Mortality of HIV-Infected Patients Starting Antiretroviral Therapy in Sub-Saharan Africa: Comparison with HIV-Unrelated Mortality

Comparing mortality rates between patients starting HIV treatment and the general population in four African countries, Matthias Egger and colleagues find the gap decreases over time, especially with early treatment

Metal-responsive gene regulation and metal transport in Helicobacter species

Helicobacter species are among the most successful colonizers of the mammalian gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary tract. Colonization is usually lifelong, indicating that Helicobacter species have evolved intricate mechanisms of dealing with stresses encountered during colonization of host tissues, like restriction of essential metal ions. The recent availability of genome sequences of the human gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori, the murine enterohepatic pathogen Helicobacter hepaticus and the unannotated genome sequence of the ferret gastric pathogen Helicobacter mustelae has allowed for comparitive genome analyses. In this review we present such analyses for metal transporters, metal-storage and metal-responsive regulators in these three Helicobacter species, and discuss possible contributions of the differences in metal metabolism in adaptation to the gastric or enterohepatic niches occupied by Helicobacter species

Dutch guideline on total hip prosthesis

Contains fulltext : 97840.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

The chemical speciation of Fe(III) in freshwaters

Dialysis and chemical speciation modelling have been used to calculate activities of Fe3+ for a range of UK surface waters of varying chemistry (pH 4.3–8.0; dissolved organic carbon 1.7–40.3 mg l-1) at 283K. The resulting activities were regressed against pH to give the empirical model: log aFe3+ = 2.76(±0.53) – 2.63(±0.08)•pH Predicted Fe3+ activities are consistent with a solid–solution equilibrium with hydrous ferric oxide. However, the apparent solubility of the solid phase decreases as pH decreases, consistent with some previous studies on Fe(III) solubility in the laboratory. The empirical model was used to predict concentrations of Fe in dialysates and ultrafiltrates of globally distributed surface and soil/ground waters. The predictions were improved greatly by the incorporation of a temperature correction for aFe3+, consistent with the temperature–dependence of previously reported hydrous ferric oxide solubility. The empirical model, incorporating temperature effects, may be used to make generic predictions of the ratio of free and complexed Fe(III) to dissolved organic matter in freshwaters. Comparison of such ratios with observed Fe : dissolved organic matter ratios allows an assessment to be made of the amounts of Fe present as Fe(II) or colloidal Fe(III), where no separate measurements have been made