Effect Threshold for Selenium Toxicity in Juvenile Splittail, Pogonichthys macrolepidotus A

In fish, selenium can bioaccumulate and cause adverse impacts. One of the fish species potentially at risk from selenium in the San Francisco Bay (California, USA) is the splittail (Pogonichthys macrolepidotus). Previous studies have derived a whole body NOAEL and LOAEL of 9.0 and 12.9 mg/kg-dw, respectively, for selenium in juveniles. However, the NOAEL/LOAEL approach leaves some uncertainty regarding the threshold of toxicity. Therefore, the raw data from the original experiment was re-analyzed using a logistic regression to derive EC10 values of 0.9 mg/kg-dw in feed, 7.9 mg/kg-dw in muscle, 18.6 mg/kg-dw in liver for juvenile splittail. Selenium concentrations in the dietary items of wild splittail exceed the EC10 values derived here. Thus, deformities previously reported in wild splittail may have resulted from selenium exposures via the food chain

A survey of statistics in three UK general practice journal

Background Many medical specialities have reviewed the statistical content of their journals. To our knowledge this has not been done in general practice. Given the main role of a general practitioner as a diagnostician we thought it would be of interest to see whether the statistical methods reported reflect the diagnostic process. Methods Hand search of three UK journals of general practice namely the British Medical Journal (general practice section), British Journal of General Practice and Family Practice over a one-year period (1 January to 31 December 2000). Results A wide variety of statistical techniques were used. The most common methods included t-tests and Chi-squared tests. There were few articles reporting likelihood ratios and other useful diagnostic methods. There was evidence that the journals with the more thorough statistical review process reported a more complex and wider variety of statistical techniques. Conclusions The BMJ had a wider range and greater diversity of statistical methods than the other two journals. However, in all three journals there was a dearth of papers reflecting the diagnostic process. Across all three journals there were relatively few papers describing randomised controlled trials thus recognising the difficulty of implementing this design in general practice

CYberinfrastructure for COmparative effectiveness REsearch (CYCORE): improving data from cancer clinical trials

Improved approaches and methodologies are needed to conduct comparative effectiveness research (CER) in oncology. While cancer therapies continue to emerge at a rapid pace, the review, synthesis, and dissemination of evidence-based interventions across clinical trials lag in comparison. Rigorous and systematic testing of competing therapies has been clouded by age-old problems: poor patient adherence, inability to objectively measure the environmental influences on health, lack of knowledge about patients’ lifestyle behaviors that may affect cancer’s progression and recurrence, and limited ability to compile and interpret the wide range of variables that must be considered in the cancer treatment. This lack of data integration limits the potential for patients and clinicians to engage in fully informed decision-making regarding cancer prevention, treatment, and survivorship care, and the translation of research results into mainstream medical care. Particularly important, as noted in a 2009 report on CER to the President and Congress, the limited focus on health behavior-change interventions was a major hindrance in this research landscape (DHHS 2009). This paper describes an initiative to improve CER for cancer by addressing several of these limitations. The Cyberinfrastructure for Comparative Effectiveness Research (CYCORE) project, informed by the National Science Foundation’s 2007 report “Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery” has, as its central aim, the creation of a prototype for a user-friendly, open-source cyberinfrastructure (CI) that supports acquisition, storage, visualization, analysis, and sharing of data important for cancer-related CER. Although still under development, the process of gathering requirements for CYCORE has revealed new ways in which CI design can significantly improve the collection and analysis of a wide variety of data types, and has resulted in new and important partnerships among cancer researchers engaged in advancing health-related CI

Generalised joint regression for count data: a penalty extension for competitive settings

We propose a versatile joint regression framework for count responses. The method is implemented in the R add-on package GJRM and allows for modelling linear and non-linear dependence through the use of several copulae. Moreover, the parameters of the marginal distributions of the count responses and of the copula can be specified as flexible functions of covariates. Motivated by competitive settings, we also discuss an extension which forces the regression coefficients of the marginal (linear) predictors to be equal via a suitable penalisation. Model fitting is based on a trust region algorithm which estimates simultaneously all the parameters of the joint models. We investigate the proposal’s empirical performance in two simulation studies, the first one designed for arbitrary count data, the other one reflecting competitive settings. Finally, the method is applied to football data, showing its benefits compared to the standard approach with regard to predictive performance

CHIMPS: the 13^{13}CO/C18^{18}O (J=3-2) Heterodyne Inner Milky Way Plane Survey

We present the $^{13}$CO/C$^{18}$O (J=3-2) Heterodyne Inner Milky Way Plane Survey (CHIMPS) which has been carried out using the Heterodyne Array Receiver Program on the 15 m James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii. The high-resolution spectral survey currently covers |b| < 0.5 deg and 28 < l < 46 deg, with an angular resolution of 15 arcsec in 0.5 km/s velocity channels. The spectra have a median rms of $\sim$ 0.6 K at this resolution, and for optically thin gas at an excitation temperature of 10 K, this sensitivity corresponds to column densities of $N_{\mathrm{H}_{2}} \sim 3 \times 10^{20}\,$cm$^{-2}$ and $N_{\mathrm{H}_{2}} \sim 4 \times 10^{21}\,$cm$^{-2}$ for $^{13}$CO and C$^{18}$O, respectively. The molecular gas that CHIMPS traces is at higher column densities and is also more optically thin than in other publicly available CO surveys due to its rarer isotopologues, and thus more representative of the three-dimensional structure of the clouds. The critical density of the J=3-2 transition of CO is $\gtrsim 10^{4}$ cm$^{-3}$ at temperatures of $\leq 20$ K, and so the higher density gas associated with star formation is well traced. These data complement other existing Galactic plane surveys, especially the JCMT Galactic Plane Survey which has similar spatial resolution and column density sensitivity, and the Herschel infrared Galactic Plane Survey. In this paper, we discuss the observations, data reduction and characteristics of the survey, presenting integrated emission maps for the region covered. Position-velocity diagrams allow comparison with Galactic structure models of the Milky Way, and while we find good agreement with a particular four arm model, there are some significant deviations

Tunable Nanostructures and Crystal Structures in Titanium Oxide Films

Controllable nanostructures in spin coated titanium oxide (TiO2) films have been achieved by a very simple means, through change of post deposition annealing temperature. Electron beam imaging and reciprocal space analysis revealed as-deposited TiO2films to be characterized by a dominant anatase phase which converts to the rutile form at 600 °C and reverts to the anatase modification at 1,200 °C. The phase changes are also accompanied by changes in the film microstructure: from regular nanoparticles (as-deposited) to nanowires (600 °C) and finally to dendrite like shapes at 1,200 °C. Photoluminescence studies, Raman spectral results, and X-ray diffraction data also furnish evidence in support of the observed solid state phase transformations in TiO2

Dose and route of administration determine the efficacy of prophylactic immunotherapy for peanut allergy in a Brown Norway rat model

Introduction: Allergen-specific immunotherapy (IT) is emerging as a viable option for treatment of peanut allergy. Yet, prophylactic IT remains unexplored despite early introduction of peanut in infancy was shown to prevent allergy. There is a need to understand how allergens interact with the immune system depending on the route of administration, and how different dosages of allergen may protect from sensitisation and a clinical active allergy. Here we compared peanut allergen delivery via the oral, sublingual (SL), intragastric (IG) and subcutaneous (SC) routes for the prevention of peanut allergy in Brown Norway (BN) rats. Methods: BN rats were administered PBS or three different doses of peanut protein extract (PPE) via either oral IT (OIT), SLIT, IGIT or SCIT followed by intraperitoneal (IP) injections of PPE to assess the protection from peanut sensitisation. The development of IgE and IgG1 responses to PPE and the major peanut allergens were evaluated by ELISAs. The clinical response to PPE was assessed by an ear swelling test (EST) and proliferation was assessed by stimulating splenocytes with PPE. Results: Low and medium dose OIT (1 and 10 mg) and all doses of SCIT (1, 10, 100 µg) induced sensitisation to PPE, whereas high dose OIT (100 mg), SLIT (10, 100 or 1000 µg) or IGIT (1, 10 and 100 mg) did not. High dose OIT and SLIT as well as high and medium dose IGIT prevented sensitisation from the following IP injections of PPE and suppressed PPE-specific IgE levels in a dose-dependent manner. Hence, administration of peanut protein via different routes confers different risks for sensitisation and protection from peanut allergy development. Overall, the IgE levels toward the individual major peanut allergens followed the PPE-specific IgE levels. Discussion: Collectively, this study showed that the preventive effect of allergen-specific IT is determined by the interplay between the specific site of PPE delivery for presentation to the immune system, and the allergen quantity, and that targeting and modulating tolerance mechanisms at specific mucosal sites may be a prophylactic strategy for prevention of peanut allergy

Novel sampling method for assessing human-pathogen interactions in the natural environment using boot socks and citizen scientists, with application to Campylobacter seasonality

This paper introduces a novel method for sampling pathogens in natural environments. It uses fabric boot socks worn over walkers' shoes to allow the collection of composite samples over large areas. Wide-area sampling is better suited to studies focusing on human exposure to pathogens (e.g., recreational walking). This sampling method is implemented using a citizen science approach: groups of three walkers wearing boot socks undertook one of six routes, 40 times over 16 months in the North West (NW) and East Anglian (EA) regions of England. To validate this methodology, we report the successful implementation of this citizen science approach, the observation that Campylobacter bacteria were detected on 47% of boot socks, and the observation that multiple boot socks from individual walks produced consistent results. The findings indicate higher Campylobacter levels in the livestock-dominated NW than in EA (55.8% versus 38.6%). Seasonal differences in the presence of Campylobacter bacteria were found between the regions, with indications of winter peaks in both regions but a spring peak in the NW. The presence of Campylobacter bacteria on boot socks was negatively associated with ambient temperature (P = 0.011) and positively associated with precipitation (P < 0.001), results consistent with our understanding of Campylobacter survival and the probability of material adhering to boot socks. Campylobacter jejuni was the predominant species found; Campylobacter coli was largely restricted to the livestock-dominated NW. Source attribution analysis indicated that the potential source of C. jejuni was predominantly sheep in the NW and wild birds in EA but did not differ between peak and nonpeak periods of human incidence

HELP: the Herschel Extragalactic Legacy Project

We present the Herschel Extragalactic Legacy Project (HELP). This project collates, curates, homogenizes, and creates derived data products for most of the premium multiwavelength extragalactic data sets. The sky boundaries for the first data release cover 1270 deg2 defined by the Herschel SPIRE extragalactic survey fields; notably the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES) and the Herschel Atlas survey (H-ATLAS). Here, we describe the motivation and principal elements in the design of the project. Guiding principles are transparent or ‘open’ methodologies with care for reproducibility and identification of provenance. A key element of the design focuses around the homogenization of calibration, meta data, and the provision of information required to define the selection of the data for statistical analysis. We apply probabilistic methods that extract information directly from the images at long wavelengths, exploiting the prior information available at shorter wavelengths and providing full posterior distributions rather than maximum-likelihood estimates and associated uncertainties as in traditional catalogues. With this project definition paper, we provide full access to the first data release of HELP; Data Release 1 (DR1), including a monolithic map of the largest SPIRE extragalactic field at 385 deg2 and 18 million measurements of PACS and SPIRE fluxes. We also provide tools to access and analyse the full HELP data base. This new data set includes far-infrared photometry, photometric redshifts, and derived physical properties estimated from modelling the spectral energy distributions over the full HELP sky. All the software and data presented is publicly available