Longitudinal Analysis of the Gill microbiomes of Atlantic Salmon from four Scottish farms reveals dynamics in bacterial richness and seasonal trends in diversity.

Atlantic Salmon aquaculture in Scotland is a major industry being both Scotland, and the UK’s largest food export. Gill disease, in particular Complex Gill Disease, is a significant challenge of salmon production. It is increasingly understood that the microbiome can influence host health and immunity. Therefore, the objective of the study is to identify and characterise the gill microbiome from stocking to harvest from four sites in Scotland 2018-2020. At each site, mucosal gill swabs were collected fortnightly (sites A &amp; C) or monthly (sites B &amp; G) from eight fish in two pens (n=623 fish). Gill samples underwent 16S rRNA Illumina MiSeq amplicon library preparation and analysis to characterise changes in the gill mucosal communities. Complex Gill disease was identified in sampled fish from each site (A: 20%, B: 11%, C: 24%, G: 13%).At the four sites we showed species richness (alpha diversity) varied over time ranging from 68 ±SD31 to 777 ±SD152 (average 353 ±SD 158). Interestingly, 1100–1500 degree-days after seawater transfer, a distinct decline in species richness and evenness was observed at three of the four sties (A:410 SD± 134 to 276 SD±86 , B:264 SD±67 to 156 SD±71 , C:356 SD±130 to 228 SD±89). In terms of community composition, 1) while there were similarities between all four sites, the communities were statistically different (R = 0.067, P&lt;0.001) from each farm, indicating that sites contributes to differences seen in the microbiome. Within each farm, a seasonal pattern in the microbiome was seen, with community shifts through winter-spring-summer-autumn (A: R2 = 0.11, P&lt;0.001, B: R2 = 0.30, P&lt;0.001, C: R2 = 0.22, P&lt;0.001, G: R2 = 0.11, P&lt;0.001). Proteobacteria dominated the gills (average: 73.6%), with Bacteriodota (average: 18.2%) also highly abundant at all sites. Overall, we have shown changes in the bacterial communities over time and between sites indicating both seasonal and temporal changes in the gill microbiome. Understanding this will help us to better understand the role of the gill microbiome and its role in fish health. <br/

Longitudinal Analysis of the Gill microbiomes of Atlantic Salmon from four Scottish farms reveals dynamics in bacterial richness and seasonal trends in diversity.

Atlantic Salmon aquaculture in Scotland is a major industry being both Scotland, and the UK’s largest food export. Gill disease, in particular Complex Gill Disease, is a significant challenge of salmon production. It is increasingly understood that the microbiome can influence host health and immunity. Therefore, the objective of the study is to identify and characterise the gill microbiome from stocking to harvest from four sites in Scotland 2018-2020. At each site, mucosal gill swabs were collected fortnightly (sites A &amp; C) or monthly (sites B &amp; G) from eight fish in two pens (n=623 fish). Gill samples underwent 16S rRNA Illumina MiSeq amplicon library preparation and analysis to characterise changes in the gill mucosal communities. Complex Gill disease was identified in sampled fish from each site (A: 20%, B: 11%, C: 24%, G: 13%).At the four sites we showed species richness (alpha diversity) varied over time ranging from 68 ±SD31 to 777 ±SD152 (average 353 ±SD 158). Interestingly, 1100–1500 degree-days after seawater transfer, a distinct decline in species richness and evenness was observed at three of the four sties (A:410 SD± 134 to 276 SD±86 , B:264 SD±67 to 156 SD±71 , C:356 SD±130 to 228 SD±89). In terms of community composition, 1) while there were similarities between all four sites, the communities were statistically different (R = 0.067, P&lt;0.001) from each farm, indicating that sites contributes to differences seen in the microbiome. Within each farm, a seasonal pattern in the microbiome was seen, with community shifts through winter-spring-summer-autumn (A: R2 = 0.11, P&lt;0.001, B: R2 = 0.30, P&lt;0.001, C: R2 = 0.22, P&lt;0.001, G: R2 = 0.11, P&lt;0.001). Proteobacteria dominated the gills (average: 73.6%), with Bacteriodota (average: 18.2%) also highly abundant at all sites. Overall, we have shown changes in the bacterial communities over time and between sites indicating both seasonal and temporal changes in the gill microbiome. Understanding this will help us to better understand the role of the gill microbiome and its role in fish health. <br/

The Involutive Quantaloid of Completely Distributive Lattices

Let L be a complete lattice and let Q(L) be the unital quantale of join-continuous endo-functions of L. We prove the following result: Q(L) is an involutive (that is, non-commutative cyclic ⋆-autonomous) quantale if and only if L is a completely distributive lattice. If this is the case, then the dual tensor operation corresponds, via Raney's transforms, to composition in the (dual) quantale of meet-continuous endo-functions of L. Let sLatt be the category of sup-lattices and join-continuous functions and let cdLatt be the full subcategory of sLatt whose objects are the completely distributive lattices. We argue that (i) cdLatt is itself an involutive quantaloid, and therefore it is the largest full-subcategory of sLatt with this property; (ii) cdLatt is closed under the monoidal operations of sLatt and, consequently, if Q(L) is involutive, then Q(L) is completely distributive as well

Psychosocial stress and strategies for managing adversity: measuring population resilience in New South Wales, Australia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Populations around the world are facing an increasing number of adversities such as the global financial crisis, terrorism, conflict, and climate change. The aim of this paper was to investigate self-reported strategies and sources of support used to get through "tough times" in an Australian context and to identify patterns of response in the general population and differences in potentially vulnerable subgroups.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of the New South Wales population in Australia. The final sample consisted of 3,995 New South Wales residents aged 16 years and above who responded to the question: "What are the things that get you through tough times?"</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Respondents provided brief comments that were coded into 14 main subject-area categories. The most frequently reported responses were family and self (52%); friends and neighbors (21%); use of positive emotional and philosophical strategies (17%), such as sense of humor, determination, and the belief that things would get better; and religious beliefs (11%). The responses of four population subgroups were compared, based on gender, household income, level of psychological distress, and whether a language other than English was spoken at home. Women reported greater use of friends and neighbors and religious or spiritual beliefs for support, whereas men reported greater use of drinking/smoking and financial supports. Those with lower incomes reported greater reliance on positive emotional and philosophical strategies and on religious or spiritual beliefs. Those with high levels of psychological distress reported greater use of leisure interests and hobbies, drinking/smoking, and less use of positive lifestyle strategies, such as adequate sleep, relaxation, or work/life balance. Those who spoke a language other than English at home were less likely to report relying on self or others (family/friends) or positive emotional and philosophical strategies to get through tough times.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Understanding strategies and sources of support used by the population to get through adversity is the first step toward identifying the best approaches to build and support strengths and reduce vulnerabilities. It is also possible to reflect on how large-scale threats such as pandemics, disasters, conflict, bereavement, and loss could impact individual and population resilience.</p

Spontaneous R-Parity Violation, A4A_4 Flavor Symmetry and Tribimaximal Mixing

We explore the possibility of spontaneous R parity violation in the context of $A_4$ flavor symmetry. Our model contains $SU(3)_c \times SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$ singlet matter chiral superfields which are arranged as triplet of $A_4$ and as well as few additional Higgs chiral superfields which are singlet under MSSM gauge group and belong to triplet and singlet representation under the $A_4$ flavor symmetry. R parity is broken spontaneously by the vacuum expectation values of the different sneutrino fields and hence we have neutrino-neutralino as well as neutrino-MSSM gauge singlet higgsino mixings in our model, in addition to the standard model neutrino- gauge singlet neutrino, gaugino-higgsino and higgsino-higgsino mixings. Because all of these mixings we have an extended neutral fermion mass matrix. We explore the low energy neutrino mass matrix for our model and point out that with some specific constraints between the sneutrino vacuum expectation values as well as the MSSM gauge singlet Higgs vacuum expectation values, the low energy neutrino mass matrix will lead to a tribimaximal mixing matrix. We also analyze the potential minimization for our model and show that one can realize a higher vacuum expectation value of the $SU(3)_c \times SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$ singlet sneutrino fields even when the other sneutrino vacuum expectation values are extremely small or even zero.Comment: 18 page

Estimation of Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness from Routine Surveillance Data

BACKGROUND: Influenza vaccines are reviewed each year, and often changed, in an effort to maintain their effectiveness against drifted influenza viruses. There is however no regular review of influenza vaccine effectiveness during, or at the end of, Australian influenza seasons. It is possible to use a case control method to estimate vaccine effectiveness from surveillance data when all patients in a surveillance system are tested for influenza and their vaccination status is known. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Influenza-like illness (ILI) surveillance is conducted during the influenza season in sentinel general practices scattered throughout Victoria, Australia. Over five seasons 2003-7, data on age, sex and vaccination status were collected and nose and throat swabs were offered to patients presenting within three days of the onset of their symptoms. Swabs were tested using a reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test. Those positive for influenza were sent to the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza where influenza virus culture and strain identification was attempted. We used a retrospective case control design in five consecutive influenza seasons, and estimated influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) for patients of all ages to be 53% (95% CI 38-64), but 41% (95% CI 19-57) adjusted for age group and year. The adjusted VE for all adults aged at least 20 years, the age groups for whom a benefit of vaccination could be shown, was 51% (95% CI 34-63). Comparison of VE estimates with vaccine and circulating strain matches across the years did not reveal any significant differences. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These estimates support other field studies of influenza vaccine effectiveness, given that theoretical considerations suggest that these values may underestimate true effectiveness, depending on test specificity and the ratio of the influenza ILI attack rate to the non-influenza ILI attack rate. Incomplete recording of vaccination status and under-representation of children in patients from whom a swab was collected limit the data. Improvements have been implemented for prospective studies

Phenomenological Consequences of sub-leading Terms in See-Saw Formulas

Several aspects of next-to-leading (NLO) order corrections to see-saw formulas are discussed and phenomenologically relevant situations are identified. We generalize the formalism to calculate the NLO terms developed for the type I see-saw to variants like the inverse, double or linear see-saw, i.e., to cases in which more than two mass scales are present. In the standard type I case with very heavy fermion singlets the sub-leading terms are negligible. However, effects in the percent regime are possible when sub-matrices of the complete neutral fermion mass matrix obey a moderate hierarchy, e.g. weak scale and TeV scale. Examples are cancellations of large terms leading to small neutrino masses, or inverse see-saw scenarios. We furthermore identify situations in which no NLO corrections to certain observables arise, namely for mu-tau symmetry and cases with a vanishing neutrino mass. Finally, we emphasize that the unavoidable unitarity violation in see-saw scenarios with extra fermions can be calculated with the formalism in a straightforward manner.Comment: 22 pages, matches published versio

The Problem of Large Leptonic Mixing

Unlike in the quark sector where simple $S_3$ permutation symmetries can generate the general features of quark masses and mixings, we find it impossible (under conditions of hierarchy for the charged leptons and without considering the see-saw mechanism or a more elaborate extension of the SM) to guarantee large leptonic mixing angles with any general symmetry or transformation of only known particles. If such symmetries exist, they must be realized in more extended scenarios.Comment: RevTeX, 4 pages, no figure

Kinome rewiring reveals AURKA limits PI3K-pathway inhibitor efficacy in breast cancer.

Dysregulation of the PI3K-AKT-mTOR signaling network is a prominent feature of breast cancers. However, clinical responses to drugs targeting this pathway have been modest, possibly because of dynamic changes in cellular signaling that drive resistance and limit drug efficacy. Using a quantitative chemoproteomics approach, we mapped kinome dynamics in response to inhibitors of this pathway and identified signaling changes that correlate with drug sensitivity. Maintenance of AURKA after drug treatment was associated with resistance in breast cancer models. Incomplete inhibition of AURKA was a common source of therapy failure, and combinations of PI3K, AKT or mTOR inhibitors with the AURKA inhibitor MLN8237 were highly synergistic and durably suppressed mTOR signaling, resulting in apoptosis and tumor regression in vivo. This signaling map identifies survival factors whose presence limits the efficacy of targeted therapies and reveals new drug combinations that may unlock the full potential of PI3K-AKT-mTOR pathway inhibitors in breast cancer