Barriers to support in LGBTQ+ populations

The experiences of heterosexual female victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) are well documented in research and policy (Langenderfer-Magruder, Whitfield, Walls, Kattari & Ramos, 2016). In addition, heterosexual men are starting to receive more research attention in terms of their victimisation experiences (e.g. Hines & Douglas, 2011; Próspero & Kim, 2009). In terms of gender and sexuality, the LGBTQ+ community is severely underrepresented in IPV research, policy, and victim support provision (Morin, 2014). It is this victim support provision that is most crucial to this community; there is little point in raising awareness of IPV victimisation in the LGBTQ+ community through research and policy change, if the support for victims is inadequate or unavailable

An Estimate of Avian Mortality at Communication Towers in the United States and Canada

Avian mortality at communication towers in the continental United States and Canada is an issue of pressing conservation concern. Previous estimates of this mortality have been based on limited data and have not included Canada. We compiled a database of communication towers in the continental United States and Canada and estimated avian mortality by tower with a regression relating avian mortality to tower height. This equation was derived from 38 tower studies for which mortality data were available and corrected for sampling effort, search efficiency, and scavenging where appropriate. Although most studies document mortality at guyed towers with steady-burning lights, we accounted for lower mortality at towers without guy wires or steady-burning lights by adjusting estimates based on published studies. The resulting estimate of mortality at towers is 6.8 million birds per year in the United States and Canada. Bootstrapped subsampling indicated that the regression was robust to the choice of studies included and a comparison of multiple regression models showed that incorporating sampling, scavenging, and search efficiency adjustments improved model fit. Estimating total avian mortality is only a first step in developing an assessment of the biological significance of mortality at communication towers for individual species or groups of species. Nevertheless, our estimate can be used to evaluate this source of mortality, develop subsequent per-species mortality estimates, and motivate policy action

Decreased MCM2-6 in Drosophila S2 cells does not generate significant DNA damage or cause a marked increase in sensitivity to replication interference.

A reduction in the level of some MCM proteins in human cancer cells (MCM5 in U20S cells or MCM3 in Hela cells) causes a rapid increase in the level of DNA damage under normal conditions of cell proliferation and a loss of viability when the cells are subjected to replication interference. Here we show that Drosophila S2 cells do not appear to show the same degree of sensitivity to MCM2-6 reduction. Under normal cell growth conditions a reduction of >95% in the levels of MCM3, 5, and 6 causes no significant short term alteration in the parameters of DNA replication or increase in DNA damage. MCM depleted cells challenged with HU do show a decrease in the density of replication forks compared to cells with normal levels of MCM proteins, but this produces no consistent change in the levels of DNA damage observed. In contrast a comparable reduction of MCM7 levels has marked effects on viability, replication parameters and DNA damage in the absence of HU treatment

Potent inhibitors active against HIV reverse transcriptase with K101P, a mutation conferring rilpivirine resistance

Catechol diether compounds have nanomolar antiviral and enzymatic activity against HIV with reverse transcriptase (RT) variants containing K101P, a mutation that confers high-level resistance to FDA-approved non-nucleoside inhibitors efavirenz and rilpivirine. Kinetic data suggests that RT (K101P) variants are as catalytically fit as wild-type and thus can potentially increase in the viral population as more antiviral regimens include efavirenz or rilpivirine. Comparison of wild-type structures and a new crystal structure of RT (K101P) in complex with a leading compound confirms that the K101P mutation is not a liability for the catechol diethers while suggesting that key interactions are lost with efavirenz and rilpivirine.Fil: Gray, William T.. University of Yale; Estados UnidosFil: Frey, Kathleen M.. University of Yale; Estados UnidosFil: Laskey, Sarah B.. University Johns Hopkins; Estados UnidosFil: Mislak, Andrea C.. University of Yale; Estados UnidosFil: Spasov, Krasimir A.. University of Yale; Estados UnidosFil: Lee, Won Gil. University of Yale; Estados UnidosFil: Bollini, Mariela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. University of Yale; Estados UnidosFil: Siliciano, Robert F.. University Johns Hopkins; Estados Unidos. Howard Hughes Medial Institute; Estados UnidosFil: Jorgensen, William L.. University of Yale; Estados UnidosFil: Anderson, Karen S.. University of Yale; Estados Unido

Diversity of the gut microbiota and eczema in early life

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A modest number of prospective studies of the composition of the intestinal microbiota and eczema in early life have yielded conflicting results.</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>To examine the relationship between the bacterial diversity of the gut and the development of eczema in early life by methods other than stool culture.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Fecal samples were collected from 21 infants at 1 and 4 months of life. Nine infants were diagnosed with eczema by the age of 6 months (cases) and 12 infants were not (controls). After conducting denaturating gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) of stool samples, we compared the microbial diversity of cases and controls using the number of electrophoretic bands and the Shannon index of diversity (<it>H'</it>) as indicators.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Control subjects had significantly greater fecal microbial diversity than children with eczema at ages 1 (mean <it>H' </it>for controls = 0.75 vs. 0.53 for cases, P = 0.01) and 4 months (mean <it>H' </it>for controls = 0.92 vs. 0.59 for cases, P = 0.02). The increase in diversity from 1 to 4 months of age was significant in controls (P = 0.04) but not in children who developed eczema by 6 months of age (P = 0.32).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings suggest that reduced microbial diversity is associated with the development of eczema in early life.</p

Multi-armed bandit models for 2D grasp planning with uncertainty

Abstract — For applications such as warehouse order fulfill-ment, robot grasps must be robust to uncertainty arising from sensing, mechanics, and control. One way to achieve robustness is to evaluate the performance of candidate grasps by sampling perturbations in shape, pose, and gripper approach and to com-pute the probability of force closure for each candidate to iden-tify a grasp with the highest expected quality. Since evaluating the quality of each grasp is computationally demanding, prior work has turned to cloud computing. To improve computational efficiency and to extend this work, we consider how Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) models for optimizing decisions can be applied in this context. We formulate robust grasp planning as a MAB problem and evaluate convergence times towards an optimal grasp candidate using 100 object shapes from the Brown Vision 2D Lab Dataset with 1000 grasp candidates per object. We consider the case where shape uncertainty is represented as a Gaussian process implicit surface (GPIS) with Gaussian uncertainty in pose, gripper approach angle, and coefficient of friction. We find that Thompson Sampling and the Gittins index MAB methods converged to within 3 % of the optimal grasp up to 10x faster than uniform allocation and 5x faster than iterative pruning. I