Variability within the 10-year pollen rain of a seasonal neotropical forest

The effect of seasonal and multiannual environmental variability on the abundance and composition of Neotropical pollen rain was investigated using ten years of seasonal aerial pollen samples from Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama. Using canonical correspondence analysis, we identified the environmental variables that most account for intra-annual and inter-annual variability in tropical pollen production and found that pollen rain samples effectively captured the strong seasonality and stratification of pollen flow within the forest canopy. Inter-annual variation in pollen rain composition varied most strongly with the preceding year’s precipitation, with a smaller secondary effect of the current year’s temperature and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). Our results demonstrate the relative stability of the long-term pollen rain as a larger regional signal of flowering response to climatic variability, while also suggesting that paleoecological interpretations of modern pollen assemblages need to adjust for skewed short-term variability in pollen influx from neighboring pollen taxa

Interview with Sister Dorothy Felder

An interview with Sister Dorothy Felder regarding her experiences in a one-room school house.https://scholars.fhsu.edu/ors/1122/thumbnail.jp

Mögliche Gestaltungsmaßnahmen des Medizinstudiums zur Steigerung der Attraktivität der hausärztlichen Tätigkeit in Nordrhein-Westfalen

Zum Wintersemester 2019 / 2020 wurde die Landarztquote in Nordrhein-Westfalen als erstem Bundesland der Bundesrepublik Deutschland an allen acht staatlichen medizinischen Fakultäten verbindlich eingeführt. Durch eine Quotierung der Studienplatzvergabe sollte erreicht werden, mittelfristig eine hinreichende hausärztliche Versorgung in den unterversorgten Regionen von Nordrhein-Westfalen sicherzustellen. Über die seit der Einführung der Landarztquote von den medizinischen Fakultäten ergriffenen oder geplanten Maßnahmen zur Steigerung der Attraktivität einer hausärztlichen Tätigkeit im Medizinstudium liegen aktuell keine umfassenden Veröffentlichungen vor. Daher bestand das Ziel der Dissertation darin, die bereits durchgeführten oder noch geplanten Gestaltungsmaßnahmen zur Steigerung der Attraktivität einer hausärztlichen Tätigkeit zu ermitteln. Um diese Zielsetzung zu erreichen, wurde am 08.07.2022 eine Onlinebefragung durchgeführt, an der alle medizinischen Fakultäten in Nordrhein-Westfalen teilnehmen konnten. Hierzu wurden zunächst die konkreten Maßnahmen des Masterplans Medizinstudium 2020 identifiziert, mit denen eine Attraktivitätssteigerung einer hausärztlichen Tätigkeit bereits im Medizinstudium grundsätzlich ermöglicht werden kann. Zu diesen Maßnahmen wurden folgend insgesamt 28 Fragen erarbeitet, die den Teilnehmern über die Onlinebefragung gestellt wurden. Bis zum Abschluss der Befragung am 22.08.2022 nahmen sechs der neun medizinischen Fakultäten an der Erhebung teil. Die wesentlichen Ergebnisse der Umfrage waren, dass alle sechs befragten Fakultäten bereits zum Zeitpunkt der Erhebung konkrete Gestaltungsmaßnahmen ergriffen haben, um die im Masterplan Medizinstudium 2020 aufgeführten Maßnahmen zur Steigerung der Attraktivität einer hausärztlichen Tätigkeit umzusetzen. Des Weiteren konnte festgestellt, dass die befragten Fakultäten planen, die Maßnahmen des Masterplans 2020 zukünftig noch umfassender umsetzen zu wollen. - 9 - Im Rahmen der Ergebnisdiskussion wurde aber festgestellt, dass einige der im Masterplan Medizinstudium empfohlenen Maßnahmen, wie zum Bespiel eine mögliche Erhöhung der Studienplatzkapazitäten, nicht durch die Fakultäten, sondern ausschließlich durch die Landesregierung beschlossen werden kann. Zusammenfassend kann festgehalten werden, dass alle sechs medizinischen Fakultäten, die an der Befragung teilnahmen, Gestaltungsmaßnahmen umgesetzt haben, mit denen die Attraktivität einer hausärztlichen Tätigkeit bereits während des Medizinstudiums erhöht werden kann, um so die hausärztliche Versorgung in den unterversorgten Regionen in Nordrhein-Westfalen zukünftig verbessern zu können.Starting in the 2019/2020 winter semester, the Landarztquote was introduced in North Rhine-Westphalia as the first country in the Federal Republic of Germany at all eight state medical faculties. By quoting the allocation of study places, it was intended to ensure sufficient primary care in the underserved regions of North Rhine-Westphalia in the medium term. There are currently no comprehensive publications on the measures taken or planned by the medical faculties since the introduction of the Landarztquote to increase the attractiveness of a general practitioner activity in medical studies. Therefore, the aim of the dissertation was to determine the design measures already carried out or still planned to increase the attractiveness of a general practitioner's activity. To achieve this goal, an online survey was initiated on 8. July 2022, in which all medical faculties in North Rhine-Westphalia were asked to participate. Before creating the survey, the specific measures proposed in the Masterplan Medizinstudium 2020 were identified. These measures are intended to increase the attractiveness of a general practitioner’s activity already during medical studies. Based on these measures a total of 28 questions were developed and compiled in a forementioned survey. The survey was closed on 22 August 2022. By that time, six of the nine medical faculties had participated. - 10 - The main result of the survey was that all six interviewees had already taken measures at the time of the survey in order to implement the measures listed in the Masterplan Medizinstudium 2020 to increase the attractiveness of a general practitioner's activity. Moreover, it was found that the faculties plan to implement further measures of the Masterplan Medizinstudium 2020 in the future. During the discussion of the results, however, it was realized that some of the measures recommended in the Masterplan Medizinstudium 2020, such as increasing the number of study places, cannot be decided by the faculties, but exclusively by the state government. In summary, it can be stated that all six medical faculties that took part in the survey, have implemented measures with which the attractiveness of a general practitioner’s activity can be increased already during medical studies to improve primary care in the underserved regions in North Rhine-Westphalia in the future

Climatic, environmental, and phenological analyses of diverse lowland neotropical pollen rain data using ecoinformatic and machine learning tools

Analyses of modern pollen rain data from the Neotropics have traditionally been used to help interpret compositional changes observed in sedimentary pollen data. Comparisons of modern pollen assemblage data produced by different forest environments are compared to compositional changes observed within the fossil pollen record to improve interpretations of how plant communities have changed over time and under different climatic and environmental conditions. While modern pollen records provide an invaluable resource to improve paleoecological interpretations, most records are limited to short-term (1-3 year) sampling durations. These short-term sampling durations can potentially misrepresent comparisons of pollen and vegetation in different forest communities by not accounting for the full range of natural variability in phenological pollen outputs. For my dissertation, I counted and analyzed three ≥ 10-year pollen rain records obtained from two lowland Panamanian forests: Barro Colorado Island (BCI) and Parque Nacional San Lorenzo (PNSL). Together, these records represent the three longest continuous collections of airborne pollen data analyzed from the Neotropics to date. This dissertation explores novel approaches to the analysis of hyperdiverse Neotropical pollen rain assemblage data. A machine-based ecoinformatic analysis was used to correlate seasonal and annual variability in pollen abundance data to a suite of climatic variables. The analysis explores how climatic variability influences the composition of pollen assemblage data in forest sites characterized by differences in seasonality. A 15-year pollen rain collected within a forest dynamics plot located on BCI was used to analyze relationships between pollen abundances, biomass, and flowering patterns. The extended pollen rain highlights the extent to which the relationship between pollen abundance data and standing biomass can vary on a year- to-year basis and the potential for aerial pollen trapping data to supplement the study of tropical flowering patterns. Using pollen identifications from the BCI plot pollen rain, a machine learning method using convolutional neural nets was developed to fully automate the process of pollen identification

Accuracy and consistency of grass pollen identification by human analysts using electron micrographs of surface ornamentation

• Premise of the study: Humans frequently identify pollen grains at a taxonomic rank above species. Grass pollen is a classic case of this situation, which has led to the development of computational methods for identifying grass pollen species. This paper aims to provide context for these computational methods by quantifying the accuracy and consistency of human identification. • Methods: We measured the ability of nine human analysts to identify 12 species of grass pollen using scanning electron microscopy images. These are the same images that were used in computational identifications. We have measured the coverage, accuracy, and consistency of each analyst, and investigated their ability to recognize duplicate images. • Results: Coverage ranged from 87.5% to 100%. Mean identification accuracy ranged from 46.67% to 87.5%. The identification consistency of each analyst ranged from 32.5% to 87.5%, and each of the nine analysts produced considerably different identification schemes. The proportion of duplicate image pairs that were missed ranged from 6.25% to 58.33%. • Discussion: The identification errors made by each analyst, which result in a decline in accuracy and consistency, are likely related to psychological factors such as the limited capacity of human memory, fatigue and boredom, recency effects, and positivity bias

Typical College Student Diet Food Derived Microorganisms and Their Relation to the Human Gastrointestinal Microflora

Current research in the field of obesity has shown that obese people generally have a higher percentage of Firmicutes compared to Bacteroidetes in their gastrointestinal tracts than lean people. The goal of this study was to assess whether or not different foods contain unique bacterial profiles and if there is a correlation between foods and the types of bacteria that may be present. This study was based on diets that are typically consumed by college students. Six meals, two breakfasts, two lunches, and two dinners were created based off a class project that detailed the diet of Texas A&M University students. These meals consisted of a banana, cereal, and orange juice; a bagel, breakfast burrito and coffee; a turkey sub sandwich, chips and a soda; macaroni and cheese, carrots and water; pepperoni pizza, salad and water; and finally a cheeseburger, fries and a soda. All the foods were purchased either on campus dining halls, or stores and fast food restaurants in College Station, Texas. Portions of the food samples were plated on Tryptic Soy Agar media and Brucella Blood Agar to determine the aerobic and anaerobic bacterial loads respectively. The total microbioial communities were extracted from defined amounts of the different food samples and the 16s rRNA genetic diversity were analyzed pyrosequencing. It was found that each food does have a unique bacterial profile. There was, however, no correlation between the nutritional content of the foods and presence of specific bacterial groups. It was determined that on an average, a college student will consume via foods a minimum of about 6.38x1010 bacterial sequences of bacteria each year, and about 2.55x1011 sequences of bacteria during an average 4-year college career. The data implies that foods contribute not only nutrients to the human body but can also be a major source for the introduction of microbial populations into the gastrointestinal tract. Since alterations in the gastrointestinal populations do alter host-microbiota interactions which in turn affect metabolic syndromes, this study illustrates one pathway through which microbial populations are adding to the diversity within the gastrointestinal system

Ferrets exclusively synthesize Neu5Ac and express naturally humanized influenza A virus receptors

Mammals express the sialic acids ​N-acetylneuraminic acid (​Neu5Ac) and ​N-glycolylneuraminic acid (​Neu5Gc) on cell surfaces, where they act as receptors for pathogens, including influenza A virus (IAV). ​Neu5Gc is synthesized from ​Neu5Ac by the enzyme cytidine monophosphate-N-acetylneuraminic acid hydroxylase (CMAH). In humans, this enzyme is inactive and only ​Neu5Ac is produced. Ferrets are susceptible to human-adapted IAV strains and have been the dominant animal model for IAV studies. Here we show that ferrets, like humans, do not synthesize ​Neu5Gc. Genomic analysis reveals an ancient, nine-exon deletion in the ferret CMAH gene that is shared by the Pinnipedia and Musteloidia members of the Carnivora. Interactions between two human strains of IAV with the sialyllactose receptor (sialic acid—α2,6Gal) confirm that the type of terminal sialic acid contributes significantly to IAV receptor specificity. Our results indicate that exclusive expression of ​Neu5Ac contributes to the susceptibility of ferrets to human-adapted IAV strains

Tris(1,10-phenanthroline)iron(II) μ-oxido-bis­[trichloridoferrate(III)]

In the title salt, [Fe(C12H8N2)3][Fe2Cl6O], the ionic components are linked into a two-dimensional supra­molecular layer by two pairs of C—H⋯Cl hydrogen bonds and π–π stacking inter­actions [centroid–centroid distances = 3.655 (4) and 3.498 (3) Å]. The salt is characterized as a mixed-valent FeII–FeIII compound, in which an FeII atom is coordinated by three phen ligands, forming a six-coordinated cationic entity and the anionic part is formed by two FeIII atoms in tetra­hedral coordination environments constructed by three chloride ions and one bridging oxide ligand. Intra­molecular C—H⋯N hydrogen bonds are observed

Estimate of vascular permeability and cerebral blood volume using Gd-DTPA contrast enhancement and dynamic T2*-weighted MRI

Purpose To develop a numerical approach for estimation of vascular permeability from dynamic T2*-weighted imaging, a technique routinely used to measure cerebral blood volume (CBV) and flow in gliomas. Materials and Methods This study describes a process for estimating both the gadolinium diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (Gd-DTPA) transvascular transfer constant and CBV from dynamic T2*-weighted images. The algorithm was applied to data from the brains of 12 patients with grade IV gliomas. The stability of the method was assessed. Estimates of CBV by this technique were compared to those of the conventional method. Results The algorithm was found to be insensitive to noise and to generate stable voxel-by-voxel estimates of permeability and CBV. Conclusion Using a single imaging acquisition, the three most important vascular properties, CBV, cerebral blood flow (CBF), and permeability, can be estimated. This approach may have potential in clinical evaluation of patients with brain tumor or acute ischemic stroke. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55796/1/20634_ftp.pd

BpaB, a Novel Protein Encoded by the Lyme Disease Spirochete\u27s Cp32 Prophages, Binds to Erp Operator 2 DNA

Borrelia burgdorferi produces Erp outer surface proteins throughout mammalian infection, but represses their synthesis during colonization of vector ticks. A DNA region 5′ of the start of erp transcription, Operator 2, was previously shown to be essential for regulation of expression. We now report identification and characterization of a novel erp Operator 2-binding protein, which we named BpaB. erp operons are located on episomal cp32 prophages, and a single bacterium may contain as many as 10 different cp32s. Each cp32 family member encodes a unique BpaB protein, yet the three tested cp32-encoded BpaB alleles all bound to the same DNA sequence. A 20-bp region of erp Operator 2 was determined to be essential for BpaB binding, and initial protein binding to that site was required for binding of additional BpaB molecules. A 36-residue region near the BpaB carboxy terminus was found to be essential for high-affinity DNA-binding. BpaB competed for binding to erp Operator 2 with a second B. burgdorferi DNA-binding protein, EbfC. Thus, cellular levels of free BpaB and EbfC could potentially control erp transcription levels