Behaviour change interventions to influence antimicrobial prescribing: a cross-sectional analysis of reports from UK state-of-the-art scientific conferences

Background To improve the quality of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) interventions the application of behavioural sciences supported by multidisciplinary collaboration has been recommended. We analysed major UK scientific research conferences to investigate AMS behaviour change intervention reporting. Methods Leading UK 2015 scientific conference abstracts for 30 clinical specialties were identified and interrogated. All AMS and/or antimicrobial resistance(AMR) abstracts were identified using validated search criteria. Abstracts were independently reviewed by four researchers with reported behavioural interventions classified using a behaviour change taxonomy. Results Conferences ran for 110 days with >57,000 delegates. 311/12,313(2.5%) AMS-AMR abstracts (oral and poster) were identified. 118/311(40%) were presented at the UK’s infectious diseases/microbiology conference. 56/311(18%) AMS-AMR abstracts described behaviour change interventions. These were identified across 12/30(40%) conferences. The commonest abstract reporting behaviour change interventions were quality improvement projects [44/56 (79%)]. In total 71 unique behaviour change functions were identified. Policy categories; “guidelines” (16/71) and “service provision” (11/71) were the most frequently reported. Intervention functions; “education” (6/71), “persuasion” (7/71), and “enablement” (9/71) were also common. Only infection and primary care conferences reported studies that contained multiple behaviour change interventions. The remaining 10 specialties tended to report a narrow range of interventions focusing on “guidelines” and “enablement”. Conclusion Despite the benefits of behaviour change interventions on antimicrobial prescribing, very few AMS-AMR studies reported implementing them in 2015. AMS interventions must focus on promoting behaviour change towards antimicrobial prescribing. Greater focus must be placed on non-infection specialties to engage with the issue of behaviour change towards antimicrobial use

Building a window to the sea : Ocean Research Interactive Observatory Networks (ORION)

Author Posting. © Oceanography Society, 2004. This article is posted here by permission of Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 17, 2 (2004): 113-120.For centuries, oceanographers have relied on data and observations about the ocean and the seafloor below gathered from ships during cruises of limited duration. This expeditionary research approach has resulted in major advances in understanding global ocean circulation, the energy associated with mesoscale circulation, plate tectonics, global ocean productivity, and climate-ocean coupling. These and many other successes have expanded our view of Earth and ocean processes, and have demonstrated a need for sampling strategies spanning temporal and spatial scales not effectively carried out using ships. To address this observational gap, community efforts in the United States consistently have recommended that funding agencies support development of the capability to maintain a continuous sampling and monitoring presence in the ocean.MKT is grateful for support from a WHOI Deep Ocean Exploration Institute fellowship

Magnetic Mineral Populations in Lower Oceanic Crustal Gabbros (Atlantis Bank, SW Indian Ridge): Implications for Marine Magnetic Anomalies

To learn more about magnetic properties of the lower ocean crust and its contributions to marine magnetic anomalies, gabbro samples were collected from International Ocean Discovery Program Hole U1473A at Atlantis Bank on the Southwest Indian Ridge. Detailed magnetic property work links certain magnetic behaviors and domain states to specific magnetic mineral populations. Measurements on whole rocks and mineral separates included magnetic hysteresis, first‐order reversal curves, low‐temperature remanence measurements, thermomagnetic analysis, and magnetic force microscopy. Characteristics of the thermomagnetic data indicate that the upper ~500 m of the hole has undergone hydrothermal alteration. The thermomagnetic and natural remanent magnetization data are consistent with earlier observations from Hole 735B that show remanence arises from low‐Ti magnetite and that natural remanent magnetizations are up to 25 A m−1 in evolved Fe‐Ti oxide gabbros, but are mostly \u3c1 A m−1. Magnetite is present in at least three forms. Primary magnetite is associated with coarse‐grained oxides that are more frequent in the upper part of the hole. This magnetic population is linked to dominantly “pseudo‐single‐domain” behavior that arises from fine‐scale lamellar intergrowths within the large oxides. Deeper in the hole the magnetic signal is more commonly dominated by an interacting single‐domain assemblage most likely found along crystal discontinuities in olivine and/or pyroxene. A third contribution is from noninteracting single‐domain inclusions within plagioclase. Because the concentration of the highly magnetic, oxide‐rich gabbros is greatest toward the surface, the signal from coarse oxides will likely dominate the near‐bottom magnetic anomaly signal at Atlantis Bank

Temporal and spatial variability in the composition of lavas exposed along the Western Blanco Transform Fault

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2005. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 6 (2005): Q11009, doi:10.1029/2005GC001026.The northern scarp of the western Blanco Transform (BT) fault zone provides a "tectonic window" into crust generated at an intermediate-rate spreading center, exposing a ~2000 m vertical section of lavas and dikes. The lava unit was sampled by submersible during the Blancovin dive program in 1995, recovering a total of 61 samples over vertical distances of ~1000 m and a lateral extent of ~13 km. Major elements analyses of 40 whole rock samples exhibit typical tholeiitic fractionation trends of increasing FeO*, Na2O, and TiO2 and decreasing Al2O3 and CaO with decreasing MgO. The lava suite shows a considerable range in extent of crystallization, including primitive samples (Mg# 64) and evolved FeTi basalts (FeO>12%;TiO2>2%). Based on rare earth element and trace element data, all of the lavas are incompatible-element depleted normal mid-ocean ridge basalts (N-MORB;La/SmN<1). The geochemical systematics suggest that the lavas were derived from a slightly heterogeneous mantle source, and crystallization occurred in a magmatic regime of relatively low magma flux and/or high cooling rate, consistent with magmatic processes occurring along the present-day southern Cleft Segment. The BT scarp reveals the oceanic crust in two-dimensional space, allowing us to explore temporal and spatial relationships in the horizontal and vertical directions. As a whole, the data do not appear to form regular spatial trends; rather, primitive lavas tend to cluster shallower and toward the center of the study area, while more evolved lavas are present deeper and toward the west and east. Considered within a model for construction of the upper crust, these findings suggest that the upper lavas along the BT scarp may have been emplaced off-axis, either by extensive off-axis flow or off-axis eruption, while the lower lavas represent axial flows that have subsided with time. A calculation based on an isochron model for construction of the upper crust suggests that the Cleft Segment requires at least ~50 ka to build the lower extrusive section, consistent to first order with independent estimates for the construction of intermediate-spreading rate crust.This work was supported by the US National Science Foundation (OCE 02- 22154 to E.K. and J.K. and OCE 9400623 to M.T.)

Laboratory experiments on two coalescing axisymmetric turbulent plumes in a rotating fluid

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2011. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of American Institute of Physics for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Physics of Fluids 23 (2011): 056601, doi:10.1063/1.3584134.We investigate the early-time coalescence of two co-flowing axisymmetric turbulent plumes and the later-time flow of the induced vortices in a rotating, homogeneous fluid using laboratory experiments. The experiments demonstrate the critical importance of the rotation period Tf = 2π/f, where f is the Coriolis parameter of the background rotation. We find that if the plumes’ sources are sufficiently “close” for the plumes to merge initially at an “early time” tm≲tr = 3Tf/4, the experimentally observed merging height zme agrees well with the non-rotating theoretical relationship of zmt ≈ (0.44/α)x0tr, however, the flow dynamics are substantially more complicated, as the flow becomes significantly affected by rotation. The propagation and entrainment of the plumes becomes strongly affected by the vortices induced by the entrainment flow in a rotating environment. Also, the plume fluid itself starts to interact with these vortices. If the plumes have already initially merged by the time t = tr, a single vortex (initially located at the midpoint of the line connecting the two plume sources) develops, which both advects and modifies the geometry of the merging plumes. Coupled with the various suppressing effects of rotation on the radial plume entrainment, the “apparent” observed height of merger can vary substantially from its initial value. Conversely, for more widely separated “distant” plumes, where x0>xc = (25α/2)F01/4f-3/4, the plumes do not merge before the critical time tr when rotation becomes significant in the flow dynamics and two vortices are observed, each located over a plume source. The combined effect of these vortices with the associated suppression of entrainment by rotation thus significantly further delays the merger of the two plumes, which apparently becomes possible only through the merger of the induced vortices.This work was supported by the Center for Planetary Science

Autonomous and remotely operated vehicle technology for hydrothermal vent discovery, exploration, and sampling

Author Posting. © Oceanography Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 20, 1 (2007): 152-161.Autonomous and remotely operated underwater vehicles play complementary roles in the discovery, exploration, and detailed study of hydrothermal vents. Beginning with clues provided by towed or lowered instruments, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) can localize and make preliminary photographic surveys of vent fields. In addition to finding and photographing such sites, AUVs excel at providing regional context through fine-scale bathymetric and magnetic field mapping. Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) enable close-up inspection, photomosaicking, and tasks involving manipulation of samples and instruments. Increasingly, ROVs are used to conduct in situ seafloor experiments. ROVs can also be used for fine-scale bathymetric mapping with excellent results, although AUVs are usually more efficient in such tasks

The Cleft revealed: geologic, magnetic, and morphologic evidence for construction of upper oceanic crust along the southern Juan de Fuca Ridge

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2006. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 7 (2006): Q04003, doi:10.1029/2005GC001038.The geology and structure of the Cleft Segment of the Southern Juan de Fuca Ridge (JdFR) have been examined using high-resolution mapping systems, observations by remotely operated vehicle (ROV), ROV-mounted magnetometer, and the geochemical analysis of recovered lavas. Bathymetric mapping using multibeam (EM300) coupled with in situ observations that focused on near-axis and flank regions provides a detailed picture of 0 to 400 ka upper crust created at the southern terminus of the JdFR. A total of 53 rock cores and 276 precisely located rock or glass samples were collected during three cruises that included sixteen ROV dives. Our observations of the seafloor during these dives suggest that many of the unfaulted and extensive lava flows that comprise and/or cap the prominent ridges that flank the axial valley emanate from ridge parallel faults and fissures that formed in the highly tectonized zone that forms the walls of the axial valley. The geochemically evolved and heterogeneous nature of these near-axis and flank eruptions is consistent with an origin within the cooler distal edges of a crustal magma chamber or mush zone. In contrast, the most recent axial eruptions are more primitive (higher MgO), chemically homogeneous lobate, sheet, and massive flows that generate a distinct magnetic high over the axial valley. We suggest that the syntectonic capping volcanics observed off-axis were erupted from near-axis and flank fissures and created a thickened extrusive layer as suggested by the magnetic and seismic data. This model suggests that many of the lavas that comprise the elevated ridges that bound the axial valley of the Cleft Segment were erupted during the collapse of a magmatic cycle not during the robust phase that established a new magmatic cycle.This research has been partially supported by a NSF grant to M. Perfit (OCE-0221541). M. Tivey acknowledges support from WHOI’s Mellon grant for Independent Study. Support for D. Stakes, T. Ramirez, D. Caress, and N. Maher and for the entire field program was provided by funds to MBARI from the Lucille and David Packard Foundation

Mid-ocean ridge exploration with an autonomous underwater vehicle

Author Posting. © Oceanography Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 20, 4 (2007): 52-61.Human-occupied submersibles, towed vehicles, and tethered remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) have traditionally been used to study the deep seafloor. In recent years, however, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) have begun to replace these other vehicles for mapping and survey missions. AUVs complement the capabilities of these pre-existing systems, offering superior mapping capabilities, improved logistics, and better utilization of the surface support vessel by allowing other tasks such as submersible operations, ROV work, CTD stations, or multibeam surveys to be performed while the AUV does its work. AUVs are particularly well suited to systematic preplanned surveys using sonars, in situ chemical sensors, and cameras in the rugged deep-sea terrain that has been the focus of numerous scientific expeditions (e.g., those to mid-ocean ridges and ocean margin settings). The Autonomous Benthic Explorer (ABE) is an example of an AUV that has been used for over 20 cruises sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Ocean Exploration (OE), and international and private sources. This paper summarizes NOAA OE-sponsored cruises made to date using ABE