Autonomous tracking and sampling of the deep chlorophyll maximum layer in an open-ocean eddy by a long-range autonomous underwater vehicle

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Zhang, Y., Kieft, B., Hobson, B. W., Ryan, J. P., Barone, B., Preston, C. M., Roman, B., Raanan, B., Marin,Roman,,III, O'Reilly, T. C., Rueda, C. A., Pargett, D., Yamahara, K. M., Poulos, S., Romano, A., Foreman, G., Ramm, H., Wilson, S. T., DeLong, E. F., Karl, D. M., Birch, J. M., Bellingham, J. G., & Scholin, C. A. Autonomous tracking and sampling of the deep chlorophyll maximum layer in an open-ocean eddy by a long-range autonomous underwater vehicle. IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 45(4), (2020): 1308-1321, doi:10.1109/JOE.2019.2920217.Phytoplankton communities residing in the open ocean, the largest habitat on Earth, play a key role in global primary production. Through their influence on nutrient supply to the euphotic zone, open-ocean eddies impact the magnitude of primary production and its spatial and temporal distributions. It is important to gain a deeper understanding of the microbial ecology of marine ecosystems under the influence of eddy physics with the aid of advanced technologies. In March and April 2018, we deployed autonomous underwater and surface vehicles in a cyclonic eddy in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre to investigate the variability of the microbial community in the deep chlorophyll maximum (DCM) layer. One long-range autonomous underwater vehicle (LRAUV) carrying a third-generation Environmental Sample Processor (3G-ESP) autonomously tracked and sampled the DCM layer for four days without surfacing. The sampling LRAUV's vertical position in the DCM layer was maintained by locking onto the isotherm corresponding to the chlorophyll peak. The vehicle ran on tight circles while drifting with the eddy current. This mode of operation enabled a quasi-Lagrangian time series focused on sampling the temporal variation of the DCM population. A companion LRAUV surveyed a cylindrical volume around the sampling LRAUV to monitor spatial and temporal variation in contextual water column properties. The simultaneous sampling and mapping enabled observation of DCM microbial community in its natural frame of reference.10.13039/501100008982 - National Science Foundation 10.13039/100000936 - Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation 10.13039/100000008 - David and Lucile Packard Foundation 10.13039/100016377 - Schmidt Ocean Institute 10.13039/100000893 - Simons Foundatio

Mutation Detection in Patients with Retinal Dystrophies Using Targeted Next Generation Sequencing

Retinal dystrophies (RD) constitute a group of blinding diseases that are characterized by clinical variability and pronounced genetic heterogeneity. The different nonsyndromic and syndromic forms of RD can be attributed to mutations in more than 200 genes. Consequently, next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies are among the most promising approaches to identify mutations in RD. We screened a large cohort of patients comprising 89 independent cases and families with various subforms of RD applying different NGS platforms. While mutation screening in 50 cases was performed using a RD gene capture panel, 47 cases were analyzed using whole exome sequencing. One family was analyzed using whole genome sequencing. A detection rate of 61% was achieved including mutations in 34 known and two novel RD genes. A total of 69 distinct mutations were identified, including 39 novel mutations. Notably, genetic findings in several families were not consistent with the initial clinical diagnosis. Clinical reassessment resulted in refinement of the clinical diagnosis in some of these families and confirmed the broad clinical spectrum associated with mutations in RD genes

A Limited Role for Suppression in the Central Field of Individuals with Strabismic Amblyopia.

yesBackground: Although their eyes are pointing in different directions, people with long-standing strabismic amblyopia typically do not experience double-vision or indeed any visual symptoms arising from their condition. It is generally believed that the phenomenon of suppression plays a major role in dealing with the consequences of amblyopia and strabismus, by preventing images from the weaker/deviating eye from reaching conscious awareness. Suppression is thus a highly sophisticated coping mechanism. Although suppression has been studied for over 100 years the literature is equivocal in relation to the extent of the retina that is suppressed, though the method used to investigate suppression is crucial to the outcome. There is growing evidence that some measurement methods lead to artefactual claims that suppression exists when it does not. Methodology/Results: Here we present the results of an experiment conducted with a new method to examine the prevalence, depth and extent of suppression in ten individuals with strabismic amblyopia. Seven subjects (70%) showed no evidence whatsoever for suppression and in the three individuals who did (30%), the depth and extent of suppression was small. Conclusions: Suppression may play a much smaller role in dealing with the negative consequences of strabismic amblyopia than previously thought. Whereas recent claims of this nature have been made only in those with micro-strabismus our results show extremely limited evidence for suppression across the central visual field in strabismic amblyopes more generally. Instead of suppressing the image from the weaker/deviating eye, we suggest the visual system of individuals with strabismic amblyopia may act to maximise the possibilities for binocular co-operation. This is consistent with recent evidence from strabismic and amblyopic individuals that their binocular mechanisms are intact, and that, just as in visual normals, performance with two eyes is better than with the better eye alone in these individuals

The Early Royal Society and Visual Culture

Recent studies have fruitfully examined the intersection between early modern science and visual culture by elucidating the functions of images in shaping and disseminating scientific knowledge. Given its rich archival sources, it is possible to extend this line of research in the case of the Royal Society to an examination of attitudes towards images as artefacts –manufactured objects worth commissioning, collecting and studying. Drawing on existing scholarship and material from the Royal Society Archives, I discuss Fellows’ interests in prints, drawings, varnishes, colorants, images made out of unusual materials, and methods of identifying the painter from a painting. Knowledge of production processes of images was important to members of the Royal Society, not only as connoisseurs and collectors, but also as those interested in a Baconian mastery of material processes, including a “history of trades”. Their antiquarian interests led to discussion of painters’ styles, and they gradually developed a visual memorial to an institution through portraits and other visual records.AH/M001938/1 (AHRC

Sensory Communication

Contains table of contents for Section 2, an introduction and reports on twelve research projects.National Institutes of Health Grant R01 DC00117National Institutes of Health Grant R01 DC02032National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Grant 2 R01 DC00126National Institutes of Health Grant 2 R01 DC00270National Institutes of Health Contract N01 DC-5-2107National Institutes of Health Grant 2 R01 DC00100U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N61339-96-K-0002U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N61339-96-K-0003U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-97-1-0635U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-97-1-0655U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Subcontract 40167U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-96-1-0379U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Grant F49620-96-1-0202National Institutes of Health Grant RO1 NS33778Massachusetts General Hospital, Center for Innovative Minimally Invasive Therapy Research Fellowship Gran

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

General anaesthetic and airway management practice for obstetric surgery in England: a prospective, multi-centre observational study

There are no current descriptions of general anaesthesia characteristics for obstetric surgery, despite recent changes to patient baseline characteristics and airway management guidelines. This analysis of data from the direct reporting of awareness in maternity patients' (DREAMY) study of accidental awareness during obstetric anaesthesia aimed to describe practice for obstetric general anaesthesia in England and compare with earlier surveys and best-practice recommendations. Consenting patients who received general anaesthesia for obstetric surgery in 72 hospitals from May 2017 to August 2018 were included. Baseline characteristics, airway management, anaesthetic techniques and major complications were collected. Descriptive analysis, binary logistic regression modelling and comparisons with earlier data were conducted. Data were collected from 3117 procedures, including 2554 (81.9%) caesarean deliveries. Thiopental was the induction drug in 1649 (52.9%) patients, compared with propofol in 1419 (45.5%). Suxamethonium was the neuromuscular blocking drug for tracheal intubation in 2631 (86.1%), compared with rocuronium in 367 (11.8%). Difficult tracheal intubation was reported in 1 in 19 (95%CI 1 in 16-22) and failed intubation in 1 in 312 (95%CI 1 in 169-667). Obese patients were over-represented compared with national baselines and associated with difficult, but not failed intubation. There was more evidence of change in practice for induction drugs (increased use of propofol) than neuromuscular blocking drugs (suxamethonium remains the most popular). There was evidence of improvement in practice, with increased monitoring and reversal of neuromuscular blockade (although this remains suboptimal). Despite a high risk of difficult intubation in this population, videolaryngoscopy was rarely used (1.9%)

Dimethyl fumarate in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) inhibits inflammasome-mediated inflammation and has been proposed as a treatment for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. This randomised, controlled, open-label platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy [RECOVERY]), is assessing multiple treatments in patients hospitalised for COVID-19 (NCT04381936, ISRCTN50189673). In this assessment of DMF performed at 27 UK hospitals, adults were randomly allocated (1:1) to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus DMF. The primary outcome was clinical status on day 5 measured on a seven-point ordinal scale. Secondary outcomes were time to sustained improvement in clinical status, time to discharge, day 5 peripheral blood oxygenation, day 5 C-reactive protein, and improvement in day 10 clinical status. Between 2 March 2021 and 18 November 2021, 713 patients were enroled in the DMF evaluation, of whom 356 were randomly allocated to receive usual care plus DMF, and 357 to usual care alone. 95% of patients received corticosteroids as part of routine care. There was no evidence of a beneficial effect of DMF on clinical status at day 5 (common odds ratio of unfavourable outcome 1.12; 95% CI 0.86-1.47; p = 0.40). There was no significant effect of DMF on any secondary outcome

Dimethyl fumarate in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) inhibits inflammasome-mediated inflammation and has been proposed as a treatment for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. This randomised, controlled, open-label platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy [RECOVERY]), is assessing multiple treatments in patients hospitalised for COVID-19 (NCT04381936, ISRCTN50189673). In this assessment of DMF performed at 27 UK hospitals, adults were randomly allocated (1:1) to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus DMF. The primary outcome was clinical status on day 5 measured on a seven-point ordinal scale. Secondary outcomes were time to sustained improvement in clinical status, time to discharge, day 5 peripheral blood oxygenation, day 5 C-reactive protein, and improvement in day 10 clinical status. Between 2 March 2021 and 18 November 2021, 713 patients were enroled in the DMF evaluation, of whom 356 were randomly allocated to receive usual care plus DMF, and 357 to usual care alone. 95% of patients received corticosteroids as part of routine care. There was no evidence of a beneficial effect of DMF on clinical status at day 5 (common odds ratio of unfavourable outcome 1.12; 95% CI 0.86-1.47; p = 0.40). There was no significant effect of DMF on any secondary outcome