Discovery of a recent, natural whale fall on the continental slope off Anvers Island, western Antarctic Peninsula

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.Whale falls provide a substantial, nutrient-rich resource for species in areas of the ocean that may otherwise be largely devoid of food. We report the discovery of a natural whale fall at 1430 m depth in the cold waters of the continental slope off the western Antarctic Peninsula. This is the highest-latitude whale fall reported to date. The section of the carcass we observed—the tail fluke—was more complete than any previously reported natural whale fall from the deep sea and in the early stages of decomposition. We estimate the entire cetacean to measure 5–8 m in length. The flesh remained almost intact on the carcass but the skin was missing from the entire section except for the end of the fluke, clearly exposing blubber and soft tissue. The absence of skin indicates rapid and Homogeneous loss. The dominant macrofauna present were crustaceans, including most prominently the lithodid crab Paralomis birsteini, and zoarcid fish typical of the ‘mobile-scavenger’ successional stage. The density of mobile macrofauna was greatest on the carcass and declined to background levels within 100 m, indicating that they were attracted to the whale fall. This whale fall offers an important opportunity to examine the decomposition of a carcass under deep-sea conditions at polar latitudes.We are grateful to the captain and crew of the RV Nathaniel B. Palmer, and to the US Antarctic Support Contractor, Lockheed Martin, for their assistance at sea. We thank J.T. Eastman and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript. Funding was provided by grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation: ANT-1141877 to R.B.A. and ANT-1141896 to J.B.M. This is contribution 122 from the Institute for Research on Global Climate Change at the Florida Institute of Technology

Climate Change and Trophic Response of the Antarctic Bottom Fauna

BACKGROUND: As Earth warms, temperate and subpolar marine species will increasingly shift their geographic ranges poleward. The endemic shelf fauna of Antarctica is especially vulnerable to climate-mediated biological invasions because cold temperatures currently exclude the durophagous (shell-breaking) predators that structure shallow-benthic communities elsewhere. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We used the Eocene fossil record from Seymour Island, Antarctic Peninsula, to project specifically how global warming will reorganize the nearshore benthos of Antarctica. A long-term cooling trend, which began with a sharp temperature drop approximately 41 Ma (million years ago), eliminated durophagous predators-teleosts (modern bony fish), decapod crustaceans (crabs and lobsters) and almost all neoselachian elasmobranchs (modern sharks and rays)-from Antarctic nearshore waters after the Eocene. Even prior to those extinctions, durophagous predators became less active as coastal sea temperatures declined from 41 Ma to the end of the Eocene, approximately 33.5 Ma. In response, dense populations of suspension-feeding ophiuroids and crinoids abruptly appeared. Dense aggregations of brachiopods transcended the cooling event with no apparent change in predation pressure, nor were there changes in the frequency of shell-drilling predation on venerid bivalves. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Rapid warming in the Southern Ocean is now removing the physiological barriers to shell-breaking predators, and crabs are returning to the Antarctic Peninsula. Over the coming decades to centuries, we predict a rapid reversal of the Eocene trends. Increasing predation will reduce or eliminate extant dense populations of suspension-feeding echinoderms from nearshore habitats along the Peninsula while brachiopods will continue to form large populations, and the intensity of shell-drilling predation on infaunal bivalves will not change appreciably. In time the ecological effects of global warming could spread to other portions of the Antarctic coast. The differential responses of faunal components will reduce the endemic character of Antarctic subtidal communities, homogenizing them with nearshore communities at lower latitudes

Natural Disease Resistance in Threatened Staghorn Corals

Disease epidemics have caused extensive damage to tropical coral reefs and to the reef-building corals themselves, yet nothing is known about the abilities of the coral host to resist disease infection. Understanding the potential for natural disease resistance in corals is critically important, especially in the Caribbean where the two ecologically dominant shallow-water corals, Acropora cervicornis and A. palmata, have suffered an unprecedented mass die-off due to White Band Disease (WBD), and are now listed as threatened under the US Threatened Species Act and as critically endangered under the IUCN Red List criteria. Here we examine the potential for natural resistance to WBD in the staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis by combining microsatellite genotype information with in situ transmission assays and field monitoring of WBD on tagged genotypes. We show that six percent of staghorn coral genotypes (3 out of 49) are resistant to WBD. This natural resistance to WBD in staghorn corals represents the first evidence of host disease resistance in scleractinian corals and demonstrates that staghorn corals have an innate ability to resist WBD infection. These resistant staghorn coral genotypes may explain why pockets of Acropora have been able to survive the WBD epidemic. Understanding disease resistance in these corals may be the critical link to restoring populations of these once dominant corals throughout their range

Automation of a problem list using natural language processing

BACKGROUND: The medical problem list is an important part of the electronic medical record in development in our institution. To serve the functions it is designed for, the problem list has to be as accurate and timely as possible. However, the current problem list is usually incomplete and inaccurate, and is often totally unused. To alleviate this issue, we are building an environment where the problem list can be easily and effectively maintained. METHODS: For this project, 80 medical problems were selected for their frequency of use in our future clinical field of evaluation (cardiovascular). We have developed an Automated Problem List system composed of two main components: a background and a foreground application. The background application uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to harvest potential problem list entries from the list of 80 targeted problems detected in the multiple free-text electronic documents available in our electronic medical record. These proposed medical problems drive the foreground application designed for management of the problem list. Within this application, the extracted problems are proposed to the physicians for addition to the official problem list. RESULTS: The set of 80 targeted medical problems selected for this project covered about 5% of all possible diagnoses coded in ICD-9-CM in our study population (cardiovascular adult inpatients), but about 64% of all instances of these coded diagnoses. The system contains algorithms to detect first document sections, then sentences within these sections, and finally potential problems within the sentences. The initial evaluation of the section and sentence detection algorithms demonstrated a sensitivity and positive predictive value of 100% when detecting sections, and a sensitivity of 89% and a positive predictive value of 94% when detecting sentences. CONCLUSION: The global aim of our project is to automate the process of creating and maintaining a problem list for hospitalized patients and thereby help to guarantee the timeliness, accuracy and completeness of this information

Production of phi mesons at mid-rapidity in sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC

We present the first results of meson production in the K^+K^- decay channel from Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV as measured at mid-rapidity by the PHENIX detector at RHIC. Precision resonance centroid and width values are extracted as a function of collision centrality. No significant variation from the PDG accepted values is observed. The transverse mass spectra are fitted with a linear exponential function for which the derived inverse slope parameter is seen to be constant as a function of centrality. These data are also fitted by a hydrodynamic model with the result that the freeze-out temperature and the expansion velocity values are consistent with the values previously derived from fitting single hadron inclusive data. As a function of transverse momentum the collisions scaled peripheral.to.central yield ratio RCP for the is comparable to that of pions rather than that of protons. This result lends support to theoretical models which distinguish between baryons and mesons instead of particle mass for explaining the anomalous proton yield.Comment: 326 authors, 24 pages text, 23 figures, 6 tables, RevTeX 4. To be submitted to Physical Review C as a regular article. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm

Revascularization for coronary artery disease in diabetes mellitus: Angioplasty, stents and coronary artery bypass grafting

Author Manuscript: 2011 April 14Patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) are prone to a diffuse and rapidly progressive form of atherosclerosis, which increases their likelihood of requiring revascularization. However, the unique pathophysiology of atherosclerosis in patients with DM modifies the response to arterial injury, with profound clinical consequences for patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Multiple studies have shown that DM is a strong risk factor for restenosis following successful balloon angioplasty or coronary stenting, with greater need for repeat revascularization and inferior clinical outcomes. Early data suggest that drug eluting stents reduce restenosis rates and the need for repeat revascularization irrespective of the diabetic state and with no significant reduction in hard clinical endpoints such as myocardial infarction and mortality. For many patients with 1- or 2-vessel coronary artery disease, there is little prognostic benefit from any intervention over optimal medical therapy. PCI with drug-eluting or bare metal stents is appropriate for patients who remain symptomatic with medical therapy. However, selection of the optimal myocardial revascularization strategy for patients with DM and multivessel coronary artery disease is crucial. Randomized trials comparing multivessel PCI with balloon angioplasty or bare metal stents to coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) consistently demonstrated the superiority of CABG in patients with treated DM. In the setting of diabetes CABG had greater survival, fewer recurrent infarctions or need for re-intervention. Limited data suggests that CABG is superior to multivessel PCI even when drug-eluting stents are used. Several ongoing randomized trials are evaluating the long-term comparative efficacy of PCI with drug-eluting stents and CABG in patients with DM. Only further study will continue to unravel the mechanisms at play and optimal therapy in the face of the profoundly virulent atherosclerotic potential that accompanies diabetes mellitus.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (GM 49039

Structure and Photoluminescent Properties of ZnO Encapsulated in Mesoporous Silica SBA-15 Fabricated by Two-Solvent Strategy

The two-solvent method was employed to prepare ZnO encapsulated in mesoporous silica (ZnO/SBA-15). The prepared ZnO/SBA-15 samples have been studied by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscope, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption–desorption isotherm, and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The ZnO/SBA-15 nanocomposite has the ordered hexagonal mesostructure of SBA-15. ZnO clusters of a high loading are distributed in the channels of SBA-15. Photoluminescence spectra show the UV emission band around 368 nm, the violet emission around 420 nm, and the blue emission around 457 nm. The UV emission is attributed to band-edge emission of ZnO. The violet emission results from the oxygen vacancies on the ZnO–SiO2interface traps. The blue emission is from the oxygen vacancies or interstitial zinc ions of ZnO. The UV emission and blue emission show a blue-shift phenomenon due to quantum-confinement-induced energy gap enhancement of ZnO clusters. The ZnO clusters encapsulated in SBA-15 can be used as light-emitting diodes and ultraviolet nanolasers

Symptoms of anxiety and depression are related to cardiovascular responses to active, but not passive, coping tasks

Objective: Anxiety and depression have been linked to blunted blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) reactions to mental stress tests; however, most studies have not included indices of underlying hemodynamics nor multiple stress tasks. This study sought to examine the relationships of anxiety and depression with hemodynamic responses to acute active and passive coping tasks. Methods: A total of 104 participants completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scales and mental arithmetic, speech, and cold pressor tasks while BP, HR, total peripheral resistance, and cardiac output (CO) were assessed. Results: After adjustment for traditional risk factors and baseline cardiovascular activity, depression scores were negatively associated with systolic BP, HR, and CO responses to the mental arithmetic task, while anxiety scores were inversely related to the systolic BP response to mental arithmetic. Conclusion: High anxiety or depression scores appear to be associated with blunted cardiac reactions to mental arithmetic (an active coping task), but not to the cold pressor test or speech tasks. Future research should further examine potential mechanisms and longitudinal pathways relating depression and anxiety to cardiovascular reactivity

Associations between statins and COPD: a systematic review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Statins have anti-inflammatory and immunomodulating properties which could possibly influence inflammatory airways disease. We assessed evidence for disease modifying effects of statin treatment in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A systematic review was conducted of studies which reported effects of statin treatment in COPD. Data sources searched included MEDLINE, EMBASE and reference lists.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Eight papers reporting nine original studies met the selection criteria. One was a randomized controlled trial (RCT), one a retrospective nested case-control study, five were retrospective cohort studies of which one was linked with a case-control study, and one was a retrospective population-based analysis. Outcomes associated with treatment with statins included decreased all-cause mortality in three out of four studies (OR/HR 0.48–0.67 in three studies, OR 0.99 in one study), decreased COPD-related mortality (OR 0.19–0.29), reduction in incidence of respiratory-related urgent care (OR 0.74), fewer COPD exacerbations (OR 0.43), fewer intubations for COPD exacerbations (OR 0.1) and attenuated decline in pulmonary function. The RCT reported improvement in exercise capacity and dyspnea after exercise associated with decreased levels of C-reactive protein and Interleukin-6 in statin users, but no improvement of lung function.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There is evidence from observational studies and one RCT that statins may reduce morbidity and/or mortality in COPD patients. Further interventional studies are required to confirm these findings.</p