Families’ roles in children’s literacy in the UK throughout the 20th century

This paper explores the changing roles of families in children’s developing literacy in the UK in the last century. It discusses how, during this time, understandings of reading and writing have evolved into the more nuanced notion of literacy. Further, in acknowledging changes in written communication practices, and shifting attitudes to reading and writ- ing, the paper sketches out how families have always played some part in the literacy of younger generations; though reading was frequently integral to the lives of many families throughout the past century, we consider in particular the more recent enhancement of children’s literacy through targeted family programmes. The paper considers policy implications for promoting young children’s literacy through work with families

A putative antiviral role of plant cytidine deaminases

[EN] Background: A mechanism of innate antiviral immunity operating against viruses infecting mammalian cells has been described during the last decade. Host cytidine deaminases (e.g., APOBEC3 proteins) edit viral genomes, giving rise to hypermutated nonfunctional viruses; consequently, viral fitness is reduced through lethal mutagenesis. By contrast, sub-lethal hypermutagenesis may contribute to virus evolvability by increasing population diversity. To prevent genome editing, some viruses have evolved proteins that mediate APOBEC3 degradation. The model plant Arabidopsis thaliana genome encodes nine cytidine deaminases (AtCDAs), raising the question of whether deamination is an antiviral mechanism in plants as well. Methods: Here we tested the effects of expression of AtCDAs on the pararetrovirus Cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV). Two different experiments were carried out. First, we transiently overexpressed each one of the nine A. thaliana AtCDA genes in Nicotiana bigelovii plants infected with CaMV, and characterized the resulting mutational spectra, comparing them with those generated under normal conditions. Secondly, we created A. thaliana transgenic plants expressing an artificial microRNA designed to knock-out the expression of up to six AtCDA genes. This and control plants were then infected with CaMV. Virus accumulation and mutational spectra where characterized in both types of plants. Results: We have shown that the A. thaliana AtCDA1 gene product exerts a mutagenic activity, significantly increasing the number of G to A mutations in vivo, with a concomitant reduction in the amount of CaMV genomes accumulated. Furthermore, the magnitude of this mutagenic effect on CaMV accumulation is positively correlated with the level of AtCDA1 mRNA expression in the plant. Conclusions: Our results suggest that deamination of viral genomes may also work as an antiviral mechanism in plants.This work was supported by the former Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación-FEDER grant BFU2009-06993 to SFE. JMC was supported by the CSIC JAE-doc program/Fondo Social Europeo. AG-P was supported by a grant for Scientific and Technical Activities and by grant P10-CVI-65651, both from Junta de Andalucía.Martín, S.; Cuevas, J.; Grande-Perez, A.; Elena Fito, SF. (2017). A putative antiviral role of plant cytidine deaminases. F1000Research. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.11111.2S11

Evaluation of appendicitis risk prediction models in adults with suspected appendicitis

Background Appendicitis is the most common general surgical emergency worldwide, but its diagnosis remains challenging. The aim of this study was to determine whether existing risk prediction models can reliably identify patients presenting to hospital in the UK with acute right iliac fossa (RIF) pain who are at low risk of appendicitis. Methods A systematic search was completed to identify all existing appendicitis risk prediction models. Models were validated using UK data from an international prospective cohort study that captured consecutive patients aged 16–45 years presenting to hospital with acute RIF in March to June 2017. The main outcome was best achievable model specificity (proportion of patients who did not have appendicitis correctly classified as low risk) whilst maintaining a failure rate below 5 per cent (proportion of patients identified as low risk who actually had appendicitis). Results Some 5345 patients across 154 UK hospitals were identified, of which two‐thirds (3613 of 5345, 67·6 per cent) were women. Women were more than twice as likely to undergo surgery with removal of a histologically normal appendix (272 of 964, 28·2 per cent) than men (120 of 993, 12·1 per cent) (relative risk 2·33, 95 per cent c.i. 1·92 to 2·84; P < 0·001). Of 15 validated risk prediction models, the Adult Appendicitis Score performed best (cut‐off score 8 or less, specificity 63·1 per cent, failure rate 3·7 per cent). The Appendicitis Inflammatory Response Score performed best for men (cut‐off score 2 or less, specificity 24·7 per cent, failure rate 2·4 per cent). Conclusion Women in the UK had a disproportionate risk of admission without surgical intervention and had high rates of normal appendicectomy. Risk prediction models to support shared decision‐making by identifying adults in the UK at low risk of appendicitis were identified

Progress report on manual soybean seeder (phase II), Dec. 1984-Apr. 1985

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