Do Pine Trees in Aspen Stands Increase Bird Diversity

In the Black Hills of South Dakota, quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) is being replaced by conifers through fire suppression and successional processes. Al- though the Black Hills National forest is removing conifers (primarily ponderosa pine [Pinus ponderosa])toincreasetheaspencommunitiesinsomemixedstands,ForestPlan guidelines allow four conifers per hectare to remain to increase diversity in the remaining aspen stand. We compared bird species richness in pure ponderosa pine, mixed stands dominated by ponderosa pine with quaking aspen, mixed stands dominated by aspen with ponderosa pine, and pure aspen stands. Stands dominated by ponderosa pine had lower (

Good adherence to HAART and improved survival in a community HIV/AIDS treatment and care programme: the experience of The AIDS Support Organization (TASO), Kampala, Uganda

BACKGROUND: Poor adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) may result in treatment failure and death. Most reports of the effect of adherence to HAART on mortality come from studies where special efforts are made to provide HAART under ideal conditions. However, there are few reports of the impact of non-adherence to HAART on mortality from community HIV/AIDS treatment and care programmes in developing countries. We therefore conducted a study to assess the effect of adherence to HAART on survival in The AIDS Support Organization (TASO) community HAART programme in Kampala, Uganda. METHODS: The study was a retrospective cohort of 897 patients who initiated HAART at TASO clinic, Kampala, between May 2004 and December 2006. A total of 7,856 adherence assessments were performed on the data. Adherence was assessed using a combination of self-report and pill count methods. Patients who took 95%. The crude death rate was 12.2 deaths per 100 patient-years, with a rate of 42.5 deaths per 100 patient-years for non-adherent patients and 6.1 deaths per 100 patient-years for adherent patients. Non-adherence to ART was significantly associated with mortality. Patients with a CD4 count of less than 50 cells/mm3 had a higher mortality (HR = 4.3; 95% CI: 2.22-5.56) compared to patients with a CD4 count equal to or greater than 50 cells/mm3 (HR = 2.4; 95% CI: 1.79-2.38). CONCLUSION: Our study showed that good adherence and improved survival are feasible in community HIV/AIDS programmes such as that of TASO, Uganda. However, there is need to support community HAART programmes to overcome the challenges of funding to provide sustainable supplies particularly of antiretroviral drugs; provision of high quality clinical and laboratory support; and achieving a balance between expansion and quality of services. Measures for the early identification and treatment of HIV infected people including home-based VCT and HAART should be strengthened

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo

Preliminary examination of the efficacy and safety of a standardized chamomile extract for chronic primary insomnia: A randomized placebo-controlled pilot study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite being the most commonly used herbal for sleep disorders, chamomile's (<it>Matricaria recutita</it>) efficacy and safety for treating chronic primary insomnia is unknown. We examined the preliminary efficacy and safety of chamomile for improving subjective sleep and daytime symptoms in patients with chronic insomnia.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We performed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot trial in 34 patients aged 18-65 years with DSM-IV primary insomnia for ≥ 6-months. Patients were randomized to 270 mg of chamomile twice daily or placebo for 28-days. The primary outcomes were sleep diary measures. Secondary outcomes included daytime symptoms, safety assessments, and effect size of these measures.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There were no significant differences between groups in changes in sleep diary measures, including total sleep time (TST), sleep efficiency, sleep latency, wake after sleep onset (WASO), sleep quality, and number of awakenings. Chamomile did show modest advantage on daytime functioning, although these did not reach statistical significance. Effect sizes were generally small to moderate (Cohen's <it>d </it>≤ 0.20 to < 0.60) with sleep latency, night time awakenings, and Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), having moderate effect sizes in favor of chamomile. However, TST demonstrated a moderate effect size in favor of placebo. There were no differences in adverse events reported by the chamomile group compared to placebo.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Chamomile could provide modest benefits of daytime functioning and mixed benefits on sleep diary measures relative to placebo in adults with chronic primary insomnia. However, further studies in select insomnia patients would be needed to investigate these conclusions.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01286324">NCT01286324</a></p

Effect of Peer Health Workers on AIDS Care in Rakai, Uganda: A Cluster-Randomized Trial

Human resource limitations are a challenge to the delivery of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in low-resource settings. We conducted a cluster randomized trial to assess the effect of community-based peer health workers (PHW) on AIDS care of adults in Rakai, Uganda.15 AIDS clinics were randomized 2:1 to receive the PHW intervention (n = 10) or control (n = 5). PHW tasks included clinic and home-based provision of counseling, clinical, adherence to ART, and social support. Primary outcomes were adherence and cumulative risk of virologic failure (>400 copies/mL). Secondary outcomes were virologic failure at each 24 week time point up to 192 weeks of ART. Analysis was by intention to treat. From May 2006 to July 2008, 1336 patients were followed. 444 (33%) of these patients were already on ART at the start of the study. No significant differences were found in lack of adherence (<95% pill count adherence risk ratio [RR] 0.55, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.23-1.35; <100% adherence RR 1.10, 95% CI 0.94-1.30), cumulative risk of virologic failure (RR 0.81, 95% CI 0.61-1.08) or in shorter-term virologic outcomes (24 week virologic failure RR 0.93, 95% CI 0.65-1.32; 48 week, RR 0.83, 95% CI 0.47-1.48; 72 week, RR 0.81, 95% CI 0.44-1.49). However, virologic failure rates >or=96 weeks into ART were significantly decreased in the intervention arm compared to the control arm (96 week failure RR 0.50, 95% CI 0.31-0.81; 120 week, RR 0.59, 95% CI 0.22-1.60; 144 week, RR 0.39, 95% CI 0.16-0.95; 168 week, RR 0.30, 95% CI 0.097-0.92; 192 week, RR 0.067, 95% CI 0.0065-0.71).A PHW intervention was associated with decreased virologic failure rates occurring 96 weeks and longer into ART, but did not affect cumulative risk of virologic failure, adherence measures, or shorter-term virologic outcomes. PHWs may be an effective intervention to sustain long-term ART in low-resource settings.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00675389

A Gene Expression Signature from Human Breast Cancer Cells with Acquired Hormone Independence Identifies MYC as a Mediator of Antiestrogen Resistance

PURPOSE: Although most patients with estrogen receptor α (ER)-positive breast cancer initially respond to endocrine therapy, many ultimately develop resistance to antiestrogens. However, mechanisms of antiestrogen resistance and biomarkers predictive of such resistance are underdeveloped. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: We adapted four ER+ human breast cancer cell lines to grow in an estrogen-depleted medium. A gene signature of estrogen independence was developed by comparing expression profiles of long-term estrogen-deprived (LTED) cells to their parental counterparts. We evaluated the ability of the LTED signature to predict tumor response to neoadjuvant therapy with an aromatase inhibitor, and disease outcome following adjuvant tamoxifen. We utilized Gene Set Analysis (GSA) of LTED cell gene expression profiles and a loss-of-function approach to identify pathways causally associated with resistance to endocrine therapy. RESULTS: The LTED gene expression signature was predictive of high tumor cell proliferation following neoadjuvant therapy with anastrozole and letrozole, each in different patient cohorts. This signature was also predictive of poor recurrence-free survival in two studies of patients treated with adjuvant tamoxifen. Bioinformatic interrogation of expression profiles in LTED cells revealed a signature of MYC activation. The MYC activation signature and high MYC protein levels were both predictive of poor outcome following tamoxifen therapy. Finally, knockdown of MYC inhibited LTED cell growth. CONCLUSIONS: A gene expression signature derived from ER+ breast cancer cells with acquired hormone independence predicted tumor response to aromatase inhibitors and associated with clinical markers of resistance to tamoxifen. In some cases, activation of the MYC pathway was associated with this resistance

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin