Living Coast: Understanding Local Perspectives and Values of the Coast using Community Voice Method in Portsmouth and on the Durham Heritage Coast

This project was commissioned by Natural England with the aim of using the Community Voice Method to explore the values and perceptions of people in Portsmouth and along the Durham Heritage Coast in relation to their local coastal environments and the England Coast Path. The study focused on less affluent areas because wider evidence, including Natural England’s Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment, suggests this is where people are less likely to experience and, therefore benefit from, the natural environment. Through understanding what people think and feel about the coast, it is hoped the benefits of the England Coast Path and a healthy environment can be harnessed for a diverse range of users. The work was undertaken by the Marine Conservation Society, the University of Greenwich and Community Voice Consulting. The approach involved conducting filmed interviews with sample populations in both areas. Forty-one people were interviewed in 33 interviews across the two areas (19 in Portsmouth and 22 along the Durham Coast). The aim was to have a diverse sample of interviewees that included both regular coastal users and those who visited less often, or not at all. The sample populations were fairly evenly divided between active and limited users with a range of ages represented, although the greatest number of responses was in the 60-69 age range. Two films (each approximately 20 mins long) were produced based on the analysis of the interview transcripts. The Portsmouth CVM film can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/jJB94V2g7LY The Durham Heritage Coast CVM film can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmCdqdLoVww A short documentary film explaining the background and method used in this research is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxj_GQyCX2s The CVM films were shown in 5 locations along the Durham coast and 3 in Portsmouth in a variety of community settings. The screenings and workshops provided opportunities to involve some additional people from the local communities, add content that people thought was missing in the films, or expand topics that had already been raised. For analysis, the interviews were divided into themes related to wellbeing, place values, features of coastal places and responses to the England Coast Path

MicroRNA expression profiles in pediatric dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumors.

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015Among noncoding RNAs, microRNAs (miRNAs) have been most extensively studied, and their biology has repeatedly been proven critical for central nervous system pathological conditions. The diagnostic value of several miRNAs was appraised in pediatric dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumors (DNETs) using miRNA microarrays and receiving operating characteristic curves analyses. Overall, five pediatric DNETs were studied. As controls, 17 samples were used: the FirstChoice Human Brain Reference RNA and 16 samples from deceased children who underwent autopsy and were not present with any brain malignancy. The miRNA extraction was carried out using the mirVANA miRNA Isolation Kit, while the experimental approach included miRNA microarrays covering 1211 miRNAs. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was performed to validate the expression profiles of miR-1909* and miR-3138 in all samples initially screened with miRNA microarrays. Our findings indicated that miR-3138 might act as a tumor suppressor gene when down-regulated and miR-1909* as a putative oncogenic molecule when up-regulated in pediatric DNETs compared to the control cohort. Subsequently, both miRNA signatures might serve as putative diagnostic biomarkers for pediatric DNETs.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Genetic Diversity of PCR-Positive, Culture-Negative and Culture-Positive Mycobacterium ulcerans Isolated from Buruli Ulcer Patients in Ghana.

Culture of Mycobacterium ulcerans from Buruli ulcer patients has very low sensitivity. Thus confirmation of M. ulcerans infection is primarily based on PCR directed against IS2404. In this study we compare the genotypes obtained by variable number of tandem repeat analysis of DNA from IS2404-PCR positive cultures with that obtained from IS2404 positive, culture-negative tissue. A significantly greater genetic heterogeneity was found among culture-negative samples compared with that found in cultured strains but a single genotype is over-represented in both sample sets. This study provides evidence that both the focal location of bacteria in a lesion as well as differences in the ability to culture a particular genotype may underlie the low sensitivity of culture. Though preliminary, data from this work also suggests that mycobacteria previously associated with fish disease (M. pseudoshottsii) may be pathogenic for humans

Health Impacts of Catastrophic Climate Change: Expert Workshop. Avoid Dangerous Climate Change (AVOID)

Climate change is likely to have serious and significant impacts on human population health. The mechanisms by which climate change may affect health are becoming better understood. Current quantitative methods of estimating future health impacts rely on disease-specific models that primarily describe relationships between mean values of weather variables and health outcomes and do not address the impacts of extreme events or weather disasters. Extreme events have the potential to disrupt community function, which is of concern for decision-makers. Estimating the magnitude and extent of impacts from low probability high impact events is challenging because there is often no analogue that can provide relevant evidence and that take into account the complexity of factors determining future vulnerability and health impacts (the social determinants of health)

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty

Solid intentions:an archival ethnography of corporate architecture and organizational remembering

Research on organizational spaces has not considered the importance of collective memory for the process of investing meaning in corporate architecture. Employing an archival ethnography approach, practices of organizational remembering emerge as a way to shape the meanings associated with architectural designs. While the role of monuments and museums are well established in studies of collective memory, this research extends the concept of spatiality to the practices of organizational remembering that focus on a wider selection of corporate architecture. By analyzing the historical shift from colonial to modernist architecture for banks and retailers in Ghana and Nigeria in the 1950s and 1960s on the basis of documents and photographs from three different companies, this article shows how archival sources can be used to untangle the ways in which companies seek to ascribe meaning to their architectural output. Buildings allude to the past and the future in a range of complex ways that can be interpreted more fully by reference to the archival sources and the historical context of their creation. Social remembering has the potential to explain why and how buildings have meaning, while archival ethnography offers a new research approach to investigate changing organizational practices

Photodegradation of the Mycobacterium ulcerans Toxin, Mycolactones: Considerations for Handling and Storage

Background: Mycolactones are toxins secreted by M. ulcerans, the etiological agent of Buruli ulcer. These toxins, which are the main virulence factors of the bacilli, are responsible for skin lesions. Considering their specificity for M. ulcerans and their presence in skin lesions even at early stages, mycolactones are promising candidates for the development of a diagnostic tool for M. ulcerans infection. Stability of purified mycolactones towards light and heat has not yet been investigated, despite the importance of such parameters in the selection of strategies for a diagnosis tool development. In this context, the effects of UV, light and temperature on mycolactone stability and biological activity were studied. Methodology/Principal Findings: To investigate the effect of these physical parameters, mycolactones were exposed to different wavelengths in several solvents and temperatures. Structural changes and biological activity were monitored. Whilst high temperature had no effect on mycolactones, UV irradiation (UV-A, UV-B and UV-C) and sunlight exposure caused a considerable degradation, as revealed by LC-MS and NMR analysis, correlated with a loss of biological activity. Moreover, effect of UVs on mycolactone caused a photodegradation rather than a phototransformation due to the identification of degradation product. Conclusion/Significance: This study demonstrates the high sensitivity of mycolactones to UVs as such it defines instruction