Zoo visitors affect sleep, displacement activities, and affiliative and aggressive behaviors in captive ebony langurs (Trachypithecus auratus)

Previous studies have shown that the number, noise level, and activity level of zoo visitors can negatively influence the behavior of captive animals. This study combined these three factors into a single visitor impact score and assessed whether visitor impact predicted the frequency or occurrence of displacement activities, affiliative behaviors, and aggression in a group of six captive ebony langurs (Trachypithecus auratus). This study also examined whether the amount of time the ebony langurs spent sleeping each day was correlated to the mean visitor impact score for that day. We used negative binomial and binomial models to analyze data collected during 5-min focal follows. Higher visitor impact scores predicted greater expression of displacement activities, affiliative behaviors, and aggression, suggesting that zoo visitors were a source autonomic arousal for the langurs. Similarly, the langurs spent more time sleeping on days with higher mean visitor impact scores, which may indicate learned helplessness. This study suggests that zoo visitors may be a source of environmental stress for captive ebony langurs. Nevertheless, the positive relationship between high visitor impact score and the occurrence of affiliative behavior types may indicate that the langurs use certain activities to decrease visitor-induced stress

Dynamic interpersonal therapy for moderate to severe depression: A pilot randomized controlled and feasibility trial

Background: Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services treat most patients in England who present to primary care with major depression. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is one of the psychotherapies offered. Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) is a psychodynamic and mentalization-based treatment for depression. 16 sessions are delivered over approximately 5 months. Neither DIT's effectiveness relative to low-intensity treatment (LIT), nor the feasibility of randomizing patients to psychodynamic or cognitive-behavioural treatments (CBT) in an IAPT setting has been demonstrated. Methods: 147 patients were randomized in a 3:2:1 ratio to DIT (n = 73), LIT (control intervention; n = 54) or CBT (n = 20) in four IAPT treatment services in a combined superiority and feasibility design. Patients meeting criteria for major depressive disorder were assessed at baseline, mid-treatment (3 months) and post-treatment (6 months) using the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD-17), Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and other self-rated questionnaire measures. Patients receiving DIT were also followed up 6 months post-completion. Results: The DIT arm showed significantly lower HRSD-17 scores at the 6-month primary end-point compared with LIT (d = 0.70). Significantly more DIT patients (51%) showed clinically significant change on the HRSD-17 compared with LIT (9%). The DIT and CBT arms showed equivalence on most outcomes. Results were similar with the BDI-II. DIT showed benefit across a range of secondary outcomes.ConclusionsDIT delivered in a primary care setting is superior to LIT and can be appropriately compared with CBT in future RCTs

Islet β-Cells Deficient in Bcl-xL Develop but Are Abnormally Sensitive to Apoptotic Stimuli

OBJECTIVE: Bcl-xL is an antiapoptotic member of the Bcl-2 family of proteins and a potent regulator of cell death. We investigated the importance of Bcl-xL for beta-cells by deleting the Bcl-x gene specifically in beta-cells and analyzing their survival in vivo and in culture. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Islets with beta-cells lacking the Bcl-x gene were assessed in vivo by histology and by treatment of mice with low-dose streptozotocin (STZ). Islets were isolated by collagenase digestion and treated in culture with the apoptosis inducers staurosporine, thapsigargin, gamma-irradiation, proinflammatory cytokines, or Fas ligand. Cell death was assessed by flow cytometric analysis of subgenomic DNA. RESULTS: Bcl-xL-deficient beta-cells developed but were abnormally sensitive to apoptosis induced in vivo by low-dose STZ. Although a small proportion of beta-cells still expressed Bcl-xL, these did not have a survival advantage over their Bcl-xL-deficient neighbors. Islets appeared normal after collagenase isolation and whole-islet culture. They were, however, abnormally sensitive in culture to a number of different apoptotic stimuli including cytotoxic drugs, proinflammatory cytokines, and Fas ligand. CONCLUSIONS: Bcl-xL expression in beta-cells is dispensible during islet development in the mouse. Bcl-xL is, however, an important regulator of beta-cell death under conditions of synchronous stress. Bcl-xL expression at physiological levels may partially protect beta-cells from apoptotic stimuli, including apoptosis because of mediators implicated in type 1 diabetes and death or degeneration of transplanted islets

Predicting the public health benefit of vaccinating cattle against Escherichia coli O157

Identifying the major sources of risk in disease transmission is key to designing effective controls. However, understanding of transmission dynamics across species boundaries is typically poor, making the design and evaluation of controls particularly challenging for zoonotic pathogens. One such global pathogen is Escherichia coli O157, which causes a serious and sometimes fatal gastrointestinal illness. Cattle are the main reservoir for E. coli O157, and vaccines for cattle now exist. However, adoption of vaccines is being delayed by conflicting responsibilities of veterinary and public health agencies, economic drivers, and because clinical trials cannot easily test interventions across species boundaries, lack of information on the public health benefits. Here, we examine transmission risk across the cattle–human species boundary and show three key results. First, supershedding of the pathogen by cattle is associated with the genetic marker stx2. Second, by quantifying the link between shedding density in cattle and human risk, we show that only the relatively rare supershedding events contribute significantly to human risk. Third, we show that this finding has profound consequences for the public health benefits of the cattle vaccine. A naïve evaluation based on efficacy in cattle would suggest a 50% reduction in risk; however, because the vaccine targets the major source of human risk, we predict a reduction in human cases of nearly 85%. By accounting for nonlinearities in transmission across the human–animal interface, we show that adoption of these vaccines by the livestock industry could prevent substantial numbers of human E. coli O157 cases

Influence of Annealing on the Optical and Scintillation Properties of CaWO4_4 Single Crystals

We investigate the influence of oxygen annealing on the room temperature optical and scintillation properties of CaWO$_4$ single crystals that are being produced for direct Dark Matter search experiments. The applied annealing procedure reduces the absorption coefficient at the peak position of the scintillation spectrum ($\sim430$ nm) by a factor of $\sim6$ and leads to an even larger reduction of the scattering coefficient. Furthermore, the annealing has no significant influence on the \emph{intrinsic} light yield. An additional absorption occurring at $\sim400$ nm suggests the formation of O$^-$ hole centers. Light-yield measurements at room temperature where one crystal surface was mechanically roughened showed an increase of the \emph{measured} light yield by $\sim40$ and an improvement of the energy resolution at 59.5 keV by $\sim12$ for the annealed crystal. We ascribe this result to the reduction of the absorption coefficient while the surface roughening is needed to compensate for the also observed reduction of the scattering coefficient after annealing

X-Linked G6PD Deficiency Protects Hemizygous Males but Not Heterozygous Females against Severe Malaria

BACKGROUND: Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) is important in the control of oxidant stress in erythrocytes, the host cells for Plasmodium falciparum. Mutations in this enzyme produce X-linked deficiency states associated with protection against malaria, notably in Africa where the A− form of G6PD deficiency is widespread. Some reports have proposed that heterozygous females with mosaic populations of normal and deficient erythrocytes (due to random X chromosome inactivation) have malaria resistance similar to or greater than hemizygous males with populations of uniformly deficient erythrocytes. These proposals are paradoxical, and they are not consistent with currently hypothesized mechanisms of protection. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We conducted large case-control studies of the A− form of G6PD deficiency in cases of severe or uncomplicated malaria among two ethnic populations of rural Mali, West Africa, where malaria is hyperendemic. Our results indicate that the uniform state of G6PD deficiency in hemizygous male children conferred significant protection against severe, life-threatening malaria, and that it may have likewise protected homozygous female children. No such protection was evident from the mosaic state of G6PD deficiency in heterozygous females. We also found no significant differences in the parasite densities of males and females with differences in G6PD status. Pooled odds ratios from meta-analysis of our data and data from a previous study confirmed highly significant protection against severe malaria in hemizygous males but not in heterozygous females. Among the different forms of severe malaria, protection was principally evident against cerebral malaria, the most frequent form of life-threatening malaria in these studies. CONCLUSIONS: The A− form of G6PD deficiency in Africa is under strong natural selection from the preferential protection it provides to hemizygous males against life-threatening malaria. Little or no such protection is present among heterozygous females. Although these conclusions are consistent with data from at least one previous study, they have not heretofore been realized to our knowledge, and they therefore give fresh perspectives on malaria protection by G6PD deficiency as an X-linked trait

Wide-Scale Analysis of Human Functional Transcription Factor Binding Reveals a Strong Bias towards the Transcription Start Site

We introduce a novel method to screen the promoters of a set of genes with shared biological function, against a precompiled library of motifs, and find those motifs which are statistically over-represented in the gene set. The gene sets were obtained from the functional Gene Ontology (GO) classification; for each set and motif we optimized the sequence similarity score threshold, independently for every location window (measured with respect to the TSS), taking into account the location dependent nucleotide heterogeneity along the promoters of the target genes. We performed a high throughput analysis, searching the promoters (from 200bp downstream to 1000bp upstream the TSS), of more than 8000 human and 23,000 mouse genes, for 134 functional Gene Ontology classes and for 412 known DNA motifs. When combined with binding site and location conservation between human and mouse, the method identifies with high probability functional binding sites that regulate groups of biologically related genes. We found many location-sensitive functional binding events and showed that they clustered close to the TSS. Our method and findings were put to several experimental tests. By allowing a "flexible" threshold and combining our functional class and location specific search method with conservation between human and mouse, we are able to identify reliably functional TF binding sites. This is an essential step towards constructing regulatory networks and elucidating the design principles that govern transcriptional regulation of expression. The promoter region proximal to the TSS appears to be of central importance for regulation of transcription in human and mouse, just as it is in bacteria and yeast.Comment: 31 pages, including Supplementary Information and figure