Influence of Vegetated Wetlands on the Water Quality of Two Glacial Prairie Lakes

We investigated the influence of vegetated wetlands on water quality of two eastern South Dakota glacial prairie lakes. Surface water from a 5,880 ha pastured basin drains into a 90 ha upstream Typha wetland and enters Lake Enemy Swim passing 400 m through Typha-Scirpus littoral wetland. A second 1,290 ha basin characterized by row crops and pasture drains into a 260 ha open water slough entering L. Enemy Swim adjacent to Typha-Scirpus littoral wetland. Water enters Lake Cochrane from two smaller drainage basins. Water from a 180 ha basin consisting of a pasture and wet meadow enters the lake after passing about 100 m through Typha-Scirpus littoral wetland. A second basin consisting of 120 ha of mixed row crops, pasture and wetlands drains into an open water sediment retention pond and enters L. Cochrane after passing 50 m through Typha-Scirpus littoral wetland. At each lake, we measured water quality parameters in upstream drainages, in littoral wetlands, and at midlake sites in 1992 and 1993. In both lakes all forms of N were lesser and Fe were greater in concentration than all other sites in the drainages from upstream vegetated areas. Both N and P concentrations were greatest in the drainages from upstream open water areas resulting in small Si:P and Si:N ratios, and large N:Fe ratios. Concentrations of N and P decreased and Si:P and Si :N ratios increased passing through vegetated littoral wetlands, thus decreasing the likelihood of triggering phytoplankton shifts from desirable diatoms to undesirable bluegreen algal blooms

Influence of Vegetated Wetlands on the Water Quality of Two Glacial Prairie Lakes

We investigated the influence of vegetated wetlands on water quality of two eastern South Dakota glacial prairie lakes. Surface water from a 5,880 ha pastured basin drains into a 90 ha upstream Typha wetland and enters Lake Enemy Swim passing 400 m through Typha-Scirpus littoral wetland. A second 1,290 ha basin characterized by row crops and pasture drains into a 260 ha open water slough entering L. Enemy Swim adjacent to Typha-Scirpus littoral wetland. Water enters Lake Cochrane from two smaller drainage basins. Water from a 180 ha basin consisting of a pasture and wet meadow enters the lake after passing about 100 m through Typha-Scirpus littoral wetland. A second basin consisting of 120 ha of mixed row crops, pasture and wetlands drains into an open water sediment retention pond and enters L. Cochrane after passing 50 m through Typha-Scirpus littoral wetland. At each lake, we measured water quality parameters in upstream drainages, in littoral wetlands, and at midlake sites in 1992 and 1993. In both lakes all forms of N were lesser and Fe were greater in concentration than all other sites in the drainages from upstream vegetated areas. Both N and P concentrations were greatest in the drainages from upstream open water areas resulting in small Si:P and Si:N ratios, and large N:Fe ratios. Concentrations of N and P decreased and Si:P and Si:N ratios increased passing through vegetated littoral wetlands, thus decreasing the likelihood of triggering phytoplankton shifts from desirable diatoms to undesirable bluegreen algal blooms

An ongoing case-control study to evaluate the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme

© 2014 Massat et al.; licensee BioMed Central. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. 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

Thermocapillary actuation of liquid flow on chemically patterned surfaces

We have investigated the thermocapillary flow of a Newtonian liquid on hydrophilic microstripes which are lithographically defined on a hydrophobic surface. The speed of the microstreams is studied as a function of the stripe width w, the applied thermal gradient |dT/dx| and the liquid volume V deposited on a connecting reservoir pad. Numerical solutions of the flow speed as a function of downstream position show excellent agreement with experiment. The only adjustable parameter is the inlet film height, which is controlled by the ratio of the reservoir pressure to the shear stress applied to the liquid stream. In the limiting cases where this ratio is either much smaller or much larger than unity, the rivulet speed shows a power law dependency on w, |dT/dx| and V. In this study we demonstrate that thermocapillary driven flow on chemically patterned surfaces can provide an elegant and tunable method for the transport of ultrasmall liquid volumes in emerging microfluidic technologies

Comparing breast cancer mortality rates before-and-after a change in availability of screening in different regions: Extension of the paired availability design

BACKGROUND: In recent years there has been increased interest in evaluating breast cancer screening using data from before-and-after studies in multiple geographic regions. One approach, not previously mentioned, is the paired availability design. The paired availability design was developed to evaluate the effect of medical interventions by comparing changes in outcomes before and after a change in the availability of an intervention in various locations. A simple potential outcomes model yields estimates of efficacy, the effect of receiving the intervention, as opposed to effectiveness, the effect of changing the availability of the intervention. By combining estimates of efficacy rather than effectiveness, the paired availability design avoids confounding due to different fractions of subjects receiving the interventions at different locations. The original formulation involved short-term outcomes; the challenge here is accommodating long-term outcomes. METHODS: The outcome is incident breast cancer deaths in a time period, which are breast cancer deaths that were diagnosed in the same time period. We considered the plausibility of the basic five assumptions of the paired availability design and propose a novel analysis to accommodate likely violations of the assumption of stable screening effects. RESULTS: We applied the paired availability design to data on breast cancer screening from six counties in Sweden. The estimated yearly change in incident breast cancer deaths per 100,000 persons ages 40–69 (in most counties) due to receipt of screening (among the relevant type of subject in the potential outcomes model) was -9 with 95% confidence interval (-14, -4) or (-14, -5), depending on the sensitivity analysis. CONCLUSION: In a realistic application, the extended paired availability design yielded reasonably precise confidence intervals for the effect of receiving screening on the rate of incident breast cancer death. Although the assumption of stable preferences may be questionable, its impact will be small if there is little screening in the first time period. However, estimates may be substantially confounded by improvements in systemic therapy over time. Therefore the results should be interpreted with care

Determining the best population-level alcohol consumption model and its impact on estimates of alcohol-attributable harms

BACKGROUND: The goals of our study are to determine the most appropriate model for alcohol consumption as an exposure for burden of disease, to analyze the effect of the chosen alcohol consumption distribution on the estimation of the alcohol Population- Attributable Fractions (PAFs), and to characterize the chosen alcohol consumption distribution by exploring if there is a global relationship within the distribution. METHODS: To identify the best model, the Log-Normal, Gamma, and Weibull prevalence distributions were examined using data from 41 surveys from Gender, Alcohol and Culture: An International Study (GENACIS) and from the European Comparative Alcohol Study. To assess the effect of these distributions on the estimated alcohol PAFs, we calculated the alcohol PAF for diabetes, breast cancer, and pancreatitis using the three above-named distributions and using the more traditional approach based on categories. The relationship between the mean and the standard deviation from the Gamma distribution was estimated using data from 851 datasets for 66 countries from GENACIS and from the STEPwise approach to Surveillance from the World Health Organization. RESULTS: The Log-Normal distribution provided a poor fit for the survey data, with Gamma and Weibull distributions providing better fits. Additionally, our analyses showed that there were no marked differences for the alcohol PAF estimates based on the Gamma or Weibull distributions compared to PAFs based on categorical alcohol consumption estimates. The standard deviation of the alcohol distribution was highly dependent on the mean, with a unit increase in alcohol consumption associated with a unit increase in the mean of 1.258 (95% CI: 1.223 to 1.293) (R2 = 0.9207) for women and 1.171 (95% CI: 1.144 to 1.197) (R2 = 0. 9474) for men. CONCLUSIONS: Although the Gamma distribution and the Weibull distribution provided similar results, the Gamma distribution is recommended to model alcohol consumption from population surveys due to its fit, flexibility, and the ease with which it can be modified. The results showed that a large degree of variance of the standard deviation of the alcohol consumption Gamma distribution was explained by the mean alcohol consumption, allowing for alcohol consumption to be modeled through a Gamma distribution using only average consumption

Strategies and tensions in communicating research on sexual and reproductive health, HIV and AIDS: a qualitative study of the experiences of researchers and communications staff

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) and HIV issues are often controversial and neglected, leading to challenges with engaging policy actors. Research evidence is complex, posing further challenges for ensuring that policy and practice are evidence-based. Many health researchers are adopting innovative approaches to engaging stakeholders in their research, yet these experiences are not often shared. This qualitative study focuses on the research communication and policy influencing objectives, strategies and experiences of four research consortia working on SRH, HIV and AIDS.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We carried out 22 in-depth interviews with researchers and communications specialists (research actors) from the four consortia and their partners, working in nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Using the ‘framework’ approach to qualitative data analysis, we identified factors that affect the interaction of research evidence with policy and practice. We used the ODI RAPID analytical framework to present these results, adapting this tool by incorporating the actions, strategies and positionality of research actors.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The characteristics of researchers and their institutions, policy context, the multiplicity of actors, and the nature of the research evidence all play a role in policy influencing processes. Research actors perceived a trend towards increasingly intensive and varied communication approaches. Effective influencing strategies include making strategic alliances and coalitions and framing research evidence in ways that are most attractive to particular policy audiences. Tensions include the need to identify and avoid unnecessary communication or unintended impacts, challenges in assessing and attributing impact and the need for adequate resources and skills for communications work.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We contend that the adapted RAPID framework can serve as a tool for research actors to use in resolving these tensions, through facilitating a reflexive approach to considering their own combination of attributes, skills, networks and objectives and the ways these relate to policy contexts, actors and processes.</p

Effectiveness of service screening: a case–control study to assess breast cancer mortality reduction

The aim of this study was the evaluation of the impact of service screening programmes on breast cancer mortality in five regions of Italy. We conducted a matched case–control study with four controls for each case. Cases were defined as breast cancer deaths occurred not later than 31 December 2002. Controls were sampled from the local municipality list and matched by date of birth. Screening histories were assessed by the local, computerised, screening database and subjects were classified as either invited or not-yet-invited and as either screened or unscreened. There were a total of 1750 breast cancer deaths within the 50 to 74-year-old breast cancer cases and a total of 7000 controls. The logistic conditional estimate of the cumulative odds ratios comparing invited with not-yet-invited women was 0.75 (95% CI: 0.62–0.92). Restricting the analyses to invited women, the odds ratio of screened to never-respondent women corrected for self-selection bias was 0.55 (95% CI: 0.36–0.85). The introduction of breast cancer screening programmes in Italy is associated with a reduction in breast cancer mortality attributable to the additional impact of service screening over and above the background access to mammography

Epitope Mapping and Topographic Analysis of VAR2CSA DBL3X Involved in P. falciparum Placental Sequestration

Pregnancy-associated malaria is a major health problem, which mainly affects primigravidae living in malaria endemic areas. The syndrome is precipitated by accumulation of infected erythrocytes in placental tissue through an interaction between chondroitin sulphate A on syncytiotrophoblasts and a parasite-encoded protein on the surface of infected erythrocytes, believed to be VAR2CSA. VAR2CSA is a polymorphic protein of approximately 3,000 amino acids forming six Duffy-binding-like (DBL) domains. For vaccine development it is important to define the antigenic targets for protective antibodies and to characterize the consequences of sequence variation. In this study, we used a combination of in silico tools, peptide arrays, and structural modeling to show that sequence variation mainly occurs in regions under strong diversifying selection, predicted to form flexible loops. These regions are the main targets of naturally acquired immunoglobulin gamma and accessible for antibodies reacting with native VAR2CSA on infected erythrocytes. Interestingly, surface reactive anti-VAR2CSA antibodies also target a conserved DBL3X region predicted to form an α-helix. Finally, we could identify DBL3X sequence motifs that were more likely to occur in parasites isolated from primi- and multigravidae, respectively. These findings strengthen the vaccine candidacy of VAR2CSA and will be important for choosing epitopes and variants of DBL3X to be included in a vaccine protecting women against pregnancy-associated malaria

Search for short baseline nu(e) disappearance with the T2K near detector

8 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PRD rapid communication8 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PRD rapid communicationWe thank the J-PARC staff for superb accelerator performance and the CERN NA61 collaboration for providing valuable particle production data. We acknowledge the support of MEXT, Japan; NSERC, NRC and CFI, Canada; Commissariat `a l’Energie Atomique and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique–Institut National de Physique Nucle´aire et de Physique des Particules, France; DFG, Germany; INFN, Italy; National Science Centre (NCN), Poland; Russian Science Foundation, RFBR and Ministry of Education and Science, Russia; MINECO and European Regional Development Fund, Spain; Swiss National Science Foundation and State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, Switzerland; STFC, UK; and DOE, USA. We also thank CERN for the UA1/NOMAD magnet, DESY for the HERA-B magnet mover system, NII for SINET4, the WestGrid and SciNet consortia in Compute Canada, GridPP, UK. In addition participation of individual researchers and institutions has been further supported by funds from ERC (FP7), EU; JSPS, Japan; Royal Society, UK; DOE Early Career program, USA