Nitrous oxide emissions from irrigated cotton soils of northern Australia

An automated gas sampling methodology has been used to estimate nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from heavy black clay soil in northern Australia where split applications of urea were applied to furrow irrigated cotton. Nitrous oxide emissions from the beds were 643 g N/ha over the 188 day measurement period (after planting), whilst the N2O emissions from the furrows were significantly higher at 967 g N/ha. The DNDC model was used to develop a full season simulation of N2O and N2 emissions. Seasonal N2O emissions were equivalent to 0.83% of applied N, with total gaseous N losses (excluding NH3) estimated to be 16% of the applied N

Characterizing the plant and soil interactions that affect the growth and nutrition of cotton ('Gossypium Hirsutum' L.) in sodic vertosols

Soil maps and surveys of Australian soils suggest that the surface and/or the subsoil in a majority of cotton growing regions in Australia are sodic. Sodicity has the potential to reduce the productivity of cotton crops by affecting their growth and nutrient acquisition. Cotton growers are however uncertain about the implications of sodicity for the productivity of their crops. Additionally, it is unclear to what extent the effects of sodicity on cotton growth and nutrient accumulation are due to soil physical or chemical factors, which creates difficulties in applying appropriate management strategies to problem sodic fields. Soil physical factors with the potential to limit cotton growth and nutrient accumulation include high soil strength and poor aeration. Soil chemical factors with the potential to limit cotton growth and nutrient accumulation included high soil solution sodium concentrations and elevated soil pH values. The main objectives of this project were; • To better quantify the effects of soils with a range of exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) values on cotton growth and nutrition. • To determine the relative importance of various physical and chemical properties of sodic soils on the growth and nutrition of cotton

Protocol for PD SENSORS:Parkinson’s Disease Symptom Evaluation in a Naturalistic Setting producing Outcomes measuRes using SPHERE technology. An observational feasibility study of multi-modal multi-sensor technology to measure symptoms and activities of daily living in Parkinson’s disease

Introduction The impact of disease-modifying agents on disease progression in Parkinson’s disease is largely assessed in clinical trials using clinical rating scales. These scales have drawbacks in terms of their ability to capture the fluctuating nature of symptoms while living in a naturalistic environment. The SPHERE (Sensor Platform for HEalthcare in a Residential Environment) project has designed a multi-sensor platform with multimodal devices designed to allow continuous, relatively inexpensive, unobtrusive sensing of motor, non-motor and activities of daily living metrics in a home or a home-like environment. The aim of this study is to evaluate how the SPHERE technology can measure aspects of Parkinson’s disease.Methods and analysis This is a small-scale feasibility and acceptability study during which 12 pairs of participants (comprising a person with Parkinson’s and a healthy control participant) will stay and live freely for 5 days in a home-like environment embedded with SPHERE technology including environmental, appliance monitoring, wrist-worn accelerometry and camera sensors. These data will be collected alongside clinical rating scales, participant diary entries and expert clinician annotations of colour video images. Machine learning will be used to look for a signal to discriminate between Parkinson’s disease and control, and between Parkinson’s disease symptoms ‘on’ and ‘off’ medications. Additional outcome measures including bradykinesia, activity level, sleep parameters and some activities of daily living will be explored. Acceptability of the technology will be evaluated qualitatively using semi-structured interviews.Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval has been given to commence this study; the results will be disseminated as widely as appropriate

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Effectiveness of a national quality improvement programme to improve survival after emergency abdominal surgery (EPOCH): a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial

Background: Emergency abdominal surgery is associated with poor patient outcomes. We studied the effectiveness of a national quality improvement (QI) programme to implement a care pathway to improve survival for these patients. Methods: We did a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial of patients aged 40 years or older undergoing emergency open major abdominal surgery. Eligible UK National Health Service (NHS) hospitals (those that had an emergency general surgical service, a substantial volume of emergency abdominal surgery cases, and contributed data to the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit) were organised into 15 geographical clusters and commenced the QI programme in a random order, based on a computer-generated random sequence, over an 85-week period with one geographical cluster commencing the intervention every 5 weeks from the second to the 16th time period. Patients were masked to the study group, but it was not possible to mask hospital staff or investigators. The primary outcome measure was mortality within 90 days of surgery. Analyses were done on an intention-to-treat basis. This study is registered with the ISRCTN registry, number ISRCTN80682973. Findings: Treatment took place between March 3, 2014, and Oct 19, 2015. 22 754 patients were assessed for elegibility. Of 15 873 eligible patients from 93 NHS hospitals, primary outcome data were analysed for 8482 patients in the usual care group and 7374 in the QI group. Eight patients in the usual care group and nine patients in the QI group were not included in the analysis because of missing primary outcome data. The primary outcome of 90-day mortality occurred in 1210 (16%) patients in the QI group compared with 1393 (16%) patients in the usual care group (HR 1·11, 0·96–1·28). Interpretation: No survival benefit was observed from this QI programme to implement a care pathway for patients undergoing emergency abdominal surgery. Future QI programmes should ensure that teams have both the time and resources needed to improve patient care. Funding: National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research Programme

Effectiveness of a national quality improvement programme to improve survival after emergency abdominal surgery (EPOCH): a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial

BACKGROUND: Emergency abdominal surgery is associated with poor patient outcomes. We studied the effectiveness of a national quality improvement (QI) programme to implement a care pathway to improve survival for these patients. METHODS: We did a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial of patients aged 40 years or older undergoing emergency open major abdominal surgery. Eligible UK National Health Service (NHS) hospitals (those that had an emergency general surgical service, a substantial volume of emergency abdominal surgery cases, and contributed data to the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit) were organised into 15 geographical clusters and commenced the QI programme in a random order, based on a computer-generated random sequence, over an 85-week period with one geographical cluster commencing the intervention every 5 weeks from the second to the 16th time period. Patients were masked to the study group, but it was not possible to mask hospital staff or investigators. The primary outcome measure was mortality within 90 days of surgery. Analyses were done on an intention-to-treat basis. This study is registered with the ISRCTN registry, number ISRCTN80682973. FINDINGS: Treatment took place between March 3, 2014, and Oct 19, 2015. 22 754 patients were assessed for elegibility. Of 15 873 eligible patients from 93 NHS hospitals, primary outcome data were analysed for 8482 patients in the usual care group and 7374 in the QI group. Eight patients in the usual care group and nine patients in the QI group were not included in the analysis because of missing primary outcome data. The primary outcome of 90-day mortality occurred in 1210 (16%) patients in the QI group compared with 1393 (16%) patients in the usual care group (HR 1·11, 0·96-1·28). INTERPRETATION: No survival benefit was observed from this QI programme to implement a care pathway for patients undergoing emergency abdominal surgery. Future QI programmes should ensure that teams have both the time and resources needed to improve patient care. FUNDING: National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research Programme

The Form and Availability of Slowly Available Phosphorus in Depleted Vertosols

Vertosols are an important soil type used for cotton production in the northern grains region (NGR) of eastern Australia. Historically, cotton has received minimal phosphorus (P) input due to the high fertility of Vertosols. Over the past 30 years, P fertiliser use in the cotton industry has increased six-fold, due to the perceived decline in soil fertility in the NGR. However, when P is applied to cotton systems, the amount of P fertiliser recovered by the crop (PUE) has been low and unpredictable (0 - 67 %), and few studies have investigated why this is so. The unpredictability of PUE in cotton systems refers to the lack of cotton response when P fertiliser has been applied in some soils, which was based on recommendations from the commonly used Colwell soil P test. Long-term field trials suggest the quantity of readily available P measured using the Colwell extractant is being replenished by other soil phosphates not measured by the Colwell extractant. This may be due to the large amounts of Ca phosphates typically found in Vertosols, which may supply or replenish labile soil P pools in the 0 - 10 cm and 10 - 30 cm layers. Recent studies have used a dilute acid test (colloquially referred to as the BSES extractant) to measure Ca phosphates in Vertosols, however, little is known about the P pools removed by this extractant. The aim of this project was to understand the ability of Ca phosphates to supply or replenish plant available P in the cotton systems of the NGR

The effect of sodicity on cotton: plant response to solutions containing high sodium concentrations

Solution culture was used to investigate whether the high solution Na concentrations and Na:Ca ratios found in sodic soils could directly affect the early growth and nutrient uptake of cotton ('Gossypium hirsutum' L.). Cotton was grown in nutrient solutions with three Na:Ca ratios (46:1, 4:1 and 0.2:1 m'M') and three electrical conductivities (EC) (2.5, 4.25 and 6 dS m⁻¹) combined in a factorial design with four replicates. Most cotton growth parameters (including shoot and root dry weight, fruit number and weight) were unaffected by increasing solution EC or Na:Ca ratio, but at the highest Na concentration (56.6 m'M'), plant height was reduced. It was concluded that young cotton has the ability to tolerate solution Na concentrations up to those found in moderately sodic soils. Increasing solution Na:Ca increased plant root and shoot concentrations and plant accumulation for Na, and decreased them for Ca. Increasing EC also increased plant Na concentration and accumulation. Shoot K and P concentrations decreased with EC, but actually increased as the sodicity (Na:Ca ratio) of the nutrient solution increased. The results suggest that the low K and P concentrations commonly found in cotton grown in sodic soils are not a direct result of Na:Ca ratio in the soil solution