Creating a Language Archive of Insular South East Asia and West New Guinea

The geographical region of Insular South East Asia and New Guinea is well-known as an area of mega-biodiversity. Less well-known is the extreme linguistic diversity in this area: over a quarter of the world’s 6,000 languages are spoken here. As small minority languages, most of them will cease to be spoken in the coming few generations. The project described here ensures the preservation of unique records of languages and the cultures encapsulated by them in the region. The language resources were gathered by twenty linguists at, or in collaboration with, Dutch universities over the last 40 years, and were compiled and archived in collaboration with The Language Archive (TLA) at the Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen. The resulting archive constitutes a collection ofmultimediamaterials and written documents from 48 languages in Insular South East Asia and West New Guinea. At TLA, the data was archived according to state-of-the-art standards (TLA holds the Data Seal of Approval): the component metadata infrastructure CMDI was used; all metadata categories as well as relevant units of annotation were linked to the ISO data category registry ISOcat. This guaranteed proper integration of the language resources into the CLARIN framework. Through the archive, future speaker communities and researchers will be able to extensively search thematerials for answers to their own questions, even if they do not themselves know the language, and even if the language dies

Complete Genome Sequence of Mesorhizobium ciceri Strain CC1192, an Efficient Nitrogen-Fixing Microsymbiont of Cicer arietinum.

We report the complete genome sequence of Mesorhizobium ciceri strain CC1192, an efficient nitrogen-fixing microsymbiont of Cicer arietinum (chickpea). The genome consists of 6.94 Mb distributed between a single chromosome (6.29 Mb) and a plasmid (0.65 Mb)

Complete Genome Sequence of Mesorhizobium ciceri bv. biserrulae Strain WSM1284, an Efficient Nitrogen-Fixing Microsymbiont of the Pasture Legume Biserrula pelecinus.

We report the complete genome sequence of Mesorhizobium ciceri bv. biserrulae strain WSM1284, a nitrogen-fixing microsymbiont of the pasture legume Biserrula pelecinus The genome consists of 6.88 Mb distributed between a single chromosome (6.33 Mb) and a single plasmid (0.55 Mb)

A New Application to Facilitate Post-Fire Recovery and Rehabilitation in Savanna Ecosystems

The U.S. government spends an estimated $3billion per year to fight forest fires in the United States. Post-fire rehabilitation activities represent a small but essential portion of that total. The Rehabilitation Capability Convergence for Ecosystem Recovery (RECOVER) system is currently under development for Savanna ecosystems in the western U.S. The prototype of this system has been built and will have realworld testing during the summer 2013 fire season. When fully deployed, the RECOVER system will provide the emergency rehabilitation teams with critical and timely information for management decisions regarding stabilization and rehabilitation strategies

Plasma prolactin and severe premenstrual tension

It has been suggested that elevated luteal phase prolactin (PRL) levels may have an important role in causing some of the symptoms of the premenstrual tension syndrome (PMTS). Thirty-seven women suffering from severe premenstrual dysphoria were selected for this study. Single morning and afternoon serum PRL evaluations were performed during the follicular (day 9) and late luteal (day 26) phases of the menstrual cycle. PRL was measured by an established double antibody radioimmunoassay technique.All mean PRL values were within the normal range. Only afternoon mean PRL levels showed a tendency for a premenstrual increase. The significance of this statistical finding is unclear, since one-third of the subjects showed a decrease in premenstrual PRL levels. Twenty-four hour PRL secretory profiles recorded on days 9 and 26 in two women with extremely severe PMTS and in two asymptomatic matched control subjects also failed to show a significant correlation between PRL levels and PMTS.Thirty subjects participated in a treatment trial using bromocriptine. A marked rebound hyperprolactinemia was observed in a subgroup of women nine days after cessation of bromocriptine. This was associated with no detectable effect on mood, behaviour, or menstrual regularity. Thus, our data fail to show any specific relationship between PRL and PMTS.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/24944/1/0000371.pd

Circadian hormone secretory profiles in women with severe premenstrual tension syndrome.

The circadian secretory profiles of serum prolactin, growth hormone and cortisol were measured in two women suffering from severe premenstrual tension syndrome and in two asymptomatic control subjects. Subjects and controls were screened and included after a rigorous selection process. Blood samples were obtained every 30 min over a period of 24 h in each woman both on day 9 (follicular phase) and day 26 (luteal phase) of the menstrual cycle. There was no relationship between the hormonal secretory profiles and the premenstrual tension syndrome.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75119/1/j.1471-0528.1984.tb04785.x.pd

Sequential induction of three recombination directionality factors directs assembly of tripartite integrative and conjugative elements

Tripartite integrative and conjugative elements (ICE3) are a novel form of ICE that exist as three separate DNA regions integrated within the genomes of Mesorhizobium spp. Prior to conjugative transfer the three ICE3 regions of M. ciceri WSM1271 ICEMcSym1271 combine and excise to form a single circular element. This assembly requires three coordinated recombination events involving three site-specific recombinases IntS, IntG and IntM. Here, we demonstrate that three excisionases–or recombination directionality factors—RdfS, RdfG and RdfM are required for ICE3 excision. Transcriptome sequencing revealed that expression of ICE3 transfer and conjugation genes was induced by quorum sensing. Quorum sensing activated expression of rdfS, and in turn RdfS stimulated transcription of both rdfG and rdfM. Therefore, RdfS acts as a “master controller” of ICE3 assembly and excision. The dependence of all three excisive reactions on RdfS ensures that ICE3 excision occurs via a stepwise sequence of recombination events that avoids splitting the chromosome into a non-viable configuration. These discoveries expose a surprisingly simple control system guiding molecular assembly of these novel and complex mobile genetic elements and highlight the diverse and critical functions of excisionase proteins in control of horizontal gene transfer

Implementing mentor mothers in family practice to support abused mothers: Study protocol

Contains fulltext : 97988.pdf (postprint version ) (Open Access)ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Intimate partner violence is highly prevalent and mostly affects women with negative consequences for their physical and mental health. Children often witness the violence which has negative consequences for their well-being too. Care offered by family physicians is often rejected because abused women experience a too high threshold. Mentor mother support, a low threshold intervention for abused mothers in family practice, proved to be feasible and effective in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The primary aim of this study is to investigate which factors facilitate or hinder the implementation of mentor mother support in family practice. Besides we evaluate the effect of mentor mother support in a different region. METHODS/DESIGN: An observational study with pre- and posttests will be performed. Mothers with home living children or pregnant women who are victims of intimate partner violence will be offered mentor mother support by the participating family physicians. The implementation process evaluation consists of focus groups, interviews and questionnaires. In the effect evaluation intimate partner violence, the general health of the abused mother, the mother-child relationship, social support, and acceptance of professional help will be measured twice (t = 0 and t = 6 months) by questionnaires, reporting forms, medical records and interviews with the abused mothers. Qualitative coding will be used to analyze the data from the reporting forms, medical records, focus groups, interviews, and questionnaires. Quantitative data will be analyzed with descriptive statistics, chi square test and t-test matched pairs. DISCUSSION: While other intervention studies only evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of the intervention, our primary aim is to evaluate the implementation process and thereby investigate which factors facilitate or hinder implementation of mentor mother support in family practice.6 p

Premenstrual tension syndrome: The development of research diagnostic criteria and new rating scales

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66428/1/j.1600-0447.1980.tb00605.x.pd

The Herts and Minds study: Evaluating the effectiveness of Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT) as an intervention for children in foster care with emotional and/or behavioural problems: a phase II, feasibility, randomised controlled trial.

Trial registration at https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN90349442 © The Authors 2017. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Nick Midgley, Sarah Jane Besser, Helen Dye, Pasco Fearon, tim Gale, Kiri Jefferies-Sewell, Karen Irvine, Joyce Robinson, Solange Wyatt, David Wellsted and Sally Wood, 'The Herts and minds study: evaluating the effectiveness of mentalization-based treatment (MBT) as an intervention for children in foster care with emotional and/or behavioural problems: a phase II, feasibility, randomised controlled trial', Pilot and Feasibility Studies, Vol. 3(12, February 2017. The published version is available online at doi: 10.1186/s40814-017-0127-xBackground A significant proportion of children in the social care system in England present with mental health problems, with the majority experiencing some form of emotional and behavioural difficulties. The most effective treatments for these children are currently unknown, partly due to a lack of robust, controlled studies. Researchers have identified a number of obstacles to conducting well-designed research with this population, making the need to test the feasibility of a randomised controlled trial especially important. Methods/design This protocol outlines a two-arm, randomised control feasibility trial to explore the acceptability and credibility of mentalization-based treatment (MBT) as a treatment for reducing emotional and behavioural difficulties in looked after children and to test the possibility of addressing a number of methodological challenges to conducting high-quality research with this population. MBT is a relatively new intervention which, in the adaptation of the model tested here, includes many of the features of therapy identified in NICE guidelines as necessary to support children in care. The two arms are MBT and usual clinical care (UCC). The study will take place in Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust with follow-up at 12 and 24 weeks. Discussion This study will aim to ascertain whether it is worthwhile and feasible to progress to testing the intervention in a full-scale definitive randomised controlled trial (RCT). This study therefore has the potential to improve our understanding of the obstacles to conducting high-quality research with this very vulnerable population, and in the medium term, could help to improve the stability of foster placements and the emotional well-being of children in care. Trial registration ISRCTN90349442Peer reviewe