Relative importance of microplastics as a pathway for the transfer of hydrophobic organic chemicals to marine life

publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Relative importance of microplastics as a pathway for the transfer of hydrophobic organic chemicals to marine life journaltitle: Environmental Pollution articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2016.09.046 content_type: article copyright: © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd

Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a multidisciplinary intervention programme to prevent new falls and functional decline among elderly persons at risk: design of a replicated randomised controlled trial [ISRCTN64716113]

BACKGROUND: Falls are common among community-dwelling elderly people and can have a considerable impact on quality of life and healthcare costs. People who have sustained a fall are at greater risk of falling again. We replicated a British randomised controlled trial which demonstrated the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary intervention programme to prevent falls. The objective is to describe the design of a replication study evaluating a multidisciplinary intervention programme on recurrent falls and functional decline among elderly persons at risk. The study consists of an effect evaluation, an economic evaluation and a process evaluation. METHODS/DESIGN: The programme is aimed at community-dwelling elderly people aged 65 years or over who have visited an accident and emergency department (A&E department) or a general practitioners' cooperative (GP cooperative) because of a fall. The design involves a two-group randomised controlled trial. Participants are followed for twelve months after baseline. The intervention programme consists of a detailed medical and occupational therapy assessment with referral to relevant services if indicated. People in the control group receive usual care. The main outcome measures of the effect evaluation are number of falls and daily functioning. The economic evaluation will be performed from a societal perspective. A process evaluation will be carried out to evaluate the feasibility of the intervention programme

Relationship between location and activity in injurious falls: an exploratory study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Knowledge about the circumstances under which injurious falls occur could provide healthcare workers with better tools to prevent falls and fall-related injuries. Therefore, we assessed whether older persons who sustain an injurious fall can be classified into specific fall types, based on a combination of fall location and activity up to the moment of the fall. In addition, we assessed whether specific injurious fall types are related to causes of the fall, consequences of the fall, socio-demographic characteristics, and health-related characteristics.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>An exploratory, cross-sectional study design was used to identify injurious fall types. The study population comprised 333 community-dwelling Dutch elderly people aged 65 years or over who attended an accident and emergency department after a fall. All participants received a self-administered questionnaire after being discharged home. The questionnaire comprised items concerning circumstances of the injurious fall, causes of the fall, consequences of the fall, socio-demographic characteristics and health-related characteristics. Injurious fall types were distinguished by analyzing data by means of HOMALS (homogeneity analysis by means of alternating least squares).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified 4 injurious fall types: 1) Indoor falls related to lavatory visits (hall and bathroom); 2) Indoor falls during other activities of daily living; 3) Outdoor falls near the home during instrumental activities of daily living; 4) Outdoor falls away from home, occurring during walking, cycling, and shopping for groceries. These injurious fall types were significantly related to age, cause of the fall, activity avoidance and daily functioning.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The face validity of the injurious fall typology is obvious. However, we found no relationship between the injurious fall types and severity of the consequences of the fall. Nevertheless, there appears to be a difference between the prevalence of fractures and the cause of the fall between the injurious fall types. Our data suggests that with regard to prevention of serious injuries, we should pay special attention to outdoor fallers and indoor fallers during lavatory visits. In addition, we should have special attention for causes of the fall. However, the conclusions reached in this exploratory analysis are tentative and need to be validated in a separate dataset.</p

Cell migration through 3D confining pores: speed accelerations by deformation and recoil of the nucleus

Directional cell migration in dense three-dimensional (3D) environments critically depends upon shape adaptation and is impeded depending on the size and rigidity of the nucleus. Accordingly, the nucleus is primarily understood as a physical obstacle, however, its pro-migratory functions by step-wise deformation and reshaping remain unclear. Using atomic force spectroscopy, timelapse fluorescence microscopy and shape change analysis tools, we determined nuclear size, deformability, morphology and shape change of HT1080 fibrosarcoma cells expressing the Fucci cell cycle indicator or being pre-treated with chromatin-decondensating agent TSA. We show oscillating peak accelerations during migration through 3D collagen matrices and microdevices that occur during shape reversion of deformed nuclei (recoil), and increase with confinement. During G1 cell cycle phase, nucleus stiffness was increased and yielded further increased speed fluctuations together with sustained cell migration rates in confinement as compared to interphase populations, or to periods of intrinsic nuclear softening in the S/G2 cell cycle phase. Likewise, nuclear softening by pharmacological chromatin decondensation or after lamin A/C depletion reduced peak oscillations in confinement. In conclusion, deformation and recoil of the stiff nucleus contributes to saltatory locomotion in dense tissues

Second international round robin for the quantification of serum non-transferrin-bound iron and labile plasma iron in patients with iron-overload disorders

Non-transferrin-bound iron and its labile (redox active) plasma iron component are thought to be potentially toxic forms of iron originally identified in the serum of patients with iron overload. We compared ten worldwide leading assays (6 for non-transferrin-bound iron and 4 for labile plasma iron) as part of an international inter-laboratory study. Serum samples from 60 patients with four different iron-overload disorders in various treatment phases were coded and sent in duplicate for analysis to five different laboratories worldwide. Some laboratories provided multiple assays. Overall, highest assay levels were observed for patients with untreated hereditary hemochromatosis and beta-thalassemia intermedia, patients with transfusion-dependent myelodysplastic syndromes and patients with transfusion-dependent and chelated beta-thalassemia major. Absolute levels differed considerably between assays and were lower for labile plasma iron than for non-transferrin-bound iron. Four assays also reported negative values. Assays were reproducible with high between-sample and low within-sample variation. Assays correlated and correlations were highest within the group of non-transferrin-bound iron assays and within that of labile plasma iron assays. Increased transferrin saturation, but not ferritin, was a good indicator of the presence of forms of circulating non-transferrin-bound iron. The possibility of using non-transferrin-bound iron and labile plasma iron measures as clinical indicators of overt iron overload and/or of treatment efficacy would largely depend on the rigorous validation and standardization of assay

Pelvic organ prolapse symptoms in relation to POPQ, ordinal stages and ultrasound prolapse assessment

Adequate staging of pelvic organ prolapse is important in clinical practice and research. The ability of the POPQ, ordinal stages and ultrasound prolapse assessment were evaluated for their ability to discriminate between women with and without prolapse symptoms. The leading edge of the predominant compartment in the three assessment systems was used for the calculation of receiver operating characteristics curves. Two hundred and sixty five (265) consecutive women were evaluated. The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve for the three staging systems ranged from 0.715 to 0.783. POPQ staging and ordinal staging performed equally well in the prediction of prolapse symptoms (p = 0.780), and both performed better as compared with ultrasound prolapse assessment (p = 0.048 and p = 0.015, respectively). Prolapse staging can equally be performed by the POPQ and ordinal stages systems as far as the discrimination between women with and without prolapse symptoms is concerned. The ultrasound prolapse assessment does not perform better as compared with these two systems

Shallow water marine sediment bacterial community shifts along a natural CO2 gradient in the Mediterranean Sea off Vulcano, Italy.

The effects of increasing atmospheric CO(2) on ocean ecosystems are a major environmental concern, as rapid shoaling of the carbonate saturation horizon is exposing vast areas of marine sediments to corrosive waters worldwide. Natural CO(2) gradients off Vulcano, Italy, have revealed profound ecosystem changes along rocky shore habitats as carbonate saturation levels decrease, but no investigations have yet been made of the sedimentary habitat. Here, we sampled the upper 2 cm of volcanic sand in three zones, ambient (median pCO(2) 419 μatm, minimum Ω(arag) 3.77), moderately CO(2)-enriched (median pCO(2) 592 μatm, minimum Ω(arag) 2.96), and highly CO(2)-enriched (median pCO(2) 1611 μatm, minimum Ω(arag) 0.35). We tested the hypothesis that increasing levels of seawater pCO(2) would cause significant shifts in sediment bacterial community composition, as shown recently in epilithic biofilms at the study site. In this study, 454 pyrosequencing of the V1 to V3 region of the 16S rRNA gene revealed a shift in community composition with increasing pCO(2). The relative abundances of most of the dominant genera were unaffected by the pCO(2) gradient, although there were significant differences for some 5 % of the genera present (viz. Georgenia, Lutibacter, Photobacterium, Acinetobacter, and Paenibacillus), and Shannon Diversity was greatest in sediments subject to long-term acidification (>100 years). Overall, this supports the view that globally increased ocean pCO(2) will be associated with changes in sediment bacterial community composition but that most of these organisms are resilient. However, further work is required to assess whether these results apply to other types of coastal sediments and whether the changes in relative abundance of bacterial taxa that we observed can significantly alter the biogeochemical functions of marine sediments

Process factors explaining the ineffectiveness of a multidisciplinary fall prevention programme: A process evaluation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Falls are a major health threat to older community-living people, and initiatives to prevent falls should be a public health priority. We evaluated a Dutch version of a successful British fall prevention programme. Results of this Dutch study showed no effects on falls or daily functioning. In parallel to the effect evaluation, we carried out a detailed process evaluation to assess the feasibility of our multidisciplinary fall prevention programme. The present study reports on the results of this process evaluation.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Our fall prevention programme comprised a medical and occupational-therapy assessment, resulting in recommendations and/or referrals to other services if indicated. We used self-administered questionnaires, structured telephone interviews, structured recording forms, structured face-to-face interviews and a plenary group discussion to collect data from participants allocated to the intervention group (n = 166) and from all practitioners who performed the assessments (n = 8). The following outcomes were assessed: the extent to which the multidisciplinary fall prevention programme was performed according to protocol, the nature of the recommendations and referrals provided to the participants, participants' self-reported compliance and participants' and practitioners' opinions about the programme.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Both participants and practitioners judged the programme to be feasible. The programme was largely performed according to protocol. The number of referrals and recommendations ensuing from the medical assessment was relatively small. Participants' self-reported compliance as regards contacting their GP to be informed of the recommendations and/or referrals was low to moderate. However, self-reported compliance with such referrals and recommendations was reasonable to good. A large majority of participants reported they had benefited from the programme.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results of the present study show that the programme was feasible for both practitioners and participants. Main factors that seem to be responsible for the lack of effectiveness are the relatively low number of referrals and recommendations ensuing from the medical assessments and participants' low compliance as regards contacting their GP about the results of the medical assessment. We do not recommend implementing the programme in its present form in regular care.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>ISRCTN64716113</p

Responses of marine benthic microalgae to elevated CO<inf>2</inf>

Increasing anthropogenic CO2 emissions to the atmosphere are causing a rise in pCO2 concentrations in the ocean surface and lowering pH. To predict the effects of these changes, we need to improve our understanding of the responses of marine primary producers since these drive biogeochemical cycles and profoundly affect the structure and function of benthic habitats. The effects of increasing CO2 levels on the colonisation of artificial substrata by microalgal assemblages (periphyton) were examined across a CO2 gradient off the volcanic island of Vulcano (NE Sicily). We show that periphyton communities altered significantly as CO2 concentrations increased. CO2 enrichment caused significant increases in chlorophyll a concentrations and in diatom abundance although we did not detect any changes in cyanobacteria. SEM analysis revealed major shifts in diatom assemblage composition as CO2 levels increased. The responses of benthic microalgae to rising anthropogenic CO2 emissions are likely to have significant ecological ramifications for coastal systems. © 2011 Springer-Verlag