Persistence of magnetic field driven by relativistic electrons in a plasma

The onset and evolution of magnetic fields in laboratory and astrophysical plasmas is determined by several mechanisms, including instabilities, dynamo effects and ultra-high energy particle flows through gas, plasma and interstellar-media. These processes are relevant over a wide range of conditions, from cosmic ray acceleration and gamma ray bursts to nuclear fusion in stars. The disparate temporal and spatial scales where each operates can be reconciled by scaling parameters that enable to recreate astrophysical conditions in the laboratory. Here we unveil a new mechanism by which the flow of ultra-energetic particles can strongly magnetize the boundary between the plasma and the non-ionized gas to magnetic fields up to 10-100 Tesla (micro Tesla in astrophysical conditions). The physics is observed from the first time-resolved large scale magnetic field measurements obtained in a laser wakefield accelerator. Particle-in-cell simulations capturing the global plasma and field dynamics over the full plasma length confirm the experimental measurements. These results open new paths for the exploration and modelling of ultra high energy particle driven magnetic field generation in the laboratory

Creating European guidelines for Chiropractic Incident Reporting and Learning Systems (CIRLS): relevance and structure

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In 2009, the heads of the Executive Council of the European Chiropractors' Union (ECU) and the European Academy of Chiropractic (EAC) involved in the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) process for the chiropractic profession, set out to establish European guidelines for the reporting of adverse reactions to chiropractic treatment. There were a number of reasons for this: first, to improve the overall quality of patient care by aiming to reduce the application of potentially harmful interventions and to facilitate the treatment of patients within the context of achieving maximum benefit with a minimum risk of harm; second, to inform the training objectives for the Graduate Education and Continuing Professional Development programmes of all 19 ECU member nations, regarding knowledge and skills to be acquired for maximising patient safety; and third, to develop a guideline on patient safety incident reporting as it is likely to be part of future CEN standards for ECU member nations.</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>To introduce patient safety incident reporting within the context of chiropractic practice in Europe and to help individual countries and their national professional associations to develop or improve reporting and learning systems.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Providing health care of any kind, including the provision of chiropractic treatment, can be a complex and, at times, a risky activity. Safety in healthcare cannot be guaranteed, it can only be improved. One of the most important aspects of any learning and reporting system lies in the appropriate use of the data and information it gathers. Reporting should not just be seen as a vehicle for obtaining information on patient safety issues, but also be utilised as a tool to facilitate learning, advance quality improvement and to ultimately minimise the rate of the occurrence of errors linked to patient care.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Before a reporting and learning system can be established it has to be clear what the objectives of the system are, what resources will be required and whether the implementing organisation has the capacity to operate the system to its full advantage. Responding to adverse event reports requires the availability of experts to analyse the incidents and to provide feedback in a timely fashion. A comprehensive strategy for national implementation must be in place including, but not limited to, presentations at national meetings, the provision of written information to all practitioners and the running of workshops, so that all stakeholders fully understand the purposes of adverse event reporting. Unless this is achieved, any system runs the risk of failure, or at the very least, limited usefulness.</p

Morbidly Obese Patients—Who Undergoes Bariatric Surgery?

Treatment seeking patients with severe obesity might choose between specialized medical treatment and surgical treatment. Knowledge of what distinguishes patients that choose either treatment is sparse, with greater understanding also needed on what consequences this choice has for the prevalence, remission and new onset of comorbidities, as well as for the bioavailability of drugs. This has prompted the studies in Gunn Signe Jakobsen and her coauthors work on treatment seeking patients with severe obesity focusing on the prevalence of comorbidities, changes in the use of drugs for hypertension, diabetes and dyslipidaemia, as well as changes in bioavailability of atorvastatin. The methods used in the studies in the thesis; "Bariatric surgery and specialized medical treatment for severe obesity Impact on cardiovascular risk factors and postsurgical pharmacokinetics of atorvastatin "; are a cross-sectional study, a registry based cohort study and a prospective pharmacokinetic study. The results of the studies presented were: - The type and number of comorbidities associated with morbid obesity did not necessarily impact upon choice of treatment, but there was an increased odds for choosing surgery for patients with higher BMI, younger age and earlier onset of obesity. - Patients opting for bariatric surgery as opposed to specialized medical treatment had higher odds of experiencing remission, and significantly lower odds for new-onset of drug treated hypertension, diabetes and dyslipidaemia. Bariatric surgery seemed to not only induce remission but was also effective in preventing disease. - The bioavailability of atorvastatin was increased after bariatric surgery, with a normalization in the long term. This knowledge can give a better understanding of the population of patients seeking treatment for severe obesity and should be included in the shared decision process when helping the patient identify their preferences for treatment of severe obesity in the context of their values

Swarming populations of Salmonella represent a unique physiological state coupled to multiple mechanisms of antibiotic resistance

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is capable of swarming over semi-solid surfaces. Although its swarming behavior shares many readily observable similarities with other swarming bacteria, the phenomenon remains somewhat of an enigma in this bacterium since some attributes skew away from the better characterized systems. Swarming is quite distinct from the classic swimming motility, as there is a prerequisite for cells to first undergo a morphological transformation into swarmer cells. In some organisms, swarming is controlled by quorum sensing, and in others, swarming has been shown to be coupled to increased expression of important virulence factors. Swarming in serovar Typhimurium is coupled to elevated resistance to a wide variety of structurally and functionally distinct classes of antimicrobial compounds. As serovar Typhimurium differentiates into swarm cells, the pmrHFIJKLM operon is up-regulated, resulting in a more positively charged LPS core. Furthermore, as swarm cells begin to de-differentiate, the pmr operon expression is down-regulated, rapidly reaching the levels observed in swim cells. This is one potential mechanism which confers swarm cells increased resistance to antibiotics such as the cationic antimicrobial peptides. However, additional mechanisms are likely associated with the cells in the swarm state that confer elevated resistance to such a broad spectrum of antimicrobial agents

Using shared needles for subcutaneous inoculation can transmit bluetongue virus mechanically between ruminant hosts

Bluetongue virus (BTV) is an economically important arbovirus of ruminants that is transmitted by Culicoides spp. biting midges. BTV infection of ruminants results in a high viraemia, suggesting that repeated sharing of needles between animals could result in its iatrogenic transmission. Studies defining the risk of iatrogenic transmission of blood-borne pathogens by less invasive routes, such as subcutaneous or intradermal inoculations are rare, even though the sharing of needles is common practice for these inoculation routes in the veterinary sector. Here we demonstrate that BTV can be transmitted by needle sharing during subcutaneous inoculation, despite the absence of visible blood contamination of the needles. The incubation period, measured from sharing of needles, to detection of BTV in the recipient sheep or cattle, was substantially longer than has previously been reported after experimental infection of ruminants by either direct inoculation of virus, or through blood feeding by infected Culicoides. Although such mechanical transmission is most likely rare under field condition, these results are likely to influence future advice given in relation to sharing needles during veterinary vaccination campaigns and will also be of interest for the public health sector considering the risk of pathogen transmission during subcutaneous inoculations with re-used needles

Gait in Mild Alzheimer’s Disease: Feasibility of Multi-Center Measurement in the Clinic and Home with Body-Worn Sensors: A Pilot Study

Gait is emerging as a potential diagnostic tool for cognitive decline. The ‘Deep and Frequent Phenotyping for Experimental Medicine in Dementia Study’ (D&FP) is a multicenter feasibility study embedded in the United Kingdom Dementia Platform designed to determine participant acceptability and feasibility of extensive and repeated phenotyping to determine the optimal combination of biomarkers to detect disease progression and identify early risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Gait is included as a clinical biomarker. The tools to quantify gait in the clinic and home, and suitability for multi-center application have not been examined. Six centers from the National Institute for Health Research Translational Research Collaboration in Dementia initiative recruited 20 individuals with early onset AD. Participants wore a single wearable (tri-axial accelerometer) and completed both clinic-based and free-living gait assessment. A series of macro (behavioral) and micro (spatiotemporal) characteristics were derived from the resultant data using previously validated algorithms. Results indicate good participant acceptability, and potential for use of body-worn sensors in both the clinic and the home. Recommendations for future studies have been provided. Gait has been demonstrated to be a feasible and suitable measure, and future research should examine its suitability as a biomarker in AD

Correction: Gait in Mild Alzheimer's Disease: Feasibility of Multi-Center Measurement in the Clinic and Home with Body-Worn Sensors: A Pilot Study (vol 63, pg 331, 2018)

Ríona Mc Ardle, Rosie Morrisa, Aodhán Hickey, Silvia Del Din, Ivan Koychev, Roger N. Gunn, Jennifer Lawson, Giovanna Zamboni, Basil Ridha, Barbara J. Sahakian, James B. Rowe, Alan Thomas, Henrik Zetterberg, Clare MacKay, Simon Lovestone and Lynn Rochester, on behalf of the Deep and Frequent Phenotyping study team [Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease 63(1), 2018, 331-341, DOI 10.3233/JAD-171116] https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-disease/jad171116 On page 334, in figure 1(e), the term “micro gait” appears on the left hand side as well as on the right hand side. On the right hand side, however, it should read “macro gait”

The Evolution of Compact Binary Star Systems

We review the formation and evolution of compact binary stars consisting of white dwarfs (WDs), neutron stars (NSs), and black holes (BHs). Binary NSs and BHs are thought to be the primary astrophysical sources of gravitational waves (GWs) within the frequency band of ground-based detectors, while compact binaries of WDs are important sources of GWs at lower frequencies to be covered by space interferometers (LISA). Major uncertainties in the current understanding of properties of NSs and BHs most relevant to the GW studies are discussed, including the treatment of the natal kicks which compact stellar remnants acquire during the core collapse of massive stars and the common envelope phase of binary evolution. We discuss the coalescence rates of binary NSs and BHs and prospects for their detections, the formation and evolution of binary WDs and their observational manifestations. Special attention is given to AM CVn-stars -- compact binaries in which the Roche lobe is filled by another WD or a low-mass partially degenerate helium-star, as these stars are thought to be the best LISA verification binary GW sources.Comment: 105 pages, 18 figure

Common risk factor approach to address socioeconomic inequality in the oral health of preschool children – a prospective cohort study

Background: Dental caries remains the most prevalent chronic condition in children and a major contributor to poor general health. There is ample evidence of a skewed distribution of oral health, with a small proportion of children in the population bearing the majority of the burden of the disease. This minority group is comprised disproportionately of socioeconomically disadvantaged children. An in-depth longitudinal study is needed to better understand the determinants of child oral health, in order to support effective evidence-based policies and interventions in improving child oral health. The aim of the Study of Mothers’ and Infants’ Life Events Affecting Oral Health (SMILE) project is to identify and evaluate the relative importance and timing of critical factors that shape the oral health of young children and then to seek to evaluate those factors in their inter-relationship with socioeconomic influences.Methods/Design: This investigation will apply an observational prospective study design to a cohort ofsocioeconomically-diverse South Australian newborns and their mothers, intensively following these dyads as the children grow to toddler age. Mothers of newborn children will be invited to participate in the study in the early post-partum period. At enrolment, data will be collected on parental socioeconomic status, mothers’ general and dental health conditions, details of the pregnancy, infant feeding practice and parental health behaviours and practices. Data on diet and feeding practices, oral health behaviours and practices, and dental visiting patterns will be collected at 3, 6, 12 and 24 months of age. When children turn 24-30 months, the children and their mothers/primary care givers will be invited to an oral examination to record oral health status. Anthropometric assessment will also be conducted.Discussion: This prospective cohort study will examine a wide range of determinants influencing child oral health and related general conditions such as overweight. It will lead to the evaluation of the inter-relationship among main influences and their relative effect on child oral health. The study findings will provide high level evidence of pathways through which socio-environmental factors impact child oral health. It will also provide an opportunity to examine the relationship between oral health and childhood overweight.Discussion: This prospective cohort study will examine a wide range of determinants influencing child oral health and related general conditions such as overweight. It will lead to the evaluation of the inter-relationship among main influences and their relative effect on child oral health. The study findings will provide high level evidence of pathways through which socio-environmental factors impact child oral health. It will also provide an to examine the relationship between oral health and childhood overweight