Laboratory based feeding behaviour of the Chinese mitten crab, <i>Eriocheir sinensis</i>, (Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura: Varunidae):fish egg consumption

Dispersal of Eriocheir sinensis from its native habitat is a worldwide concern. As one of the most invasive species known, this crab causes significant disruption to foreign ecosystems. In particular, populations in the United Kingdom (UK) are increasing in number and E. sinensis has been reported from many river catchments. The ecological implications of this invasion are not fully understood. One aspect of concern lies in the potential for mitten crabs to predate fish eggs which, if realistic, could contribute to the decline of riverine populations. In this study, 100 mitten crabs from the River Thames were used in experimental feeding trials to 1) investigate foraging ability on a variety of fish eggs and 2) establish whether crab size affected foraging potential. Eggs ranged from 1–6 millimetres (mm) in diameter from one of four species of marine and freshwater fish; zebrafish, lumpfish, Pacific salmon and trout. Predation by crabs varied with egg type; crabs were capable of foraging 1mm zebrafish eggs, but the majority consumed eggs 2–6mm in diameter. The most attractive eggs were apparently lumpfish, where the median proportion consumed was 100%. Crab size did not appear to govern foraging potential, though variation was observed in the size range of juvenile crabs consuming the different eggs with the largest, salmon, being consumed by crabs of the broadest size range. E. sinensis does have the potential to predate on a range of fish eggs, and the results are used to infer the risk presented to specific groups of UK fish stocks.© 2015 The Author(s). Journal compilation © 2015 REABIC. Aquatic Invasions is an Open Access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of Open Access

WHO Surgical Checklist and Its Practical Application in Plastic Surgery

The WHO surgical checklist was introduced to most UK surgical units following the WHO “Safe Surgery Saves Lives” initiative. The aim of this audit was to review patient's safety in the delivery of surgical care and to evaluate the practical application of the new WHO surgical checklist. We conducted a retrospective audit of patients who received operative treatment under general anaesthesia at our Plastic Surgery Department, involving a total number of 90 patients. The WHO form was compared to its former equivalents. Complications or incidents occurring during or after surgery were recorded. Using the department's previous surgical checklist, “Time out” was only performed in only 30% of cases. One patient arrived at theatre reception without a completed consent form, and two clinical incidents were reported without patients suffering harm. Following introduction of current WHO surgical checklist, “Time out” was recorded in 80% of cases. In all cases, the new WHO surgical checklist was used and no incidents were reported. The WHO surgical checklist provides a structured frame work that standardizes the delivery of care across hospitals and specialized units; however, it will take some time and practice for teams to learn to use the checklist effectively and reliably

Understanding Phase Transitions of Pharmaceutical Materials

The effect of confinement on pharmaceuticals is a growing field of interest for drug delivery because of the ability to customise both shapes and sizes of pore space. The pore diameters, volumes and surface areas affect the properties and structural arrangement of pharmaceuticals in ways we cannot currently predict. Nanometre sized pores also provide an interesting landscape for experiments into crystalline/amorphous and polymorphic transitions. However, due to the process of encapsulation, the analysis of these materials presents a challenge. In this work we demonstrate how combined material characterisation techniques such as solid-state NMR, DSC, TGA, PXRD, FT-IR and N2 sorption can be used in order to gain insight into the properties, structural characteristics and phase transitions of these encapsulated materials. We have also demonstrated how solvent mediated phase transitions can drive the same polymorphic interconversions that can be achieved by thermally dehydrating an API called acyclovir. A cocrystal of flufenamic acid and nicotinamide, and nicotinamide on its own were chosen as pharmaceuticals to encapsulate in mesoporous silica hosts. At low loadings (40% wt%) in larger pores of silica we have given evidence of crystalline ordering existing. Through the use of variable temperature MAS NMR and the 19F-19F NOESY pulse sequence we were able to distinguish three distinct components with different ordering and dynamics of FFA/NA that existed inside the same pore space. 13C solid state NMR and PXRD of nicotinamide inside pores larger than 6 nm revealed a polymorphic interconversion from form I to a previously unknown form which we later characterised as form [delta]. Polymorphic conversion of ACV hydrates into anhydrous forms was achieved through slurrying dry solvents with high polarity

An integrated approach to enhancing functional annotation of sequences for data analysis of a transcriptome

Given the ever increasing quantity of sequence data, functional annotation of new gene sequences persists as being a significant challenge for bioinformatics. This is a particular problem for transcriptomics studies in crop plants where large genomes and evolutionarily distant model organisms, means that identifying the function of a given gene used on a microarray, is often a non-trivial task. Information pertinent to gene annotations is spread across technically and semantically heterogeneous biological databases. Combining and exploiting these data in a consistent way has the potential to improve our ability to assign functions to new or uncharacterised genes. Methods: The Ondex data integration framework was further developed to integrate databases pertinent to plant gene annotation, and provide data inference tools. The CoPSA annotation pipeline was created to provide automated annotation of novel plant genes using this knowledgebase. CoPSA was used to derive annotations for Affymetrix GeneChips available for plant species. A conjoint approach was used to align GeneChip sequences to orthologous proteins, and identify protein domain regions. These proteins and domains were used together with multiple evidences to predict functional annotations for sequences on the GeneChip. Quality was assessed with reference to other annotation pipelines. These improved gene annotations were used in the analysis of a time-series transcriptomics study of the differential responses of durum wheat varieties to water stress. Results and Conclusions: The integration of plant databases using the Ondex showed that it was possible to increase the overall quantity and quality of information available, and thereby improve the resulting annotation. Direct data aggregation benefits were observed, as well as new information derived from inference across databases. The CoPSA pipeline was shown to improve coverage of the wheat microarray compared to the NetAffx and BLAST2GO pipelines. Leverage of these annotations during the analysis of data from a transcriptomics study of the durum wheat water stress responses, yielded new biological insights into water stress and highlighted potential candidate genes that could be used by breeders to improve drought response

An integrated approach to enhancing functional annotation of sequences for data analysis of a transcriptome

Given the ever increasing quantity of sequence data, functional annotation of new gene sequences persists as being a significant challenge for bioinformatics. This is a particular problem for transcriptomics studies in crop plants where large genomes and evolutionarily distant model organisms, means that identifying the function of a given gene used on a microarray, is often a non-trivial task. Information pertinent to gene annotations is spread across technically and semantically heterogeneous biological databases. Combining and exploiting these data in a consistent way has the potential to improve our ability to assign functions to new or uncharacterised genes. Methods: The Ondex data integration framework was further developed to integrate databases pertinent to plant gene annotation, and provide data inference tools. The CoPSA annotation pipeline was created to provide automated annotation of novel plant genes using this knowledgebase. CoPSA was used to derive annotations for Affymetrix GeneChips available for plant species. A conjoint approach was used to align GeneChip sequences to orthologous proteins, and identify protein domain regions. These proteins and domains were used together with multiple evidences to predict functional annotations for sequences on the GeneChip. Quality was assessed with reference to other annotation pipelines. These improved gene annotations were used in the analysis of a time-series transcriptomics study of the differential responses of durum wheat varieties to water stress. Results and Conclusions: The integration of plant databases using the Ondex showed that it was possible to increase the overall quantity and quality of information available, and thereby improve the resulting annotation. Direct data aggregation benefits were observed, as well as new information derived from inference across databases. The CoPSA pipeline was shown to improve coverage of the wheat microarray compared to the NetAffx and BLAST2GO pipelines. Leverage of these annotations during the analysis of data from a transcriptomics study of the durum wheat water stress responses, yielded new biological insights into water stress and highlighted potential candidate genes that could be used by breeders to improve drought response