Notes

Just how environmental stress results in alternative microbiota states in a water ecosystem: A brand new understanding of water repair.
y as UMIN000027174.Study of mortality associated with exposure to the Holocaust is relevant for better understanding the effects of man-made massive killings on survivors. Previous studies did not investigate long-term cause-specific mortality of Holocaust survivors. Smad inhibitor We compared mortality rates of Israelis born in European countries controlled by the Nazis to Israelis of European descent without this exposure. Records of 22,671 people (5,042 survivors, 45% women) from the population-based Jerusalem Perinatal Study (1964-1976) were linked to the Population Registry updated through 2016. Cox models were used with two-sided tests of statistical significance. Risk of all-cause mortality was higher in the exposed women (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.15; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.05, 1.27) as compared to unexposed. No association was found between the exposure and male all-cause mortality. In both sexes, the survivors had higher cancer-specific mortality (HR=1.17; CI 1.01, 1.35 in women and HR=1.14; CI 1.01, 1.28 in men). The exposed men also had excess mortality due to coronary heart disease (HR=1.39; CI 1.09, 1.77) and lower mortality due to other known causes combined (HR=0.86; CI 0.75, 0.99). In summary, Holocaust experience was associated with excess of all-cause and cancer-specific female and cancer- and coronary heart disease -specific male mortality.
Conventional measures for assessing arterial stiffness are inherently pressure-dependent. Whereas statistical pressure adjustment is feasible in (larger) populations, it is unsuited for the evaluation of an individual patient. Moreover, statistical "correction" for blood pressure may actually correct for (1) the acute dependence of arterial stiffness on blood pressure at the time of measurement; and/or (2) the remodelling effect that blood pressure (hypertension) may have on arterial stiffness, but it cannot distinguish between these processes.

We derived - assuming a single-exponential pressure-diameter relationship - three theoretically pressure-independent carotid stiffness measures suited for individual patient evaluation (1) stiffness index β0, (2) pressure-corrected carotid pulse wave velocity (cPWVcorr), and (3) pressure-corrected Young's modulus (Ecorr). Using linear regression analysis, we evaluated in a sample of the CATOD study cohort changes in mean arterial pressure (∆MAP) and comparatively tc risk assessment and (2) investigation of potential remodelling effects of (changes in) blood pressure on intrinsic arterial stiffness.
SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks in nursing homes can be large with high case fatality. Identifying asymptomatic individuals early through serial testing is recommended to control COVID-19 in nursing homes, both in response to an outbreak ("outbreak testing" of residents and healthcare personnel) and in facilities without outbreaks ("non-outbreak testing" of healthcare personnel). The effectiveness of outbreak testing and isolation with or without non-outbreak testing was evaluated.

Using published SARS-CoV-2 transmission parameters, the fraction of SARS-CoV-2 transmissions prevented through serial testing (weekly, every three days, or daily) and isolation of asymptomatic persons compared to symptom-based testing and isolation was evaluated through mathematical modeling using a Reed-Frost model to estimate the percentage of cases prevented (i.e., "effectiveness") through either outbreak testing alone or outbreak plus non-outbreak testing. The potential effect of simultaneous decreases (by 10%) in the effectiveness ofnd use of tests with rapid turnaround.Gene networks for disorders of social behavior provide the mechanisms critical for identifying therapeutic targets and biomarkers. Large behavioral phenotypic effects of small human deletions make the positive sociality of Williams syndrome (WS) ideal for determining transcriptional networks for social dysfunction currently based on DNA variations for disorders such as autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia (SCHZ). Consensus on WS networks has been elusive due to the need for larger cohort size, sensitive genome-wide detection and analytic tools. We report a core set of WS network perturbations in a cohort of 58 individuals (34 with typical, 6 atypical deletions and 18 controls). Genome-wide exon-level expression arrays robustly detected changes in differentially expressed gene (DEG) transcripts from WS deleted genes that ranked in the top 11 of 12 122 transcripts, validated by quantitative reverse transcription PCR, RNASeq and western blots. WS DEG's were strictly dosed in the full but not the atypical deletions that revealed a breakpoint position effect on non-deleted CLIP2, a caveat for current phenotypic mapping based on copy number variants. Network analyses tested the top WS DEG's role in the dendritic spine, employing GeneMANIA to harmonize WS DEGs with comparable query gene-sets. The results indicate perturbed actin cytoskeletal signaling analogous to the excitatory dendritic spines. Independent protein-protein interaction analyses of top WS DEGs generated a 100-node graph annotated topologically revealing three interacting pathways, MAPK, IGF1-PI3K-AKT-mTOR/insulin and actin signaling at the synapse. The results indicate striking similarity of WS transcriptional networks to genome-wide association study-based ASD and SCHZ risk suggesting common network dysfunction for these disorders of divergent sociality.
Hybridisation increases species adaptation and biodiversity but also obscures species boundaries. In this study, species delimitation and hybridisation history were examined within one Chinese hazel species complex (Corylus chinensis-Corylus fargesii). Two species including four varieties have already been described for this complex, with overlapping distributions.

A total of 322 trees from 44 populations of these four varieties across their ranges were sampled for morphological and molecular analyses. Climatic datasets based on 108 geographical locations were used to evaluate their niche differentiations. Flowering phenology was also observed for two co-occurring species or varieties.

Four statistically different phenotypic clusters were revealed, but these clusters were highly inconsistent with the traditional taxonomic groups. All the clusters showed statistically distinct niches, with complete or partial geographic isolation. Only two clusters displayed a distributional overlap, but they had distinchistorical hybridisations. This study highlights the importance of applying integrative and statistical methods to infer species delimitations and hybridisation history. Such a protocol should be adopted widely for future taxonomic studies.
Candidemia is one of the most common causes of nosocomial bloodstream infections, but the impacts of factors affecting its incidence have not been evaluated.

We analyzed a retrospective cohort of all candidemia patients at 130 acute care hospitals in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) system from January 2000 through December 2017. Cases were classified as hospital-onset (HO) and non-hospital-onset (NHO). We used Joinpoint regression analysis to assess temporal associations between significant changes in candidemia incidence rates and guidelines or horizontal infection control (IC) interventions.

Over 18 years, 17,661 candidemia episodes were identified. Incidence rates of HO cases were increasing until the mid-2000s, followed by a sustained decline, while NHO cases showed a steady decline. The first change in HO candidemia incidence rates (8/2004 [95% CI 2/2003-4/2005]) was preceded by the publication of catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI) prevention guidelines and the CRBSI surveillance initiation. The second (9/2007 [95% CI 9/2006-6/2009]) had close temporal proximity to the expansion of IC resources within the VHA system. Collectively, these trend changes resulted in a 77.1% reduction in HO candidemia incidence rates since its peak in 2004.

A substantial and sustained systemwide reduction in candidemia incidence rates was observed after the publication of guidelines, VHA initiatives about CRBSI reporting and education on CRBSI prevention, and the systemwide expansion of IC resources.
A substantial and sustained systemwide reduction in candidemia incidence rates was observed after the publication of guidelines, VHA initiatives about CRBSI reporting and education on CRBSI prevention, and the systemwide expansion of IC resources.The potentially different genetics and epigenetics in the primary tumors and metastases affect the efficacy of treatment in breast cancer patients. Nevertheless, the cellular and molecular mechanisms of breast cancer lymph node metastasis still remain elusive. Here, we employed single-cell RNA sequencing to acquire the transcriptomic profiles of individual cells from primary tumors, negative lymph nodes (NLs) and positive lymph nodes (PLs). We also performed a single-cell assay for transposase-accessible chromatin (ATAC) sequencing (scATAC-seq) of the positive and NL samples to get the chromatin accessibility profile. We identified a novel cell subpopulation with an abnormally high expression level of CXCL14 in the PL of breast cancer patients. Cell trajectory analysis also revealed that CXCL14 was increased expressed in the late pseudo-time. Moreover, based on a tissue microarray of 55 patients and the Oncomine database, we validated that CXCL14 expression was significantly higher in breast cancer patients with lymph node metastasis. Furthermore, scATAC-seq identified several transcription factors that may be potential regulation factors for the lymph node metastasis of breast cancer. Thus, our findings will improve our current understanding of the mechanism for lymph node metastasis, and they are potentially valuable in providing novel prognosis markers for the lymphatic metastasis of breast cancer.Computational models of infant head impact are limited by the paucity of infant cranial bone material property data, particularly with regard to the anisotropic relationships created by the trabecular fibers in infant bone. We previously reported high-rate material property data for human infant cranial bone tested perpendicular to trabeculae fiber orientation. In this study, we measure the anisotropic properties of human infant cranial bone by analyzing bending modulus parallel to the trabeculae fibers. We tested human bone specimens from nine donors ranging in age from 32 weeks gestational age to 10 months at strain rates of 12.3-30.1 s-1. Bending modulus significantly increased with donor age (p=0.008) and was 13.4 times greater along the fiber direction compared to perpendicular to the fibers. Ultimate stress was greater by 5.1 times when tested parallel to the fibers compared to perpendicular (p=0.067). Parietal bone had a higher modulus and ultimate stress compared to occipital bone, but this trend was not significant, as previously shown perpendicular to fiber orientation. Combined, these data suggest that the pediatric skull is highly age-dependent, anisotropic, and regionally dependent. The incorporation of these characteristics in finite element models of infant head impact will be necessary to advance pediatric head injury research and further our understanding of the mechanisms of head injury in children.
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