Carbon storage in grasslands:the impact of atmospheric nitrogen pollution

Atmospheric nitrogen deposition is a major threat to biodiversity and ecosystem service provision around the globe. It is known that nitrogen enrichment affects various chemical and biological processes involved in carbon cycling and storage in soil. This is especially significant as soil carbon storage is an essential form of climate change mitigation. However, there is a lot of uncertainty regarding the impact of nitrogen accumulation on terrestrial carbon storage. Determining the impacts of nitrogen addition on soil carbon is crucial to our understanding of how soil can be managed as a carbon sink. Evidence suggests that the chemical form of nitrogen may affect how grasslands respond to nitrogen enrichment. In addition, nitrogen has both direct and indirect (via plant community change) effects on carbon. In order to understand how nitrogen affects carbon storage, these different effects must be disentangled. By using two seven-year field nitrogen addition experiments, a microcosm incubation, and a two-year mesocosm study, this thesis aimed to investigate the effects of nitrogen addition on carbon cycling and storage in acid grasslands. Results show that reduced nitrogen is likely to have the strongest long-term effects on carbon storage, due to decreases in soil pH and potentially adverse effects of ammonium accumulation. Moreover, nitrogen addition was found to have a negative effect on soil respiration, possibly via nitrogen-enhanced carbon and phosphorus limitations, as well as possible effects of nitrogen-induced acidification. Results also suggest that nitrogen addition may have different direct and indirect effects on soil carbon. Indirect effects, driven by plant community change, strongly influenced inputs of fresh carbon to soil. However, direct effects of nitrogen could alter the storage of older, mineral-associated soil carbon. Finally, this thesis highlights the need for more long-term (over ten-year) studies in order to determine the true effects of nitrogen on soil carbon storage

Beyond Shape: How You Learn about Objects Affects How They Are Represented in Visual Cortex

Background: Experience can alter how objects are represented in the visual cortex. But experience can take different forms. It is unknown whether the kind of visual experience systematically alters the nature of visual cortical object representations. Methodology/Principal Findings: We take advantage of different training regimens found to produce qualitatively different types of perceptual expertise behaviorally in order to contrast the neural changes that follow different kinds of visual experience with the same objects. Two groups of participants went through training regimens that required either subordinate-level individuation or basic-level categorization of a set of novel, artificial objects, called ‘‘Ziggerins’’. fMRI activity of a region in the right fusiform gyrus increased after individuation training and was correlated with the magnitude of configural processing of the Ziggerins observed behaviorally. In contrast, categorization training caused distributed changes, with increased activity in the medial portion of the ventral occipito-temporal cortex relative to more lateral areas. Conclusions/Significance: Our results demonstrate that the kind of experience with a category of objects can systematically influence how those objects are represented in visual cortex. The demands of prior learning experience therefore appear t

Trajectories of Inflammation in Youth and Risk of Mental and Cardiometabolic Disorders in Adulthood

IMPORTANCE: Research suggests that low-grade, nonresolving inflammation may predate adult mental and physical illness. However, evidence to date is largely cross-sectional or focuses on single disorder outcomes.OBJECTIVES: To examine trajectories of inflammation as measured by C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in a large sample of children and adolescents, and to explore associations between different identified trajectories and mental and related cardiometabolic health outcomes in early adulthood.DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: In a longitudinal cohort study using data from the large UK-based Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), latent class growth analysis (LCGA) was used to explore different trajectories of inflammation, with logistic regression exploring association with mental and physical health outcomes. Participants with measurable CRP data and associated mental and cardiometabolic health outcomes recorded were included in the analysis. Data analysis was performed from May 1, 2023, to March 30, 2024.EXPOSURES: Inflammation was assessed via CRP levels at ages 9, 15, and 17 years. LCGA was used to identify different trajectories of inflammation.MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Outcomes assessed at age 24 years included psychotic disorders, depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, hypomania, and, as a measure of insulin resistance, Homeostasis Model Assessment (HOMA2) score.RESULTS: A total of 6556 participants (3303 [50.4%] female) were included. Three classes of inflammation were identified: persistently low CRP levels (reference class, n = 6109); persistently raised CRP levels, peaking at age 9 years (early peak, n = 197); and persistently raised CRP levels, peaking at age 17 years (late peak, n = 250). Participants in the early peak group were associated with a higher risk of psychotic disorder (odds ratio [OR], 4.60; 95% CI, 1.81-11.70; P = .008), a higher risk of severe depression (OR, 4.37; 95% CI, 1.64-11.63; P = .02), and higher HOMA2 scores (β = 0.05; 95% CI, 0.01-0.62, P = .04) compared with participants with persistently low CRP. The late peak group was not associated with any outcomes at age 24 years.CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Low-grade systemic inflammation peaking in midchildhood was associated with specific mental and cardiometabolic disorders in young adulthood. These findings suggest that low-grade persistent inflammation in early life may be an important shared common factor for mental-physical comorbidity and so could be relevant to future efforts of patient stratification and risk profiling.</p

Ranking metabolite sets by their activity levels

Related metabolites can be grouped into sets in many ways, e.g., by their participation in series of chemical reactions (forming metabolic pathways), or based on fragmentation spectral similarities or shared chemical substructures. Understanding how such metabolite sets change in relation to experimental factors can be incredibly useful in the interpretation and understanding of complex metabolomics data sets. However, many of the available tools that are used to perform this analysis are not entirely suitable for the analysis of untargeted metabolomics measurements. Here, we present PALS (Pathway Activity Level Scoring), a Python library, command line tool, and Web application that performs the ranking of significantly changing metabolite sets over different experimental conditions. The main algorithm in PALS is based on the pathway level analysis of gene expression (PLAGE) factorisation method and is denoted as mPLAGE (PLAGE for metabolomics). As an example of an application, PALS is used to analyse metabolites grouped as metabolic pathways and by shared tandem mass spectrometry fragmentation patterns. A comparison of mPLAGE with two other commonly used methods (overrepresentation analysis (ORA) and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA)) is also given and reveals that mPLAGE is more robust to missing features and noisy data than the alternatives. As further examples, PALS is also applied to human African trypanosomiasis, Rhamnaceae, and American Gut Project data. In addition, normalisation can have a significant impact on pathway analysis results, and PALS offers a framework to further investigate this. PALS is freely available from our project Web site

Validity of self-reported height and weight and derived body mass index in middle-aged and elderly individuals in Australia

Background: Body mass index (BMI) is an important measure of adiposity. While BMI derived from self-reported data generally agrees well with that derived from measured values, evidence from Australia is limited, particularly for the elderly. Methods: We compared self-reported with measured height and weight in a random sample of 608 individuals aged ≥45 from the 45 and Up Study, an Australian population-based cohort study. We assessed degree of agreement and correlation between measures, and calculated sensitivity and specificity to quantify BMI category misclassification. Results: On average, in males and females respectively, height was overestimated by 1.24cm (95% CI: 0.75-1.72) and 0.59cm (0.26-0.92); weight was underestimated by 1.68kg (-1.99-1.36) and 1.02kg (-1.24-0.80); and BMI based on self-reported measures was underestimated by 0.90kg/m2 (-1.09-0.70) and 0.60 kg/m2 (-0.75-0.45). Underestimation increased with increasing measured BMI. There were strong correlations between self-reported and measured height, weight and BMI (r=0.95, 0.99 and 0.95, respectively, p<0.001). While there was excellent agreement between BMI categories from self-reported and measured data (kappa=0.80), obesity prevalence was underestimated. Findings did not differ substantially between middleaged and elderly participants. Conclusions: Self-reported data on height and weight quantify body size appropriately in middle-aged and elderly individuals for relative measures, such as quantiles of BMI. However, caution is necessary when reporting on absolute BMI and standard BMI categories, based on self-reported data, particularly since use of such data is likely to result in underestimation of the prevalence of obesity

IMPROVING SCHOOL READINESS THROUGH EXPANDED ACCESS TO NUTRITIOUS FOOD AND LITERACY PROGRAMMING IN CLEVELAND COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA

Education access and quality are social determinants of health that contribute to a healthier life with less chronic illness and longer life expectancy. Children being developmentally ready for school is instrumental to a quality education. Poverty and food insecurity can negatively impact a child’s school readiness; in fact, only half of children born into poverty are developmentally ready for school. In Cleveland County, one in three children is living in poverty and one in four children is food insecure, leading to gaps in educational readiness for economically disadvantaged students. This proposal contains policies to address these disadvantages, improve school readiness and close education gaps for economically disadvantaged students. The first policy is a home visit program that augments the standard NC pre-K curriculum and instills language and literacy skills. The second is an expansion of Feeding Kids Cleveland County, a backpack program currently serving school age children to the pre-K target population.Master of Public Healt

Estableciendo una línea de base para estudios de monitoreo: niveles leucocitarios en focas de la Península Antártica

En el contexto actual de cambio climático, resulta fundamental contar con información de base sobre parámetros inmunológicos para evaluar la magnitud y dirección del cambio sobre los organismos. El uso de parámetros hematológicos, como los conteos leucocitarios, es una herramienta útil en el análisis del estado sanitario. Los leucocitos son uno de los componentes principales del sistema inmunológico animal, brindando protección contra una gran variedad de parásitos y patógenos. En el presente estudio, presentamos por primera vez los conteos leucocitarios de tres especies de focas antárticas: Weddell (FW, Leptonychotes weddellii), Leopardo (FL, Hydrurga leptonyx) y Cangrejera (FC, Lobodon carcinophagus).Fil: D'amico, Veronica Laura. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico. Centro para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos; ArgentinaFil: Leonardi, María Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico. Instituto de Biología de Organismos Marinos; ArgentinaFil: Márquez, María Elba Isabel. Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Comercio Interno y Culto. Dirección Nacional del Antártico. Instituto Antártico Argentino; ArgentinaFil: Rogers, Tracey L.. University of New South Wales. Faculty of Science. School of Biological-earth and Environmental Sciences; AustraliaFil: Negrete, Javier. Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Comercio Interno y Culto. Dirección Nacional del Antártico. Instituto Antártico Argentino; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaXXX Jornadas Argentinas de MastozoologíaBahia BlancaArgentinaSociedad Argentina para el Estudio de los MamíferosInstituto de Ciencias Biológicas y Biomédicas del SurUniversidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Biología, Bioquímica y Farmaci

The relationship between the menstrual cycle and cortisol secretion: Daily and stress-invoked cortisol patterns

The menstrual cycle involves significant changes in hormone levels, causing physical and psychological changes in women that are further influenced by stress. The aim of this study was to understand the relationship between menstrual cycle phase and salivary cortisol patterns during the day as well as the salivary cortisol response to the Virtual Reality Version of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST-VR). Forty two women not taking oral contraceptives (24 in follicular phase and 18 in luteal phase) participated in the study. Five samples of salivary cortisol collected during the day and another five samples of cortisol during the TSST-VR were analyzed. Psychological stress measures and psychopathological symptomatology were also evaluated. A 2 × 4 mixed ANCOVA showed an interaction between the two groups on the TSST-RV invoked cortisol response to the [F(3,42) = 3.681; p = 0.023) where women in luteal phase showed higher cortisol post exposure levels (5.96 ± 3.76 nmol/L) than women in follicular phase (4.31 ± 2.23 nmol/L). No other significant differences were found. Our findings provide evidence that menstrual cycle phase tended to influence cortisol response to laboratory-induced mental stress, with more reactivity observed in the luteal phase.This study is a part of a Thesis Doctoral and was supported by the I+D Project “PSI2010-15780”, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness

Vaccines for the Leishmaniases: Proposals for a Research Agenda

The International Symposium on Leishmaniasis Vaccines, held in Olinda, Brazil, on March 9–11, 2009, congregated international experts who conduct research on vaccines against the leishmaniases. The questions that were raised during that meeting and the ensuing discussions are compiled in this report and may assist in guiding a research agenda. A group to further discussion on issues raised in this policy platform has been set up at http://groups.google.com/group/leishvaccines-l

Setting the standard: multidisciplinary hallmarks for structural, equitable and tracked antibiotic policy

There is increasing concern globally about the enormity of the threats posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to human, animal, plant and environmental health. A proliferation of international, national and institutional reports on the problems posed by AMR and the need for antibiotic stewardship have galvanised attention on the global stage. However, the AMR community increasingly laments a lack of action, often identified as an ‘implementation gap’. At a policy level, the design of internationally salient solutions that are able to address AMR’s interconnected biological and social (historical, political, economic and cultural) dimensions is not straightforward. This multidisciplinary paper responds by asking two basic questions: (A) Is a universal approach to AMR policy and antibiotic stewardship possible? (B) If yes, what hallmarks characterise ‘good’ antibiotic policy? Our multistage analysis revealed four central challenges facing current international antibiotic policy: metrics, prioritisation, implementation and inequality. In response to this diagnosis, we propose three hallmarks that can support robust international antibiotic policy. Emerging hallmarks for good antibiotic policies are: Structural, Equitable and Tracked. We describe these hallmarks and propose their consideration should aid the design and evaluation of international antibiotic policies with maximal benefit at both local and international scale