Impact of anthropogenic climate change on the East Asian summer monsoon

The East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) is important for bringing rainfall to large areas of China. Historically, variations in the EASM have had major impacts including flooding and drought. We present an analysis of the impact of anthropogenic climate change on EASM rainfall in Eastern China using a newly updated attribution system. Our results suggest that anthropogenic climate change has led to an overall decrease in total monsoon rainfall over the past 65 years, and an increased number of dry days. However the model also predicts that anthropogenic forcings have caused the most extreme heavy rainfall events to become shorter in duration and more intense. With the potential for future changes in aerosol and greenhouse gas emissions, historical trends in monsoon rainfall may not be indicative of future changes, although extreme rainfall is projected to increase over East Asia with continued warming in the region

Chytrid fungus infections in laboratory and introduced <i>Xenopus laevis </i>populations:assessing the risks for U.K. native amphibians

The chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is notorious amongst current conservation biology challenges, responsible for mass mortality and extinction of amphibian species. World trade in amphibians is implicated in global dissemination. Exports of South African Xenopus laevis have led to establishment of this invasive species on four continents. Bd naturally infects this host in Africa and now occurs in several introduced populations. However, no previous studies have investigated transfer of infection into co-occurring native amphibian faunas. A survey of 27 U.K. institutions maintaining X. laevis for research showed that most laboratories have low-level infection, a risk for native species if animals are released into the wild. RT-PCR assays showed Bd in two introduced U.K. populations of X. laevis, in Wales and Lincolnshire. Laboratory and field studies demonstrated that infection levels increase with stress, especially low temperature. In the U.K., native amphibians may be exposed to intense transmission in spring when they enter ponds to spawn alongside X. laevis that have cold-elevated Bd infections. Exposure to cross-infection has probably been recurrent since the introduction of X. laevis, &gt;20years in Lincolnshire and 50years in Wales. These sites provide an important test for assessing the impact of X. laevis on Bd spread. However, RT-PCR assays on 174 native amphibians (Bufo, Rana, Lissotriton and Triturus spp.), sympatric with the Bd-infected introduced populations, showed no foci of self-sustaining Bd transmission associated with X. laevis. The abundance of these native amphibians suggested no significant negative population-level effect after the decades of co-occurrence

Liquid racism and the Danish Prophet Muhammad cartoons

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 The Author.This article examines reactions to the October 2005 publication of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. It does so by using the concept of ‘liquid racism’. While the controversy arose because it is considered blasphemous by many Muslims to create images of the Prophet Muhammad, the article argues that the meaning of the cartoons is multidimensional, that their analysis is significantly more complex than most commentators acknowledge, and that this complexity can best be addressed via the concept of liquid racism. The article examines the liquidity of the cartoons in relation to four readings. These see the cartoons as: (1) a criticism of Islamic fundamentalism; (2) blasphemous images; (3) Islamophobic and racist; and (4) satire and a defence of freedom of speech. Finally, the relationship between postmodernity and the rise of fundamentalism is discussed because the cartoons, reactions to them, and Islamic fundamentalism, all contain an important postmodern dimension.ESR

An unusual xylan in Arabidopsis primary cell walls is synthesised by GUX3, IRX9L, IRX10L and IRX14.

Xylan is a crucial component of many plant primary and secondary cell walls. However, the structure and function of xylan in the dicotyledon primary cell wall is not well understood. Here, we characterized a xylan that is specific to tissues enriched in Arabidopsis primary cell walls. Unlike previously described xylans, this xylan carries a pentose linked 1-2 to the α-1,2-d-glucuronic acid (GlcA) side chains on the β-1,4-Xyl backbone. The frequent and precisely regular spacing of GlcA substitutions every six xylosyl residues along the backbone is also unlike that previously observed in secondary cell wall xylan. Molecular genetics, in vitro assays, and expression data suggest that IRX9L, IRX10L and IRX14 are required for xylan backbone synthesis in primary cell wall synthesising tissues. IRX9 and IRX10 are not involved in the primary cell wall xylan synthesis but are functionally exchangeable with IRX9L and IRX10L. GUX3 is the only glucuronyltransferase required for the addition of the GlcA decorations on the xylan. The differences in xylan structure in primary versus secondary cell walls might reflect the different roles in cross-linking and interaction with other cell wall components.The work presented in this paper was supported by grants from the BBSRC: BB/G016240/1 BBSRC Sustainable Energy Centre Cell Wall Sugars Programme (BSBEC) and grant BB/K005537/1. JCM’s work at the Joint BioEnergy Institute was supported by the Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE -AC02-05CH11231. NFB was supported by a PhD studentship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. AN was supported by a summer studentship award from the Biochemical Society. The authors are grateful to the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme SUNLIBB (FP7/2007-2013) under the grant agreement no 251132.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tpj.1289

Galaxy clusters at high redshift and evolution of brightest cluster galaxies

Identification of high redshift clusters is important for studies of cosmology and cluster evolution. Using photometric redshifts of galaxies, we identify 631 clusters from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) Wide field, 202 clusters from the CHFT Deep field, 187 clusters from the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) and 737 clusters from the Spitzer Wide-area InfraRed Extragalactic survey (SWIRE) field. The redshifts of these clusters are in the range of 0.1<z<1.6. Merging these cluster samples gives 1644 clusters in the four survey fields, of which 1088 are newly identified and more than half are from the large SWIRE field. Among 228 clusters of z>1, 191 clusters are newly identified, and most of them from the SWIRE field. With this large sample of high redshift clusters, we study the color evolution of the brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). The colors r'-z' and r^+-m_{3.6\mu m} of the BCGs are consistent with a stellar population synthesis model in which the BCGs are formed at redshift z_f>2 and evolved passively. The colors g'-z' and B-m_{3.6\mu m} of the BCGs at redshifts z>0.8 are systematically bluer than the passive evolution model for galaxy formed at z_f~2, indicating star formation in high redshift BCGs.Comment: 10 pages, 14 figures, 2 tables; added reference, corrected typos; Table 2 is available at http://zmtt.bao.ac.cn/wzl/CV_wen.ht

Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into Public Health Practice: Using Adaptive Management to Increase Adaptive Capacity and Build Resilience

Background: Climate change is expected to have a range of health impacts, some of which are already apparent. Public health adaptation is imperative, but there has been little discussion of how to increase adaptive capacity and resilience in public health systems

Inhibition of metal dusting of alloy 800H by laser surface melting

Metal dusting is a catastrophic carburisation phenomenon that occurs at temperatures of 450-850°C in atmospheres of high carbon activity. The resistance of alloys to corrosion, including metal dusting, relies on the formation of a dense, adherent oxide layer that separates the alloy from the corrosive environment. For such an oxide layer to be protective, it must achieve full surface coverage, be crack-free and be established before significant material degradation has occurred. Formation of a protective oxide scale can be enhanced by increasing the population of rapid diffusion paths for the protective elements (e.g. Cr and Al) to reach the alloy surface. In this work, laser surface melting has been used to improve the metal dusting resistance of Alloy 800H by creating a rapid solidification microstructure and, thereby, increasing the density of rapid diffusion paths. Oxidation during laser processing has been found to be detrimental to metal dusting resistance. However, it has been demonstrated that the resulting oxide can be removed without compromising metal dusting resistance. Results of exposure to a metal dusting atmosphere (20% H2 80% CO at 650°C) are presented. Samples have been examined in plan and cross-section using optical and scanning electron microscopy. Selected samples were also examined by electron probe microanalysis and X-ray diffraction

Gene conversion in human rearranged immunoglobulin genes

Over the past 20 years, many DNA sequences have been published suggesting that all or part of the V&lt;sub&gt;H&lt;/sub&gt; segment of a rearranged immunoglobulin gene may be replaced in vivo. Two different mechanisms appear to be operating. One of these is very similar to primary V(D)J recombination, involving the RAG proteins acting upon recombination signal sequences, and this has recently been proven to occur. Other sequences, many of which show partial V&lt;sub&gt;H&lt;/sub&gt; replacements with no addition of untemplated nucleotides at the V&lt;sub&gt;H&lt;/sub&gt;–V&lt;sub&gt;H&lt;/sub&gt; joint, have been proposed to occur by an unusual RAG-mediated recombination with the formation of hybrid (coding-to-signal) joints. These appear to occur in cells already undergoing somatic hypermutation in which, some authors are convinced, RAG genes are silenced. We recently proposed that the latter type of V&lt;sub&gt;H&lt;/sub&gt; replacement might occur by homologous recombination initiated by the activity of AID (activation-induced cytidine deaminase), which is essential for somatic hypermutation and gene conversion. The latter has been observed in other species, but not in human Ig genes, so far. In this paper, we present a new analysis of sequences published as examples of the second type of rearrangement. This not only shows that AID recognition motifs occur in recombination regions but also that some sequences show replacement of central sections by a sequence from another gene, similar to gene conversion in the immunoglobulin genes of other species. These observations support the proposal that this type of rearrangement is likely to be AID-mediated rather than RAG-mediated and is consistent with gene conversion

Genetic risk prediction of atrial fibrillation

Background—Atrial fibrillation (AF) has a substantial genetic basis. Identification of individuals at greatest AF risk could minimize the incidence of cardioembolic stroke. Methods—To determine whether genetic data can stratify risk for development of AF, we examined associations between AF genetic risk scores and incident AF in five prospective studies comprising 18,919 individuals of European ancestry. We examined associations between AF genetic risk scores and ischemic stroke in a separate study of 509 ischemic stroke cases (202 cardioembolic [40%]) and 3,028 referents. Scores were based on 11 to 719 common variants (≥5%) associated with AF at P-values ranging from &lt;1x10-3 to &lt;1x10-8 in a prior independent genetic association study. Results—Incident AF occurred in 1,032 (5.5%) individuals. AF genetic risk scores were associated with new-onset AF after adjusting for clinical risk factors. The pooled hazard ratio for incident AF for the highest versus lowest quartile of genetic risk scores ranged from 1.28 (719 variants; 95%CI, 1.13-1.46; P=1.5x10-4) to 1.67 (25 variants; 95%CI, 1.47-1.90; P=9.3x10-15). Discrimination of combined clinical and genetic risk scores varied across studies and scores (maximum C statistic, 0.629-0.811; maximum ΔC statistic from clinical score alone, 0.009-0.017). AF genetic risk was associated with stroke in age- and sex-adjusted models. For example, individuals in the highest versus lowest quartile of a 127-variant score had a 2.49-fold increased odds of cardioembolic stroke (95%CI, 1.39-4.58; P=2.7x10-3). The effect persisted after excluding individuals (n=70) with known AF (odds ratio, 2.25; 95%CI, 1.20-4.40; P=0.01). Conclusions—Comprehensive AF genetic risk scores were associated with incident AF beyond associations for clinical AF risk factors, though offered small improvements in discrimination. AF genetic risk was also associated with cardioembolic stroke in age- and sex-adjusted analyses. Efforts are warranted to determine whether AF genetic risk may improve identification of subclinical AF or help distinguish between stroke mechanisms

Reduced level of arousal and increased mortality in adult acute medical admissions: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract Background Reduced level of arousal is commonly observed in medical admissions and may predict in-hospital mortality. Delirium and reduced level of arousal are closely related. We systematically reviewed and conducted a meta-analysis of studies in adult acute medical patients of the relationship between reduced level of arousal on admission and in-hospital mortality. Methods We conducted a systematic review (PROSPERO: CRD42016022048), searching MEDLINE and EMBASE. We included studies of adult patients admitted with acute medical illness with level of arousal assessed on admission and mortality rates reported. We performed meta-analysis using a random effects model. Results From 23,941 studies we included 21 with 14 included in the meta-analysis. Mean age range was 33.4 - 83.8 years. Studies considered unselected general medical admissions (8 studies, n=13,039) or specific medical conditions (13 studies, n=38,882). Methods of evaluating level of arousal varied. The prevalence of reduced level of arousal was 3.1%-76.9% (median 13.5%). Mortality rates were 1.7%-58% (median 15.9%). Reduced level of arousal was associated with higher in-hospital mortality (pooled OR 5.71; 95% CI 4.21-7.74; low quality evidence: high risk of bias, clinical heterogeneity and possible publication bias). Conclusions Reduced level of arousal on hospital admission may be a strong predictor of in-hospital mortality. Most evidence was of low quality. Reduced level of arousal is highly specific to delirium, better formal detection of hypoactive delirium and implementation of care pathways may improve outcomes. Future studies to assess the impact of interventions on in-hospital mortality should use validated assessments of both level of arousal and delirium