Lithofacies and Mineralogy of the Late Wisconsinan Navarre Till in Stark and Wayne Counties, Ohio

Author Institution: Department of Geology, University of AkronThe Navarre Till deposited by ice of the Killbuck lobe in Stark and Wayne counties is the oldest till of late Wisconsinan age in northeastern Ohio. The type section of the Navarre Till is located near the margin of glaciation in Stark County. Interpretations of the diamict at the type locality include a meltout till overlying shale. Other sections in the study area consist of meltout or flow tills which occur as stratified or massive diamicts interbedded with silts, sands, and gravels. Diamict interpreted as lodgement till occurs only at one section

Development of a Health-Related Quality of Life Questionnaire (HRQL) for patients with Extremity Soft Tissue Infections (ESTI)

BACKGROUND: Past clinical trials of antimicrobial treatment in soft tissue infections have focused on non-standardized clinical and physiological outcome variables, and have not considered the subjective experience of patients. The objective of this study was to develop a health-related quality of life questionnaire (HRQL) for patients with extremity soft tissue infections (ESTI) for future use in clinical trials. METHODS: The design of this study followed published guidelines and included item generation, item reduction, and questionnaire preparation. Study subjects were consenting English-speaking adults with acute ESTI requiring prescription of at least two days of outpatient intravenous antibiotic therapy. RESULTS: A list of 49 items that adversely impact the quality of life of patients with ESTI was generated by literature review, informal health professional feedback, and semi-structured interviews with twenty patients. A listing of these items was then administered to 95 patients to determine their relative importance on quality of life. A questionnaire was prepared that included the twenty most important items with a 5-point Likert scale response. Questionnaire domains included physical symptoms, problems performing their activities of daily living, impairment of their emotional functioning, and difficulties in their social interactions as related to their ESTI. The final questionnaire was pre-tested on a further ten patients and was named the ESTI-Score. CONCLUSION: The ESTI-Score is a novel instrument designed to quantify the impact of ESTI on quality of life. Future study is required to determine its validity and responsiveness before use as an outcome measure in clinical trials

Absence of the neutrophil serine protease cathepsin G decreases neutrophil granulocyte infiltration but does not change the severity of acute pancreatitis

Acute pancreatitis is characterized by an early intracellular protease activation and invasion of leukocytes into the pancreas. Cathepsins constitute a large group of lysosomal enzymes, that have been shown to modulate trypsinogen activation and neutrophil infiltration. Cathepsin G (CTSG) is a neutrophil serine protease of the chymotrypsin C family known to degrade extracellular matrix components and to have regulatory functions in inflammatory disorders. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of CTSG in pancreatitis. Isolated acinar cells were exposed to recombinant CTSG and supramaximal cholezystokinin stimulation. In CTSG(-/-) mice and corresponding controls acute experimental pancreatitis was induced by serial caerulein injections. Severity was assessed by histology, serum enzyme levels and zymogen activation. Neutrophil infiltration was quantified by chloro-acetate ersterase staining and myeloperoxidase measurement. CTSG was expessed in inflammatory cells but not in pancreatic acinar cells. CTSG had no effect on intra-acinar-cell trypsinogen activation. In CTSG(-/-) mice a transient decrease of neutrophil infiltration into the pancreas and lungs was found during acute pancreatitis while the disease severity remained largely unchanged. CTSG is involved in pancreatic neutrophil infiltration during pancreatitis, albeit to a lesser degree than the related neutrophil (PMN) elastase. Its absence therefore leaves pancreatitis severity essentially unaffected

A consensus protocol for the recovery of mercury methylation genes from metagenomes

Mercury (Hg) methylation genes (hgcAB) mediate the formation of the toxic methylmercury and have been identified from diverse environments, including freshwater and marine ecosystems, Arctic permafrost, forest and paddy soils, coal-ash amended sediments, chlor-alkali plants discharges and geothermal springs. Here we present the first attempt at a standardized protocol for the detection, identification and quantification of hgc genes from metagenomes. Our Hg-cycling microorganisms in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems (Hg-MATE) database, a catalogue of hgc genes, provides the most accurate information to date on the taxonomic identity and functional/metabolic attributes of microorganisms responsible for Hg methylation in the environment. Furthermore, we introduce "marky-coco", a ready-to-use bioinformatic pipeline based on de novo single-metagenome assembly, for easy and accurate characterization of hgc genes from environmental samples. We compared the recovery of hgc genes from environmental metagenomes using the marky-coco pipeline with an approach based on coassembly of multiple metagenomes. Our data show similar efficiency in both approaches for most environments except those with high diversity (i.e., paddy soils) for which a coassembly approach was preferred. Finally, we discuss the definition of true hgc genes and methods to normalize hgc gene counts from metagenomes

Light Microsopy Module, International Space Station Premier Automated Microscope

The Light Microscopy Module (LMM) was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2009 and began science operations in 2010. It continues to support Physical and Biological scientific research on ISS. During 2015, if all goes as planned, five experiments will be completed: [1] Advanced Colloids Experiments with a manual sample base -3 (ACE-M-3), [2] the Advanced Colloids Experiment with a Heated Base -1 (ACE-H-1), [3] (ACE-H-2), [4] the Advanced Plant Experiment -03 (APEX-03), and [5] the Microchannel Diffusion Experiment (MDE). Preliminary results, along with an overview of present and future LMM capabilities will be presented; this includes details on the planned data imaging processing and storage system, along with the confocal upgrade to the core microscope. [1] New York University: Paul Chaikin, Andrew Hollingsworth, and Stefano Sacanna, [2] University of Pennsylvania: Arjun Yodh and Matthew Gratale, [3] a consortium of universities from the State of Kentucky working through the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR): Stuart Williams, Gerold Willing, Hemali Rathnayake, et al., [4] from the University of Florida and CASIS: Anna-Lisa Paul and Rob Ferl, and [5] from the Methodist Hospital Research Institute from CASIS: Alessandro Grattoni and Giancarlo Canavese

The role of declining Arctic sea ice in recent decreasing terrestrial Arctic snow depths

The dramatic decline in Arctic sea ice cover is anticipated to influence atmospheric temperatures and circulation patterns. These changes will affect the terrestrial climate beyond the boundary of the Arctic, consequently modulating terrestrial snow cover. Therefore, an improved understanding of the relationship between Arctic sea ice and snow depth over the terrestrial Arctic is warranted. We examined responses of snow depth to the declining Arctic sea ice extent in September, during the period of 1979-2006. The major reason for a focus on snow depth, rather than snow cover, is because its variability has a climatic memory that impacts hydrothermal processes during the following summer season. Analyses of combined data sets of satellite measurements of sea ice extent and snow depth, simulated by a land surface model (CHANGE), suggested that an anomalously larger snow depth over northeastern Siberia during autumn and winter was significantly correlated to the declining September Arctic sea ice extent, which has resulted in cooling temperatures, along with an increase in precipitation. Meanwhile, the reduction of Arctic sea ice has amplified warming temperatures in North America, which has readily offset the input of precipitation to snow cover, consequently further decreasing snow depth. However, a part of the Canadian Arctic recorded an increase in snow depth driven locally by the diminishing September Arctic sea ice extent. Decreasing snow depth at the hemispheric scale, outside the northernmost regions (i.e., northeastern Siberia and Canadian Arctic), indicated that Arctic amplification related to the diminishing Arctic sea ice has already impacted the terrestrial Arctic snow depth. The strong reduction in Arctic sea ice anticipated in the future also suggests a potential long-range impact on Arctic snow cover. Moreover, the snow depth during the early snow season tends to contribute to the warming of soil temperatures in the following summer, at least in the northernmost regions