Honeycomb sterna: an unusual case of a developmental abnormality in the sternum

This report details an unusual case of a human sternal developmental abnormality of an anatomical specimen part of the skeletal collection curated by University College London, Anthropology Department skeletal collection. This rarely reported developmental abnormality is caused by the non-fusion of lateral ossification centres in the sternebrae, resulting in the mesosternum having a honeycomb-like appearance. Sternal defects are typically underreported in the clinical literature as many cases being asymptomatic that they are typically diagnosed incidentally, as such there is a dearth in our current understanding of the development and anatomical variants of the sternum. Although in recent years, large-scale CT studies have investigated the prevalence of sternal developmental abnormalities, these studies have not reported sternal defects similar to the individual presented in this report. While most sternal defects are clinically uneventful, the lack of awareness of these variants can result in misinterpretation of radiological and pathological findings as such an understanding of anatomical variants even when asymptomatic is vital

Studi Pemanfaatan Bangunan Pantai sebagai Proteksi Jalan Tol Semarang – Demak

Jalan Nasional Semarang – Demak merupakan jalan nasional di bagian utara Pulau Jawa yang menghubungkan antara Kota Semarang dengan Kabupaten Demak. Pertumbuhan arus lalu lintas yang pesat menimbulkan kepadatan di Jalan Nasional Semarang – Demak, sehingga pemerintah memberikan respon dengan adanya perencanaan Jalan Tol Semarang – Demak. Jalan Tol Semarang – Demak tersebut direncanakan melewati garis Pantai Morosari, Kabupaten Demak. Garis Pantai Morosari sangat terpengaruh oleh aspek hidrodinamika kelautan seperti abrasi, erosi, dan sedimentasi. Karena permasalahan tersebut, perlu adanya bangunan perlindungan pantai yang berguna melindungi garis Pantai Morosari serta dapat melindungi trase rencana Jalan Tol Semarang – Demak nantinya. Perencanaan bangunan pantai pelindung jalan tol Semarang – Demak ini mempertimbangkan gejala – gejala kelautan akibat gelombang laut dan pasang surut air laut. Data yang digunakan adalah data angin dari Stasiun Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika (BMKG) Semarang pada jangka waktu Januari 2007 sampai Mei 2017; data pasang surut dari Stasiun Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika (BMKG) Semarang pada tanggal 11 Mei 2017 – 25 Mei 2017; data tanah dari Laboratorium Mekanika Tanah, Fakultas Teknik, Departemen Teknik Sipil, Universitas Diponegoro; dan peta batimetri dari Dinas Perikanan dan Kelautan Provinsi Jawa Tengah. Metode analisis yang digunakan adalah metode Admiralty untuk menghitung elevasi pasang surut air laut; metode SMB untuk menghitung kedalaman dan ketinggian gelombang di perairan dalam dan perairan dangkal; program GENESIS untuk memprediksi Perubahan garis pantai; dan program PLAXIS untuk mengetahui daya dukung tanah dan penurunan tanah; serta dilakukan pemilihan dan perencanaan bangunan pelindung pantai untuk proteksi jalan tol Semarang – Demak. Berdasarkan hasil analisis tugas akhir ini, didapatkan elevasi pasang surut adalah HHWL = +154,07 cm, MHWL = +122,49 cm, MSL = +83,46 cm, MLWL = +44,42 cm, dan LLWL = +12,85 cm; jenis pasang surut adalah campuran condong ke harian ganda; kedalaman gelombang pecah sebesar 2,12 m dengan ketinggian gelombang pecah 1,7 m; didapatkan jenis bangunan pelindung terpilih adalah kombinasi antara offshore submerged breakwater dan revetment; ketinggian gelombang di area bangunan offshore submerged breakwater adalah 1,864 m; ketinggian gelombang di area bangunan revetment adalah 0,49 m; offshore submerged breakwater direncanakan 4 (empat) buah pada kedalaman – 3,5 m dengan dimensi panjang 400 m; lebar 19,35 m; tinggi 3,1 m; dengan jarak antar breakwater 150 m; revetment sepanjang garis pantai yang terdapat trase jalan tol sebesar 2300 m pada kedalaman – 0,5 m dengan dimensi panjang 2300 m; lebar 9 m; dan tinggi 2,4 m. Terjadi penurunan sebesar 5,371 cm pada bangunan breakwater dan sebesar 5,008 cm pada bangunan revetment dengan menggunakan bantuan program PLAXIS

Digital Dilemma 2018: Digital Presentations in Biological Anthropology and Bioarchaeology

In academia, funding for conference attendance is limited, and both students and early-career researchers are therefore only able to attend a limited number of conferences. This means that, typically, researchers need to choose between attending multiple local and, at times, more affordable conferences, or one or two large, expensive, international conferences. Local and less expensive conferences may be research-specific but will have a smaller audience and lower networking potential. In biological anthropology and bioarchaeology, the majority of these larger annual conferences are held in North America and Western Europe where travel and accommodation costs can be very high for those outside of these regions. These costs, in addition to visa restrictions, reduce the diversity of participants at academic conferences, skewing attendance to students and researchers from the host countries. Not only does this disadvantage individuals outside of the typical host-countries, but it also limits the breadth of academic dialogue, with inclusion in academic conferences determined all too often by financial resources rather than academic value. This paper discusses the demographics and lack of diversity at some of these large conferences and the factors that are known to limit international conference travel. It then presents the benefits of digital presentation methods using Digital Dilemma 2018 as a case study for how digital presentation methods can be combined with physical presentations at minimal cost and time. We hope that this will encourage more conferences to offer a digital presentation option in the future

Trend in ice moistening the stratosphere – constraints from isotope data of water and methane

Water plays a major role in the chemistry and radiative budget of the stratosphere. Air enters the stratosphere predominantly in the tropics, where the very low temperatures around the tropopause constrain water vapour mixing ratios to a few parts per million. Observations of stratospheric water vapour show a large positive long-term trend, which can not be explained by change in tropopause temperatures. Trends in the partitioning between vapour and ice of water entering the stratosphere have been suggested to resolve this conundrum. We present measurements of stratospheric H_(2)O, HDO, CH_4 and CH_(3)D in the period 1991–2007 to evaluate this hypothesis. Because of fractionation processes during phase changes, the hydrogen isotopic composition of H_(2)O is a sensitive indicator of changes in the partitioning of vapour and ice. We find that the seasonal variations of H_(2)O are mirrored in the variation of the ratio of HDO to H_(2)O with a slope of the correlation consistent with water entering the stratosphere mainly as vapour. The variability in the fractionation over the entire observation period is well explained by variations in H_(2)O. The isotopic data allow concluding that the trend in ice arising from particulate water is no more than (0.01±0.13) ppmv/decade in the observation period. Our observations suggest that between 1991 and 2007 the contribution from changes in particulate water transported through the tropopause plays only a minor role in altering in the amount of water entering the stratosphere

ECG-gated multi-slice computed tomography in the detection of atrial septal aneurysms

An atrial septal aneurysm (ASA) is an uncommon cardiac abnormality. Clinical manifestation of this abnormality remains unclear: some authors have suggested an association between ASA and arrhythmias or between ASA and cerebral ischaemia. A major role in the diagnosis of ASA to date has been played by transoesophageal echocardiography and transthoracic echocardiography. The purpose of this paper is to present the role of multi-slice computed tomography with ECG gating in the detection and analysis of ASA. (Folia Morphol 2008; 67: 126–128

Digital Dilemma 2018

In October 2018 a one-day conference was held at the UCL Institute of Archaeology focussing on the ‘Digital Dilemma’ in biological archaeology —specifically human remains research where the use of digitisation methods have increased exponentially over the last decade while comparatively little discussion of the ethical and legal considerations of these data has taken place. Papers presented at Digital Dilemma 2018 explored the use of digital data in human remains research, discussing both the benefits provided by these data, areas of ethical or methodological concern and suggestions for future research. This paper and the following conference proceedings will discuss this research demonstrating the importance that this Digital Dilemma in archaeology continues to be discussed and considered in future research

Prevalence of Avian-Pathogenic Escherichia coli Strain O1 Genomic Islands among Extraintestinal and Commensal E. coli Isolates

Escherichia coli strains that cause disease outside the intestine are known as extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli (ExPEC) and include pathogens of humans and animals. Previously, the genome of avian-pathogenic E. coli (APEC) O1:K1:H7 strain O1, from ST95, was sequenced and compared to those of several other E. coli strains, identifying 43 genomic islands. Here, the genomic islands of APEC O1 were compared to those of other sequenced E. coli strains, and the distribution of 81 genes belonging to 12 APEC O1 genomic islands among 828 human and avian ExPEC and commensal E. coli isolates was determined. Multiple islands were highly prevalent among isolates belonging to the O1 and O18 serogroups within phylogenetic group B2, which are implicated in human neonatal meningitis. Because of the extensive genomic similarities between APEC O1 and other human ExPEC strains belonging to the ST95 phylogenetic lineage, its ability to cause disease in a rat model of sepsis and meningitis was assessed. Unlike other ST95 lineage strains, APEC O1 was unable to cause bacteremia or meningitis in the neonatal rat model and was significantly less virulent than uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) CFT073 in a mouse sepsis model, despite carrying multiple neonatal meningitis E. coli (NMEC) virulence factors and belonging to the ST95 phylogenetic lineage. These results suggest that host adaptation or genome modifications have occurred either in APEC O1 or in highly virulent ExPEC isolates, resulting in differences in pathogenicity. Overall, the genomic islands examined provide targets for further discrimination of the different ExPEC subpathotypes, serogroups, phylogenetic types, and sequence types

Well-Typed Programs Can’t Be Blamed

We introduce the blame calculus, which adds the notion of blame from Findler and Felleisen’s contracts to a system similar to Siek and Taha’s gradual types and Flanagan’s hybrid types. We characterise where positive and negative blame can arise by decomposing the usual notion of subtype into positive and negative subtypes, and show that these recombine to yield naive subtypes. Naive subtypes previously appeared in type systems that are unsound, but we believe this is the first time naive subtypes play a role in establishing type soundness

Escherichia coli-mediated impairment of ureteric contractility is uropathogenic E. coli specific.

BACKGROUND: Ureters are fundamental for keeping kidneys free from uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC), but we have shown that 2 strains (J96 and 536) can subvert this role and reduce ureteric contractility. To determine whether this is (1) a widespread feature of UPEC, (2) exhibited only by UPEC, and (3) dependent upon type 1 fimbriae, we analyzed strains representing epidemiologically important multilocus sequence types ST131, ST73, and ST95 and non-UPEC E. coli. METHODS: Contractility and calcium transients in intact rat ureters were compared between strains. Mannose and fim mutants were used to investigate the role of type 1 fimbriae. RESULTS: Non-UPEC had no significant effect on contractility, with a mean decrease after 8 hours of 8.8%, compared with 8.8% in controls. UPEC effects on contractility were strain specific, with decreases from 9.47% to 96.7%. Mannose inhibited the effects of the most potent strains (CFT073 and UTI89) but had variable effects among other UPEC strains. Mutation and complementation studies showed that the effects of the UTI89 cystitis isolate were fimH dependent. CONCLUSIONS: We find that (1) non-UPEC do not affect ureteric contractility, (2) impairment of contractility is a common feature of UPEC, and (3) the mechanism varies between strains, but for the most potent UPEC type 1 fimbriae are involved