A Bibliometric Analysis of Opioid Publications at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Introduction: With the increasing severity of the opioid epidemic in America, there has been an increase in publications addressing this urgent issue. However, no systematic analysis has been performed to identify who the main researchers are, where these studies are the published, and what topics are they publishing on. Objectives: This study conducted a bibliometric analysis on opioid-related research publications produced at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC-CH).Methods: Bibliometric methods were used to reveal the research productivity within opioid research at UNC-CH. Organizational and country collaboration networks were generated to show the collaborated working with UNC-CH researchers. The topic analysis illustrated the range in topics over the past 20 years.Results: The results demonstrate that there has been a shift in topics over the past 20 years as well as the increase in collaboration with other academic research institutions.Master of Science in Information Scienc

Experiential Learning: Voices of Librarians-to-Be

Academic libraries, and particularly specialized ones, often can provide a broad range of career-building opportunities to those thinking about or in the process of becoming librarians. Participants in a variety of experiences at one of UNC’s specialized libraries have ranged from teens to graduate students to recent graduates transitioning to new careers in libraries. Hear several current and recent librarians-to-be discuss their efforts to acquire hands-on practical skills, learn more about the field of librarianship, receive mentoring and career planning assistance, and participate in library meetings, events and other professional activities inside and outside of the library. Challenges include matching potential candidates with appropriate experiential opportunities tailored to their needs, while meeting Human Resources requirements and ensuring students enrolled for credit satisfy the expectations of their specific institutions and programs. To further aid in making career resources more accessible to fledgling professionals, the library also created an online guide

Report of the Workshop Evaluating the Nature of Midwater Mining Plumes and Their Potential Effects on Midwater Ecosystems

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is developing regulations to control the future exploitation of deep-sea mineral resources including sulphide deposits near hydrothermal vents, polymetallic nodules on the abyssal seafloor, and cobalt crusts on seamounts. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea the ISA is required to adopt are taking measures to ensure the effective protection of the marine environment from harmful effects arising from mining-related activities. Contractors are required to generate environmental baselines and assess the potential environmental consequences of deep seafloor mining. Understandably, nearly all environmental research has focused on the seafloor where the most direct mining effects will occur. However, sediment plumes and other impacts (e.g., noise) from seafloor mining are likely to be extensive in the water column. Sediment plumes created on the seafloor will affect the benthic boundary layer which extends 10s to 100s of meters above the seafloor. Separation or dewatering of ore from sediment and seawater aboard ships will require discharge of a dewatering plume at some depth in the water column. It is important to consider the potential impacts of mining on the ocean’s midwaters (depths from ~200 m to the seafloor) because they provide vital ecosystem services and harbor substantial biodiversity. The better known epipelagic or sunlit surface ocean provisions the rest of the water column through primary production and export flux (This was not the focus at this workshop as the subject was considered too large and surface discharges are unlikely). It is also home to a diverse community of organisms including commercially important fishes such as tunas, billfish, and cephalopods that contribute to the economies of many countries. The mesopelagic or twilight zone (200-1000 m) is dimly lit and home to very diverse and abundant communities of organisms. Mesopelagic plankton and small nekton form the forage base for many deep-diving marine mammals and commercially harvested epipelagic species. Furthermore, detritus from the epipelagic zone falls through the mesopelagic where it is either recycled, providing the vital process of nutrient regeneration, or sinks to greater depths sequestering carbon from short-term atmospheric cycles. The waters below the mesopelagic down to the seafloor (both the bathypelagic and abyssopelagic) are very poorly characterized but are likely large reservoirs of novel biodiversity and link the surface and benthic ecosystems. Great strides have been made in understanding the biodiversity and ecosystem function of the ocean’s midwaters, but large regions, including those containing many exploration license areas and the greater depths where mining plumes will occur, remain very poorly studied. It is clear that pelagic communities are distinct from those on the seafloor and in the benthic boundary layer. They are often sampled with different instrumentation. The fauna have relatively large biogeographic ranges and they are more apt to mix freely across stakeholder boundaries, reference areas and other spatial management zones. Pelagic organisms live in a three-dimensional habitat and their food webs and populations are vertically connected by daily or lifetime migrations and the sinking flux of detritus from the epipelagic. The fauna do not normally encounter hard surfaces, making them fragile, and difficult to capture and maintain for sensitivity or toxicity studies. Despite some existing general knowledge, ecological baselines for midwater communities and ecosystems that likely will be impacted by mining have not been documented. There is an urgent need to conduct more research and evaluate the midwater biota (microbes to fishes) in regions where mining is likely to occur. Deep-sea mining activities may affect midwater organisms in a number of ways, but it is still unclear at what scale perturbations may occur. The sediment plumes both from collectors on the seafloor and from midwater discharge will have a host of negative consequences. They may cause respiratory distress from clogged gills or respiratory surfaces. Suspension feeders, such as copepods, polychaetes, salps, and appendicularians, that filter small particles from the water and form an important basal group of the food web, may suffer from dilution of their food by inorganic sediments and/or clogging of their fragile mucous filter nets. Small particles may settle on gelatinous plankton causing buoyancy issues. Metals, including toxic elements that will enter the food web, will be released from pore waters and crushed ore materials. Sediment plumes will also absorb light and change backscatter properties, reducing visual communication and bioluminescent signaling that are very important for prey capture and reproduction in midwater animals. Noise from mining activities may alter the behaviors of marine mammals and other animals. Small particles have high surface area to volume ratios, high pelagic persistence and dispersal and as a result greater potential to result in pelagic impacts. All of these potential effects will result in mortality, migration (both horizontal and vertical), decreased fitness, and shifts in community composition. Depending on the scale and duration of these effects, there could be reduction in provisioning to commercial fish species, delivery of toxic metals to pelagic food webs and hence human seafood supply, and alterations to carbon transport and nutrient regeneration services. After four days of presentations and discussions, the workshop participants came to several conclusions and synthesized recommendations. 1. Assuming no discharge in the epipelagic zone, it is essential to minimize mining effects in the mesopelagic zone because of links to our human seafood supply as well as other ecosystem services provided by the mesopelagic fauna. This minimization could be accomplished by delivering dewatering discharge well below the mesopelagic/bathypelagic transition (below ~1000 m depth). 2. Research should be promoted by the ISA and other bodies to study the bathypelagic and abyssopelagic zones (from ~1000 m depths to just above the seafloor). It is likely that both collector plumes and dewatering plumes will be created in the bathypelagic, yet this zone is extremely understudied and contains major unknowns for evaluating mining impacts. 3. Management objectives, regulations and management actions need to prevent the creation of a persistent regional scale “haze” (enhanced suspended particle concentrations) in pelagic midwaters. Such a haze would very likely cause chronic harm to deep midwater ecosystem biodiversity, structure and function. 4. Effort is needed to craft suitable standards, thresholds, and indicators of harmful environmental effects that are appropriate to pelagic ecosystems. In particular, suspension feeders are very important ecologically and are likely to be very sensitive to sediment plumes. They are a high priority for study. 5. Particularly noisy mining activities such as ore grinding at seamounts and hydrothermal vents is of concern to deep diving marine mammals and other species. One way to minimize sound impacts would be to minimize activities in the sound-fixing-and-ranging (SOFAR) channel (typically at depths of ~1000 m) which transmits sounds over very long distances. 6. A Lagrangian (drifting) perspective is needed in monitoring and management because the pelagic ecosystem is not a fixed habitat and mining effects are likely to cross spatial management boundaries. For example, potential broad-scale impacts to pelagic ecosystems should be considered in the deliberations over preservation reference zones, the choice of stations for environmental baseline and monitoring studies and other area-based management and conservation measures. 7. Much more modeling and empirical study of realistic mining sediment plumes is needed. Plume models will help evaluate the spatial and temporal extent of pelagic (as well as benthic) ecosystem effects and help to assess risks from different technologies and mining scenarios. Plume modeling should include realistic mining scenarios (including duration) and assess the spatial-temporal scales over which particle concentrations exceed baseline levels and interfere with light transmission to elucidate potential stresses on communities and ecosystem services. Models should include both near and far field-phases, incorporating realistic near field parameters of plume generation, flocculation, particle sinking, and other processes. It is important to note that some inputs to these models such as physical oceanographic parameters are lacking and should be acquired in the near-term. Plume models need to be complemented by studies to understand effects on biological components by certain particle sizes and concentrations

Immunological correlates of protection afforded by PHV02 live, attenuated recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus vector vaccine against Nipah virus disease

IntroductionImmune correlates of protection afforded by PHV02, a recombinant vesicular stomatitis (rVSV) vector vaccine against Nipah virus (NiV) disease, were investigated in the African green monkey (AGM) model. Neutralizing antibody to NiV has been proposed as the principal mediator of protection against future NiV infection.MethodsTwo approaches were used to determine the correlation between neutralizing antibody levels and outcomes following a severe (1,000 median lethal doses) intranasal/intratracheal (IN/IT) challenge with NiV (Bangladesh): (1) reduction in vaccine dose given 28 days before challenge and (2) challenge during the early phase of the antibody response to the vaccine.ResultsReduction in vaccine dose to very low levels led to primary vaccine failure rather than a sub-protective level of antibody. All AGMs vaccinated with the nominal clinical dose (2 × 107 pfu) at 21, 14, or 7 days before challenge survived. AGMs vaccinated at 21 days before challenge had neutralizing antibodies (geometric mean titer, 71.3). AGMs vaccinated at 7 or 14 days before challenge had either undetectable or low neutralizing antibody titers pre-challenge but had a rapid rise in titers after challenge that abrogated the NiV infection. A simple logistic regression model of the combined studies was used, in which the sole explanatory variable was pre-challenge neutralizing antibody titers. For a pre-challenge titer of 1:5, the predicted survival probability is 100%. The majority of animals with pre-challenge neutralizing titer of ≥1:20 were protected against pulmonary infiltrates on thoracic radiograms, and a majority of those with titers ≥1:40 were protected against clinical signs of illness and against a ≥fourfold antibody increase following challenge (indicating sterile immunity). Controls receiving rVSV-Ebola vaccine rapidly succumbed to NiV challenge, eliminating the innate immunity stimulated by the rVSV vector as a contributor to survival in monkeys challenged as early as 7 days after vaccination.Discussion and conclusionIt was concluded that PHV02 vaccine elicited a rapid onset of protection and that any detectable level of neutralizing antibody was a functional immune correlate of survival

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Global age-sex-specific fertility, mortality, healthy life expectancy (HALE), and population estimates in 204 countries and territories, 1950-2019 : a comprehensive demographic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: Accurate and up-to-date assessment of demographic metrics is crucial for understanding a wide range of social, economic, and public health issues that affect populations worldwide. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 produced updated and comprehensive demographic assessments of the key indicators of fertility, mortality, migration, and population for 204 countries and territories and selected subnational locations from 1950 to 2019. Methods: 8078 country-years of vital registration and sample registration data, 938 surveys, 349 censuses, and 238 other sources were identified and used to estimate age-specific fertility. Spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression (ST-GPR) was used to generate age-specific fertility rates for 5-year age groups between ages 15 and 49 years. With extensions to age groups 10–14 and 50–54 years, the total fertility rate (TFR) was then aggregated using the estimated age-specific fertility between ages 10 and 54 years. 7417 sources were used for under-5 mortality estimation and 7355 for adult mortality. ST-GPR was used to synthesise data sources after correction for known biases. Adult mortality was measured as the probability of death between ages 15 and 60 years based on vital registration, sample registration, and sibling histories, and was also estimated using ST-GPR. HIV-free life tables were then estimated using estimates of under-5 and adult mortality rates using a relational model life table system created for GBD, which closely tracks observed age-specific mortality rates from complete vital registration when available. Independent estimates of HIV-specific mortality generated by an epidemiological analysis of HIV prevalence surveys and antenatal clinic serosurveillance and other sources were incorporated into the estimates in countries with large epidemics. Annual and single-year age estimates of net migration and population for each country and territory were generated using a Bayesian hierarchical cohort component model that analysed estimated age-specific fertility and mortality rates along with 1250 censuses and 747 population registry years. We classified location-years into seven categories on the basis of the natural rate of increase in population (calculated by subtracting the crude death rate from the crude birth rate) and the net migration rate. We computed healthy life expectancy (HALE) using years lived with disability (YLDs) per capita, life tables, and standard demographic methods. Uncertainty was propagated throughout the demographic estimation process, including fertility, mortality, and population, with 1000 draw-level estimates produced for each metric. Findings: The global TFR decreased from 2·72 (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 2·66–2·79) in 2000 to 2·31 (2·17–2·46) in 2019. Global annual livebirths increased from 134·5 million (131·5–137·8) in 2000 to a peak of 139·6 million (133·0–146·9) in 2016. Global livebirths then declined to 135·3 million (127·2–144·1) in 2019. Of the 204 countries and territories included in this study, in 2019, 102 had a TFR lower than 2·1, which is considered a good approximation of replacement-level fertility. All countries in sub-Saharan Africa had TFRs above replacement level in 2019 and accounted for 27·1% (95% UI 26·4–27·8) of global livebirths. Global life expectancy at birth increased from 67·2 years (95% UI 66·8–67·6) in 2000 to 73·5 years (72·8–74·3) in 2019. The total number of deaths increased from 50·7 million (49·5–51·9) in 2000 to 56·5 million (53·7–59·2) in 2019. Under-5 deaths declined from 9·6 million (9·1–10·3) in 2000 to 5·0 million (4·3–6·0) in 2019. Global population increased by 25·7%, from 6·2 billion (6·0–6·3) in 2000 to 7·7 billion (7·5–8·0) in 2019. In 2019, 34 countries had negative natural rates of increase; in 17 of these, the population declined because immigration was not sufficient to counteract the negative rate of decline. Globally, HALE increased from 58·6 years (56·1–60·8) in 2000 to 63·5 years (60·8–66·1) in 2019. HALE increased in 202 of 204 countries and territories between 2000 and 2019

Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) Conference and Expo

Meeting Abstracts: Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) Conference and Expo Clearwater Beach, FL, USA. 9-11 June 201