Role of nickel in high rate methanol degradation in anaerobic granular sludge bioreactors

The effect of nickel deprivation from the influent of a mesophilic (30°C) methanol fed upflow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) reactor was investigated by coupling the reactor performance to the evolution of the Methanosarcina population of the bioreactor sludge. The reactor was operated at pH 7.0 and an organic loading rate (OLR) of 5–15 g COD l−1 day−1 for 191 days. A clear limitation of the specific methanogenic activity (SMA) on methanol due to the absence of nickel was observed after 129 days of bioreactor operation: the SMA of the sludge in medium with the complete trace metal solution except nickel amounted to 1.164 (±0.167) g CH4-COD g VSS−1 day−1 compared to 2.027 (±0.111) g CH4-COD g VSS−1 day−1 in a medium with the complete (including nickel) trace metal solution. The methanol removal efficiency during these 129 days was 99%, no volatile fatty acid (VFA) accumulation was observed and the size of the Methanosarcina population increased compared to the seed sludge. Continuation of the UASB reactor operation with the nickel limited sludge lead to incomplete methanol removal, and thus methanol accumulation in the reactor effluent from day 142 onwards. This methanol accumulation subsequently induced an increase of the acetogenic activity in the UASB reactor on day 160. On day 165, 77% of the methanol fed to the system was converted to acetate and the Methanosarcina population size had substantially decreased. Inclusion of 0.5 μM Ni (dosed as NiCl2) to the influent from day 165 onwards lead to the recovery of the methanol removal efficiency to 99% without VFA accumulation within 2 days of bioreactor operation

“I would rather be told than not know” - A qualitative study exploring parental views on identifying the future risk of childhood overweight and obesity during infancy

BACKGROUND: Risk assessment tools provide an opportunity to prevent childhood overweight and obesity through early identification and intervention to influence infant feeding practices. Engaging parents of infants is paramount for success however; the literature suggests there is uncertainty surrounding the use of such tools with concerns about stigmatisation, labelling and expressions of parental guilt. This study explores parents' views on identifying future risk of childhood overweight and obesity during infancy and communicating risk to parents. METHODS: Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 23 parents and inductive, interpretive and thematic analysis performed. RESULTS: Three main themes emerged from the data: 1) Identification of infant overweight and obesity risk. Parents were hesitant about health professionals identifying infant overweight as believed they would recognise this for themselves, in addition parents feared judgement from health professionals. Identification of future obesity risk during infancy was viewed positively however the use of a non-judgemental communication style was viewed as imperative. 2) Consequences of infant overweight. Parents expressed immediate anxieties about the impact of excess weight on infant ability to start walking. Parents were aware of the progressive nature of childhood obesity however, did not view overweight as a significant problem until the infant could walk as viewed this as a point when any excess weight would be lost due to increased energy expenditure. 3) Parental attributions of causality, responsibility, and control. Parents articulated a high level of personal responsibility for preventing and controlling overweight during infancy, which translated into self-blame. Parents attributed infant overweight to overfeeding however articulated a reluctance to modify infant feeding practices prior to weaning. CONCLUSION: This is the first study to explore the use of obesity risk tools in clinical practice, the findings suggest that identification, and communication of future overweight and obesity risk is acceptable to parents of infants. Despite this positive response, findings suggest that parents' acceptance to identification of risk and implementation of behaviour change is time specific. The apparent level of parental responsibility, fear of judgement and self-blame also highlights the importance of health professionals approach to personalised risk communication so feelings of self-blame are negated and stigmatisation avoided

Awareness of vitamin D deficiency among at-risk patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Vitamin D deficiency is a significant problem for a growing proportion of the UK population. Individuals with dark or covered skin are at particularly high risk due to ethno-cultural, environmental and genetic factors. We assessed the level of awareness of vitamin D deficiency among at-risk patients in order to identify groups most in need of education.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>A cross-sectional survey using a piloted questionnaire was conducted among consecutive at-risk patients without a diagnosis of Vitamin D deficiency arriving at a large inner city general practice in the North West of England over a five day period. The survey was completed by 221 patients. The mean age was 35 years. 28% of them (n = 61) had never heard about vitamin D. Older patients (p = 0.003) were less likely to have heard about vitamin D. 54% of participants were unaware of the commonest symptoms of vitamin D deficiency. 34% did not expose their skin other than their face in the last one year, and 11% did not include vitamin D rich foods in their diet.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The majority of at-risk patients are aware of vitamin D; nevertheless, there is a significant lack of knowledge among older people, who have higher morbidity. A programme of targeted education of the at-risk population is recommended.</p

Comparison of alternative risk adjustment measures for predictive modeling: high risk patient case finding using Taiwan's National Health Insurance claims

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Predictive modeling presents an opportunity to contain the expansion of medical expenditures by focusing on very few people. Evaluation of how risk adjustment models perform in predictive modeling in Taiwan or Asia has been rare. The aims of this study were to evaluate the performance of different risk adjustment models (the ACG risk adjustment system and prior expenditures) in predictive modeling, using Taiwan's National Health Insurance (NHI) claims data, and to compare characteristics of potentially high-expenditure subjects identified through different models.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A random sample of NHI enrollees continuously enrolled in 2002 and 2003 (n = 164,562) was selected. Health status measures and total expenditures derived from 2002 NHI claims data were used to predict the possibility of becoming 2003 top users. Statistics-based indicators (C-statistics, sensitivity, & Predictive Positive Value) and characteristics of identified top groups by different models (expenditures and prevalence of manageable diseases) were presented.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Both diagnosis-based and prior expenditures models performed much better than the demographic model. Diagnosis-based models were better in identifying top users with manageable diseases; prior expenditures models were better in statistics-based indicators and identifying people with higher average expenditures. Prior expenditures status could correctly identify more actual top users than diagnosis-based or demographic models. The proportions of actual top users that could be identified by diagnosis-based models alone were much lower than that identified by prior expenditures status.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Predicted top users identified by different models have different characteristics and there is little agreement between modes regarding which groups would be potentially top users; therefore, which model to use should depend on the purpose of predictive modeling. Prior expenditures are a more powerful tool than diagnosis-based risk adjusters in terms of correctly identifying more actual high expenditures users. There is still much room left for improvement of diagnosis-based models in predictive modeling.</p

Conditional Immortalization of Human B Cells by CD40 Ligation

It is generally assumed that human differentiated cells have a limited life-span and proliferation capacity in vivo, and that genetic modifications are a prerequisite for their immortalization in vitro. Here we readdress this issue, studying the long-term proliferation potential of human B cells. It was shown earlier that human B cells from peripheral blood of healthy donors can be efficiently induced to proliferate for up to ten weeks in vitro by stimulating their receptor CD40 in the presence of interleukin-4. When we applied the same stimuli under conditions of modified cell number and culture size, we were surprised to find that our treatment induced B cells to proliferate throughout an observation period of presently up to 1650 days, representing more than 370 population doublings, which suggested that these B cells were immortalized in vitro. Long-term CD40-stimulated B cell cultures could be established from most healthy adult human donors. These B cells had a constant phenotype, were free from Epstein-Barr virus, and remained dependent on CD40 ligation. They had constitutive telomerase activity and stabilized telomere length. Moreover, they were susceptible to activation by Toll-like receptor 9 ligands, and could be used to expand antigen-specific cytotoxic T cells in vitro. Our results indicate that human somatic cells can evade senescence and be conditionally immortalized by external stimulation only, without a requirement for genetic manipulation or oncoviral infection. Conditionally immortalized human B cells are a new tool for immunotherapy and studies of B cell oncogenesis, activation, and function

Bioactivity, physical and chemical properties of MTA mixed with propylene glycol

AbstractObjective To investigate the physical (setting time, hardness, flowability, microstructure) and chemical (pH change, calcium release, crystallinity) properties and the biological outcomes (cell survival and differentiation) of mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) mixed using different proportions of propylene glycol (PG) and water.Material and Methods White MTA was mixed with different water/PG ratios (100/0, 80/20 and 50/50). Composition (XRD), microstructure (SEM), setting time (ASTM C266-13), flowability (ANSI/ADA 57-2000), Knoop hardness (100 g/10 s) and chemical characteristics (pH change and Ca2+ release for 7 days) were evaluated. Cell proliferation, osteo/odontoblastic gene expression and mineralization induced by MTA mixed with PG were evaluated. MTA discs (5 mm in diameter, 2 mm thick) were prepared and soaked in culture medium for 7 days. Next, the discs were removed and the medium used to culture dental pulp stem cells (DPSC) for 28 days. Cells survival was evaluated using MTS assay (24, 72 and 120 h) and differentiation with RT-PCR (ALP, OCN, Runx2, DSPP and MEPE) and alizarin red staining (7 and 14 days). Data were analysed using one-way ANOVA and Tukey’s post-hoc analysis (a=0.05).Results The addition of PG significantly increased setting time, flowability and Ca2+ release, but it compromised the hardness of the material. SEM showed that 50/50 group resulted porous material after setting due to the incomplete setting reaction, as shown by XRD analysis. The addition of PG (80/20 and 50/50) was not capable to improve cell proliferation or to enhance gene expression, and mineralized deposition of DPSC after 7 and 14 days as compared to the 100/0.Conclusion Except for flowability, the addition of PG did not promote further improvements on the chemical and physical properties evaluated, and it was not capable of enhancing the bioactivity of the MTA

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

X-ray emission from the Sombrero galaxy: discrete sources

We present a study of discrete X-ray sources in and around the bulge-dominated, massive Sa galaxy, Sombrero (M104), based on new and archival Chandra observations with a total exposure of ~200 ks. With a detection limit of L_X = 1E37 erg/s and a field of view covering a galactocentric radius of ~30 kpc (11.5 arcminute), 383 sources are detected. Cross-correlation with Spitler et al.'s catalogue of Sombrero globular clusters (GCs) identified from HST/ACS observations reveals 41 X-rays sources in GCs, presumably low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). We quantify the differential luminosity functions (LFs) for both the detected GC and field LMXBs, whose power-low indices (~1.1 for the GC-LF and ~1.6 for field-LF) are consistent with previous studies for elliptical galaxies. With precise sky positions of the GCs without a detected X-ray source, we further quantify, through a fluctuation analysis, the GC LF at fainter luminosities down to 1E35 erg/s. The derived index rules out a faint-end slope flatter than 1.1 at a 2 sigma significance, contrary to recent findings in several elliptical galaxies and the bulge of M31. On the other hand, the 2-6 keV unresolved emission places a tight constraint on the field LF, implying a flattened index of ~1.0 below 1E37 erg/s. We also detect 101 sources in the halo of Sombrero. The presence of these sources cannot be interpreted as galactic LMXBs whose spatial distribution empirically follows the starlight. Their number is also higher than the expected number of cosmic AGNs (52+/-11 [1 sigma]) whose surface density is constrained by deep X-ray surveys. We suggest that either the cosmic X-ray background is unusually high in the direction of Sombrero, or a distinct population of X-ray sources is present in the halo of Sombrero.Comment: 11 figures, 5 tables, ApJ in pres

The impact of clinical placements on the emotional intelligence of occupational therapy, physiotherapy, speech pathology, and business students: a longitudinal study

Background: Emotional intelligence (EI) is a critical skill for healthcare practitioners. Minimal longitudinal research has tracked the changes in EI of therapy students over their final full-time clinical placements. Methods: The Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i2.0) measured the EI of 283 therapy students and 93 business students (control group who do no clinical placements) at three time points over a 16-month period, the same period that the therapy students participated in clinical placements. Results: Analysis of the therapy students showed significant increases over the 16 months of the study in Total EI score, as well as nine other EI skills. However, large percentages of students reported declining scores in emotional expression, assertiveness, self-expression, and stress tolerance, with some students reporting low EI scores before commencing full-time extended clinical placements. Conclusions: The study contributes to new knowledge about the changing EI skills of therapy students as they complete their full-time, extended placements. Emotional intelligence in student therapists should be actively fostered during coursework, clinical placements and when first entering the workforce. University educators are encouraged to include EI content through the therapy curricula. Employers are encouraged to provide peer coaching, mentoring and workshops focused on EI skills to recent graduates