Correction to: Genetic characterization and expression analysis of wheat (\u3ci\u3eTriticum aestivum\u3c/i\u3e) line 07OR1074 exhibiting very low polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity

The above mentioned article was published in 2015 with an error in the naming of one of the allele sequences for the PPO gene on the D genome. The PPO-D1f allele was incorrectly named as it is identical to the PPO-D1c allele previously published in GenBank by the authors on March 11th, 2014. An alignment between the previously published PPOD1c allele and a resequencing of the parental line 07OR1074 shows that the PPO-D1f allele is identical to the PPO-D1c allele. The allele in the paper referred to as PPO-D1f should be treated as PPO-D1c and can be accessed at NCBI with the following GenBank ID

A national study of the association between traffic-related air pollution and adverse pregnancy outcomes in Canada, 1999–2008

AbstractNumerous studies have examined the association of air pollution with preterm birth and birth weight outcomes. Traffic-related air pollution has also increasingly been identified as an important contributor to adverse health effects of air pollution. We employed a national nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure model to examine the association between NO2 and pregnancy outcomes in Canada between 1999 and 2008. National models for NO2 (and particulate matter of median aerodynamic diameter <2.5µm (PM2.5) as a covariate) were developed using ground-based monitoring data, estimates from remote-sensing, land use variables and, for NO2, deterministic gradients relative to road traffic sources. Generalized estimating equations were used to examine associations with preterm birth, term low birth weight (LBW), small for gestational age (SGA) and term birth weight, adjusting for covariates including infant sex, gestational age, maternal age and marital status, parity, urban/rural place of residence, maternal place of birth, season, year of birth and neighbourhood socioeconomic status and per cent visible minority. Associations were reduced considerably after adjustment for individual covariates and neighbourhood per cent visible minority, but remained significant for SGA (odds ratio 1.04, 95%CI 1.02–1.06 per 20ppb NO2) and term birth weight (16.2g reduction, 95% CI 13.6–18.8g per 20ppb NO2). Associations with NO2 were of greater magnitude in a sensitivity analysis using monthly monitoring data, and among births to mothers born in Canada, and in neighbourhoods with higher incomes and a lower proportion of visible minorities. In two pollutant models, associations with NO2 were less sensitive to adjustment for PM2.5 than vice versa, and there was consistent evidence of a dose-response relationship for NO2 but not PM2.5. In this study of approximately 2.5 million Canadian births between 1999 and 2008, we found significant associations of NO2 with SGA and term birth weight which remained significant after adjustment for PM2.5, suggesting that traffic may be a particularly important source with respect to the role of air pollution as a risk factor for adverse pregnancy outcomes

Job Strain, Health and Sickness Absence: Results from the Hordaland Health Study

MW and SBH are funded by NSW Health. M. Henderson and M. Hotopf were supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. AM and SO were funded by the Norwegian Research Council

Interactional justice at work is related to sickness absence: a study using repeated measures in the Swedish working population

Background: Research has shown that perceived unfairness contributes to higher rates of sickness absence. While shorter, but more frequent periods of sickness absence might be a possibility for the individual to get relief from high strain, long-term sickness absence might be a sign of more serious health problems. The Uncertainty Management Model suggests that justice is particularly important in times of uncertainty, e.g. perceived job insecurity. The present study investigated the association between interpersonal and informational justice at work with long and frequent sickness absence respectively, under conditions of job insecurity. Methods: Data were derived from the 2010, 2012, and 2014 biennial waves of the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH). The final analytic sample consisted of 19,493 individuals. We applied repeated measures regression analyses through generalized estimating equations (GEE), a method for longitudinal data that simultaneously analyses variables at different time points. We calculated risk of long and frequent sickness absence, respectively in relation to interpersonal and informational justice taking perceptions of job insecurity into account. Results: We found informational and interpersonal justice to be associated with risk of long and frequent sickness absence independently of job insecurity and demographic variables. Results from autoregressive GEE provided some support for a causal relationship between justice perceptions and sickness absence. Contrary to expectations, we found no interaction between justice and job insecurity. Conclusions: Our results underline the need for fair and just treatment of employees irrespective of perceived job insecurity in order to keep the workforce healthy and to minimize lost work days due to sickness absence

Shift Work Disorder in Nurses – Assessment, Prevalence and Related Health Problems

BACKGROUND: This study investigates the prevalence of symptoms of shift work disorder in a sample of nurses, and its association to individual, health and work variables. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We investigated three different shift work disorder assessment procedures all based on current diagnostic criteria and employing symptom based questions. Crude and adjusted logistic regression analyses were performed with symptoms of shift work disorder as the dependent variable. Participants (n = 1968) reported age, gender, work schedule, commuting time, weekly work hours, children in household, number of nights and number of shifts separated by less than 11 hours worked the last year, use of bright light therapy, melatonin and sleep medication, and completed the Bergen Insomnia Scale, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Global Sleep Assessment Questionnaire, Diurnal Scale, Revised Circadian Type Inventory, Dispositional Resilience (Hardiness) Scale--Revised, Fatigue Questionnaire, questions about alcohol and caffeine consumption, as well as the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Prevalence rates of symptoms of shift work disorder varied from 32.4-37.6% depending on the assessment method and from 4.8-44.3% depending on the work schedule. Associations were found between symptoms of shift work disorder and age, gender, circadian type, night work, number of shifts separated by less than 11 hours and number of nights worked the last year, insomnia and anxiety. The different assessment procedures yielded similar results (prevalence and logistic regression analyses). The prevalence of symptoms indicative of shift work disorder was high. We argue that three symptom-based questions used in the present study adequately assess shift work disorder in epidemiological studies

Interdisciplinary-driven hypotheses on spatial associations of mixtures of industrial air pollutants with adverse birth outcomes

Background: Adverse birth outcomes (ABO) such as prematurity and small for gestational age confer a high risk of mortality and morbidity. ABO have been linked to air pollution; however, relationships with mixtures of industrial emissions are poorly understood. The exploration of relationships between ABO and mixtures is complex when hundreds of chemicals are analyzed simultaneously, requiring the use of novel approaches. Objective: We aimed to generate robust hypotheses spatially linking mixtures and the occurrence of ABO using a spatial data mining algorithm and subsequent geographical and statistical analysis. The spatial data mining approach aimed to reduce data dimensionality and efficiently identify spatial associations between multiple chemicals and ABO. Methods: We discovered co-location patterns of mixtures and ABO in Alberta, Canada (2006–2012). An ad-hoc spatial data mining algorithm allowed the extraction of primary co-location patterns of 136 chemicals released into the air by 6279 industrial facilities (National Pollutant Release Inventory), wind-patterns from 182 stations, and 333,247 singleton live births at the maternal postal code at delivery (Alberta Perinatal Health Program), from which we identified cases of preterm birth, small for gestational age, and low birth weight at term. We selected secondary patterns using a lift ratio metric from ABO and non-ABO impacted by the same mixture. The relevance of the secondary patterns was estimated using logistic models (adjusted by socioeconomic status and ABO-related maternal factors) and a geographic-based assignment of maternal exposure to the mixtures as calculated by kernel density. Results: From 136 chemicals and three ABO, spatial data mining identified 1700 primary patterns from which five secondary patterns of three-chemical mixtures, including particulate matter, methyl-ethyl-ketone, xylene, carbon monoxide, 2-butoxyethanol, and n-butyl alcohol, were subsequently analyzed. The significance of the associations (odds ratio > 1) between the five mixtures and ABO provided statistical support for a new set of hypotheses. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that, in complex research settings, spatial data mining followed by pattern selection and geographic and statistical analyses can catalyze future research on associations between air pollutant mixtures and adverse birth outcomes

Cesarean Section, Formula Feeding, and Infant Antibiotic Exposure: Separate and Combined Impacts on Gut Microbial Changes in Later Infancy

Established during infancy, our complex gut microbial community is shaped by medical interventions and societal preferences, such as cesarean section, formula feeding, and antibiotic use. We undertook this study to apply the significance analysis of microarrays (SAM) method to quantify changes in gut microbial composition during later infancy following the most common birth and postnatal exposures affecting infant gut microbial composition. Gut microbiota of 166 full-term infants in the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development birth cohort were profiled using 16S high-throughput gene sequencing. Infants were placed into groups according to mutually exclusive combinations of birth mode (vaginal/cesarean birth), breastfeeding status (yes/no), and antibiotic use (yes/no) by 3 months of age. Based on repeated permutations of data and adjustment for the false discovery rate, the SAM statistic identified statistically significant changes in gut microbial abundance between 3 months and 1 year of age within each infant group. We observed well-known patterns of microbial phyla succession in later infancy (declining Proteobacteria; increasing Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes) following vaginal birth, breastfeeding, and no antibiotic exposure. Genus Lactobacillus, Roseburia, and Faecalibacterium species appeared in the top 10 increases to microbial abundance in these infants. Deviations from this pattern were evident among infants with other perinatal co-exposures; notably, the largest number of microbial species with unchanged abundance was seen in gut microbiota following early cessation of breastfeeding in infants. With and without antibiotic exposure, the absence of a breast milk diet by 3 months of age following vaginal birth yielded a higher proportion of unchanged abundance of Bacteroidaceae and Enterobacteriaceae in later infancy, and a higher ratio of unchanged Enterobacteriaceae to Alcaligenaceae microbiota. Gut microbiota of infants born vaginally and exclusively formula fed became less enriched with family Veillonellaceae and Clostridiaceae, showed unchanging levels of Ruminococcaceae, and exhibited a greater decline in the Rikenellaceae/Bacteroidaceae ratio compared to their breastfed, vaginally delivered counterparts. These changes were also evident in cesarean-delivered infants to a lesser extent. The clinical relevance of these trajectories of microbial change is that they culminate in taxon-specific abundances in the gut microbiota of later infancy, which we and others have observed to be associated with food sensitization