Pulmonary Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare is the main driver of the rise in non-tuberculous mycobacteria incidence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 2007–2012

BACKGROUND: The incidence of non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) isolation from humans is increasing worldwide. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland (EW&NI) the reported rate of NTM more than doubled between 1996 and 2006. Although NTM infection has traditionally been associated with immunosuppressed individuals or those with severe underlying lung damage, pulmonary NTM infection and disease may occur in people with no overt immune deficiency. Here we report the incidence of NTM isolation in EW&NI between 2007 and 2012 from both pulmonary and extra-pulmonary samples obtained at a population level. METHODS: All individuals with culture positive NTM isolates between 2007 and 2012 reported to Public Health England by the five mycobacterial reference laboratories serving EW&NI were included. RESULTS: Between 2007 and 2012, 21,118 individuals had NTM culture positive isolates. Over the study period the incidence rose from 5.6/100,000 in 2007 to 7.6/100,000 in 2012 (p < 0.001). Of those with a known specimen type, 90 % were pulmonary, in whom incidence increased from 4.0/100,000 to 6.1/100,000 (p < 0.001). In extra-pulmonary specimens this fell from 0.6/100,000 to 0.4/100,000 (p < 0.001). The most frequently cultured organisms from individuals with pulmonary isolates were within the M. avium-intracellulare complex family (MAC). The incidence of pulmonary MAC increased from 1.3/100,000 to 2.2/100,000 (p < 0.001). The majority of these individuals were over 60 years old. CONCLUSION: Using a population-based approach, we find that the incidence of NTM has continued to rise since the last national analysis. Overall, this represents an almost ten-fold increase since 1995. Pulmonary MAC in older individuals is responsible for the majority of this change. We are limited to reporting NTM isolates and not clinical disease caused by these organisms. To determine whether the burden of NTM disease is genuinely increasing, a standardised approach to the collection of linked national microbiological and clinical data is required

Controllable synthesis of molybdenum tungsten disulfide alloy for vertically composition-controlled multilayer

The effective synthesis of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides alloy is essential for successful application in electronic and optical devices based on a tunable band gap. Here we show a synthesis process for Mo&lt;inf&gt;1-x&lt;/inf&gt;W&lt;inf&gt;x&lt;/inf&gt;S&lt;inf&gt;2&lt;/inf&gt; alloy using sulfurization of super-cycle atomic layer deposition Mo&lt;inf&gt;1-x&lt;/inf&gt;W&lt;inf&gt;x&lt;/inf&gt;O&lt;inf&gt;y&lt;/inf&gt;. Various spectroscopic and microscopic results indicate that the synthesized Mo&lt;inf&gt;1-x&lt;/inf&gt;W&lt;inf&gt;x&lt;/inf&gt;S&lt;inf&gt;2&lt;/inf&gt; alloys have complete mixing of Mo and Watoms and tunable band gap by systematically controlled composition and layer number. Based on this, we synthesize a vertically composition-controlled (VCC) Mo&lt;inf&gt;1-x&lt;/inf&gt;W&lt;inf&gt;x&lt;/inf&gt;S&lt;inf&gt;2&lt;/inf&gt; multilayer using five continuous super-cycles with different cycle ratios for each super-cycle. Angle-resolved X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, Raman and ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometer results reveal that a VCC Mo&lt;inf&gt;1-x&lt;/inf&gt;W&lt;inf&gt;x&lt;/inf&gt;S&lt;inf&gt;2&lt;/inf&gt; multilayer has different vertical composition and broadband light absorption with strong interlayer coupling within a VCC Mo&lt;inf&gt;1-x&lt;/inf&gt;W&lt;inf&gt;x&lt;/inf&gt;S&lt;inf&gt;2&lt;/inf&gt; multilayer. Further, we demonstrate that a VCC Mo&lt;inf&gt;1-x&lt;/inf&gt;W&lt;inf&gt;x&lt;/inf&gt;S&lt;inf&gt;2&lt;/inf&gt; multilayer photodetector generates three to four times greater photocurrent than MoS&lt;inf&gt;2&lt;/inf&gt;-and WS&lt;inf&gt;2&lt;/inf&gt;-based devices, owing to the broadband light absorption. &amp;#169; 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limitedopen1

Exciton dynamics in atomically thin MoS2: Interexcitonic interaction and broadening kinetics

We report ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy examining exciton dynamics in atomically thin MoS2. Spectrally and temporally resolved measurements are performed to investigate the interaction dynamics of two important direct-gap excitons (A and B) and their associated broadening kinetics. The two excitons show strongly correlated interexcitonic dynamic, in which the transient blue-shifted excitonic absorption originates from the internal A-B excitonic interaction. The observed complex spectral response is determined by the exciton collision-induced linewidth broadening; the broadening of the B-exciton linewidth in turn lowers the peak spectral amplitude of the A exciton. Resonant excitation at the B-exciton energy reveals that interexcitonic scattering plays a more important role in determining the broadening kinetics than free-carrier scattering.Keywords: Relaxation, Monolayer MoS[subscript 2], Blue shift, Semiconductor, Transient absorption spectra, Layer, Femtosecond, Photoexcited carriers, Regenerative amplifier, Quantum well structur

Is ambient air pollution another risk factor of tuberculosis?

Despite rapid economic development, the prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) is still high in South Korea. The TB prevalence and mortality rates in South Korea are the highest among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations To control TB, it is important to manage risk factors, which can be classified as factors related to the index case and to the individual. Factors related to the index case include bacillary load and proximity to an infectious case. Other factors are immunosuppressed conditions, such as human immunodeficiency virus coinfection, immune-mediated inflammatory disorders, malnutrition, young age, diabetes, health care worker, socioeconomic and behavioral factors, tobacco smoker, alcohol consumption, indoor air pollution, and demographic factor

Photocurrent Enhancement of PtSe2 Photodetectors by Using Au Nanorods

Compact and highly sensitive near-infrared photodetectors that are operable at room temperature are required for light detection and ranging and medical devices. Two-dimensional (2D) PtSe2, a transition metal dichalcogenide, is a candidate material for near-infrared light detection. However, the photoresponse properties of 2D PtSe2 are currently inferior to those of commercial materials. The localized surface plasmon resonance of Au has been widely used for photoelectric field enhancement and in photochemical reactions associated with phase relaxation from plasmon states that occur at specific wavelengths. Spherical Au nanocolloids exhibit an extinction peak in the visible light region, whereas nanorods can be tuned to exhibit the extinction peak in the near-infrared region by controlling their aspect ratio. In this study, hybrid Au nanorod/2D PtSe2 structure was fabricated via spin coating nanorods, with plasmon peaks in the near-infrared region, on 2D PtSe2. Furthermore, the effect of the concentration of the nanorod solution on the photoresponse of nanorod/2D PtSe2 was investigated. The photocurrent of 5 nM Au nanorod-coated 2D PtSe2 was fivefold higher than that of bare 2D PtSe2. The responsivity was maximum 908 μW/A at 0.5 V bias voltage. In addition, the photocurrent enhancement mechanism by Au nanorods is discussed

Photocurrent Enhancement of PtSe₂ Photodetectors by Using Au Nanorods

Compact and highly sensitive near-infrared photodetectors that are operable at room temperature are required for light detection and ranging and medical devices. Two-dimensional (2D) PtSe2, a transition metal dichalcogenide, is a candidate material for near-infrared light detection. However, the photoresponse properties of 2D PtSe2 are currently inferior to those of commercial materials. The localized surface plasmon resonance of Au has been widely used for photoelectric field enhancement and in photochemical reactions associated with phase relaxation from plasmon states that occur at specific wavelengths. Spherical Au nanocolloids exhibit an extinction peak in the visible light region, whereas nanorods can be tuned to exhibit the extinction peak in the near-infrared region by controlling their aspect ratio. In this study, hybrid Au nanorod/2D PtSe2 structure was fabricated via spin coating nanorods, with plasmon peaks in the near-infrared region, on 2D PtSe2. Furthermore, the effect of the concentration of the nanorod solution on the photoresponse of nanorod/2D PtSe2 was investigated. The photocurrent of 5 nM Au nanorod-coated 2D PtSe2 was fivefold higher than that of bare 2D PtSe2. The responsivity was maximum 908 μW/A at 0.5 V bias voltage. In addition, the photocurrent enhancement mechanism by Au nanorods is discussed

Prioritizing biological pathways by recognizing context in time-series gene expression data

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.Abstract Background The primary goal of pathway analysis using transcriptome data is to find significantly perturbed pathways. However, pathway analysis is not always successful in identifying pathways that are truly relevant to the context under study. A major reason for this difficulty is that a single gene is involved in multiple pathways. In the KEGG pathway database, there are 146 genes, each of which is involved in more than 20 pathways. Thus activation of even a single gene will result in activation of many pathways. This complex relationship often makes the pathway analysis very difficult. While we need much more powerful pathway analysis methods, a readily available alternative way is to incorporate the literature information. Results In this study, we propose a novel approach for prioritizing pathways by combining results from both pathway analysis tools and literature information. The basic idea is as follows. Whenever there are enough articles that provide evidence on which pathways are relevant to the context, we can be assured that the pathways are indeed related to the context, which is termed as relevance in this paper. However, if there are few or no articles reported, then we should rely on the results from the pathway analysis tools, which is termed as significance in this paper. We realized this concept as an algorithm by introducing Context Score and Impact Score and then combining the two into a single score. Our method ranked truly relevant pathways significantly higher than existing pathway analysis tools in experiments with two data sets. Conclusions Our novel framework was implemented as ContextTRAP by utilizing two existing tools, TRAP and BEST. ContextTRAP will be a useful tool for the pathway based analysis of gene expression data since the user can specify the context of the biological experiment in a set of keywords. The web version of ContextTRAP is available at http://biohealth.snu.ac.kr/software/contextTRAP