.28; HLA-B Asp9: p = 2.6 x 10(-3), OR = 1.34). Although both amino acid sites drove risk of ACPA(+) and ACPA(-) disease, the effects of individual residues at HLA-DRbeta1 position 11 were distinct (p \u3c 2.9 x 10(-107)). We also identified an association with ACPA(+) RA at HLA-A position 77 (p = 2.7 x 10(-8), OR = 0.85) in 7,279 ACPA(+) RA case and 15,870 control subjects. These results contribute to mounting evidence that ACPA(+) and ACPA(-) RA are genetically distinct and potentially have separate autoantigens contributing to pathogenesis. We expect that our approach might have broad applications in analyzing clinical conditions with heterogeneity at both major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and non-MHC regions
Role of carbonate burial in Blue Carbon budgets
Calcium carbonates (CaCO3) often accumulate in mangrove and seagrass sediments. As CaCO3 production emits CO2, there is concern that this may partially offset the role of Blue Carbon ecosystems as CO2sinks through the burial of organic carbon (Corg). A global collection of data on inorganic carbon burial rates (Cinorg, 12% of CaCO3 mass) revealed global rates of 0.8âTgCinorgâyrâ1 and 15â62âTgCinorgâyrâ1 in mangrove and seagrass ecosystems, respectively. In seagrass, CaCO3burial may correspond to an offset of 30% of the net CO2 sequestration. However, a mass balance assessment highlights that the Cinorg burial is mainly supported by inputs from adjacent ecosystems rather than by local calcification, and that Blue Carbon ecosystems are sites of net CaCO3 dissolution. Hence, CaCO3 burial in Blue Carbon ecosystems contribute to seabed elevation and therefore buffers sea-level rise, without undermining their role as CO2 sinks
Decay constants, semi-leptonic and non-leptonic decays in a Bethe-Salpeter Model
We evaluate the decay constants for the B and mesons and the form factors
for the semileptonic decays of the B meson to and mesons in a
Bethe-Salpeter model. From data we extract from and from decays. The form factors are then used to obtain non-leptonic
decay partial widths for and in the
factorization approximation.Comment: 15 Pages, 3 Postscript figures (available also from [email protected]
The landscape of gifted and talented education in England and Wales: How are teachers implementing policy?
This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Research Papers in Education, 27(2), 167-186, 2012, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02671522.2010.509514.This paper explores the evidence relating to how primary schools are responding to the âgifted and talentedâ initiative in England and Wales. A questionnaire survey which invited both closed and open-ended responses was carried out with a national sample of primary schools. The survey indicated an increasing proportion of coordinators, compared with a survey carried out in 1996, were identifying their gifted and talented children as well as having associated school policies. However, the survey also highlighted a number of issues which need addressing if the initiative is to achieve its objective of providing the best possible educational opportunities for children. For example, it was found that a significant number of practitioners were not aware of the existence of the National Quality Standards for gifted and talented education, provided by the UK government in 2007, and the subject-specific criteria provided by the UKâs Curriculum Authority for identification and provision have been largely ignored. The process of identifying children to be placed on the âgifted and talentedâ register seems haphazard and based on pragmatic reasons. Analysis of teachersâ responses also revealed a range of views and theoretical positioning held by them, which have implications for classroom practice. As the âgifted and talentedâ initiative in the UK is entering a second decade, and yet more significant changes in policy are introduced, pertinent questions need to be raised and given consideration
Sleep diplomacy alone will widen sleep disparities - Authors' reply.
Timothy Daly argues that preexisting sleep disparities according to socioeconomic status will make behavioural approaches and lifestyle advice widen sleep disparities. Although we fully agree that strong public policy measures must be implemented to reduce socioeconomic status inequalities in brain health,1 and in particular those that might impact sleep problems, there is good evidence reporting the success of behavioural interventions to improve sleep conditions in different populations.2 Specific interventions have been proposed in lowsocioeconomic status populations, which should also be included in our sleep diplomacy3 category.Fil: Golombek, Diego Andres. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas; Argentina. Universidad de San AndrĂ©s; ArgentinaFil: Booi, Laura. Trinity College; Irlanda. Leeds Beckett University; Reino UnidoFil: Campbell, Dominic. Trinity College; IrlandaFil: Dawson, Walter D.. Trinity College; Irlanda. University of California; Estados Unidos. Global Brain Health Institute; Estados Unidos. Oregon Health and Science University; Estados Unidos. Portland State University; Estados UnidosFil: Eyre, Harris. University of California; Estados Unidos. Rice University; Estados UnidosFil: Lawlor, Brian. Trinity College; IrlandaFil: Ibañez, Agustin Mariano. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas; Argentina. Universidad de San AndrĂ©s; Argentina. Trinity College; Irlanda. University of California; Estados Unidos. Global Brain Health Institute; Estados Unidos. Universidad Adolfo Ibañez; Chil
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