Special issue on studies in Late Modern English historical phonology using the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP): introduction

Since Charles Jones referred to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the ‘Cinderellas of English historical linguistic study’ (1989: 279), there has been a great deal of progress in research on this period, but, as Beal (2012: 22) points out, much of this has been in the fields of syntax, morphology, lexis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics and the normative tradition. Beal argues that the availability of corpora of Late Modern English texts has greatly facilitated research in these areas, but, since creating phonological corpora for periods antedating the invention of sound recording is a challenging proposition, the historical phonology of Late Modern English has benefited much less from the corpus revolution. To redress this imbalance, the editors of this issue, with technical support from the Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield, created the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP), which is freely available at www.dhi.ac.uk/projects/ecep

A man from Morocco and chronic hip pain

The patient was a 52-year-old male, born in Morocco, and living in Spain for the last 25 years. He was diagnosed with Diabetes Mellitus more than 25 years before and was a heavy smoker until he quit 6 years ago.At the age of 25, he suffered a closed hip fracture after am uncertain intensity occupational accident while working as a farmer and required surgery with placement of osteosynthe-sis material that apparently consisted in an intramedullary nail. Hardware had to be removed after a short time (2-3 months) due to infection, as endorsed by the patient, although he did not provide any information on the nature of the infection or the antimicrobial treatment received.The patient was a native of northern Morocco, a shoe-maker by profession, in an inactive situation at the present time and awaiting a disability concession. He lived with a friend and receives habitual treatment with long-acting insu-lin glargine and acetaminophen.Chief complaint. He was admitted from the outpatient Orthopedic Clinic due to pain in the right hip that was point-ed at fingertips. The pain had intensified in recent years and the patient had progressive gait limitation that prevented him from walking without the help of a cane. Over the past 12-15 years, he had occasionally experienced “holes” that opened..

Parentage assignment of progeny in mixed milt fertilization of Caspian brown trout Salmo trutta caspius using microsatellite DNA markers: Implications for conservation

Parentage of a stock of mixed milt produced progeny in current artificial breeding protocol of endangered Caspian brown trout, Salmo trutta caspius, was determined using three microsatellite loci chosen after a primary analysis of genetic diversity at nine microsatellite loci in the eight used breeder individuals. Overall, 98.8% of progeny were assigned to their parents using Family Assignment Program (FAP). Selection of hyper-variable microsatellites in Caspian brown trout to identify unique alleles was effective for unambiguous parentage determination and estimation of genetic diversity in this study. Effective population size of breeder individuals (Ne) was lower than the number of breeder individuals used (Nb) indicating unbalanced contribution of breeder individuals to progeny. Indeed, one of the four male breeder individuals produced about 70 % and the other three produced only from 4.86 % to 18.83 % of progeny. The average observed and expected heterozygosity of progeny (0.723 ± 0.011 and 0.684 ± 0.009, respectively) was significantly lower than that of their parents (0.833 and 0.800, respectively). Our data indicate that the current breeding protocol of Caspian brown trout may not provide equal opportunity for all the breeder individuals to contribute equally to progeny. Therefore, appropriate fertilization designs in the hatchery should be established in order to equalize the genetic contribution of different breeder individuals.Key words: Parentage assignment, effective population size, genetic diversity, Salmo trutta caspius

Catheter-related bloodstream infection caused by Enterococcus spp.

AbstractThe role of Enterococcus spp. as a cause of catheter-related bloodstream infections (CR-BSI) is almost unexplored. We assessed the incidence and clinical characteristics of enterococcal CR-BSI (ECR-BSI) over an 8-year period in our hospital. We performed a retrospective study (January 2003 to December 2010) in a large teaching institution. We recorded the incidence, and the microbiological and clinical data from patients with ECR-BSI. The incidence per 10 000 admissions for enterococcal BSI and ECR-BSI was 25 and 1.7, respectively. ECR-BSI was the fourth leading cause of CR-BSI in our institution (6%). A total of 75 episodes of ECR-BSI were detected in 73 patients (6% of all enterococcal BSI). The incidence of ECR-BSI increased by 17% annually (95% CI 19.0–21.0%) during the study period. Nineteen percent of ECR-BSI episodes were polymicrobial. Overall mortality was 33%. ECR-BSI is an emerging and increasingly common entity with a high mortality. This finding should be taken into account when selecting empirical treatment for presumptive CR-BSI

Candida tropicalis fungaemia: incidence, risk factors and mortality in a general hospital

AbstractThe risk factors and clinical features of patients with Candida tropicalis fungaemia have not been fully defined. We performed a case–control study comparing 59 cases of C. tropicalis fungaemia with 177 episodes of fungaemia caused by other species of Candida in our hospital over a 24-year period (January 1985 to December 2008). Patients with C. tropicalis fungaemia were more likely to be older (median age, 67 vs. 56 years; p 0.01), to have cancer (45.5% vs. 31.6%, p 0.04), and to have the abdomen as the portal of entry (32.2% vs. 11.9%, p 0.001), and had a higher in-hospital mortality rate (61% vs. 44%, p 0.03). Multivariate analysis showed that the independent risk factors for C. tropicalis fungaemia were cancer (OR 4.5; 95% CI 1.05–3.83; p 0.03) and the abdomen as the portal of entry (OR 13.6; 95% CI 1.9–8.2; p <0.001). When survivors were compared with non-survivors, the risk factors associated with a poor outcome were neutropenia (19.4% vs. 0; p 0.03), corticosteroid treatment (36% vs. 13%; p 0.07), and septic shock (50% vs. 17.4%; p 0.01). The independent risk factors for mortality in the multivariate analysis were corticosteroid treatment (OR 8.2; 95% CI 0.9–27.7; p 0.04) and septic shock (OR 14.6; 95% CI 2.4–90.2; p 0.004), whereas urinary tract infection (OR 0.07; 95% CI 0.01–0.8; p 0.03) and catheter removal (OR 0.06; 95% CI 0.01–0.4; p 0.002) were protective factors. C. tropicalis is the fourth most common cause of fungaemia in our hospital. It is associated with underlying malignancy, the abdomen as the portal of entry, and poor outcome

Morphological variation in a secondary contact between divergent lineages of brown trout (Salmo trutta) from the Iberian Peninsula

The aim of this study was to analyze the morphological variation of brown trout (Salmo trutta) in the Duero basin, an Atlantic river basin in the Iberian Peninsula, where a spatial segregation of two divergent lineages was previously reported, based on isozyme, microsatellite and mtDNA data. In these studies, two divergent pure regions (Pisuerga and Lower-course) and several hybrid populations between them were identified. Morphological variation was evaluated in 11 populations representative of the genetic differentiation previously observed in the Duero basin, using multivariate analysis on 12 morphometric and 4 meristic traits. A large differentiation between populations was observed (interpopulation component of variance: 41.8%), similar to that previously detected with allozymes and microsatellites. Morphometric differentiation was also reflected by the high classification success of pure and hybrid individuals to their respective populations, using multivariate discriminant functions (94.1% and 79.0%, respectively). All multivariate and clustering analyses performed demonstrated a strong differentiation between the pure regions. The hybrid populations, though showing large differentiation among them, evidenced an intermediate position between the pure samples. Head and body shape traits were the most discriminant among the morphometric characters, while pectoral rays and gillrakers were the most discriminant among the meristic traits. These results confirmed the high divergence of the brown trout from the Duero basin and suggest some traits on which selection could be acting to explain the spatial segregation observed