Antihelmintic treatment alters the parasite community in a wild mouse host

Individuals are often co-infected with several parasite species, yet the consequences of drug treatment on the dynamics of parasite communities in wild populations have rarely been measured. Here, we experimentally reduced nematode infection in a wild mouse population and measured the effects on other non-target parasites. A single oral dose of the anthelmintic, ivermectin, significantly reduced nematode infection, but resulted in a reciprocal increase in other gastrointestinal parasites, specifically coccidial protozoans and cestodes. These results highlight the possibility that drug therapy may have unintended consequences for non-target parasites and that host–parasite dynamics cannot always be fully understood in the framework of single host–parasite interactions

Temporomandibular joint damage in juvenile idiopathic arthritis: Diagnostic validity of diagnostic criteria for temporomandibular disorders

Diagnostic criteria reported in the expanded taxonomy for temporomandibular disorders include a standardised clinical examination and diagnosis (DC/TMD 3.B) of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) damage in patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA); however, their validity is unknown

A randomised feasibility study to investigate the impact of education and the addition of prompts on the sedentary behaviour of office workers

Abstract Background Office workers have been identified as being at risk of accumulating high amounts of sedentary time in prolonged events during work hours, which has been associated with increased risk of a number of long-term health conditions. There is some evidence that providing advice to stand at regular intervals during the working day, and using computer-based prompts, can reduce sedentary behaviour in office workers. However, evidence of effectiveness, feasibility and acceptability for these types of intervention is currently limited. Methods A 2-arm, parallel group, cluster-randomised feasibility trial to assess the acceptability of prompts to break up sedentary behaviour was conducted with office workers in a commercial bank (n = 21). Participants were assigned to an education only group (EG) or prompt and education group (PG). Both groups received education on reducing and breaking up sitting at work, and the PG also received hourly prompts, delivered by Microsoft Outlook over 10 weeks, reminding them to stand. Objective measurements of sedentary behaviour were made using activPAL monitors worn at three time points: baseline, in the last 2 weeks of the intervention period and 12 weeks after the intervention. Focus groups were conducted to explore the acceptability of the intervention and the motivations and barriers to changing sedentary behaviour. Results Randomly generated, customised prompts, delivered by Microsoft Outlook, with messages about breaking up sitting, proved to be a feasible and acceptable way of delivering prompts to office workers. Participants in both groups reduced their sitting, but changes were not maintained at follow-up. The education session seemed to increase outcome expectations of the benefits of changing sedentary behaviour and promote self-regulation of behaviour in some participants. However, low self-efficacy and a desire to conform to cultural norms were barriers to changing behaviour. Conclusions Prompts delivered by Microsoft Outlook were a feasible, low-cost way of prompting office workers to break up their sedentary behaviour, although further research is needed to determine whether this has an additional impact on sedentary behaviour, to education alone. The role of cultural norms, and promoting self-efficacy, should be considered in the design of future interventions. Trial registration This study was registered retrospectively as a clinical trial on ClinicalTrials.gov (ID no. NCT02609282 ) on 23 March 2015

Appointing Women to Boards: Is There a Cultural Bias?

Companies that are serious about corporate governance and business ethics are turning their attention to gender diversity at the most senior levels of business (Institute of Business Ethics, Business Ethics Briefing 21:1, 2011). Board gender diversity has been the subject of several studies carried out by international organizations such as Catalyst (Increasing gender diversity on boards: Current index of formal approaches, 2012), the World Economic Forum (Hausmann et al., The global gender gap report, 2010), and the European Board Diversity Analysis (Is it getting easier to find women on European boards? 2010). They all lead to reports confirming the overall relatively low proportion of women on boards and the slow pace at which more women are being appointed. Furthermore, the proportion of women on corporate boards varies much across countries. Based on institutional theory, this study hypothesizes and tests whether this variation can be attributed to differences in cultural settings across countries. Our analysis of the representation of women on boards for 32 countries during 2010 reveals that two cultural characteristics are indeed associated with the observed differences. We use the cultural dimensions proposed by Hofstede (Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values, 1980) to measure this construct. Results show that countries which have the greatest tolerance for inequalities in the distribution of power and those that tend to value the role of men generally exhibit lower representations of women on boards

GARFIELD-AF model for prediction of stroke and major bleeding in atrial fibrillation: a Danish nationwide validation study.

OBJECTIVES: To externally validate the accuracy of the Global Anticoagulant Registry in the FIELD-Atrial Fibrillation (GARFIELD-AF) model against existing risk scores for stroke and major bleeding risk in patients with non-valvular AF in a population-based cohort. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: Danish nationwide registries. PARTICIPANTS: 90 693 patients with newly diagnosed non-valvular AF were included between 2010 and 2016, with follow-up censored at 1 year. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: External validation was performed using discrimination and calibration plots. C-statistics were compared with CHA2DS2VASc score for ischaemic stroke/systemic embolism (SE) and HAS-BLED score for major bleeding/haemorrhagic stroke outcomes. RESULTS: Of the 90 693 included, 51 180 patients received oral anticoagulants (OAC). Overall median age (Q1, Q3) were 75 (66-83) years and 48 486 (53.5%) were male. At 1-year follow-up, a total of 2094 (2.3%) strokes/SE, 2642 (2.9%) major bleedings and 10 915 (12.0%) deaths occurred. The GARFIELD-AF model was well calibrated with the predicted risk for stroke/SE and major bleeding. The discriminatory value of GARFIELD-AF risk model was superior to CHA2DS2VASc for predicting stroke in the overall cohort (C-index: 0.71, 95% CI: 0.70 to 0.72 vs C-index: 0.67, 95% CI: 0.66 to 0.68, p<0.001) as well as in low-risk patients (C-index: 0.64, 95% CI: 0.59 to 0.69 vs C-index: 0.57, 95% CI: 0.53 to 0.61, p=0.007). The GARFIELD-AF model was comparable to HAS-BLED in predicting the risk of major bleeding in patients on OAC therapy (C-index: 0.64, 95% CI: 0.63 to 0.66 vs C-index: 0.64, 95% CI: 0.63 to 0.65, p=0.60). CONCLUSION: In a nationwide Danish cohort with non-valvular AF, the GARFIELD-AF model adequately predicted the risk of ischaemic stroke/SE and major bleeding. Our external validation confirms that the GARFIELD-AF model was superior to CHA2DS2VASc in predicting stroke/SE and comparable with HAS-BLED for predicting major bleeding

Maternal psychological distress in primary care and association with child behavioural outcomes at age three

Observational studies indicate children whose mothers have poor mental health are at increased risk of socio-emotional behavioural difficulties, but it is unknown whether these outcomes vary by the mothers’ mental health recognition and treatment status. To examine this question, we analysed linked longitudinal primary care and research data from 1078 women enrolled in the Born in Bradford cohort. A latent class analysis of treatment status and self-reported distress broadly categorised women as (a) not having a common mental disorder (CMD) that persisted through pregnancy and the first 2 years after delivery (N = 756, 70.1 %), (b) treated for CMD (N = 67, 6.2 %), or (c) untreated (N = 255, 23.7 %). Compared to children of mothers without CMD, 3-year-old children with mothers classified as having untreated CMD had higher standardised factor scores on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (d = 0.32), as did children with mothers classified as having treated CMD (d = 0.27). Results were only slightly attenuated in adjusted analyses. Children of mothers with CMD may be at risk for socio-emotional and behavioural difficulties. The development of effective treatments for CMD needs to be balanced by greater attempts to identify and treat women. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00787-015-0777-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Search for direct pair production of the top squark in all-hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for direct pair production of the scalar partner to the top quark using an integrated luminosity of 20.1fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at √s = 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC are reported. The top squark is assumed to decay via t˜→tχ˜01 or t˜→ bχ˜±1 →bW(∗)χ˜01 , where χ˜01 (χ˜±1 ) denotes the lightest neutralino (chargino) in supersymmetric models. The search targets a fully-hadronic final state in events with four or more jets and large missing transverse momentum. No significant excess over the Standard Model background prediction is observed, and exclusion limits are reported in terms of the top squark and neutralino masses and as a function of the branching fraction of t˜ → tχ˜01 . For a branching fraction of 100%, top squark masses in the range 270–645 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 30 GeV. For a branching fraction of 50% to either t˜ → tχ˜01 or t˜ → bχ˜±1 , and assuming the χ˜±1 mass to be twice the χ˜01 mass, top squark masses in the range 250–550 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 60 GeV

Evaluation of antimicrobial effectiveness of pimaricin-loaded thermosensitive nanohydrogels in grape juice

Pimaricin-loaded poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) nanohydrogels with and without acrylic acid, were evaluated as food-spoilage inhibitors in a model system and a real food product: grape juice. Pimaricin was proposed as a non-allergenic alternative to sulphites for protecting juices against recontamination. However, pimaricin may degrade under conditions and treatments (heating, acidification, lighting) commonly applied in producing fresh juices. Nanohydrogel encapsulation may be a feasible procedure to avoid pimaricin degradation, improving its antimicrobial activity. Pimaricin-free nanohydrogels did not affect the growth of the indicator yeast either in the food model system or in grape juice. Conversely, pimaricin-loaded nanohydrogels effectively inhibited the growth of the indicator yeast. In some cases, the inhibition was extended even further than using free pimaricin. For instance, in the food model system, pimaricin-loaded nanohydrogels with acrylic acid (NPPNIPA-20AA(5)) prevented the yeast growth for more than 81 h while free pimaricin was only effective for 12 h. Despite pimaricin-loaded nanohydrogels without acrylic acid (NPPNIPA(5)) were able to reduce maximum yeast growth, as in all treatments with pimaricin, the extent of the inhibitory effect was not significantly (p>0.05) different to that achieved with free pimaricin. In grape juice, both free pimaricin and NPPNIPA-20AA(5) treatment completely inhibited the growth of the indicator yeast until the end of the bioassay. However, the latter provided similar inhibition levels using a smaller amount of pimaricin due to PNIPA-20AA(5) protection and its controlled release from the nanohydrogel. Therefore, nanohydrogel encapsulation may help to optimise antifungal treatments and decrease the incidence of food allergies.Funded by grant (MAT 2006-11662-CO3-CO2-C01/MAT 2010-21509-C03-01/EUI 2008-00115) from the “Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia” (Spain). Grant (SFRH/BPD/87910/2012) from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal). Marie Curie COFUND Postdoctoral Research Fellow