The PAS domain-containing histidine kinase RpfS is a second sensor for the diffusible signal factor of <em>Xanthomonas campestris</em>

Summary: A cell-cell signalling system mediated by the fatty acid signal DSF controls the virulence of Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris (Xcc) to plants. The synthesis and recognition of the DSF signal depends upon different Rpf proteins. DSF signal generation requires RpfF whereas signal perception and transduction depends upon the sensor RpfC and regulator RpfG. Detailed analyses of the regulatory roles of different Rpf proteins have suggested the occurrence of further sensors for DSF. Here we have used a mutagenesis approach coupled with high-resolution transcriptional analysis to identify XC_2579 (RpfS) as a second sensor for DSF in Xcc. RpfS is a complex sensor kinase predicted to have multiple Per/Arnt/Sim (PAS) domains, a histidine kinase domain and a C-terminal receiver (REC) domain. Isothermal calorimetry showed that DSF bound to the isolated N-terminal PAS domain with a Kd of 1.4μM. RpfS controlled expression of a sub-set of genes distinct from those controlled by RpfC to include genes involved in type IV secretion and chemotaxis. Mutation of XC_2579 was associated with a reduction in virulence of Xcc to Chinese Radish when assayed by leaf spraying but not by leaf inoculation, suggesting a role for RpfS-controlled factors in the epiphytic phase of the disease cycle.</p

The provision of water infrastructure in Aboriginal communities in South Australia

The provision of water supplies to Aboriginal people in South Australia, particularly to communities covered under the Commonwealth–State (South Australia) Bilateral Agreement is considered world class in terms of the suitability of the technology to the remoteness of many of the communities and the harsh arid environment. This article explores the history of domestic water supplies to these Aboriginal communities. The article begins with a brief outline of pre-contact Aboriginal technologies for the maintenance of water supplies and reflects on the continuity of these approaches through the early years of pastoralist and missionary settlement. This is followed by a description of the services offered by the state and federal governments since the late 1970s to the present

A content analysis of the consumer-facing online information about my health record: Implications for increasing knowledge and awareness to facilitate uptake and use

© The Author(s) 2017. Background: Low health literacy, low levels of positive belief and privacy and security concerns have been identified as a significant barrier to personal electronic health record uptake and use. An important tool for overcoming these barriers is the consumer-facing information which accompanies the system. My Health Record (MyHR) is the Australian national e-health record system, for which a large suite of online resources exists to facilitate consumer registration and use. This study uses a number of different measures of health resource quality to assess the MyHR online consumer-facing information and identify any gaps or areas for improvement. Objective: To analyse the quality and content of the online consumer-facing resources which support the uptake and use of MyHR. Method: Australian information resources aimed at healthcare consumers about the MyHR were included in this study. A comprehensive search using Internet search engines was conducted to locate all online consumer-facing resources about MyHR from both government and non-government sources. Readability (measured by Flesch–Kincaid grade level), year of publication/review, publishing organisation type, presentation style, linked websites, target audience, and themes were identified as important measures of health information quality, and these were recorded and reported on for each resource. Results: Eighty resources met the inclusion criteria. The mean Flesch–Kincaid grade level was 11.8. Most resources were created by Australian government sources (n = 55), and the most common target audience was the general public (n = 65). Registration (n = 51), privacy/security (n = 49), and benefits of use (n = 46) were the most common resource themes. Conclusion: The authors identified a number of gaps and areas for improvement in the provision of consumer-facing information about MyHR. Readability is too high for the general Australian population, and there are few translated resources, which means that the information provided does not cater to people with low literacy levels, communication disability, and/or difficulties in understanding written English. The target audiences for resources do not reflect priority groups that were identified during the MyHR development processes. There are also gaps in information provision about how consumers can use MyHR as a tool to meaningfully engage with health professionals and services to support their own person-centred care

Constructions, reconstructions and deconstructions of ‘family’ amongst people who live apart together (LATs)

This article explores how people who live apart from their partners in Britain describe and understand ‘family’. It investigates whether, and how far, non-cohabiting partners, friends, ‘blood’ and legal ties are seen as ‘family’, and how practices of care and support, and feelings of closeness are related to these constructions. It suggests that people in LAT relationships creatively draw and re-draw the boundaries of family belonging in ways that involve emotionally subjective understandings of family life, and that also refer to normative constructions of what ‘family’ ought to be, as well as to practical recognitions of lived family ‘realities’. This often involves handling uncertainties about what constitutes ‘family’

Dissociating recollection from familiarity: electrophysiological evidence that familiarity for faces is associated with a posterior old/new effect

In recognition memory research, a tension exists between dual-process and single-process models of episodic retrieval. Dual-process models propose that ‘familiarity’ assessment and the ‘recollection’ of contextual information are independent processes, while single process models claim that one common process supports retrieval. Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been used to show dissociations between the mid frontal and the left parietal ERP old/new effects, which have been associated with familiarity and recollection, respectively. While much ERP evidence favours dual-process theory, Yovel and Paller (2004) used faces as retrieval cues to demonstrate that posterior old/new effects index both familiarity and recollection, a finding consistent with single process models. Here we present evidence supporting Yovel and Paller’s claim that a posterior old/new effect indexes familiarity for faces, along with a novel finding that recollection is associated with an anterior old/new effect. Importantly, and in contrast to Yovel and Paller, the old/new effects associated with familiarity and recollection were topographically dissociable, consistent with a dual process view of recognition memory. The neural correlates of familiarity and recollection identified here for faces appear to be different from those typically observed, suggesting that the ERP old/new effects associated with episodic recognition are not the same under all circumstances

Textual Deixis and the ‘Anchoring’ Use of the Latin Pronoun hic

This article evaluates the results of prior research on anaphoric reference in Latin, and tries to account for the various observations within a single explanatory framework. This framework combines insights from cognitive linguistic theory and from ongoing empirical research on the linguistic marking of discourse organization in Latin. After a brief discussion of recent cognitive linguistic views on the relation between deixis and anaphora, I concentrate on the various uses of the Latin demonstrative hic in Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The examples discussed show that hic’s deictic aspect of proximity can be discerned in all its uses, the variety of which can best be described in terms of a ‘cline’, running from canonical deixis to canonical anaphora, with various stages of anadeixis in between. It is argued that in its anaphoric use, Latin hic behaves as a linguistic ‘anchoring’ device, and is used as part of a communicative strategy referred to as ‘reculer pour mieux sauter’

Gender and Acute Myocardial Infarction: Is There a Different Response to Thrombolysis?

AbstractObjectives. This study sought to 1) determine the effect of gender on early and late infarct-related artery patency and reocclusion after thrombolytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction; 2) examine the effect of gender on left ventricular function in response to injury/reperfusion; and 3) assess the independent contribution of gender to early (30-day) mortality after acute myocardial infarction.Background. Women have a higher mortality rate than men after myocardial infarction. However, the effect of gender on infarct-related coronary artery patency and left ventricular response to injury/reperfusion have not been fully defined in the thrombolytic era.Methods. Patency rates and global and regional left ventricular function were determined in patients at 90 min and 5 to 7 days after thrombolytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction. The effect of gender on infarct-related artery patency and left ventricular function was determined. Thirty-day mortality differences between women and men were compared.Results. Women were significantly older and had more hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, heart failure and shock. They were less likely to have had a previous myocardial infarction, history of smoking or previous bypass surgery. Ninety-minute patency rates (Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction [TIMI] flow grade 3) in women and men were 39% and 38%, respectively (p = 0.5). Reocclusion rates were 8.7% in women versus 5.1% in men (p = 0.14). Women had more recurrent ischemia than men (21.4% vs. 17.0%, respectively, p = 0.01). Ninety-minute ejection fraction and regional ventricular function were clinically similar in women and men with TIMI 2 or 3 flow (ejection fraction [mean ± SD]: 63.4 ± 6% vs. 59.4 ± 0.7%, p = 0.02; number of chords: 21.4 ± 0.9 vs. 21.0 ± 1.9, p = 0.7; SD/chord: −2.4 ± 08 vs. −2.4 ± 0.2, p = 0.9, respectively). No clinically significant differences in left ventricular function were noted at 5- to 7-day follow-up. Women had a greater hyperkinetic response than men in the noninfarct zone (SD/chord: 2.4 ± 0.2 vs. 1.7 ± 0.1, p = 0.005). The 30-day mortality rate was 13.1% in women versus 4.8% in men (p ≤ 0.0001). After adjustment for other clinical and angiographic variables, gender remained an independent determinant of 30-day mortality.Conclusions. Women do not differ significantly from men with regard to either early infarct-related artery patency rates or reocclusion after thrombolytic therapy or ventricular functional response to injury/reperfusion. Gender was an independent determinant of 30-day mortality after acute myocardial infarction.(J Am Coll Cardiol 1997;29:35–42)

Fossil Systems in the 400d Cluster Catalog

We report the discovery of seven new fossil systems in the 400d cluster survey. Our search targets nearby, $z\le0.2$, and X-ray bright, $L_X\ge 10^{43}$ erg sec$^{-1}$, clusters of galaxies. Where available, we measure the optical luminosities from Sloan Digital Sky Survey images, thereby obtaining uniform sets of both X-ray and optical data. Our selection criteria identify 12 fossil systems, out of which five are known from previous studies. While in general agreement with earlier results, our larger sample size allows us to put tighter constraints on the number density of fossil clusters. It has been previously reported that fossil groups are more X-ray bright than other X-ray groups of galaxies for the same optical luminosity. We find, however, that the X-ray brightness of massive fossil systems is consistent with that of the general population of galaxy clusters and follows the same $L_X-L_{\rm opt}$ scaling relation.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Ap