The Banana Project. III. Spin-orbit Alignment in the Long-period Eclipsing Binary NY Cephei

Binaries are not always neatly aligned. Previous observations of the DI Her system showed that the spin axes of both stars are highly inclined with respect to one another and the orbital axis. Here we report on a measurement of the spin-axis orientation of the primary star of the NY Cep system, which is similar to DI Her in many respects: it features two young early-type stars (~6 Myr, B0.5V+B2V), in an eccentric and relatively long-period orbit (e=0.48, P=15.d3). The sky projections of the rotation vector and the spin vector are well-aligned (beta_p = 2 +- 4 degrees), in strong contrast to DI Her. Although no convincing explanation has yet been given for the misalignment of DI Her, our results show that the phenomenon is not universal, and that a successful theory will need to account for the different outcome in the case of NY Cep.Comment: accepted for publication in Ap

Microbial profiling of dental plaque from mechanically ventilated patients

© 2015 The Authors. Micro-organisms isolated from the oral cavity may translocate to the lower airways during mechanical ventilation (MV) leading to ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). Changes within the dental plaque microbiome during MV have been documented previously, primarily using culture-based techniques. The aim of this study was to use community profiling by high throughput sequencing to comprehensively analyse suggested microbial changes within dental plaque during MV. Bacterial 16S rDNA gene sequences were obtained from 38 samples of dental plaque sampled from 13 mechanically ventilated patients and sequenced using the Illumina platform. Sequences were processed using Mothur, applying a 97 % gene similarity cut-off for bacterial species level identifications. A significant ‘microbial shift’ occurred in the microbial community of dental plaque during MV for nine out of 13 patients. Following extubation, or removal of the endotracheal tube that facilitates ventilation, sampling revealed a decrease in the relative abundance of potential respiratory pathogens and a compositional change towards a more predominantly (in terms of abundance) oral microbiota including Prevotella spp., and streptococci. The results highlight the need to better understand microbial shifts in the oral microbiome in the development of strategies to reduce VAP, and may have implications for the development of other forms of pneumonia such as community-acquired infection

Compositional shifts within the denture-associated bacteriome in pneumonia – an analytical cross-sectional study

Introduction. Bacterial pneumonia is a common cause of morbidity and mortality in elderly individuals. While the incidence of edentulism is falling, approximately 19 % of the UK population wear a full or partial removable denture. Despite advances in denture biomaterials, the majority of dentures are fabricated using polymethyl-methacrylate. Growing evidence suggests that colonization of the oral cavity by putative respiratory pathogens predisposes individuals to respiratory infection, by translocation of these microorganisms along the respiratory tract.Hypothesis/Gap Statement. We hypothesized that denture surfaces provide a susceptible colonization site for putative respiratory pathogens, and thus could increase pneumonia risk in susceptible individuals.Aim. This study aimed to characterize the bacterial community composition of denture-wearers in respiratory health compared with individuals with a confirmed diagnosis of pneumonia.Methodology. This was an analytical cross-sectional study, comparing frail elderly individuals without respiratory infection (n=35) to hospitalized patients with pneumonia (n=26). The primary outcome was the relative abundance of putative respiratory pathogens identified by 16S rRNA metataxonomic sequencing, with quantitative PCR used to identified Streptococcus pneumoniae.Results. There was a statistically significant increase in the overall relative abundance of putative respiratory pathogens (P<0.0001), with a greater than 20-fold increase in the bioburden of these microorganisms. In keeping with these findings, there were significant shifts in bacterial community diversity (Chao index, P=0.0003) and richness (Inverse Simpson index P<0.0001) in the denture-associated microbiota of pneumonia patients compared with control subjects.Conclusion. Within the limitations of this study, our evidence supports the role of denture acrylic biomaterials as a potential colonization site for putative respiratory pathogens, which may lead to an increased risk of pneumonia in susceptible individuals. These findings support prior observational studies which have found denture-wearers to be at increased risk of respiratory infection. Further research is needed to confirm the sequence of colonization and translocation to examine potential causal relationships

Pandemic Politics in Eurasia:Roadmap for a New Research Subfield

© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. The sudden onset of COVID-19 has challenged many social scientists to proceed without a robust theoretical and empirical foundation upon which to build. Addressing this challenge, particularly as it pertains to Eurasia, our multinational group of scholars draws on past and ongoing research to suggest a roadmap for a new pandemic politics research subfield. Key research questions include not only how states are responding to the new coronavirus, but also reciprocal interactions between the pandemic and society, political economy, regime type, center-periphery relations, and international security. The Foucauldian concept of “biopolitics” holds out particular promise as a theoretical framework

Pandemic Politics in Eurasia:Roadmap for a New Research Subfield

The sudden onset of the coronavirus pandemic has challenged many scholars of the social sciences to proceed in the absence of a robust theoretical research foundation upon which to build. This article seeks to help scholars meet this challenge, particularly as it pertains to Eurasia, through bringing together a multinational group of scholars in order to develop the roadmap for a new pandemic politics research subfield. It begins with a discussion of how states are responding to COVID-19 before moving into an exploration of reciprocal interactions between the pandemic and society, political economy, regime type, center-periphery relations, and international security. Finally, it discusses the potential novel contributions of a theoretical foundation rooted in the Foucauldian concept of “biopolitics.” Ultimately, we hope to spark an ongoing conversation regarding how political science and the social sciences more broadly can be used to understand the impacts of the pandemic and inform policymaking amidst the current and potential future pandemics

The changing landscape of disaster volunteering: opportunities, responses and gaps in Australia

There is a growing expectation that volunteers will have a greater role in disaster management in the future compared to the past. This is driven largely by a growing focus on building resilience to disasters. At the same time, the wider landscape of volunteering is fundamentally changing in the twenty-first century. This paper considers implications of this changing landscape for the resilience agenda in disaster management, with a focus on Australia. It first reviews major forces and trends impacting on disaster volunteering, highlighting four key developments: the growth of more diverse and episodic volunteering styles, the impact of new communications technology, greater private sector involvement and growing government expectations of and intervention in the voluntary sector. It then examines opportunities in this changing landscape for the Australian emergency management sector across five key strategic areas and provides examples of Australian responses to these opportunities to date. The five areas of focus are: developing more flexible volunteering strategies, harnessing spontaneous volunteering, building capacity to engage digital (and digitally enabled) volunteers, tapping into the growth of employee and skills-based volunteering and co-producing community-based disaster risk reduction. Although there have been considerable steps taken in Australia in some of these areas, overall there is still a long way to go before the sector can take full advantage of emerging opportunities. The paper thus concludes by identifying important research and practice gaps in this area

The time scale of recombination rate evolution in great apes

We present three linkage-disequilibrium (LD)-based recombination maps generated using whole-genome sequence data from 10 Nigerian chimpanzees, 13 bonobos, and 15 western gorillas, collected as part of the Great Ape Genome Project (Prado-Martinez J, et al. 2013. Great ape genetic diversity and population history. Nature 499:471-475). We also identified species-specific recombination hotspots in each group using a modified LDhot framework, which greatly improves statistical power to detect hotspots at varying strengths. We show that fewer hotspots are shared among chimpanzee subspecies than within human populations, further narrowing the time scale of complete hotspot turnover. Further, using species-specific PRDM9 sequences to predict potential binding sites (PBS), we show higher predicted PRDM9 binding in recombination hotspots as compared to matched cold spot regions in multiple great ape species, including at least one chimpanzee subspecies. We found that correlations between broad-scale recombination rates decline more rapidly than nucleotide divergence between species. We also compared the skew of recombination rates at centromeres and telomeres between species and show a skew from chromosome means extending as far as 10-15Mb from chromosome ends. Further, we examined broad-scale recombination rate changes near a translocation in gorillas and found minimal differences as compared to other great ape species perhaps because the coordinates relative to the chromosome ends were unaffected. Finally, on the basis of multiple linear regression analysis, we found that various correlates of recombination rate persist throughout the African great apes including repeats, diversity, and divergence. Our study is the first to analyze within- And between-species genome-wide recombination rate variation in several close relatives

Treatment of periodontitis for glycaemic control in people with diabetes mellitus

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S For this updated review (2022), we thank Cochrane Oral Health,particularly Anne Littlewood (who devised search strategies andran the searches), Luisa M Fernandez Mauleffinch, and Anne-Marie Glenny; peer reviewers Professor Philip Preshaw (Schoolof Dentistry, University of Dundee, UK) and Pia-Merete Jervøe-Storm (Department of Periodontology, Operative and PreventiveDentistry, Center for Dental and Oral Medicine, University HospitalBonn, Germany); translator Sinval A Rodrigues Junior; and trialauthors who provided additional information about their studies,P Kaur Khanuja (Kaur 2015), E Mauri and J López (Mauri-Obradors2018).Cochrane Oral Health supported the authors in the development ofthis review update. The following people conducted the editorialprocess for this article.• Sign-off Editor (final editorial decision) and Editor (providedfeedback on submitted draN to prepare for peer review): Anne-Marie Glenny, Co-ordinating Editor, Cochrane Oral Health, TheUniversity of Manchester, UK.• Managing Editor (selected peer reviewers, collated peer-reviewer comments, provided editorial guidance to authors,conducted editorial policy checks) and Copy Editor (copyedited final draN according to Cochrane style manual): Luisa MFernandez Mauleffinch, Managing Editor, Cochrane Oral Health,The University of Manchester, UK.• Information Specialist (checked accuracy of search sections ofthe review): Anne Littlewood, Information Specialist, CochraneOral Health, The University of Manchester, UK.For earlier versions of this review, we thank Cochrane OralHealth, specifically, Anne Littlewood, Laura MacDonald, Luisa MFernandez Mauleffinch, and Anne-Marie Glenny; Cochrane OralHealth translators Chunjie Li, Andreas Neudecker, and FarhadShokraneh; and peer reviewers Rahul Alam, Deborah Matthews,Didac Mauricio, and Hugo Pinto. We thank the trial authors whoprovided unpublished information that allowed more thoroughappraisal of studies: Elena Firkova (Yun 2007), Judith Jones (Jones2007), Sayaka Katagiri (Katagiri 2009), Panagiotis Koromantzos(Koromantzos 2011), Shaila Patil Kothiwale (Kothiwale 2013), ElifUnsal (Kiran 2005), and Jean-Noel Vergnes (Calbacho 2004; Vergnes2018).We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Brian Stevenson,Susan Furness, David Moles, and Edward Mills as authors on earlierversions of this review.Particular thanks are expressed by Terry Simpson to RichardIbbetson for his personal support and guidance during this review'sinitial conception.Peer reviewedPublisher PD