Muscle sensory innervation patterns in embryonic chick hindlimbs following dorsal root ganglion reversal

Previous studies suggest that sensory innervation of muscles is patterned by motor innervation. Muscle afferent projections mirror motor projections after various experimental manipulations and muscle afferents fail to project to muscle in the absence of motoneurons. It is not known, however, whether muscle afferents are specified with respect to the corresponding motoneurons or target muscles. To test this possibility we rotated three to four segments of neural crest in St. 15–17 chick embryos, leaving motoneurons intact, to reverse the rostrocaudal order of dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) T7/LS1–LS3. This caused sensory neurons derived from one segmental level to grow into the limb with motor axons from a different level. The resulting innervation patterns were assessed at St. 28–37 by injecting DiI and DiA into the sartorius and femorotibialis muscles or into the spinal cord and DRG. DiI labeling of crest prior to rotation showed that DRGs in the operated region were derived primarily from rotated cells. Muscle afferents from rotated DRGs grew to muscles in accord with their new rostrocaudal position, together with “inappropriate” motor axons from the same segmental level. The segmental distribution of sensory neurons innervating each muscle was more widespread in embryos operated at older than at younger stages. In contrast, sensory axons projected to the appropriate muscles in accord with their embryonic origin when segments of the whole neural tube, including motoneurons, were rotated, as reported previously. Thus, sensory neurons do not appear to be selectively matched with motoneurons or target muscles at stages when the corresponding motoneurons have clear identities

Pilots' use of a traffic alert and collision-avoidance system (TCAS 2) in simulated air carrier operations. Volume 2: Appendices

Pilots' use of and responses to a traffic alert and collision-avoidance system (TCAS 2) in simulated air carrier line operations are discribed in Volume 1. TCAS 2 monitors the positions of nearby aircraft by means of transponder interrogation, and it commands a climb or descent which conflicting aircraft are projected to reach an unsafe closest point-of-approach within 20 to 25 seconds. A different level of information about the location of other air traffic was presented to each of three groups of flight crews during their execution of eight simulated air carrier flights. A fourth group of pilots flew the same segments without TCAS 2 equipment. Traffic conflicts were generated at intervals during the flights; many of the conflict aircraft were visible to the flight crews. The TCAS equipment successfully ameliorated the seriousness of all conflicts; three of four non-TCAS crews had hazardous encounters. Response times to TCAS maneuver commands did not differ as a function of the amount of information provided, nor did response accuracy. Differences in flight experience did not appear to contribute to the small performance differences observed. Pilots used the displays of conflicting traffic to maneuver to avoid unseen traffic before maneuver advisories were issued by the TCAS equipment. The results indicate: (1) that pilots utilize TCAS effectively within the response times allocated by the TCAS logic, and (2) that TCAS 2 is an effective collision avoidance device. Volume 2 contains the appendices referenced in Volume 1, providing details of the experiment and the results, and the text of two reports written in support of the program

Pilots' use of a traffic alert and collision-avoidance system (TCAS 2) in simulated air carrier operations. Volume 1: Methodology, summary and conclusions

Pilots' use of and responses to a traffic alert and collision-avoidance system (TCAS 2) in simulated air carrier line operations are described in Volume 1. TCAS 2 monitors the positions of nearby aircraft by means of transponder interrogation, and it commands a climb or descent when conflicting aircraft are projected to reach an unsafe closest point-of-approach within 20 to 25 seconds. A different level of information about the location of other air traffic was presented to each of three groups of flight crews during their execution of eight simulated air carrier flights. A fourth group of pilots flew the same segments without TCAS 2 equipment. Traffic conflicts were generated at intervals during the flights; many of the conflict aircraft were visible to the flight crews. The TCAS equipment successfully ameliorated the seriousness of all conflicts; three of four non-TCAS crews had hazardous encounters. Response times to TCAS maneuver commands did not differ as a function of the amount of information provided, nor did response accuracy. Differences in flight experience did not appear to contribute to the small performance differences observed. Pilots used the displays of conflicting traffic to maneuver to avoid unseen traffic before maneuver advisories were issued by the TCAS equipment. The results indicate: (1) that pilots utilize TCAS effectively within the response times allocated by the TCAS logic, and (2) that TCAS 2 is an effective collision avoidance device. Volume II contains the appendices referenced in Volume I, providing details of the experiment and the results, and the text of two reports written in support of the program

Screening for Elder Mistreatment among Older Adults Seeking Legal Assistance Services

Introduction: The aging population is a rapidly growing demographic in the United States. Isolation, limited autonomy, and declining physical and mental health render many older adults vulnerable to elder mistreatment (EM). The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence and correlates of EM among a sample of older adults using legal assistance services in Atlanta, Georgia. Methods: Researchers administered surveys to consenting older adults (aged 60þ) in 5 metro Atlanta community centers that hosted legal assistance information sessions as part of the Elderly Legal Assistance Program. The surveys screened for risk factors and prevalence of EM risk using valid and reliable measures and included additional questions regarding demographics characteristics and healthcare use behaviors. Results: Surveys were completed by 112 participants. Findings reveal that 32 (28.6%) respondents met the criteria for elder abuse / neglect risk; 17 (15.2%) respondents met criteria for depression; and 105 (93.7%) had visited a healthcare provider during the past 6 months. Conclusion: The rates of EM risk in this sample were higher than those previously reported in research. Findings support continued examination of unique risks that may be present among older adults who may be possibly facing legal issues. Additionally, the reported frequency of healthcare visits among participants reveals a promising opportunity to examine development of a more widespread EM screening approach to be conducted in non-emergency settings. Interdisciplinary collaboration is required to inform screening approaches that account for complexities that EM cases present. [West J Emerg Med. 2013;14(4):309–315.] INTRODUCTIO

Measuring the Plasticity of Social Approach: A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of the PEERS Intervention on EEG Asymmetry in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

This study examined whether the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS: Social skills for teenagers with developmental and autism spectrum disorders: The PEERS treatment manual, Routledge, New York, 2010a) affected neural function, via EEG asymmetry, in a randomized controlled trial of adolescents with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and a group of typically developing adolescents. Adolescents with ASD in PEERS shifted from right-hemisphere gamma-band EEG asymmetry before PEERS to left-hemisphere EEG asymmetry after PEERS, versus a waitlist ASD group. Left-hemisphere EEG asymmetry was associated with more social contacts and knowledge, and fewer symptoms of autism. Adolescents with ASD in PEERS no longer differed from typically developing adolescents in left-dominant EEG asymmetry at post-test. These findings are discussed via the Modifier Model of Autism (Mundy et al. in Res Pract Persons Severe Disabl 32(2):124, 2007), with emphasis on remediating isolation/withdrawal in ASD

Clostridium difficile and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus shedding by slaughter-age pigs

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Clostridium difficile </it>and methicillin-resistant <it>Staphylococcus aureus </it>are critical human pathogens and of increasing concern in food animals. Because of the apparent impact of age on prevalence of these organisms, studies of slaughter age pigs are important when considering the potential for contamination of food. This study evaluated <it>C. difficile </it>and MRSA shedding by slaughter age pigs from farms across Canada.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>Clostridium difficile </it>was isolated from 30/436 (6.9%) samples from 15/45 (33%) farms. After adjusting for clustering at the herd level, the prevalence was 3.4%. Ribotype 078 (toxinotype V, North American Pulsotype 7) was the most common strain, accounting for 67% of isolates. MRSA was isolated from 21/460 (4.6%) pigs from 5/46 (11%) farms. The prevalence in pigs after adjusting for clustering at the herd level was 0.2%. Seven different spa types were identified, with 3 related spa types (t011, t034, new) accounting for 16 (76%) consistent with ST398 predominating.</p> <p>Both MRSA and <it>C. difficile </it>samples were collected from 45 farms. Both MRSA and <it>C. difficile </it>were detected on 2 (4.4%), with <it>C. difficile </it>only on 13 (29%), MRSA only on 3 (6.7%) and neither on 27 (60%).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The prevalence of <it>C. difficile </it>and MRSA in slaughter age pigs was relatively low, particularly in comparison with studies involving younger pigs. The predominance of <it>C. difficile </it>ribotype 078 and MRSA ST398 was not surprising, but there was diversity in strain types and the majority of isolates of both organisms were strains that can be found in humans. While the prevalence of <it>C. difficile </it>and MRSA in slaughter age pigs was relatively low, there is clearly potential for contamination of meat from healthy pigs carrying this pathogen into slaughterhouses.</p

Infrastructure for Semantic Annotation in the Genomics Domain

We describe a novel super-infrastructure for biomedical text mining which incorporates an end-to-end pipeline for the collection, annotation, storage, retrieval and analysis of biomedical and life sciences literature, combining NLP and corpus linguistics methods. The infrastructure permits extreme-scale research on the open access PubMed Central archive. It combines an updatable Gene Ontology Semantic Tagger (GOST) for entity identification and semantic markup in the literature, with a NLP pipeline scheduler (Buster) to collect and process the corpus, and a bespoke columnar corpus database (LexiDB) for indexing. The corpus database is distributed to permit fast indexing, and provides a simple web front-end with corpus linguistics methods for sub-corpus comparison and retrieval. GOST is also connected as a service in the Language Application (LAPPS) Grid, in which context it is interoperable with other NLP tools and data in the Grid and can be combined with them in more complex workflows. In a literature based discovery setting, we have created an annotated corpus of 9,776 papers with 5,481,543 words

Prevalence and molecular characterization of Clostridium difficile isolated from feedlot beef cattle upon arrival and mid-feeding period

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The presence of indistinguishable strains of <it>Clostridium difficile </it>in humans, food animals and food, as well as the apparent emergence of the food-animal-associated ribotype 078/toxinotype V as a cause of community-associated <it>C. difficile </it>infection have created concerns about the potential for foodborne infection. While studies have reported <it>C. difficile </it>in calves, studies of cattle closer to the age of harvest are required. Four commercial feedlots in Alberta (Canada) were enrolled for this study. Fecal samples were collected at the time of arrival and after acclimation (< 62, 62-71 or > 71 days on feed). Selective culture for <it>Clostridium difficile </it>was performed, and isolates were characterized by ribotyping and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. A logistic regression model was built to investigate the effect of exposure to antimicrobial drugs on the presence of <it>C. difficile</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>Clostridium difficile </it>was isolated from 18 of 539 animals at the time of feedlot arrival (CI = 2.3-6.1) and from 18 of 335 cattle at mid-feeding period (CI = 2.9-13.1). Overall, there was no significant difference in the prevalence of <it>C. difficile </it>shedding on arrival versus mid-feeding period (<it>P </it>= 0.47). No association between shedding of the bacterium and antimicrobial administration was found (<it>P </it>= 0.33). All the isolates recovered were ribotype 078, a toxinotype V strain with genes encoding toxins A, B and CDT. In addition, all strains were classified as NAP7 by pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and had the characteristic 39 base pairs deletion and upstream truncating mutation on the <it>tcd</it>C gene.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>It is apparent that <it>C. difficile </it>is carried in the intestinal tracts of a small percentage of feedlot cattle arriving and later in the feeding period and that ribotype 078/NAP7 is the dominant strain in these animals. Herd management practices associated with <it>C. difficile </it>shedding were not identified, however further studies of the potential role of antimicrobials on <it>C. difficile </it>acquisition and shedding are required.</p

Natural Sciences at Parkland College - Fall 2017

The Parkland College Natural Sciences Department Newsletter for Fall 2017 -- this issue features an article on IR cameras, use of display case, engaging students outside the classroom with the Astronomy Club and the Parkland Science Club, the solar eclipse, updates from the professional development subcommittee for faculty, summaries from events and meetings, a report on Phenotypic Pasticity Research Experience for Community College Students (PRECS) first summer, and a special feature from former professor Rich Blazier, with a special feature on the history of the Natural Sciences Department