Staphylococcus aureus in the oral cavity: a three-year retrospective analysis of clinical laboratory data

OBJECTIVE: A retrospective analysis of laboratory data to investigate the isolation of Staphylococcus aureus from the oral cavity and facial area in specimens submitted to a regional diagnostic oral microbiology laboratory. METHODS: A hand search of laboratory records for a three-year period (1998-2000) was performed for specimens submitted to the regional diagnostic oral microbiology laboratory based at Glasgow Dental Hospital and School. Data were collected from forms where S. aureus was isolated. These data included demographics, referral source, specimen type, methicillin susceptibility and clinical details. RESULTS: For the period 1998-2000, there were 5,005 specimens submitted to the laboratory. S. aureus was isolated from 1,017 specimens, of which 967 (95%) were sensitive to methicillin (MSSA) and 50 (5%) were resistant to methicillin (MRSA). The 1,017 specimens were provided from 615 patients. MRSA was isolated from 37 (6%) of patients. There was an increasing incidence of S. aureus with age, particularly in the greater than 70 years age group. The most common specimen from which MSSA was isolated was an oral rinse (38%) whilst for MRSA isolates this was a tongue swab (28%). The clinical condition most commonly reported for MSSA isolates was angular cheilitis (22%). Erythema, swelling, pain or burning of the oral mucosa was the clinical condition most commonly reported for MRSA isolates (16%). Patients from whom the MSSA isolates were recovered were most commonly (55%) seen in the oral medicine clinic at the dental hospital, whilst patients with MRSA were more commonly seen in primary care settings such as nursing homes, hospices and general dental practice (51%). CONCLUSION: In line with more recent surveys, this retrospective study suggests that S. aureus may be a more frequent isolate from the oral cavity than hitherto suspected. A small proportion of the S. aureus isolates were MRSA. There were insufficient data available to determine whether the S. aureus isolates were colonising or infecting the oral cavity. However, the role of S. aureus in several diseases of the oral mucosa merits further investigation

New perspectives on the ecology of tree structure and tree communities through terrestrial laser scanning

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) opens up the possibility of describing the three-dimensional structures of trees in natural environments with unprecedented detail and accuracy. It is already being extensively applied to describe how ecosystem biomass and structure vary between sites, but can also facilitate major advances in developing and testing mechanistic theories of tree form and forest structure, thereby enabling us to understand why trees and forests have the biomass and three-dimensional structure they do. Here we focus on the ecological challenges and benefits of understanding tree form, and highlight some advances related to capturing and describing tree shape that are becoming possible with the advent of TLS. We present examples of ongoing work that applies, or could potentially apply, new TLS measurements to better understand the constraints on optimization of tree form. Theories of resource distribution networks, such as metabolic scaling theory, can be tested and further refined. TLS can also provide new approaches to the scaling of woody surface area and crown area, and thereby better quantify the metabolism of trees. Finally, we demonstrate how we can develop a more mechanistic understanding of the effects of avoidance of wind risk on tree form and maximum size. Over the next few years, TLS promises to deliver both major empirical and conceptual advances in the quantitative understanding of trees and tree-dominated ecosystems, leading to advances in understanding the ecology of why trees and ecosystems look and grow the way they do

Beyond Gross-Pitaevskii Mean Field Theory

A large number of effects related to the phenomenon of Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) can be understood in terms of lowest order mean field theory, whereby the entire system is assumed to be condensed, with thermal and quantum fluctuations completely ignored. Such a treatment leads to the Gross-Pitaevskii Equation (GPE) used extensively throughout this book. Although this theory works remarkably well for a broad range of experimental parameters, a more complete treatment is required for understanding various experiments, including experiments with solitons and vortices. Such treatments should include the dynamical coupling of the condensate to the thermal cloud, the effect of dimensionality, the role of quantum fluctuations, and should also describe the critical regime, including the process of condensate formation. The aim of this Chapter is to give a brief but insightful overview of various recent theories, which extend beyond the GPE. To keep the discussion brief, only the main notions and conclusions will be presented. This Chapter generalizes the presentation of Chapter 1, by explicitly maintaining fluctuations around the condensate order parameter. While the theoretical arguments outlined here are generic, the emphasis is on approaches suitable for describing single weakly-interacting atomic Bose gases in harmonic traps. Interesting effects arising when condensates are trapped in double-well potentials and optical lattices, as well as the cases of spinor condensates, and atomic-molecular coupling, along with the modified or alternative theories needed to describe them, will not be covered here.Comment: Review Article (19 Pages) - To appear in 'Emergent Nonlinear Phenomena in Bose-Einstein Condensates: Theory and Experiment', Edited by P.G. Kevrekidis, D.J. Frantzeskakis and R. Carretero-Gonzalez (Springer Verlag

Vortex nucleation as a case study of symmetry breaking in quantum systems

Mean-field methods are a very powerful tool for investigating weakly interacting many-body systems in many branches of physics. In particular, they describe with excellent accuracy trapped Bose-Einstein condensates. A generic, but difficult question concerns the relation between the symmetry properties of the true many-body state and its mean-field approximation. Here, we address this question by considering, theoretically, vortex nucleation in a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate. A slow sweep of the rotation frequency changes the state of the system from being at rest to the one containing one vortex. Within the mean-field framework, the jump in symmetry occurs through a turbulent phase around a certain critical frequency. The exact many-body ground state at the critical frequency exhibits strong correlations and entanglement. We believe that this constitutes a paradigm example of symmetry breaking in - or change of the order parameter of - quantum many-body systems in the course of adiabatic evolution.Comment: Minor change

The HTA risk analysis chart: visualising the need for and potential value of managed entry agreements in health technology assessment

Background Recent changes to the regulatory landscape of pharmaceuticals may sometimes require reimbursement authorities to issue guidance on technologies that have a less mature evidence base. Decision makers need to be aware of risks associated with such health technology assessment (HTA) decisions and the potential to manage this risk through managed entry agreements (MEAs). Objective This work develops methods for quantifying risk associated with specific MEAs and for clearly communicating this to decision makers. Methods We develop the ‘HTA risk analysis chart’, in which we present the payer strategy and uncertainty burden (P-SUB) as a measure of overall risk. The P-SUB consists of the payer uncertainty burden (PUB), the risk stemming from decision uncertainty as to which is the truly optimal technology from the relevant set of technologies, and the payer strategy burden (PSB), the additional risk of approving a technology that is not expected to be optimal. We demonstrate the approach using three recent technology appraisals from the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), each of which considered a price-based MEA. Results The HTA risk analysis chart was calculated using results from standard probabilistic sensitivity analyses. In all three HTAs, the new interventions were associated with substantial risk as measured by the P-SUB. For one of these technologies, the P-SUB was reduced to zero with the proposed price reduction, making this intervention cost effective with near complete certainty. For the other two, the risk reduced substantially with a much reduced PSB and a slightly increased PUB. Conclusions The HTA risk analysis chart shows the risk that the healthcare payer incurs under unresolved decision uncertainty and when considering recommending a technology that is not expected to be optimal given current evidence. This allows the simultaneous consideration of financial and data-collection MEA schemes in an easily understood format. The use of HTA risk analysis charts will help to ensure that MEAs are considered within a standard utility-maximising health economic decision-making framework

The genomes of two key bumblebee species with primitive eusocial organization

Background: The shift from solitary to social behavior is one of the major evolutionary transitions. Primitively eusocial bumblebees are uniquely placed to illuminate the evolution of highly eusocial insect societies. Bumblebees are also invaluable natural and agricultural pollinators, and there is widespread concern over recent population declines in some species. High-quality genomic data will inform key aspects of bumblebee biology, including susceptibility to implicated population viability threats. Results: We report the high quality draft genome sequences of Bombus terrestris and Bombus impatiens, two ecologically dominant bumblebees and widely utilized study species. Comparing these new genomes to those of the highly eusocial honeybee Apis mellifera and other Hymenoptera, we identify deeply conserved similarities, as well as novelties key to the biology of these organisms. Some honeybee genome features thought to underpin advanced eusociality are also present in bumblebees, indicating an earlier evolution in the bee lineage. Xenobiotic detoxification and immune genes are similarly depauperate in bumblebees and honeybees, and multiple categories of genes linked to social organization, including development and behavior, show high conservation. Key differences identified include a bias in bumblebee chemoreception towards gustation from olfaction, and striking differences in microRNAs, potentially responsible for gene regulation underlying social and other traits. Conclusions: These two bumblebee genomes provide a foundation for post-genomic research on these key pollinators and insect societies. Overall, gene repertoires suggest that the route to advanced eusociality in bees was mediated by many small changes in many genes and processes, and not by notable expansion or depauperation

Automated Home-Cage Behavioural Phenotyping of Mice

Neurobehavioral analysis of mouse phenotypes requires the monitoring of mouse behavior over long periods of time. Here, we describe a trainable computer vision system enabling the automated analysis of complex mouse behaviors. We provide software and an extensive manually annotated video database used for training and testing the system. Our system performs on par with human scoring, as measured from ground-truth manual annotations of thousands of clips of freely behaving mice. As a validation of the system, we characterized the home-cage behaviors of two standard inbred and two non-standard mouse strains. From this data we were able to predict in a blind test the strain identity of individual animals with high accuracy. Our video-based software will complement existing sensor based automated approaches and enable an adaptable, comprehensive, high-throughput, fine-grained, automated analysis of mouse behavior.McGovern Institute for Brain ResearchCalifornia Institute of Technology. Broad Fellows Program in Brain CircuitryNational Science Council (China) (TMS-094-1-A032

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1. The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG + Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version published in European Physical Journal

Impacto da exposição académica no estado de saúde de estudantes universitários

OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of academic life on health status of university students. METHODS: Longitudinal study including 154 undergraduate students from the Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal, with at least two years of follow-up observations. Sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics were collected using questionnaires. Students' weight, height, blood pressure, serum glucose, serum lipids and serum homocysteine levels were measured. Regression analysis was performed using linear mixed-effect models, allowing for random effects at the participant level. RESULTS: A higher rate of dyslipidemia (44.0% vs. 28.6%), overweight (16.3% vs. 12.5%) and smoking (19.3% vs. 0.0%) was found among students exposed to the academic life when compared to freshmen. Physical inactivity was about 80%. Total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), triglycerides, systolic blood pressure, and physical activity levels were significantly associated with gender (p<0.001). Academic exposure was associated with increased low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) levels (about 1.12 times), and marginally with total cholesterol levels (p=0.041). CONCLUSIONS: High education level does not seem to have a protective effect favoring a healthier lifestyle and being enrolled in health-related areas does not seem either to positively affect students' behaviors. Increased risk factors for non-transmissible diseases in university students raise concerns about their well-being. These results should support the implementation of health promotion and prevention programs at universities.OBJETIVO: Avaliar a influência da vida académica na saúde de estudantes universitários. MÉTODOS: Estudo longitudinal envolvendo 154 estudantes de graduação da Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal, por pelo menos dois anos de acompanhamento. Características sociodemográfi cas e comportamentais foram recordados, por meio de questionários. Foram medidos peso, altura,pressão arterial, glicemia, perfil lipídico e os níveis séricos de homocisteína dos alunos. Foi realizada análise de regressão com modelos lineares mistos considerando as medidas repetidas de cada sujeito. RESULTADOS: Estudantes expostos à vida académica, quando comparados àqueles de ingresso recente à universidade apresentaram proporção mais elevada de dislipidemia (44,0% versus 28,6%), sobrepeso (16,3% versus 12,5%) e tabagismo (19,3% versus 0,0%). No geral, foi observada alta proporção de sedentarismo (cerca de 80%). O colesterol total, lipoproteína de alta densidade, triglicérides, pressão arterial sistólica e níveis de atividade física apresentaram associação signifi cativa com o género (p < 0,001). A exposição académica apresentou-se associada com o aumento dos níveis das lipoproteínas de baixa densidade (cerca de 1,12 vezes), e marginalmente com os níveis de colesterol total (p = 0,041). CONCLUSÕES: Nem o alto nível de instrução parece ter papel protetor na adoção de estilo de vida saudável, tampouco o envolvimento com áreas de saúde muda o comportamento dos estudantes. Altas proporções de fatores de risco para doenças não-transmissíveis em jovens universitários podem afetar seu bem-estar. Os resultados podem servir de apoio às universidades no desenvolvimento de programas de prevenção e promoção da saúde