Validation of the detection of Alexandrium spp using specific RNA probes tested in a microarray format: Calibration of signal using variability of RNA content with environmental conditions

The dinoflagellate genus Alexandrium contains several toxin producing species and strains, which can cause major economic losses to the shell fish industry. It is therefore important to be able to detect these toxin producers and also distinguish toxic strains from some of the morphologically identical non-toxic strains. To facilitate this DNA probes to be used in a microarray format were designed in silico or developed from existing published probes. These probes targeted either the 18S or 28S ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) gene in Alexandrium tamarense Group I, Group III and Group IV, Alexandrium ostenfeldii and Alexandrium minutum. Three strains of A. tamarense Group I, A. tamarense Group III, A. minutum and two strains of A. ostenfeldii were grown at optimal conditions and transferred into new environmental conditions changing either the light intensity, salinity, temperature or nutrient concentrations, to check if any of these environmental conditions induced changes in the cellular ribonucleic acid (RNA) concentration or growth rate. The aim of this experiment was the calibration of several species-specific probes for the quantification of the toxic Alexandrium strains. Growth rates were highly variable but only elevated or lowered salinity significantly lowered growth rate for A. tamarense Group I and Group III; differences in RNA content were not significant for the majority of the treatments. Only light intensity seemed to affect significantly the RNA content in A. tamarense Group I and Group III, but this was still within the same range as for the other treatments meaning that a back calibration from RNA to cell numbers was possible. The designed probes allow the production of quantitative information for Alexandrium species for the microarray chip

Preliminary results of the MIDTAL project: a microarray chip to monitor toxic dinoflagellates in the Orkney Islands, U.K.

Harmful algae can cause economic damage to fisheries and tourism. Additionally, toxins produced by harmful algae and ingested via contaminated shellfish can be potentially fatal to humans. Monitoring these harmful algae can be difficult as determining cell morphology by light microscopy may be insufficient to give definitive species attribution. The goal of the EU FP7 project MIDTAL (microarrays for the detection of toxic algae) was to achieve rapid species identification using species specific probes for rRNA genes in a microarray chip format. Field samples from the Orkney Islands, an area of the U.K. that has a number of nuisance and toxic species were tested with the second generation of the microarray chip. Species specific probes were looked at for the toxin producing dinoflagellates Alexandrium tamarense Group III (North American clade) and Dinophysis acuta and also general class probes for Dinophyta, Heterokontaphyta and Prymnesiophyta over the course of a year. These were compared with light microscopy cell counts. A good agreement in determining presence and absence between the methods was found. The second generation microarray is potentially more sensitive than cell counts. However, further work is needed to ensure that the microarray signal for each species provides an accurate quantitative assessment

Cohort profile : early pandemic evaluation and enhanced surveillance of COVID-19 (EAVE II) database

Funding: The original EAVE project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment Programme (project number 13/34/14). EAVE II is funded by the Medical Research Council [MR/R008345/1] and supported by the Scottish Government. This work is supported by BREATHE - The Health Data Research Hub for Respiratory Health [MC_PC_19004]. BREATHE is funded through the UK Research and Innovation Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and delivered through Health Data Research UK.PostprintPeer reviewe

The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer consensus statement on immunotherapy for the treatment of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (HNSCC)

Head and neck cancers, including those of the lip and oral cavity, nasal cavity, paranasal sinuses, oropharynx, larynx and nasopharynx represent nearly 700,000 new cases and 380,000 deaths worldwide per annum, and account for over 10,000 annual deaths in the United States alone. Improvement in outcomes are needed for patients with recurrent and or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (HNSCC). In 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the first immunotherapeutic approvals - the anti-PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitors nivolumab and pembrolizumab - for the treatment of patients with recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (HNSCC) that is refractory to platinum-based regimens. The European Commission followed in 2017 with approval of nivolumab for treatment of the same patient population, and shortly thereafter with approval of pembrolizumab monotherapy for the treatment of recurrent or metastatic HNSCC in adults whose tumors express PD-L1 with a 65 50% tumor proportion score and have progressed on or after platinum-containing chemotherapy. Then in 2019, the FDA granted approval for PD-1 inhibition as first-line treatment for patients with metastatic or unresectable, recurrent HNSCC, approving pembrolizumab in combination with platinum and fluorouracil for all patients with HNSCC and pembrolizumab as a single agent for patients with HNSCC whose tumors express a PD-L1 combined positive score 65 1. These approvals marked the first new therapies for these patients since 2006, as well as the first immunotherapeutic approvals in this disease. In light of the introduction of these novel therapies for the treatment of patients with head and neck cancer, The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) formed an expert committee tasked with generating consensus recommendations for emerging immunotherapies, including appropriate patient selection, therapy sequence, response monitoring, adverse event management, and biomarker testing. These consensus guidelines serve as a foundation to assist clinicians' understanding of the role of immunotherapies in this disease setting, and to standardize utilization across the field for patient benefit. Due to country-specific variances in approvals, availability and regulations regarding the discussed agents, this panel focused solely on FDA-approved drugs for the treatment of patients in the U.S

Distribution, occurrence and biotoxin composition of the main

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Field testing for toxic algae with a microarray: initial results from the MIDTAL project

One of the key tasks in MIDTAL (MIcroarrays for the Detection of Toxic ALgae) is to demonstrate the applicability of microarrays to monitor harmful algae across a broad range of ecological niches and toxic species responsible for harmful algal events. Water samples are collected from a series of sites used in national phytoplankton and biotoxin monitoring across Europe. The samples are filtered; rRNA is extracted, labelled with a fluorescent dye and applied to a microarray chip. The signal intensity from >120 probes previously spotted on the chip is measured and analysed. Preliminary results comparing microarray signal intensities with actual field counts are presented.Versión del edito

Extended chiral algebras and the emergence of SU(2) quantum numbers in the Coulomb gas

We study a set of chiral symmetries contained in degenerate operators beyond the `minimal' sector of the c(p,q) models. For the operators h_{(2j+2)q-1,1}=h_{1,(2j+2)p-1} at conformal weight [ (j+1)p-1 ][ (j+1)q -1 ], for every 2j \in N, we find 2j+1 chiral operators which have quantum numbers of a spin j representation of SU(2). We give a free-field construction of these operators which makes this structure explicit and allows their OPEs to be calculated directly without any use of screening charges. The first non-trivial chiral field in this series, at j=1/2, is a fermionic or para-fermionic doublet. The three chiral bosonic fields, at j=1, generate a closed W-algebra and we calculate the vacuum character of these triplet models.Comment: 23 pages Late

Field measurements of horizontal forward motion velocities of terrestrial dust devils: towards a proxy for ambient winds on Mars and Earth

Dust devils – convective vortices made visible by the dust and debris they entrain – are common in arid environments and have been observed on Earth and Mars. Martian dust devils have been identified both in images taken at the surface and in remote sensing observations from orbiting spacecraft. Observations from landing craft and orbiting instruments have allowed the dust devil translational forward motion (ground velocity) to be calculated, but it is unclear how these velocities relate to the local ambient wind conditions, for (i) only model wind speeds are generally available for Mars, and (ii) on Earth only anecdotal evidence exists that compares dust devil ground velocity with ambient wind velocity. If dust devil ground velocity can be reliably correlated to the ambient wind regime, observations of dust devils could provide a proxy for wind speed and direction measurements on Mars. Hence, dust devil ground velocities could be used to probe the circulation of the martian boundary layer and help constrain climate models or assess the safety of future landing sites. We present results from a field study of terrestrial dust devils performed in the southwest USA in which we measured dust devil horizontal velocity as a function of ambient wind velocity. We acquired stereo images of more than a hundred active dust devils and recorded multiple size and position measurements for each dust devil. We used these data to calculate dust devil translational velocity. The dust devils were within a study area bounded by 10 m high meteorology towers such that dust devil speed and direction could be correlated with the local ambient wind speed and direction measurements. Daily (10:00 to 16:00 local time) and two-hour averaged dust devil ground speeds correlate well with ambient wind speeds averaged over the same period. Unsurprisingly, individual measurements of dust devil ground speed match instantaneous measurements of ambient wind speed more poorly; a 20-minute smoothing window applied to the ambient wind speed data improves the correlation. In general, dust devils travel 10-20% faster than ambient wind speed measured at 10 m height, suggesting that their ground speeds are representative of the boundary layer winds a few tens of meters above ground level. Dust devil ground motion direction closely matches the measured ambient wind direction. The link between ambient winds and dust devil ground velocity demonstrated here suggests that a similar one should apply on Mars. Determining the details of the martian relationship between dust devil ground velocity and ambient wind velocity might require new in-situ or modelling studies but, if completed successfully, would provide a quantitative means of measuring wind velocities on Mars that would otherwise be impossible to obtain

BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccination uptake, safety, effectiveness and waning in children and young people aged 12–17 years in Scotland

This study is part of the EAVE II project. EAVE II is funded by the MRC (MC_PC_19075) with the support of BREATHE—The Health Data Research Hub for Respiratory Health (MC_PC_19004), which is funded through the UK Research and Innovation Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and delivered through the Health Data Research UK. This research is part of the Data and Connectivity National Core Study, led by Health Data Research UK in partnership with the Office for National Statistics and funded by UK Research and Innovation (grant ref MC_PC_20058). This work was also supported by The Alan Turing Institute via ‘Towards Turing 2.0’ EPSRC Grant Funding. Additional support has been provided through Public Health Scotland, the Scottish Government Director-General Health and Social Care and the University of Edinburgh. The original EAVE project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme (11/46/23). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR, the Department of Health and Social Care, or the UK government. We thank Dave Kelly from Albasoft (Inverness, UK) for his support with making primary care data available, and Wendy Inglis-Humphrey, Vicky Hammersley, and Laura Brook (University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK) for their support with project management and administration.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Isothermal and Cyclic Aging of 310S Austenitic Stainless Steel

Unusual damage and high creep strain rates have been observed on components made of 310S stainless steel subjected to thermal cycles between room temperature and 1143 K (870 °C). Microstructural characterization of such components after service evidenced high contents in sigma phase which formed first from δ-ferrite and then from γ-austenite. To get some insight into this microstructural evolution, isothermal and cyclic aging of 310S stainless steel has been studied experimentally and discussed on the basis of numerical simulations. The higher contents of sigma phase observed after cyclic agings than after isothermal treatments are clearly associated with nucleation triggered by thermal cycling