The health status of Irish honeybee colonies in 2006

peer-reviewedThis study assessed the health status of Irish honeybee colonies and provides a snapshot of the incidence of a number of important colony parasites/pathogens including: the mite Varroa destructor; three associated viruses (deformed wing virus (DWV), acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV) and Kashmir virus (KBV)); the tracheal mite Acarapis woodi; the microsporidian Nosema spp., and the insect Braula coeca. During June/July 2006, 135 samples of adult bees were collected from productive colonies throughout Ireland and standard techniques were used to determine the presence and absence of the parasites and pathogens. Varroa destructor was positively identified in 72.6% of the samples and was widely distributed. Although the samples were analysed for three viruses, DWV, ABPV and KBV, only DWV was detected (frequency = 12.5%). Acarapis woodi and Nosema spp. occurred in approximately 11% and 22% of the samples, respectively, while B. coeca, a wingless dipteran that was once common in Irish honeybee colonies, was very rare (3.7%). Samples where all the pathogens/parasites were jointly absent were statistically under-represented in Leinster and DWV was statistically over-represented in Munster. In Ulster, there was over-representation of the categories where all parasites/pathogens were jointly absent and for A. woodi, and underrepresentation of V. destructor.The project was funded by EU FEOGA and the National Apiculture Programme 2007–2010 of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Health System Performance for the High-Need Patient: A Look at Access to Care and Patient Care Experiences

Achieving a high-performing health system will require improving outcomes and reducing costs for high-need, high-cost patients—those who use the most health care services and account for a disproportionately large share of health care spending. Goal: To compare the health care experiences of adults with high needs—those with three or more chronic diseases and a functional limitation in the ability to care for themselves or perform routine daily tasks—to all adults and to those with multiple chronic diseases but no functional limitations. Methods: Analysis of data from the 2009–2011 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Key findings: High-need adults were more likely to report having an unmet medical need and less likely to report having good patient–provider communication. High-need adults reported roughly similar ease of obtaining specialist referrals as other adults and greater likelihood of having a medical home. While adults with private health insurance reported the fewest unmet needs overall, privately insured highneed adults reported the greatest difficulties having their needs met. Conclusion: The health care system needs to work better for the highest-need, most-complex patients. This study's findings highlight the importance of tailoring interventions to address their need

Environmental factors influence both abundance and genetic diversity in a widespread bird species.

Genetic diversity is one of the key evolutionary variables that correlate with population size, being of critical importance for population viability and the persistence of species. Genetic diversity can also have important ecological consequences within populations, and in turn, ecological factors may drive patterns of genetic diversity. However, the relationship between the genetic diversity of a population and how this interacts with ecological processes has so far only been investigated in a few studies. Here, we investigate the link between ecological factors, local population size, and allelic diversity, using a field study of a common bird species, the house sparrow (Passer domesticus). We studied sparrows outside the breeding season in a confined small valley dominated by dispersed farms and small-scale agriculture in southern France. Population surveys at 36 locations revealed that sparrows were more abundant in locations with high food availability. We then captured and genotyped 891 house sparrows at 10 microsatellite loci from a subset of these locations (N = 12). Population genetic analyses revealed weak genetic structure, where each locality represented a distinct substructure within the study area. We found that food availability was the main factor among others tested to influence the genetic structure between locations. These results suggest that ecological factors can have strong impacts on both population size per se and intrapopulation genetic variation even at a small scale. On a more general level, our data indicate that a patchy environment and low dispersal rate can result in fine-scale patterns of genetic diversity. Given the importance of genetic diversity for population viability, combining ecological and genetic data can help to identify factors limiting population size and determine the conservation potential of populations

Optical BCS conductivity at imaginary frequencies and dispersion energies of superconductors

We present an efficient expression for the analytic continuation to arbitrary complex frequencies of the complex optical and AC conductivity of a homogeneous superconductor with arbitrary mean free path. Knowledge of this quantity is fundamental in the calculation of thermodynamic potentials and dispersion energies involving type-I superconducting bodies. When considered for imaginary frequencies, our formula evaluates faster than previous schemes involving Kramers--Kronig transforms. A number of applications illustrates its efficiency: a simplified low-frequency expansion of the conductivity, the electromagnetic bulk self-energy due to longitudinal plasma oscillations, and the Casimir free energy of a superconducting cavity.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, calculation of Casimir energy adde

Language Complexity, Belief-consistency and the Evaluation of Policies

Policy proposals often contain complex legal, technical, or scientific jargon, making it difficult for people to evaluate their favorability toward the policy. We proposed one experiment testing the effect of language complexity on people’s evaluation of a policy proposal as moderated by their initial policy beliefs. We hypothesized that when a policy was consistent with one’s beliefs or if participants had no policy preference, they would evaluate it more favorably when it was simple than when it was complex; when a policy was inconsistent with one’s beliefs, they would evaluate it less unfavorably when it was complex than when it was simple. Results confirmed our hypotheses. This demonstrates that complex information does not always make people judge policies more negatively but rather cause people to weigh complex information less heavily in their judgments

Twenty eight years of ICP Vegetation: an overview of its activities

Here we look back at the activities and achievements in the 28 years of the International Cooperative Programme on the Effects of Air Pollution on Natural Vegetation and Crops (ICP Vegetation). The ICP Vegetation is a subsidiary body of the Working Group on Effects of the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LTRAP), established in 1979. An important role of the ICP Vegetation is to provide evidence for air pollution impacts on vegetation in support of policy development and review of the LRTAP Convention and its Protocols. The activities and participation in the ICP Vegetation have grown over the years. The main activities include: • Collate evidence of ozone impacts on vegetation, assess spatial patterns and temporal trends across Europe; • Develop dose-response relationships, establish critical levels for vegetation and provide European risk maps of ozone impacts; • Reviewing the literature on ozone impacts on vegetation and produce thematic scientific reports and policy-relevant brochures; • Determine spatial patterns and temporal trends of heavy metals, nitrogen and persistent organic pollutants concentrations in mosses as a biomonitoring tool of atmospheric deposition of these compounds

Fluorescent Silicon Clusters and Nanoparticles

The fluorescence of silicon clusters is reviewed. Atomic clusters of silicon have been at the focus of research for several decades because of the relevance of size effects for material properties, the importance of silicon in electronics and the potential applications in bio-medicine. To date numerous examples of nanostructured forms of fluorescent silicon have been reported. This article introduces the principles and underlying concepts relevant for fluorescence of nanostructured silicon such as excitation, energy relaxation, radiative and non-radiative decay pathways and surface passivation. Experimental methods for the production of silicon clusters are presented. The geometric and electronic properties are reviewed and the implications for the ability to emit fluorescence are discussed. Free and pure silicon clusters produced in molecular beams appear to have properties that are unfavourable for light emission. However, when passivated or embedded in a suitable host, they may emit fluorescence. The current available data show that both quantum confinement and localised transitions, often at the surface, are responsible for fluorescence. By building silicon clusters atom by atom, and by embedding them in shells atom by atom, new insights into the microscopic origins of fluorescence from nanoscale silicon can be expected.Comment: 5 figures, chapter in "Silicon Nanomaterials Sourcebook", editor Klaus D. Sattler, CRC Press, August 201

Application of novel image base estimation of invisible leaf injuries in relation to morphological and photosynthetic changes of Phaseolus vulgaris L. exposed to tropospheric ozone

This study aimed to evaluate the degree of Phaseolus vulgaris L. (bean) leaf tissue injury caused by tropospheric ozone. To validate O3 symptoms at the microscopic level, Evans blue staining together with an image processing method for the removal of distortions and calculation of dead leaf areas was applied. Net photosynthetic rate (PN), stomatal conductance (gs) and intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci) were determined to evaluate leaf physiological responses to ozone. It was found that both resistant and sensitive varieties of bean were damaged by ozone; however, the size of necrotic and partially destroyed leaf area in the sensitive genotype (S156) was bigger (1.18%, 2.18%) than in the resistant genotype (R123), i.e. 0.02% and 0.50%. Values of net photosynthetic rates were lower in the sensitive genotype in ambient air conditions, than in the resistant genotype in ambient air conditions. We further found that there was a correlation between physiological and anatomical injuries; net photosynthetic rate (PN) was negatively correlated with percentage of necrotic area of both genotypes, while stomatal conductance (gs), intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci) were positively correlated with percentage of necrotic tissue of both genotypes. Moreover, visible injures in both genotypes were positively correlated with percentage of anatomical injures. In conclusion, the presented combinations of morphological, anatomical and physiological markers allowed differential diagnosis of ozone injury

Preparation of High-quality Hematoxylin and Eosin–stained Sections from Rodent Mammary Gland Whole Mounts for Histopathologic Review

Identifying environmental exposures that cause adverse mammary gland outcomes in rodents is a first step in disease prevention in humans and domestic pets. ‘Whole mounts’ are an easy and inexpensive tissue preparation method that can elucidate typical or abnormal mammary gland morphology in rodent studies. Here we propose procedures to facilitate the use of whole mounts for histological identification of grossly noted tissue alterations. We noted lesions in mammary whole mounts from 14 month old CD-1 mice that were not found in the contralateral gland hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained section. Whole mounts were removed from the slide and carefully processed to produce high quality histological sections that mirrored the quality of the original H&E-stained section in order to properly diagnose the unidentified gross abnormalities. Incorporation of this method into testing protocols which focus on low-dose human relevant chemicals and endocrine disruptors will increase the chances of identifying lesions in the gland and reduce the risk of false negative findings. This method can be especially invaluable when lesions are not always palpable during the course of the study or visible at necropsy, or when a single cross-section of the mammary gland is otherwise used for detecting lesions