Genitofemoral and Perineal Neuralgia After Transobturator Midurethral Sling

Midurethral slings successfully treat stress urinary incontinence through a minimally invasive vaginal approach. Postoperative pain related to sling placement can occur and poses both diagnostic and treatment dilemmas

BioStar: An Online Question & Answer Resource for the Bioinformatics Community

Parnell, Laurence D. et al.Although the era of big data has produced many bioinformatics tools and databases, using them effectively often requires specialized knowledge. Many groups lack bioinformatics expertise, and frequently find that software documentation is inadequate while local colleagues may be overburdened or unfamiliar with specific applications. Too often, such problems create data analysis bottlenecks that hinder the progress of biological research. In order to help address this deficiency, we present BioStar, a forum based on the Stack Exchange platform where experts and those seeking solutions to problems of computational biology exchange ideas. The main strengths of BioStar are its large and active group of knowledgeable users, rapid response times, clear organization of questions and responses that limit discussion to the topic at hand, and ranking of questions and answers that help identify their usefulness. These rankings, based on community votes, also contribute to a reputation score for each user, which serves to keep expert contributors engaged. The BioStar community has helped to answer over 2,300 questions from over 1,400 users (as of June 10, 2011), and has played a critical role in enabling and expediting many research projects. BioStar can be accessed at http://www.biostars.org/.This work was partially supported by NSF grants MCB-0618402 and CCF-0643529 (CAREER), NIH grants 1R55AI065507 – 01A2 and 1 R01 GM083113-01, NIH/NCRR grant number UL1RR033184, and FPI fellowship SAF-2007-63171/BES-2009-017731 from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain. These funders had no role in the design of BioStar, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewe

Obstetric Sphincter Injury Interacts With Diarrhea and Urgency to Increase the Risk of Fecal Incontinence in Women With Irritable Bowel Syndrome

To confirm that fecal urgency and diarrhea are independent risk factors for fecal incontinence (FI), to identify obstetrical risk factors associated with FI in women with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), and to determine whether obstetric anal sphincter injuries interact with diarrhea or urgency to explain the occurrence of FI

Effect of Anticholinergic Use for the Treatment of Overactive Bladder on Cognitive Function in Postmenopausal Women

Overactive bladder (OAB) is a common condition affecting the elderly. The mainstay of treatment for OAB is medical therapy with anticholinergics. However, adverse events have been reported with this class of drugs including cognitive changes

Evolutionary Epidemiology of Drug-Resistance in Space

The spread of drug-resistant parasites erodes the efficacy of therapeutic treatments against many infectious diseases and is a major threat of the 21st century. The evolution of drug-resistance depends, among other things, on how the treatments are administered at the population level. “Resistance management” consists of finding optimal treatment strategies that both reduce the consequence of an infection at the individual host level, and limit the spread of drug-resistance in the pathogen population. Several studies have focused on the effect of mixing different treatments, or of alternating them in time. Here, we analyze another strategy, where the use of the drug varies spatially: there are places where no one receives any treatment. We find that such a spatial heterogeneity can totally prevent the rise of drug-resistance, provided that the size of treated patches is below a critical threshold. The range of parasite dispersal, the relative costs and benefits of being drug-resistant compared to being drug-sensitive, and the duration of an infection with drug-resistant parasites are the main factors determining the value of this threshold. Our analysis thus provides some general guidance regarding the optimal spatial use of drugs to prevent or limit the evolution of drug-resistance

Susceptibilities of Nonhuman Primates to Chronic Wasting Disease

A species barrier may protect humans from this disease

Mutagenesis and Functional Studies with Succinate Dehydrogenase Inhibitors in the Wheat Pathogen Mycosphaerella graminicola

A range of novel carboxamide fungicides, inhibitors of the succinate dehydrogenase enzyme (SDH, EC 1.3.5.1) is currently being introduced to the crop protection market. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of structurally distinct carboxamides on target site resistance development and to assess possible impact on fitness

A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world's importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth's microbial diversity.Peer reviewe

A communal catalogue reveals Earth’s multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world’s importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth’s microbial diversity