bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Rate of Healthcare Worker–Patient Interaction and Hand Hygiene Opportunities in an Acute Care Setting
Authors: Goodliffe Laura , Ragan Kelsey , Larocque Michael , Borgundvaag Emily , Khan Sophia , Moore Christine , McCreight Liz , Coleman Brenda L. , McGeer Allison J. ,   Mount Sinai Infection Control Team
Published: February 2014

Objective.

Identify factors affecting the rate of hand hygiene opportunities in an acute care hospital.

Design.

Prospective observational study.

Setting.

Medical and surgical in-patient units, medical-surgical intensive care unit (MSICU), neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and emergency department (ED) of an academic acute care hospital from May to August, 2012.

Participants.

Healthcare workers.

Methods.

One-hour patient-based observations measured patient interactions and hand hygiene opportunities as defined by the “Four Moments for Hand Hygiene.” Rates of patient interactions and hand hygiene opportunities per patient-hour were calculated, examining variation by room type, healthcare worker type, and time of day.

Results.

During 257 hours of observation, 948 healthcare worker-patient interactions and 1,605 hand hygiene opportunities were identified. Moments 1, 2, 3, and 4 comprised 42%, 10%, 9%, and 39% of hand hygiene opportunities. Nurses contributed 77% of opportunities, physicians contributed 8%, other healthcare workers contributed 11%, and housekeeping contributed 4%. The mean rate of hand hygiene opportunities per patient-hour was 4.2 for surgical units, 4.5 for medical units, 5.2 for ED, 10.4 for NICU, and 13.2 for MSICU (P < .001). In non-ICU settings, rates of hand hygiene opportunities decreased over the course of the day. Patients with transmission-based precautions had approximately half as many interactions (rate ratio [RR], 0.55 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.37-0.80]) and hand hygiene opportunities per hour (RR, 0.47 [95% CI, 0.29-0.77]) as did patients without precautions.

Conclusions.

Measuring hand hygiene opportunities across clinical settings lays the groundwork for product use-based hand hygiene measurement. Additional work is needed to assess factors affecting rates in other hospitals and health care settings.
Complete enumeration of elementary flux modes through scalable demand-based subnetwork definition
Authors: Hunt Kristopher A. , Folsom James P. , Taffs Reed L. , Carlson Ross P.
Published: February 2014

Motivation: Elementary flux mode analysis (EFMA) decomposes complex metabolic network models into tractable biochemical pathways, which have been used for rational design and analysis of metabolic and regulatory networks. However, application of EFMA has often been limited to targeted or simplified metabolic network representations due to computational demands of the method.

Results: Division of biological networks into subnetworks enables the complete enumeration of elementary flux modes (EFMs) for metabolic models of a broad range of complexities, including genome-scale. Here, subnetworks are defined using serial dichotomous suppression and enforcement of flux through model reactions. Rules for selecting appropriate reactions to generate subnetworks are proposed and tested; three test cases, including both prokaryotic and eukaryotic network models, verify the efficacy of these rules and demonstrate completeness and reproducibility of EFM enumeration. Division of models into subnetworks is demand-based and automated; computationally intractable subnetworks are further divided until the entire solution space is enumerated. To demonstrate the strategy’s scalability, the splitting algorithm was implemented using an EFMA software package (EFMTool) and Windows PowerShell on a 50 node Microsoft high performance computing cluster. Enumeration of the EFMs in a genome-scale metabolic model of a diatom, Phaeodactylum tricornutum, identified ∼2 billion EFMs. The output represents an order of magnitude increase in EFMs computed compared with other published algorithms and demonstrates a scalable framework for EFMA of most systems.

Availability and implementation:  http://www.chbe.montana.edu/RossC.

Contact:  rossc@erc.montana.edu or kristopher.hunt@erc.montana.edu

Supplementary Information:  Supplemental materials are available at Bioinformatics online.
Religion
Authors: Green M. Christian , Witte John
Published: February 2014

This article examines the relation between religion and human rights. It analyses the contribution of religion to human rights and identifies the religious sources of human rights. It provides a comparative analysis of the development of human rights beliefs and norms in different religions including Islam, Judaism and Christianity. This article contends that religions must attend to human rights to affirm human dignity and that human rights need religious sources to survive and flourish.
Moral Philosophy
Authors: van Duffel Siegfried
Published: February 2014

This article examines long-standing debates in moral philosophy that are relevant to international human rights law. It discusses the political conception of human rights and the four challenges to moral philosophy which include the notion that no particular religious tradition or particular comprehensive doctrine (or morality) grounded human rights and the belief that natural rights theories end up misrepresenting and narrowing the scope of human rights. This article also highlights the importance of the work of moral philosophers to the understanding of contemporary human rights and explains that the traditions of natural rights theories still influence contemporary human rights language in profound ways.
Biological Foundations of Human Rights
Authors: Robinson Chris A.
Published: February 2014

This article examines biological theories and evidence about the evolution of human traits that are relevant for the development of human rights law. It highlights the human potential for violent and aggressive acts and discusses the emergence of a biological capacity for altruism. It evaluates the hypothesis about the capacity of groups of animals to maintain cooperative and altruistic behaviours despite competition for resources. This article also considers biological adaptations that have enabled humans to engage regularly in altruistic behaviours towards those outside of their family and immediate group.
Anthropology and the Grounds of Human Rights
Authors: Goodale Mark
Published: February 2014

This article examines the relation between the history of anthropology and human rights. It explains that anthropology first became connected with human rights in 1947 when the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) asked the American Anthropological Association (AAA) to write an advisory opinion on human rights during the drafting of what would become the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also contends that the history of anthropology�s relationship to human enables a better understanding of how and why human rights developed as they did.
Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes
Authors: de Wet Erika
Published: February 2014

This article examines the relation between jus cogens and erga omnes obligations in the context of international human rights law. It discusses the content of jus cogens and its relevance within the domestic legal order and explains the relevant provisions of Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969 (VCLT). This article highlights the increasing formal recognition in state practice and doctrine of a hierarchy of norms in international law in the form of jus cogens which indicates increased recognition of core values throughout the international community of states.
Positive and Negative Obligations
Authors: Shelton Dinah , Gould Ariel
Published: February 2014

This article examines the development of positive and negative obligations in international human rights law. It analyses the textual bases and jurisprudence regarding these obligations and considers the issue of due diligence standard of care. It discusses how due diligence emerged alongside and as the standard for judging state compliance with positive obligations to ensure or secure guaranteed human rights and predicts that positive obligations, negative obligations and due diligence may further develop into effective and detailed legal standards that protect individuals from human rights violations, whether committed by state or non-state actors.
Roles and Responsibilities of Non-State Actors
Authors: Weissbrodt David
Published: February 2014

This article examines the roles and responsibilities of non-state actors in the implementation of international human rights law. It describes the specific role of different non-state actors including non-governmental or civil society organizations, transnational corporations and other business entities and armed irregular groups in the protection and violation of human rights. It explains that each type of state actor has unique standards regarding human rights governing their behavior and stresses the need for international bodies to continue to identify and close gaps in the protection of human rights relating to non-state actors.
Judaism and Music
Authors: Kligman Mark
Published: February 2014

This chapter discusses music in Jewish contexts from the Bible until the present day. Music in Jewish religious life historically and at present includes cantillation of the Bible, the chanting of prayers, and synagogue song. Various forms of liturgical music developed among Ashkenazic Jews (Jews who lived in Europe) with nusach, modal chanting of prayers that was led by the chazzan. The artistically embellished prayer known as chazzanut is a unique musical and liturgical development. Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews (Jews whose heritage is in the Mediterranean and Middle East) adopted a range of musical styles from their surroundings. The adaptation of a known song in this region to religious poetry is known as piyyutim, a well established practice for hundreds of years. Comments on modern trends on a variety of issues conclude this chapter.
Ideologies of Empire
Authors: Bell Duncan
Published: February 2014

The world in which we live is largely the product of the rise, competition, and fall of empires. This chapter examines European, and principally British, ideologies of imperialism during the last two hundred years. The chapter starts by distinguishing between imperial imaginaries, ideologies, and theories, before dissecting elements of the western imperial imaginary, focusing in particular on notions of civilizational hierarchy. The rest of the article examines three ideal-typical aspects of imperial ideology: justification; governance; and resistance. Ideologies of justification provide reasons for supporting or upholding imperial activity, seeking to legitimate the creation, reproduction, or expansion of empire. Ideologies of governance articulate the modalities of imperial rule in specific contexts. Finally, ideologies of resistance reject imperial control.
Ideology and Conceptual History
Authors: Stråth Bo
Published: February 2014

The chapter discusses the conceptual origins of ideology as a term that described ideology as positive science, which analysed thoughts and ideas, ideology in analogy to sociology, the science of ideas, and the science of society respectively. From here the chapter investigates how ideology was transformed into a concept that epitomized a set of principles about society and government. Ideology became an action-oriented concept for shaping the future. The concept moved away from its original meaning of studying ideas conforming to law, although this meaning still played a certain role in the debate.
Ideology and Utopia
Authors: Sargent Lyman Tower
Published: February 2014

In popular usage both ideology and utopia have negative, and somewhat similar, connotations. Utopia is thought to imply something naively idealistic and, as a result, impossible to achieve due to the constraints of the ‘real world’ or because ‘human nature’ will get in the way. Ideology is also thought to imply being out of touch with the ‘real world’ by being blinkered by a set of beliefs that distorts one’s understanding of that ‘real world’.

This chapter examines the recent history of the relationship between the two concepts by examining the way they are treated by their best known theorists, Ernst Bloch, Michael Freeden, Fredric Jameson, Ruth Levitas, Karl Mannheim, and Paul Ricoeur. The chapter argues that while they are closely related and one can become the other, they can also be separated because they reflect different ways of understanding the world.
Marxism and Ideology
Authors: Leopold David
Published: February 2014

This chapter discusses the account of ideology found in the writings of Karl Marx (1818–83), and its fate in the subsequent Marxist tradition. Marx understood ideology as consisting of certain social ideas which periodically dominate in class-divided societies. More precisely, ideology was characterized as having a particular epistemological standing (being false or misleading), social origin (arising from the opaque structure of class-divided societies), and class function (sustaining the interests of the economically dominant group). In the subsequent Marxist tradition that ‘critical’ account was often displaced by non-critical, predominately ‘descriptive’, accounts of ideology. This historical pattern is exemplified by the writings of Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) and Louis Althusser (1918–90). This displacement of critical by descriptive accounts is portrayed as regrettable, not least because it involves a loss of the explanatory purchase and emancipatory potential found in Marx’s original account.
Political Ideologies and their Social Psychological Functions
Authors: Jost John T. , Federico Christopher M. , Napier Jamie L.
Published: February 2014

Ideology has re-emerged as a vital topic of investigation in social psychology. This chapter proposes that political ideologies possess both a discursive (socially constructed) superstructure and a functional (or motivational) substructure and that ideologies serve social psychological functions that may not be entirely rational but help to explain why individuals are drawn to them. System justification, it argues, is the ‘glue’ that holds the two dimensions of left–right ideology (advocacy vs. resistance to change and rejection vs. acceptance of inequality) together. To vindicate and uphold traditional institutions and arrangements, the right defends existing inequalities as just and necessary. To bring about a more equal state of affairs, the left is motivated to challenge existing institutions and practices (the status quo).
Social Science and Ideology
Authors: Gunnell John G.
Published: February 2014

The origins of the social sciences were in ideologies associated with moral philosophy and social reform movements. The turn to science was initially to secure the cognitive authority to speak truth to power about matters of social policy. This heritage was particularly salient in the controversy about behaviouralism in American political science. The debate between what was becoming mainstream political science and a growing number of individuals in the subfield of political theory was actually less about whether the discipline could emulate the methods of natural science than about an underlying conflict between competing visions of democracy. This was to some extent the residue of a dispute, which began in the 1920s, between pluralism as the basis of a theory of democracy and a more communitarian image, but it was also a reflection of more recent work in political philosophy as well as ideological differences in the American political context.
Poststructuralist Conceptions of Ideology
Authors: Norval Aletta
Published: February 2014

This chapter explores the implications of the linguistic turn for the conceptualization of ideology. In particular, it focuses on distinctive poststructuralist answers to the question of the specificity of ideology. It concentrates specifically on two main contemporary approaches to the study of ideology—post-Marxist and psychoanalytical accounts—both of which share a poststructuralist concern with the constitutivity of language to political practices and subjectivity, and take the ubiquity of ideology as a starting-point. These approaches, exemplified in the writings of Laclau and Mouffe, and Žižek, respectively, share much. Yet they also differ in the analytical tools on offer. The former focuses on dislocation, the articulation of myths and imaginaries, and the constitution of empty signifiers, while the Lacanian conception of fantasy is central to the latter. Both, it is argued, are necessary for the analysis of the mechanisms that make ideological decontestation possible.
Production of Xylella fastidiosa Diffusible Signal Factor in Transgenic Grape Causes Pathogen Confusion and Reduction in Severity of Pierce's Disease
Authors: Lindow Steven , Newman Karyn , Chatterjee Subhadeep , Baccari Clelia , Iavarone Anthony T. , Ionescu Michael
Published: February 2014

The rpfF gene from Xylella fastidiosa, encoding the synthase for diffusible signal factor (DSF), was expressed in ‘Freedom’ grape to reduce the pathogen's growth and mobility within the plant. Symptoms in such plants were restricted to near the point of inoculation and incidence of disease was two- to fivefold lower than in the parental line. Both the longitudinal and lateral movement of X. fastidiosa in the xylem was also much lower. DSF was detected in both leaves and xylem sap of RpfF-expressing plants using biological sensors, and both 2-Z-tetradecenoic acid, previously identified as a component of X. fastidiosa DSF, and cis-11-methyl-2-dodecenoic acid were detected in xylem sap using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. A higher proportion of X. fastidiosa cells adhered to xylem vessels of the RpfF-expressing line than parental ‘Freedom’ plants, reflecting a higher adhesiveness of the pathogen in the presence of DSF. Disease incidence in RpfF-expressing plants in field trials in which plants were either mechanically inoculated with X. fastidiosa or subjected to natural inoculation by sharpshooter vectors was two- to fourfold lower in than that of the parental line. The number of symptomatic leaves on infected shoots was reduced proportionally more than the incidence of infection, reflecting a decreased ability of X. fastidiosa to move within DSF-producing plants.
A Time for More Booms and Fewer Busts? Unraveling Cereal–Rust Interactions
Authors: Hulbert Scot , Pumphrey Michael
Published: February 2014

Recent advances in our understanding of the nature of resistance genes and rust fungus genomics are providing some insight into the basis of resistance and susceptibility to rust diseases in our cereal crops. Characterized rust resistance genes, for the most part, resemble other resistance genes that interact with effectors intracellularly, but some have unique features. Characterization of rust effectors is just beginning but genomic information and technical advances in rust functional genomics will accelerate their characterization. The ephemeral nature of resistance in past varieties has made the design of cultivars with durable resistance a major focus for geneticists and cereal breeders. This includes strategies for deploying race-specific resistance genes that prolong their effects and methods of predicting which will be difficult for the pathogen to defeat. Identification of resistance genes with race-nonspecific effects is another strategy where recent breakthroughs have been made. Routinely combining the numerous genes required for complex resistance, whether specific or nonspecific, in elite cultivars remains a primary constraint to realizing durable resistance in most programs.
Monitoring Depth of Anesthesia Utilizing a Combination of Electroencephalographic and Standard Measures
Authors: Schneider Gerhard , Jordan Denis , Schwarz Gerhard , Bischoff Petra , Kalkman Cornelis J. , Kuppe Hermann , Rundshagen Ingrid , Omerovic Adem , Kreuzer Matthias , Stockmanns Gudrun , Kochs Eberhard F.
Published: February 2014

Background:

For decades, monitoring depth of anesthesia was mainly based on unspecific effects of anesthetics, for example, blood pressure, heart rate, or drug concentrations. Today, electroencephalogram-based monitors promise a more specific assessment of the brain function. To date, most approaches were focused on a “head-to-head” comparison of either electroencephalogram- or standard parameter–based monitoring. In the current study, a multimodal indicator based on a combination of both electro encephalographic and standard anesthesia monitoring parameters is defined for quantification of “anesthesia depth.”

Methods:

Two hundred sixty-three adult patients from six European centers undergoing surgery with general anesthesia were assigned to 1 of 10 anesthetic combinations according to standards of the enrolling hospital. The anesthesia multimodal index of consciousness was developed using a data-driven approach, which maps standard monitoring and electroencephalographic parameters into an output indicator that separates different levels of anesthesia from awake to electroencephalographic burst suppression. Obtained results were compared with either a combination of standard monitoring parameters or the electroencephalogram-based bispectral index.

Results:

The anesthesia multimodal index of consciousness showed prediction probability (PK) of 0.96 (95% CI, 0.95 to 0.97) to separate different levels of anesthesia (wakefulness to burst suppression), whereas the bispectral index had significantly lower PK of 0.80 (0.76 to 0.81) at corrected threshold P value of less than 0.05. At the transition between consciousness and unconsciousness, anesthesia multimodal index of consciousness yielded a PK of 0.88 (0.85 to 0.91).

Conclusion:

A multimodal integration of both standard monitoring and electroencephalographic parameters may more precisely reflect the level of anesthesia compared with monitoring based on one of these aspects alone.
An experimental study of strong reciprocity in bacteria
Authors: Inglis R. Fredrik , West Stuart , Buckling Angus
Published: February 2014

Strong reciprocity, whereby cooperators punish non-cooperators, may help to explain the evolutionary success of cooperative behaviours. However, theory suggests that selection for strong reciprocity can depend upon tight genetic linkage between cooperation and punishment, to avoid the strategy being outcompeted by non-punishing cooperators. We tested this hypothesis using experimental populations of the bacterium
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
, which cooperate by producing iron-scavenging siderophores and, in this context, punish non-cooperators with toxins. Consistent with theory, we show that cooperative punishers can indeed invade cheats, but only when the traits are tightly linked. These results emphasize that punishment is only likely to be favoured when the punishment itself leads to a direct or indirect fitness benefit to the actor.
Salient eyes deter conspecific nest intruders in wild jackdaws (
Corvus monedula
)
Authors: Davidson Gabrielle L. , Clayton Nicola S. , Thornton Alex
Published: February 2014

Animals often respond fearfully when encountering eyes or eye-like shapes. Although gaze aversion has been documented in mammals when avoiding group-member conflict, the importance of eye coloration during interactions between conspecifics has yet to be examined in non-primate species. Jackdaws (
Corvus monedula
) have near-white irides, which are conspicuous against their dark feathers and visible when seen from outside the cavities where they nest. Because jackdaws compete for nest sites, their conspicuous eyes may act as a warning signal to indicate that a nest is occupied and deter intrusions by conspecifics. We tested whether jackdaws’ pale irides serve as a deterrent to prospecting conspecifics by comparing prospectors’ behaviour towards nest-boxes displaying images with bright eyes (BEs) only, a jackdaw face with natural BEs, or a jackdaw face with dark eyes. The jackdaw face with BEs was most effective in deterring birds from making contact with nest-boxes, whereas both BE conditions reduced the amount of time jackdaws spent in proximity to the image. We suggest BEs in jackdaws may function to prevent conspecific competitors from approaching occupied nest sites.
Social forces can impact the circadian clocks of cohabiting hamsters
Authors: Paul Matthew J. , Indic Premananda , Schwartz William J.
Published: February 2014

A number of field and laboratory studies have shown that the social environment influences daily rhythms in numerous species. However, underlying mechanisms, including the circadian system's role, are not known. Obstacles to this research have been the inability to track and objectively analyse rhythms of individual animals housed together. Here, we employed temperature dataloggers to track individual body temperature rhythms of pairs of cohabiting male Syrian hamsters (
Mesocricetus auratus
) in constant darkness and applied a continuous wavelet transform to determine the phase of rhythm onset before, during, and after cohabitation. Cohabitation altered the predicted trajectory of rhythm onsets in 34% of individuals, representing 58% of pairs, compared to 12% of hamsters single-housed as ‘virtual pair’ controls. Deviation from the predicted trajectory was by a change in circadian period (
τ
), which tended to be asymmetric—affecting one individual of the pair in nine of 11 affected pairs—with hints that dominance might play a role. These data implicate a change in the speed of the circadian clock as one mechanism whereby social factors can alter daily rhythms. Miniature dataloggers coupled with wavelet analyses should provide powerful tools for future studies investigating the principles and mechanisms mediating social influences on daily timing.
Multivariate immune defences and fitness in the wild: complex but ecologically important associations among plasma antibodies, health and survival
Authors: Nussey Daniel H. , Watt Kathryn A. , Clark Abigail , Pilkington Jill G. , Pemberton Josephine M. , Graham Andrea L. , McNeilly Tom N.
Published: February 2014

Despite our rapidly advancing mechanistic understanding of vertebrate immunity under controlled laboratory conditions, the links between immunity, infection and fitness under natural conditions remain poorly understood. Antibodies are central to acquired immune responses, and antibody levels circulating
in vivo
reflect a composite of constitutive and induced functional variants of diverse specificities (e.g. binding antigens from prevalent parasites, self tissues or novel non-self sources). Here, we measured plasma concentrations of 11 different antibody types in adult females from an unmanaged population of Soay sheep on St Kilda. Correlations among antibody measures were generally positive but weak, and eight of the measures independently predicted body mass, strongyle parasite egg count or survival over the subsequent winter. These independent and, in some cases, antagonistic relationships point to important multivariate immunological heterogeneities affecting organismal health and fitness in natural systems. Notably, we identified a strong positive association between anti-nematode immunoglobulin (Ig) G antibodies in summer and subsequent over-winter survival, providing rare evidence for a fitness benefit of helminth-specific immunity under natural conditions. Our results highlight both the evolutionary and ecological importance and the complex nature of the immune phenotype in the wild.
Within-population variability in a moth sex pheromone blend: genetic basis and behavioural consequences
Authors: Groot Astrid T. , Schöfl Gerhard , Inglis Ollie , Donnerhacke Susanne , Classen Alice , Schmalz Antje , Santangelo Richard G. , Emerson Jennifer , Gould Fred , Schal Coby , Heckel David G.
Published: February 2014

Evolutionary diversification of sexual communication systems in moths is perplexing because signal and response are under stabilizing selection in many species, and this is expected to constrain evolutionary change. In the mothHeliothis virescens, we consistently found high phenotypic variability in the female sex pheromone blend within each of four geographically distant populations. Here, we assess the heritability, genetic basis and behavioural consequences of this variation. Artificial selection with field-collected moths dramatically increased the relative amount of the saturated compound 16:Ald and decreased its unsaturated counterpart Z11–16:Ald, the major sex pheromone component (high line). In a cross between the high- and low-selected lines, one quantitative trait locus (QTL) explained 11–21% of the phenotypic variance in the 16:Ald/Z11–16:Ald ratio. Because changes in activity of desaturase enzymes could affect this ratio, we measured their expression levels in pheromone glands and mapped desaturase genes onto our linkage map. A delta-11-desaturase had lower expression in females producing less Z11–16:Ald; however, this gene mapped to a different chromosome than the QTL. A model in which the QTL is a trans-acting repressor of delta-11 desaturase expression explains many features of the data. Selection favouring heterozygotes which produce more unsaturated components could maintain a polymorphism at this locus.
Longer ice-free seasons increase the risk of nest depredation by polar bears for colonial breeding birds in the Canadian Arctic
Authors: Iverson Samuel A. , Gilchrist H. Grant , Smith Paul A. , Gaston Anthony J. , Forbes Mark R.
Published: February 2014

Northern polar regions have warmed more than other parts of the globe potentially amplifying the effects of climate change on biological communities. Ice-free seasons are becoming longer in many areas, which has reduced the time available to polar bears (Ursus maritimus) to hunt for seals and hampered bears’ ability to meet their energetic demands. In this study, we examined polar bears’ use of an ancillary prey resource, eggs of colonial nesting birds, in relation to diminishing sea ice coverage in a low latitude region of the Canadian Arctic. Long-term monitoring reveals that bear incursions onto common eider (Somateria mollissima) and thick-billed murre (Uria lomvia) nesting colonies have increased greater than sevenfold since the 1980s and that there is an inverse correlation between ice season length and bear presence. In surveys encompassing more than 1000 km of coastline during years of record low ice coverage (2010–2012), we encountered bears or bear sign on 34% of eider colonies and estimated greater egg loss as a consequence of depredation by bears than by more customary nest predators, such as foxes and gulls. Our findings demonstrate how changes in abiotic conditions caused by climate change have altered predator–prey dynamics and are leading to cascading ecological impacts in Arctic ecosystems.
‘Liver let die’: oxidative DNA damage and hepatotropic viruses
Authors: Higgs Martin R. , Chouteau Philippe , Lerat Hervé
Published: February 2014

Chronic infections by the hepatotropic viruses hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are major risk factors for the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). It is estimated that more than 700 000 individuals per year die from HCC, and around 80 % of HCC is attributable to HBV or HCV infection. Despite the clear clinical importance of virus-associated HCC, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain largely elusive. Oxidative stress, in particular DNA lesions associated with oxidative damage, play a major contributory role in carcinogenesis, and are strongly linked to the development of many cancers, including HCC. A large body of evidence demonstrates that both HBV and HCV induce hepatic oxidative stress, with increased oxidative DNA damage being observed both in infected individuals and in murine models of infection. Here, we review the impact of HBV and HCV on the incidence and repair of oxidative DNA damage. We begin by giving a brief overview of oxidative stress and the repair of DNA lesions induced by oxidative stress. We then review in detail the evidence surrounding the mechanisms by which both viruses stimulate oxidative stress, before focusing on how the viral proteins themselves may perturb the cellular response to oxidative DNA damage, impacting upon genome stability and thus hepatocarcinogenesis.
The Burden of Inappropriate Emergency Department Pediatric Visits: Why Italy Needs an Urgent Reform
Authors: Vedovetto Alessio , Soriani Nicola , Merlo Emanuela , Gregori Dario
Published: February 2014

Objective

To better understand the issue of inappropriate pediatric Emergency Department (ED) visits in Italy, including the impact of the last National Health System reform.

Study Design

A retrospective cohort study was conducted with five health care providers in the Veneto region (Italy) in a 2‐year period (2010–2011). ED visits were considered “inappropriate” by evaluating both nursing triage and resource utilization, as addressed by the Italian Ministry of Health in 2007. Factors associated with inappropriate ED visits were identified. The cost of each visit was calculated.

Principal Findings

In total, 134,358 ED visits with 455,650 performed procedures were recorded in the 2‐year period; of these, 76,680 (57.1 percent) were considered inappropriate ED visits. Patients likely to make inappropriate ED visits were younger, female, visiting the ED during night or holiday, when the primary care provider (PCP) is not available.

Conclusion

The National Health System reform aims to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and costs by opening PCP offices 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. This study highlights the need for a deep reorganization of the Italian Primary Care System not only providing a larger time availability but also treating the parents' lack of education on children's health.
Smurf2 regulates hematopoietic stem cell self‐renewal and aging
Authors: Ramkumar Charusheila , Kong Yahui , Trabucco Sally E. , Gerstein Rachel M. , Zhang Hong
Published: February 2014

The age‐dependent decline in the self‐renewal capacity of stem cells plays a critical role in aging, but the precise mechanisms underlying this decline are not well understood. By limiting proliferative capacity, senescence is thought to play an important role in age‐dependent decline of stem cell self‐renewal, although direct evidence supporting this hypothesis is largely lacking. We have previously identified the E3 ubiquitin ligase Smurf2 as a critical regulator of senescence. In this study, we found that mice deficient in Smurf2 had an expanded hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) compartment in bone marrow under normal homeostatic conditions, and this expansion was associated with enhanced proliferation and reduced quiescence of HSCs. Surprisingly, increased cycling and reduced quiescence of HSCs in Smurf2‐deficient mice did not lead to premature exhaustion of stem cells. Instead, HSCs in aged Smurf2‐deficient mice had a significantly better repopulating capacity than aged wild‐type HSCs, suggesting that decline in HSC function with age is Smurf2 dependent. Furthermore, Smurf2‐deficient HSCs exhibited elevated long‐term self‐renewal capacity and diminished exhaustion in serial transplantation. As we found that the expression of Smurf2 was increased with age and in response to regenerative stress during serial transplantation, our findings suggest that Smurf2 plays an important role in regulating HSC self‐renewal and aging.
Assessment of in situ adipose tissue inflammation by microdialysis
Authors: Langkilde Anne , Andersen Ove , Henriksen Jens H. , Langberg Henning , Petersen Janne , Eugen‐Olsen Jesper
Published: February 2014

Background

Inflammation, and specifically adipose tissue (AT) inflammation, is part of the pathophysiology of obesity and HIV‐associated lipodystrophy. Local AT protein assessment methods are limited, and AT inflammation studies have therefore primarily examined inflammatory gene expression. We therefore investigated the utility of microdialysis to study in situ AT interstitial inflammatory protein levels.

Material and Methods

Abdominal subcutaneous AT microdialysis was performed in six healthy men, six HIV‐infected men with lipodystrophy and six without lipodystrophy using the internal references 51Cr‐EDTA and 125I‐human serum albumin. We measured 41 inflammatory proteins in microdialysis samples by Luminex technology, as well as systemic levels in 14 subjects. Furthermore, in vitro studies of the internal reference technique for microdialysis recovery of inflammatory proteins were made.

Results

We detected in situ AT interstitial levels of 14 inflammatory proteins by microdialysis, while the 27 other inflammatory proteins assessed were only detected sporadically. Initial levels of IL‐6 and IL‐8 were undetectable. Insertion trauma affected IL‐1α, IL‐6, IL‐8, monocyte chemotactic factor (MCP)‐1, IP‐10, G‐CSF, growth‐related oncogene (GRO), macrophage‐derived chemokine (MDC) and macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP)‐1β levels, while fibroblast growth factor (FGF)‐2 was not affected. Systemic and AT interstitial levels were poorly correlated. The microdialysis recovery of smaller proteins was higher than for larger, and the internal references improved microdialysis by accounting for variation in perfusion across the membrane.

Conclusion

Interstitial inflammatory proteins can be sampled in situ using microdialysis. Use of internal references improves the microdialysis technique. However, insertion trauma hampers the use of microdialysis to study AT inflammatory levels, except for FGF‐2. Still, microdialysis gives unique insight to in situ AT interstitial concentrations.
Histone deacetylase inhibitor sodium butyrate promotes the osteogenic differentiation of rat adipose‐derived stem cells
Authors: Hu Xiaoqing , Fu Yutuo , Zhang Xin , Dai Linghui , Zhu Jingxian , Bi Zhenggang , Ao Yingfang , Zhou Chunyan
Published: February 2014

Adult stem cells hold great promise for use in tissue repair and regeneration. Recently, adipose tissue‐derived stem cells (ADSCs) were found to be an appealing alternative to bone marrow stem cells (BMSCs) for bone tissue engineering. The main benefit of ADSCs is that they can be easily and abundantly available from adipose tissue. However, our prior study discovered an important phenomenon that BMSCs have greater osteogenic potential than ADSCs in vitro and epigenetic regulation plays a critical role in runt‐related transcription factor 2 (Runx2) expression and thus osteogenesis. In this study, we aimed to improve the osteogenic potential of ADSCs by histone deacetylase inhibitor sodium butyrate (NaBu). We found that NaBu promoted rat ADSC osteogenic differentiation by altering the epigenetic modifications on the Runx2 promoter.
Pulmonary Arteriovenous Malformations Presenting as Platypnea‐Orthodeoxia in Graft‐Versus‐Host Disease
Authors: Anderson Mark , Wayangankar Siddharth , Selby George , Sivaram Chittur A.
Published: February 2014

This case highlights the utility of agitated saline studies during transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) for detection of pulmonary arteriovenous malformations (PAVM) as a viable alternative to contrast‐enhanced imaging studies. By carefully studying each pulmonary vein individually during saline contrast studies, TEE is able to demonstrate and localize PAVM. In addition, this report represents the first documentation of PAVM arising as a complication of graft‐versus‐host disease after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant.
Have you checked for charcoal? Assessment of soil condition using soil organic carbon
Authors: Vyšná V. , Dyer F. , Maher W. , Norris R.
Published: February 2014

Soil condition is commonly assessed by using soil organic carbon (SOC) as an indicator; however, a large proportion of the world's soils can contain charcoal, a biologically‐inert form of organic carbon. We investigated whether the presence of charcoal in soil could lead to an inaccurate assessment of soil condition when using SOC as an indicator. We sampled topsoil in a south‐east Australian catchment affected by severe fires in 2003. Samples (n = 100) were analysed for two SOC fractions: (i) total SOC (t‐SOC, loss on ignition), which included charcoal, and (ii) biologically‐active SOC (a‐SOC, persulphate‐oxidation), which did not contain charcoal. Using novel (boosted regression trees) and traditional (linear regression) modelling methods we compared the relative importance of abiotic (slope, aspect, elevation and soil texture) and biotic (land use and vegetation structure) factors as predictors of t‐SOC and a‐SOC concentration. A major difference between the two response variables was less relative importance of land use as a predictor when using t‐SOC as a response variable. Therefore, ignoring the presence of charcoal would have led to an under‐estimation of the effect of land‐use conversion on the biologically‐available SOC fraction. The presence of charcoal has important ramifications for routine assessments of soil condition given that (i) SOC is a commonly used indicator and charcoal and biologically‐active SOC differ in their effects on soil properties, (ii) fires historically occur on a large area of land, (iii) charcoal is a long‐lasting consequence of fires and (iv) charcoal can account for a large proportion of SOC and yet be unnoticed during sample preparation.
Clinical factors and self‐perceived oral health
Authors: Schützhold Svenja , Holtfreter Birte , Schiffner Ulrich , Hoffmann Thomas , Kocher Thomas , Micheelis Wolfgang
Published: February 2014

Self‐perceived oral health is affected not only by awareness of the clinical status but also by comparisons with people of a similar age. This study explored the relative contributions of clinical variables assessing caries, periodontal status, and prosthetic status to self‐perceived oral health within two age groups. Data of 891 adults (35–44 yr of age) and 760 older people (65–74 yr of age) from the Fourth German Oral Health Study (DMS IV, 2005) were evaluated. Self‐perceived oral health was obtained from questionnaires. Numbers of decayed, filled, and unreplaced teeth, mean attachment loss, bleeding on probing (BOP), the presence of a fixed denture, and the presence of a removable denture were assessed. Multinomial logistic regression models were developed for both age groups, separately, using stepwise methods. For adults, unreplaced teeth, filled teeth, decayed teeth, the presence of a removable denture, and mean attachment loss were added to the final model. For older people, the presence of a removable denture, unreplaced teeth, decayed teeth, mean attachment loss, filled teeth, and BOP were included in the final model. Awareness of the relative contributions of clinical variables to self‐perceived oral health is important for obtaining a clearer understanding of patients' subjective and objective self‐perceptions of oral health.
Temperature‐induced changes in lipid biomarkers and mycosporine‐like amino acids in the psychrophilic dinoflagellate Peridinium aciculiferum
Authors: Flaim Giovanna , Obertegger Ulrike , Anesi Andrea , Guella Graziano
Published: February 2014

Life at low temperature imposes many constraints linked to sustaining cellular functions. The cold‐adapted freshwater dinoflagellate Peridinium aciculiferum has overcome these barriers, often causing blooms in winter but forming resting cysts in spring. Little is known of the biochemical changes that accompany this temperature‐induced transformation from vegetative cells to resting cysts.

We investigated how the profiles of lipids and mycosporine‐like amino acids (MAAs) vary with temperature in vegetative cells and resting cysts of P. aciculiferum. The freshwater dinoflagellate was grown at four temperatures (2.7–7.7 °C), simulating the seasonal changes from winter to spring that also induce the transition from cells to cysts. Biochemical profiles were established by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry with the simultaneous detection of polar and non‐polar compounds. Data were analysed by non‐metric multidimensional scaling and ANOVA.

Over 100 species of galactolipids, betaine lipids, phospholipids and triacylglycerols (TAGs) were found, and many were strong biomarkers for specific temperatures and life stage. Variations in galactolipids, betaine lipids and phospholipids were unidirectional, as shown by an overall decrease in the unsaturation index with temperature. In contrast, changes in TAGs were specific to life stages: short‐chain TAGs (cumulative acyl length of 44–52 carbon atoms) decreased in cysts with respect to vegetative cells, while long‐chain TAGs (54–62) showed the opposite pattern. The concentration of MAAs decreased with increasing temperature. Final cell yield, a measure of population fitness, also decreased with increasing temperature, confirming the psychrophilic status of P. aciculiferum.

We report the first detailed biochemical profiles of vegetative cells and resting cysts for a dinoflagellate and show how small‐scale temperature variations alter the biochemical make‐up within and between life stages, thus contributing to our understanding of seasonal succession of species.
Effect of physical weathering on the carbon sequestration potential of biochars and hydrochars in soil
Authors: Naisse Christophe , Girardin Cyril , Lefevre Romain , Pozzi Alessandro , Maas Robert , Stark Arne , Rumpel Cornelia
Published: February 2014

Physical weathering can modify the stability of biochar after field exposure. The aim of our study was to determine the potential carbon sequestration of the two chars at different timescales. We investigated the modification in composition and stability resulting from physical weathering of two different chars produced (i) at low temperature (250 °C) by hydrothermal carbonization (HTC); and (ii) at high temperature (1200 °C) by gasification (GS) using contrasting feedstocks. Physical weathering of HTC and GS placed on a water permeable canvas was performed through successive wetting/drying and freezing/thawing cycles. Carbon loss was assessed by mass balance. Chemical stability of the remaining material was evaluated as resistance to acid dichromate oxidation, and biological stability was assessed during laboratory incubation. Moreover, we assessed modification in potential priming effects due to physical weathering. Physical weathering induced a carbon loss ranging between 10 and 40% of the total C mass depending on the feedstock. This C loss is most probably related to leaching of small particulate and dissolved compounds. GS produced from maize silage showed the highest C loss. The chemical stability of HTC and GS was unaffected by physical weathering. In contrast, physical weathering strongly increased the biological stability of HTC and GS char produced from maize silage. After physical weathering, the half‐life (t1/2) of GS was doubled but only slight increase was noted for those of HTC. During the first weeks of incubation, HTC addition to soil stimulated native soil organic matter (SOM) mineralization (positive priming effect), while the GS addition led to protection of the native SOM against biologic degradation (negative priming effect). Physical weathering led to reduction in these priming effects. Model extrapolations based on our data showed that decadal C sequestration potential of GS and HTC is globally equivalent when all losses including those due to priming and physical weathering were taken into account. However, at century scale only GS may have the potential to increase soil C storage.