Decay rates of faecal indicator bacteria from sewage and ovine faeces in brackish and freshwater microcosms with contrasting suspended particulate matter concentrations

AbstractTo safeguard human health, legislative measures require the monitoring of faecal indicator bacteria (FIB) concentrations in recreational and shellfish waters. Consequently, numerous studies have focussed on FIB survival in the water column and more recently in estuarine sediments. However, there is a paucity of information regarding the influence of contrasting suspended particulate matter (SPM) concentrations on the survival of FIB in the water column of estuaries. Here, microcosms containing freshwater or brackish water with low, high and extreme SPM concentrations were inoculated with sewage and ovine faeces and the decay rate of Escherichia coli, coliforms and enterococci were determined by enumeration over five consecutive days. E. coli derived from ovine faeces proliferated and persisted at high levels in both freshwater and brackish microcosms (no decay), whereas ovine enterococci demonstrated a net decay over the duration of the experiment. Furthermore, SPM concentration had a significant effect on the decay rates of both E. coli and enterococci from ovine faeces in brackish microcosms, but decay rate was greater at low SPM concentrations for E. coli, whereas the opposite was observed for enterococci, whose decay rates increased as SPM concentration increased. E. coli, enterococci and coliforms derived from wastewater demonstrated a net decay in both freshwater and brackish microcosms, with contrasting effects of SPM concentration on decay rate. In addition, some FIB groups demonstrated contrasting responses (decay or proliferation) in the first 24h following inoculation into freshwater versus brackish microcosms. Overall, SPM concentrations influenced the proliferation and decay rates of FIB in brackish waters, but had minimal influence in freshwater. These results demonstrate that the survival rates of FIB in aquatic environments are system specific, species and source dependent, and influenced by SPM concentration. This study has important implications for catchment-based risk assessments and source apportionment of FIB pollution in aquatic environments

The Early Psychosis Screener (EPS): Quantitative validation against the SIPS using machine learning

Machine learning techniques were used to identify highly informative early psychosis self-report items and to validate an early psychosis screener (EPS) against the Structured Interview for Psychosis-risk Syndromes (SIPS). The Prodromal Questionnaire–Brief Version (PQ-B) and 148 additional items were administered to 229 individuals being screened with the SIPS at 7 North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study sites and at Columbia University. Fifty individuals were found to have SIPS scores of 0, 1, or 2, making them clinically low risk (CLR) controls; 144 were classified as clinically high risk (CHR) (SIPS 3–5) and 35 were found to have first episode psychosis (FEP) (SIPS 6). Spectral clustering analysis, performed on 124 of the items, yielded two cohesive item groups, the first mostly related to psychosis and mania, the second mostly related to depression, anxiety, and social and general work/school functioning. Items within each group were sorted according to their usefulness in distinguishing between CLR and CHR individuals using the Minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance procedure. A receiver operating characteristic area under the curve (AUC) analysis indicated that maximal differentiation of CLR and CHR participants was achieved with a 26-item solution (AUC = 0.899 ± 0.001). The EPS-26 outperformed the PQ-B (AUC = 0.834 ± 0.001). For screening purposes, the self-report EPS-26 appeared to differentiate individuals who are either CLR or CHR approximately as well as the clinician-administered SIPS. The EPS-26 may prove useful as a self-report screener and may lead to a decrease in the duration of untreated psychosis. A validation of the EPS-26 against actual conversion is underway

Adaptation of Left Ventricular Twist Mechanics in Exercise-Trained Children Is Only Evident after the Adolescent Growth Spurt.

The extent of structural cardiac remodeling in response to endurance training is maturity dependent. In adults, this structural adaptation is often associated with the adaptation of left ventricular (LV) twist mechanics. For example, an increase in LV twist often follows an expansion in end-diastolic volume, whereas a reduction in twist may follow a thickening of the LV walls. While structural cardiac remodeling has been shown to be more prominent post-peak height velocity (PHV), it remains to be determined how this maturation-dependent structural remodeling influences LV twist. Therefore, we aimed to (1) compare LV twist mechanics between trained and untrained children pre- and post-PHV and (2) investigate how LV structural variables relate to LV twist mechanics pre- and post-PHV. Left ventricular function and morphology were assessed (echocardiography) in endurance-trained and untrained boys (n = 38 and n = 28, respectively) and girls (n = 39 and n = 34, respectively). Participants were categorized as either pre- or post-PHV using maturity offset to estimate somatic maturation. Pre-PHV, there were no differences in LV twist or torsion between trained and untrained boys (twist: P = .630; torsion: P = .382) or girls (twist: P = .502; torsion: P = .316), and LV twist mechanics were not related with any LV structural variables (P > .05). Post-PHV, LV twist was lower in trained versus untrained boys (P = .004), with torsion lower in trained groups, irrespective of sex (boys: P < .001; girls: P = .017). Moreover, LV torsion was inversely related to LV mass (boys: r = -0.55, P = .001; girls: r = -0.46, P = .003) and end-diastolic volume (boys: r = -0.64, P < .001; girls: r = -0.36, P = .025) in both sexes. A difference in LV twist mechanics between endurance-trained and untrained cohorts is only apparent post-PHV, where structural and functional remodeling were related

Predictors of Progress in Smoking Cessation

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/71613/1/j.1525-1446.1995.tb00143.x.pd

Enhancing stress reactivity and wellbeing in early schizophrenia: A pilot study of individual coping awareness therapy (I-CAT)

Dear Editors: Positive psychology strategies and mindfulness are two non-traditional approaches to psychotherapy increasingly employed to aid recovery from psychosis (Shonin et al. 2014; Slade 2010). Positive psy-chology interventions focus on increasing experiences of positive emo-tions to improve wellbeing (Rashid 2015), while mindfulness interventions reduce stress reactivity, and facilitate experiences of pos-itive emotions (Geschwind et al. 2011; Gu et al., 2015)

Treatment Precedes Positive Symptoms in North American Adolescent and Young Adult Clinical High Risk Cohort

Early intervention for psychotic disorders, a growing international priority, typically targets help-seeking populations with emerging psychotic (“positive”) symptoms. We assessed the nature of and degree to which treatment of individuals at high risk for psychosis preceded or followed the onset of positive symptoms. The North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study–2 collected psychosocial treatment histories for 745 (98%) of 764 high-risk participants (M age = 18.9, 57% male, 57.5% Caucasian, 19.1% Hispanic) recruited from 8 North American communities. Similar to prior findings, 82% of participants reported psychosocial treatment prior to baseline assessment, albeit with significant variability across sites (71%–96%). Participants first received treatment a median of 1.7 years prior to the onset of a recognizable psychosis-risk syndrome. Only one fourth sought initial treatment in the year following syndrome onset. Although mean sample age differed significantly by site, age at initial treatment (M = 14.1, SD = 5.0) did not. High rates of early treatment prior to syndrome onset make sense in light of known developmental precursors to psychotic disorders but are inconsistent with the low rates of treatment retrospectively reported by first-episode psychosis samples. Findings suggest that psychosis risk studies and clinics may need to more actively recruit and engage symptomatic but non-help-seeking individuals and that community clinicians be better trained to recognize both positive and nonspecific indicators of emerging psychosis. Improved treatments for nonspecific symptoms, as well as the characteristic attenuated positive symptoms, are needed

Average flow constraints and stabilizability in uncertain production-distribution systems

We consider a multi-inventory system with controlled flows and uncertain demands (disturbances) bounded within assigned compact sets. The system is modelled as a first-order one integrating the discrepancy between controlled flows and demands at different sites/nodes. Thus, the buffer levels at the nodes represent the system state. Given a long-term average demand, we are interested in a control strategy that satisfies just one of two requirements: (i) meeting any possible demand at each time (worst case stability) or (ii) achieving a predefined flow in the average (average flow constraints). Necessary and sufficient conditions for the achievement of both goals have been proposed by the authors. In this paper, we face the case in which these conditions are not satisfied. We show that, if we ignore the requirement on worst case stability, we can find a control strategy driving the expected value of the state to zero. On the contrary, if we ignore the average flow constraints, we can find a control strategy that satisfies worst case stability while optimizing any linear cost on the average control. In the latter case, we provide a tight bound for the cost

Depression and clinical high-risk states: Baseline presentation of depressed vs. non-depressed participants in the NAPLS-2 cohort

Depressed mood appears to be highly prevalent in clinical high risk (CHR) samples. However, many prior CHR studies utilize modest size samples and do not report on the specific impact of depression on CHR symptoms. The aim of the current paper is to investigate the prevalence of depressive disorders and the impact of lifetime depression on baseline clinical presentation and longitudinal outcomes in a large cohort of individuals meeting CHR criteria in the second phase of the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study (NAPLS-2). Depression was assessed both categorically (via DSM-IV-TR diagnoses) and symptomatically (using a clinician-rated scale of depressive symptoms) within a sample of 764 individuals at CHR and 279 controls. Current and lifetime depressive disorders were highly prevalent (60%) in this sample. Depression diagnoses were associated with more pronounced negative and general symptoms; individuals with remitted depression had significantly less severe negative, disorganized, and general symptoms and better social and role functioning relative to those with current depression. Current mood disturbance, as measured by scores on a clinician-rated symptom scale, contributed beyond the impact of positive and negative symptoms to impairments in social functioning. Both symptomatic and diagnostic baseline depression was significantly associated with decreased likelihood of remission from CHR status; however depression did not differentially distinguish persistent CHR status from transition to psychosis at follow-up. These findings suggest that depressed mood may function as a marker of poor prognosis in CHR, yet effective treatment of depression within this population can yield improvements in symptoms and functioning

Predictive validity of conversion from the clinical high risk syndrome to frank psychosis

Although the clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR) paradigm has become well-established over the past two decades, one key component has received surprisingly little investigative attention: the predictive validity of the criteria for conversion or transition to frank psychosis. The current study evaluates the predictive validity of the transition to psychosis as measured by the Structured Interview for Psychosis-Risk Syndromes (SIPS) in CHR individuals. Participants included 33 SIPS converters and 399 CHR non-converters both from the North American Prodromal Longitudinal Study (NAPLS-2), as well as a sample of 67 separately ascertained first-episode psychosis (FEP) patients from the STEP program. Comparisons were made at baseline and one-year follow-up on demographic, diagnostic stability (SCID), and available measurement domains relating to severity of illness (psychotropic medication, psychosocial treatment, and resource utilization). Principal findings are: 1) a large majority of cases in both SIPS converters (n = 27/33, 81.8%) and FEP (n = 57/67, 85.1%) samples met criteria for continued psychosis at one-year follow-up; 2) follow-up prescription rates for current antipsychotic medication were higher in SIPS converters (n = 17/32, 53.1%) compared to SIPS non-converters (n = 81/397, 20.4%), and similar as compared to FEP cases (n = 39/65, 60%); and 3) at follow-up, SIPS converters had higher rates of resource utilization (psychiatric hospitalizations, day hospital admissions, and ER visits) than SIPS non-converters and were similar to FEP in most categories. The results suggest that the SIPS definition of psychosis onset carries substantial predictive validity. Limitations and future directions are discussed

Association of genetic susceptibility variants for type 2 diabetes with breast cancer risk in women of European ancestry.

Purpose: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) has been reported to be associated with an elevated risk of breast cancer. It is unclear, however, whether this association is due to shared genetic factors. Methods: We constructed a genetic risk score (GRS) using risk variants from 33 known independent T2D susceptibility loci and evaluated its relation to breast cancer risk using the data from two consortia, including 62,328 breast cancer patients and 83,817 controls of European ancestry. Unconditional logistic regression models were used to derive adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) to measure the association of breast cancer risk with T2D GRS or T2D-associated genetic risk variants. Meta-analyses were conducted to obtain summary ORs across all studies. Results: The T2D GRS was not found to be associated with breast cancer risk, overall, by menopausal status, or for estrogen receptor positive or negative breast cancer. Three T2D associated risk variants were individually associated with breast cancer risk after adjustment for multiple comparisons using the Bonferroni method (at p < 0.001), rs9939609 (FTO) (OR 0.94, 95 % CI = 0.92–0.95, p = 4.13E−13), rs7903146 (TCF7L2) (OR 1.04, 95 % CI = 1.02–1.06, p = 1.26E−05), and rs8042680 (PRC1) (OR 0.97, 95 % CI = 0.95–0.99, p = 8.05E−04). Conclusions: We have shown that several genetic risk variants were associated with the risk of both T2D and breast cancer. However, overall genetic susceptibility to T2D may not be related to breast cancer risk