Reduced ice mass loss and three-dimensional viscoelastic deformation in northern Antarctic Peninsula inferred from GPS

We consider the viscoelastic rheology of the solid Earth under the Antarctic Peninsula due to ice mass loss that commenced after the breakup of the Larsen-B ice shelf. We extend the previous analysis of nearby continuous GPS time-series to include five additional years and the additional consideration of the horizontal components of deformation. They show strong uplift from ∼2002 to 2011 followed by reduced uplift rates to 2018. Modelling the GPS-derived uplift as a viscoelastic response to ongoing regional ice unloading from a new ice model confirms earlier estimates of low upper-mantle viscosities of ∼0.3–3 × 1018 Pa s in this region but allows a wide range of elastic lithosphere thickness. The observed and modelled north coordinate component shows little nonlinear variation due to the location of ice mass change to the east of the GPS sites. However, comparison of the observed and modelled east coordinate component constrains the upper-mantle viscosity to be less than ∼9 × 1018 Pa s, consistent with the viscosity range suggested by the uplift rates alone and providing important, largely independent, confirmation of that result. Our horizontal analysis showed only marginal sensitivity to modelled lithospheric thickness. The results for the horizontal components are sensitive to the adopted plate rotation model, with the estimate based on ITRF2014 suggesting that the sum of residual plate motion and pre-2002 glacial isostatic adjustment is likely less than ∼±0.5 mm yr−1 in the east component

Antibiotic Use and Misuse in Dentistry in India—A Systematic Review

Background: Infections caused by antibiotic resistance pose a serious global health threat, undermining our ability to treat common infections and deliver complex medical procedures. Antibiotic misuse, particularly in low-–middle-income countries, is accelerating this problem. Aim: The aim of this systematic review was to investigate the use and misuse of antibiotics in dentistry in India. Method: We included studies carried out on Indian populations evaluating the prescription of prophylactic or therapeutic antibiotics by dental practitioners or other healthcare providers, along with antibiotic self-medication by the general population. The primary outcome measure was prescription rate/use of antibiotics for dental/oral problems. The secondary outcome measures included indications for antibiotic use in dentistry, their types and regimens, factors influencing practitioners’ prescription patterns and any differences based on prescriber and patient characteristics. Multiple databases were searched with no restrictions on language or publication date. The quality assessment of all included studies was carried out using the AXIS tool for cross-sectional studies and the Joanna Briggs Institute checklist for qualitative studies. Results: Of the 1377 studies identified, 50 were eligible for review, comprising 35 questionnaire surveys, 14 prescription audits and one qualitative study (semi-structured interviews). The overall quality of the included studies was found to be low to moderate. The proportion of antibiotic prescriptions amongst all prescriptions made was found to range from 27% to 88%, with most studies reporting antibiotics in over half of all prescriptions; studies also reported a high proportion of prescriptions with a fixed dose drug combination. Worryingly, combination doses not recommended by the WHO AWaRe classification were being used. The rate of antibiotic self-medication reported for dental problems varied from 5% to 35%. Conclusions: Our review identified the significant misuse of antibiotics for dental diseases, with inappropriate use therapeutically and prophylactically, the use of broad spectrum and combination antibiotics not recommended by WHO, and self-medication by the general population. There is an urgent need for targeted stewardship programmes in this arena

Estimating the survival benefits gained from providing national cancer genetic services to women with a family history of breast cancer

The aim of this paper is to compare a service offering genetic testing and presymptomatic surveillance to women at increased risk of developing breast cancer with its predecessor of no service at all in terms of survival and quality-adjusted survival (QALYs) by means of a Markov cohort chain simulation model. Genetic assessment and presymptomatic care provided between 0.07-1.61 mean additional life years and 0.05-1.67 mean QALYs over no services. Prophylactic surgery and surveillance extended mean life expectancy by 0.41-1.61 and 0.32-0.99 years, respectively over no services for high-risk women. Model outcomes were sensitive to all the parameters varied in the sensitivity analysis. Providing cancer genetic services increase survival and as long as services do not induce adverse psychological effects they also provide more QALYs. The greatest survival and QALY benefits were found for women with identified mutations. As more cancer genes are identified, the survival and cost-effectiveness of genetic services will improve. Although mastectomy provided most additional life years, when quality of life was accounted for oophorectomy was the optimal strategy. Delayed entry into coordinated genetic services was found to diminish the average survival and QALY gains for a woman utilising these services

Visualizing sound emission of elephant vocalizations: evidence for two rumble production types

Recent comparative data reveal that formant frequencies are cues to body size in animals, due to a close relationship between formant frequency spacing, vocal tract length and overall body size. Accordingly, intriguing morphological adaptations to elongate the vocal tract in order to lower formants occur in several species, with the size exaggeration hypothesis being proposed to justify most of these observations. While the elephant trunk is strongly implicated to account for the low formants of elephant rumbles, it is unknown whether elephants emit these vocalizations exclusively through the trunk, or whether the mouth is also involved in rumble production. In this study we used a sound visualization method (an acoustic camera) to record rumbles of five captive African elephants during spatial separation and subsequent bonding situations. Our results showed that the female elephants in our analysis produced two distinct types of rumble vocalizations based on vocal path differences: a nasally- and an orally-emitted rumble. Interestingly, nasal rumbles predominated during contact calling, whereas oral rumbles were mainly produced in bonding situations. In addition, nasal and oral rumbles varied considerably in their acoustic structure. In particular, the values of the first two formants reflected the estimated lengths of the vocal paths, corresponding to a vocal tract length of around 2 meters for nasal, and around 0.7 meters for oral rumbles. These results suggest that African elephants may be switching vocal paths to actively vary vocal tract length (with considerable variation in formants) according to context, and call for further research investigating the function of formant modulation in elephant vocalizations. Furthermore, by confirming the use of the elephant trunk in long distance rumble production, our findings provide an explanation for the extremely low formants in these calls, and may also indicate that formant lowering functions to increase call propagation distances in this species'

Evolutionary relationships between Rhynchosporium lolii sp. nov. and other Rhynchosporium species on grass.

Copyright: 2013 King et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedThe fungal genus Rhynchosporium (causative agent of leaf blotch) contains several host-specialised species, including R. commune (colonising barley and brome-grass), R. agropyri (couch-grass), R. secalis (rye and triticale) and the more distantly related R. orthosporum (cocksfoot). This study used molecular fingerprinting, multilocus DNA sequence data, conidial morphology, host range tests and scanning electron microscopy to investigate the relationship between Rhynchosporium species on ryegrasses, both economically important forage grasses and common wild grasses in many cereal growing areas, and other plant species. Two different types of Rhynchosporium were found on ryegrasses in the UK. Firstly, there were isolates of R. commune that were pathogenic to both barley and Italian ryegrass. Secondly, there were isolates of a new species, here named R. lolii, that were pathogenic only to ryegrass species. R. lolii was most closely related to R. orthosporum, but exhibited clear molecular, morphological and host range differences. The species was estimated to have diverged from R. orthosporum ca. 5735 years before the present. The colonisation strategy of all of the different Rhynchosporium species involved extensive hyphal growth in the sub-cuticular regions of the leaves. Finally, new species-specific PCR diagnostic tests were developed that could distinguish between these five closely related Rhynchosporium species.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Learning auditory space: generalization and long-term effects

Background: Previous findings have shown that humans can learn to localize with altered auditory space cues. Here we analyze such learning processes and their effects up to one month on both localization accuracy and sound externalization. Subjects were trained and retested, focusing on the effects of stimulus type in learning, stimulus type in localization, stimulus position, previous experience, externalization levels, and time. Method: We trained listeners in azimuth and elevation discrimination in two experiments. Half participated in the azimuth experiment first and half in the elevation first. In each experiment, half were trained in speech sounds and half in white noise. Retests were performed at several time intervals: just after training and one hour, one day, one week and one month later. In a control condition, we tested the effect of systematic retesting over time with post-tests only after training and either one day, one week, or one month later. Results: With training all participants lowered their localization errors. This benefit was still present one month after training. Participants were more accurate in the second training phase, revealing an effect of previous experience on a different task. Training with white noise led to better results than training with speech sounds. Moreover, the training benefit generalized to untrained stimulus-position pairs. Throughout the post-tests externalization levels increased. In the control condition the long-term localization improvement was not lower without additional contact with the trained sounds, but externalization levels were lower. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that humans adapt easily to altered auditory space cues and that such adaptation spreads to untrained positions and sound types. We propose that such learning depends on all available cues, but each cue type might be learned and retrieved differently. The process of localization learning is global, not limited to stimulus-position pairs, and it differs from externalization processes.Foundation for Science and TechnologyFEDE

Feasibility of the porous zone approach to modelling vegetation in CFD

Vegetation within stormwater ponds varies seasonly and its presence affects the flow field, which in turn affects the pond’s Residence Time Distribution and its effectiveness at pollutant removal. Vegetated flows are complex and, as a result, few suitable tools exist for evaluating realistic stormwater pond designs. Recent research has suggested using a porous zone to represent vegetation within a CFD model, and this paper investigates the feasibility of this approach using ANSYS Fluent. One of the main benefits of using a porous zone is the ability to derive the relevant parameters from the known physical characteristics of stem diameter and porosity using the Ergun equation. A sensitivity analysis on the viscous resistance factor 1/α1/α and the inertial resistance factor C2C2 has been undertaken by comparing model results to data collected from an experimental vegetated channel. Best fit values of C2C2 were obtained for a range of flow conditions including emergent and submerged vegetation. Results show the CFD model to be insensitive to 1/α1/α but very sensitive to values of C2C2. For submerged vegetation, values of C2C2 derived from the Ergun equation are under-predictions of best-fit C2C2 values as only the turbulence due to the shear layer is represented. The porous zone approach does not take into account turbulence generated from stem wakes such that no meaningful predictions for emergent vegetation were obtained. C2C2 values calculated using a force balance show better agreement with best-fit C2C2 values than those derived from the Ergun equation. Manually fixing values of kk and εε within the porous zone of the model shows initial promise as a means of taking stem wakes into account

Role of estrogens and epidermal growth factor in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)

Estrogen (E) and epidermal growth factors (EGF) receptors were assayed in the liver of nine patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Total E and nuclear E receptors were decreased significantly in neoplastic tissue as compared to the levels found in surrounding nonneoplastic tissue. The EGF receptor was decreased also in neoplastic tissue. On the basis of binding data, a decrease in the number but not in affinity of both the E and EGF receptors was found. © 1991 Plenum Publishing Corporation

An Interactive Internet-Based Continuing Education Course on Sexually Transmitted Diseases for Physicians and Midwives in Peru

Clinicians in developing countries have had limited access to continuing education (CE) outside major cities, and CE strategies have had limited impact on sustainable change in performance. New educational tools could improve CE accessibility and effectiveness.The objective of this study was to evaluate an interactive Internet-based CE course on Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) management for clinicians in Peru. Participants included physicians and midwives in private practice drawn from a census of 10 Peruvian cities. The CE included a three-hour workshop for improving Internet skills, followed by a 22-hour online course on STD-syndrome-management, with subsequent educational support. The course used case-based clinical vignettes tailored to local STD problems. Knowledge and reported practices on STD management were assessed before, immediately after and at four months after completion of the course. Statistical analysis included parametric tests-linear regression multivariate analysis, paired t-test and repeated measures ANOVA using SPSS 14.0. Of 1,071 eligible clinicians, 510 agreed to participate, as did an additional 132 public sector clinicians. Of these 642 participants, 619 (96.4%) completed the course, and 596 (96.3%) took the four-month follow-up evaluation. Physician and midwife scores improved from 64.2% correct answers on the pre-test to 77.9% correct on the four-month follow-up test (p<0.001). Most participants (95%) found the online course useful for their work needs. Self reported STD management practices did not change.Among physicians and midwives in Peru, an Internet-based CE course was feasible, acceptable with high participation rates, and led to sustained improvement in knowledge at four months. Further studies are needed to test it as a model for improving the training of physicians, midwives, and other health care providers