Memories from VII World Congress of Music Therapy, Vitoria Gasteiz, 1993

Some of the participants share their memories and photos from the VII World Congress of Music Therapy, held in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain in 1993

Responses of phytoplankton to experimental fertilization with ammonium and phosphate in an African soda lake

Phytoplankton abundance in tropical lakes is more often judged to be limited by nitrogen than phosphorus, but seldom does the evidence include controlled enrichments of natural populations. In January 1980 we performed the first experimental fertilization in an equatorial African soda lake, Lake Sonachi, a small, meromictic volcanic crater lake in Kenya. During our study the natural phytoplankton abundance was ca. 80 μg chl a /l, and the euphotic zone PO 4 and NH 4 concentrations were less than 0.5 μM. In the monimolimnion PO 4 reached 180 μM and NH 4 reached 4,600 μM. Replicate polyethylene cylinders (5 m long, 1.2 m 3 ) were enriched to attain 10 μM PO 4 and 100 μM NH 4 . Phytoplankton responses were measured as chlorophyll, cell counts and particulate N, P and C. After two days, the chlorophyll increase in the P treatment was significantly higher than the control ( P <0.01) while the N treatment was not. After five days the molar N/P ratio of seston was the same in the N treatment and control (23) but only 6 in the P treatment. The molar N/P ratio of seston in an unenriched Lake Sonachi sample was 21 and in samples from Lakes Bogoria and Elmenteita, two shallow soda lakes in Kenya, the ratios were 12 and 70 respectively. We conclude that limitation of phytoplankton abundance by phosphorus can occur even in some tropical African soda lakes.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/47742/1/442_2004_Article_BF00367954.pd

Canadian physiotherapists' views on certification, specialisation, extended role practice, and entry-level training in rheumatology

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Since the last decade there has been a gradual change of boundaries of health professions in providing arthritis care. In Canada, some facilities have begun to adopt new arthritis care models, some of which involve physiotherapists (PT) working in extended roles. However, little is known about PTs' interests in these new roles. The primary objective of this survey was to determine the interests among orthopaedic physiotherapists (PTs) in being a certified arthritis therapist, a PT specialized in arthritis, or an extended scope practitioner in rheumatology, and to explore the associated factors, including the coverage of arthritis content in the entry-level physiotherapy training.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Six hundred PTs practicing in orthopaedics in Canada were randomly selected to receive a postal survey. The questionnaire covered areas related to clinical practice, perceptions of rheumatology training received, and attitudes toward PT roles in arthritis care. Logistic regression models were developed to explore the associations between PTs' interests in pursuing each of the three extended scope practice designations and the personal/professional/attitudinal variables.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We received 286 questionnaires (response rate = 47.7%); 258 contained usable data. The average length of time in practice was 15.4 years (SD = 10.4). About 1 in 4 PTs agreed that they were interested in assuming advanced practice roles (being a certified arthritis therapist = 28.9%, being a PT specialized in rheumatology = 23.3%, being a PT practitioner = 20.9%). Having a caseload of ≥ 40% in arthritis, having a positive attitude toward advanced practice roles in arthritis care and toward the formal credentialing process, and recognizing the difference between certification and specialisation were associated with an interest in pursing advanced practice roles.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Orthopaedic PTs in Canada indicated a fair level of interest in pursuing certification, specialisation and extended scope practice roles in arthritis care. Future research should focus on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the emerging health service delivery models involving certified, specialized or extended scope practice PTs in the management of arthritis.</p

Exchange of functional domains between a bacterial conjugative relaxase and the integrase of the human adeno-associated virus

Endonucleases of the HUH family are specialized in processing single-stranded DNA in a variety of evolutionarily highly conserved biological processes related to mobile genetic elements. They share a structurally defined catalytic domain for site-specific nicking and strand-transfer reactions, which is often linked to the activities of additional functional domains, contributing to their overall versatility. To assess if these HUH domains could be interchanged, we created a chimeric protein from two distantly related HUH endonucleases, containing the N-terminal HUH domain of the bacterial conjugative relaxase TrwC and the C-terminal DNA helicase domain of the human adeno-associated virus (AAV) replicase and site-specific integrase. The purified chimeric protein retained oligomerization properties and DNA helicase activities similar to Rep68, while its DNA binding specificity and cleaving-joining activity at oriT was similar to TrwC. Interestingly, the chimeric protein could catalyse site-specific integration in bacteria with an efficiency comparable to that of TrwC, while the HUH domain of TrwC alone was unable to catalyze this reaction, implying that the Rep68 C-terminal helicase domain is complementing the TrwC HUH domain to achieve site-specific integration into TrwC targets in bacteria. Our results illustrate how HUH domains could have acquired through evolution other domains in order to attain new roles, contributing to the functional flexibility observed in this protein superfamily.This work was supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC) grant MR/N022890/1 to EH and grant 1001764 to RML; National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant RO1-GM09285 to CRE; Spanish Ministry of Economy and competitiveness (MINECO) grant BIO2013-46414-P to ML and AFM is supported by a Doc.Mobility fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Perioperative fluid and volume management: physiological basis, tools and strategies

Fluid and volume therapy is an important cornerstone of treating critically ill patients in the intensive care unit and in the operating room. New findings concerning the vascular barrier, its physiological functions, and its role regarding vascular leakage have lead to a new view of fluid and volume administration. Avoiding hypervolemia, as well as hypovolemia, plays a pivotal role when treating patients both perioperatively and in the intensive care unit. The various studies comparing restrictive vs. liberal fluid and volume management are not directly comparable, do not differ (in most instances) between colloid and crystalloid administration, and mostly do not refer to the vascular barrier's physiologic basis. In addition, very few studies have analyzed the use of advanced hemodynamic monitoring for volume management

Climate change and freshwater zooplankton: what does it boil down to?

Recently, major advances in the climate–zooplankton interface have been made some of which appeared to receive much attention in a broader audience of ecologists as well. In contrast to the marine realm, however, we still lack a more holistic summary of recent knowledge in freshwater. We discuss climate change-related variation in physical and biological attributes of lakes and running waters, high-order ecological functions, and subsequent alteration in zooplankton abundance, phenology, distribution, body size, community structure, life history parameters, and behavior by focusing on community level responses. The adequacy of large-scale climatic indices in ecology has received considerable support and provided a framework for the interpretation of community and species level responses in freshwater zooplankton. Modeling perspectives deserve particular consideration, since this promising stream of ecology is of particular applicability in climate change research owing to the inherently predictive nature of this field. In the future, ecologists should expand their research on species beyond daphnids, should address questions as to how different intrinsic and extrinsic drivers interact, should move beyond correlative approaches toward more mechanistic explanations, and last but not least, should facilitate transfer of biological data both across space and time

Global public perceptions of genomic data sharing: what shapes the willingness to donate DNA and health data?

Analyzing genomic data across populations is central to understanding the role of genetic factors in health and disease. Successful data sharing relies on public support, which requires attention to whether people around the world are willing to donate their data that are then subsequently shared with others for research. However, studies of such public perceptions are geographically limited and do not enable comparison. This paper presents results from a very large public survey on attitudes toward genomic data sharing. Data from 36,268 individuals across 22 countries (gathered in 15 languages) are presented. In general, publics across the world do not appear to be aware of, nor familiar with, the concepts of DNA, genetics, and genomics. Willingness to donate one's DNA and health data for research is relatively low, and trust in the process of data's being shared with multiple users (e.g., doctors, researchers, governments) is also low. Participants were most willing to donate DNA or health information for research when the recipient was specified as a medical doctor and least willing to donate when the recipient was a for-profit researcher. Those who were familiar with genetics and who were trusting of the users asking for data were more likely to be willing to donate. However, less than half of participants trusted more than one potential user of data, although this varied across countries. Genetic information was not uniformly seen as different from other forms of health information, but there was an association between seeing genetic information as special in some way compared to other health data and increased willingness to donate. The global perspective provided by our "Your DNA, Your Say" study is valuable for informing the development of international policy and practice for sharing genomic data. It highlights that the research community not only needs to be worthy of trust by the public, but also urgent steps need to be taken to authentically communicate why genomic research is necessary and how data donation, and subsequent sharing, is integral to this