Characterization of the spore surface and exosporium proteins of Clostridium sporogenes; implications for Clostridium botulinum group I strains.

Clostridium sporogenes is a non-pathogenic close relative and surrogate for Group I (proteolytic) neurotoxin-producing Clostridium botulinum strains. The exosporium, the sac-like outermost layer of spores of these species, is likely to contribute to adhesion, dissemination, and virulence. A paracrystalline array, hairy nap, and several appendages were detected in the exosporium of C. sporogenes strain NCIMB 701792 by EM and AFM. The protein composition of purified exosporium was explored by LC-MS/MS of tryptic peptides from major individual SDS-PAGE-separated protein bands, and from bulk exosporium. Two high molecular weight protein bands both contained the same protein with a collagen-like repeat domain, the probable constituent of the hairy nap, as well as cysteine-rich proteins CsxA and CsxB. A third cysteine-rich protein (CsxC) was also identified. These three proteins are also encoded in C. botulinum Prevot 594, and homologues (75-100% amino acid identity) are encoded in many other Group I strains. This work provides the first insight into the likely composition and organization of the exosporium of Group I C. botulinum spores

Endo-cannibalism in the making of a recent British ancestor

Following his death in 1975, the ashes of Wally Hope, founder of Stonehenge People's Free Festival, were scattered in the centre of Stonehenge. When a child tasted the ashes the rest of the group followed this lead. In the following decades, as the festival increasingly became the site of contest about British heritage and culture, the story of Wally's ashes was told at significant times. His name continues to be invoked at gatherings today. This paper discusses these events as 'the making of an ancestor', and explores wider contexts in which they might be understood. These include Druidic involvement in the revival of cremation, Amazonian bone-ash endo-cannibalism, and popular means of speaking of and to dead relatives. In addition to considering the role of 'ancestors' in contemporary Britain, the paper contributes to considerations of 'ancestry' as a different way of being dead, of a particular moment in the evolution of an alternative religious neo-tribal movement, of the meanings of 'cannibalism', and of the ways in which human remains might be treated by the bereaved and by various other interested parties

Modern Contraceptive and Dual Method Use among HIV-Infected Women in Lusaka, Zambia

HIV-infected women in sub-Saharan Africa are at substantial risk of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Linkages between HIV and reproductive health services are advocated. We describe implementation of a reproductive health counseling intervention in 16 HIV clinics in Lusaka, Zambia. Between November 2009 and November 2010, 18,407 women on antiretroviral treatment (ART) were counseled. The median age was 34.6 years (interquartile range (IQR): 29.9–39.7), and 60.1% of women were married. The median CD4+ cell count was 394 cells/uL (IQR: 256–558). Of the women counseled, 10,904 (59.2%) reported current modern contraceptive use. Among contraceptive users, only 17.7% reported dual method use. After counseling, 737 of 7,503 women not previously using modern contraception desired family planning referrals, and 61.6% of these women successfully accessed services within 90 days. Unmet contraceptive need remains high among HIV-infected women. Additional efforts are needed to promote reproductive health, particularly dual method use

Climate change adaptation planning and cross-sectoral policy coherence in southern Africa

The post-2015 development agenda requires policy coherence, where achievement of development goals in one sector does not undermine the achievement of the goals of another. It also recognises that cross-cutting issues like adaptation to climate change need to be mainstreamed across multiple sectors. This paper presents a policy analysis using the cases of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia. It analyses the water management and agricultural strategies and approaches identified in a variety of policies and plans. These include national sector policies for water and agriculture, National Development Plans, and climate change policies and strategies, including National Adaptation Programmes of Action and the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions submitted prior to the 2015 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties. It assesses the extent to which policies are coherent with one another with regard to their treatment of climate change adaptation using Qualitative Document Analysis. Findings identify that sector policies show some degree of cross-thematic coherence, in particular around their acknowledgement of the importance to address disaster management of floods and droughts. However, policy statements are typified by a relative lack of recognition of the need to develop supporting instruments and strategies that address climate adaptation needs over longer timeframes. Climate change policies explicitly call for significant investment in adaptation from the international community. Where coherence between sector and climate policies and strategies is strongest, the more recent climate policies largely repackage existing sectoral policy statements. These findings can be understood in the context of the uncertainty of climate change impacts for the longer term (for which a wider variety of adaptations are identified), alongside more event-driven disaster management planning where the impacts are more immediate and obviously evident. This prioritisation is also linked to development needs and the short-term nature of political cycles and economic gain. For climate-resilient policy decision-making to make further headway, we argue that governments need to embrace cross-sectoral planning more pro- actively in order to foster greater policy coherence and to deliver more climate resilient agriculture and water management

Mock observations with the Millennium Simulation: cosmological downsizing and intermediate-redshift observations

Only by incorporating various forms of feedback can theories of galaxy formation reproduce the present-day luminosity function of galaxies. It has also been argued that such feedback processes might explain the counterintuitive behaviour of 'downsizing' witnessed since redshifts z ≃ 1–2. To examine this question, observations spanning 0.4 < z < 1.4 from the Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe (DEEP)2/Palomar survey are compared with a suite of equivalent mock observations derived from the Millennium Simulation, populated with galaxies using the galform code. Although the model successfully reproduces the observed total mass function and the general trend of 'downsizing', it fails to accurately reproduce the colour distribution and type-dependent mass functions at all redshifts probed. This failure is shared by other semi-analytical models which collectively appear to 'over-quench' star formation in intermediate-mass systems. These mock lightcones are also a valuable tool for investigating the reliability of the observational results in terms of cosmic variance. Using variance estimates derived from the lightcones, we confirm the significance of the decline since z ∼ 1 in the observed number density of massive blue galaxies which, we argue, provides the bulk of the associated growth in the red sequence. We also assess the limitations arising from cosmic variance in terms of our ability to observe mass-dependent growth since z ∼ 1

The Kabua 1 cranium: Virtual anatomical reconstructions

Our current knowledge of the emergence of anatomically modern humans, and the human lineage in general, is limited, in large part because of the lack of a well preserved and well dated fossil record from Pleistocene Africa. Thus, the primary aim of our research is to partly relieve this problem by virtually reconstructing and analyzing the hominin cranial remains of Kabua 1, found in Kenya in the 1950s. Most scholars have argued that Kabua 1 represents an anatomically modern Homo sapiens, although the fragmentary nature of the remains and lack of a chronometric date hinder robust phylogenetic and taxonomic assessments. This manuscript presents the first steps taken to resolve this issue, namely a set of reconstructions of the specimen that would allow comparison with the fossil record. First, we virtually removed sediment and laboratory adhesives from μct scans of the fragments. Subsequently, all fragments were separated by segmentation of the μct data and described. Finally, virtual surface projections were used in the creation of several anatomical reconstructions, based on separate reference crania. These first steps provide a framework that will be used for quantitative shape analyses that aim to more firmly place these remains in the context of human evolution

Climate change adaptation and cross-sectoral policy coherence in southern Africa

To be effective, climate change adaptation needs to be mainstreamed across multiple sectors and greater policy coherence is essential. Using the cases of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, this paper investigates the extent of coherence in national policies across the water and agriculture sectors and to climate change adaptation goals outlined in national development plans. A two-pronged qualitative approach is applied using Qualitative Document Analysis of relevant policies and plans, combined with expert interviews from non-government actors in each country. Findings show that sector policies have differing degrees of coherence on climate change adaptation, currently being strongest in Zambia and weakest in Tanzania. We also identify that sectoral policies remain more coherent in addressing immediate-term disaster management issues of floods and droughts rather than longer-term strategies for climate adaptation. Coherence between sector and climate policies and strategies is strongest when the latter has been more recently developed. However to date, this has largely been achieved by repackaging of existing sectoral policy statements into climate policies drafted by external consultants to meet international reporting needs and not by the establishment of new connections between national sectoral planning processes. For more effective mainstreaming of climate change adaptation, governments need to actively embrace longer-term cross-sectoral planning through cross-Ministerial structures, such as initiated through Zambia’s Interim Climate Change Secretariat, to foster greater policy coherence and integrated adaptation planning

The Challenge of Machine Learning in Space Weather Nowcasting and Forecasting

The numerous recent breakthroughs in machine learning (ML) make imperative to carefully ponder how the scientific community can benefit from a technology that, although not necessarily new, is today living its golden age. This Grand Challenge review paper is focused on the present and future role of machine learning in space weather. The purpose is twofold. On one hand, we will discuss previous works that use ML for space weather forecasting, focusing in particular on the few areas that have seen most activity: the forecasting of geomagnetic indices, of relativistic electrons at geosynchronous orbits, of solar flares occurrence, of coronal mass ejection propagation time, and of solar wind speed. On the other hand, this paper serves as a gentle introduction to the field of machine learning tailored to the space weather community and as a pointer to a number of open challenges that we believe the community should undertake in the next decade. The recurring themes throughout the review are the need to shift our forecasting paradigm to a probabilistic approach focused on the reliable assessment of uncertainties, and the combination of physics-based and machine learning approaches, known as gray-box.Comment: under revie