PET brain imaging in HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND) in the era of combination antiretroviral therapy

Effective combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) has lead to a significant reduction in the prevalence and incidence of central nervous system (CNS) HIV-associated brain disease, particularly CNS opportunistic infections and HIV encephalitis. Despite this, cognitive deficits in people living with HIV, also known as HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND) have become more prevalent in recent years. The pathogenesis of HAND is likely to be multifactorial, however recent evidence suggests that brain microglial activation is the most likely pathogenic mechanism. Recent developments in positron emission tomography (PET) brain neuroimaging using novel brain radioligands targeting a variety of physiological changes in the brains of HIV-positive individuals have improved our understanding of the mechanisms associated with the development of HAND. This review will highlight recent PET brain neuroimaging studies in the cART era, focusing on physiological and neurochemical changes associated with HAND in people living with HIV

Higher D or Li: Probes of Physics beyond the Standard Model

Standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis at the baryon density determined by the microwave anisotropy spectrum predicts an excess of \li7 compared to observations by a factor of 4-5. In contrast, BBN predictions for D/H are somewhat below (but within ~2 \sigma) of the weighted mean of observationally determined values from quasar absorption systems. Solutions to the \li7 problem which alter the nuclear processes during or subsequent to BBN, often lead to a significant increase in the deuterium abundance consistent with the highest values of D/H seen in absorption systems. Furthermore, the observed D/H abundances show considerable dispersion. Here, we argue that those systems with D/H \simeq 4 \times 10^{-5} may be more representative of the primordial abundance and as a consequence, those systems with lower D/H would necessarily have been subject to local processes of deuterium destruction. This can be accounted for by models of cosmic chemical evolution able to destroy in situ Deuterium due to the fragility of this isotope.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figure

Voices from the Front Line: Community leaders, government managers and NGO field staff talk about what\u27s wrong in Aboriginal development and what they are doing to fix it

https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/nulungu_books/1000/thumbnail.jp

Multimodel Ensembles of Wheat Growth: More Models are Better than One

Crop models of crop growth are increasingly used to quantify the impact of global changes due to climate or crop management. Therefore, accuracy of simulation results is a major concern. Studies with ensembles of crop models can give valuable information about model accuracy and uncertainty, but such studies are difficult to organize and have only recently begun. We report on the largest ensemble study to date, of 27 wheat models tested in four contrasting locations for their accuracy in simulating multiple crop growth and yield variables. The relative error averaged over models was 24-38% for the different end-of-season variables including grain yield (GY) and grain protein concentration (GPC). There was little relation between error of a model for GY or GPC and error for in-season variables. Thus, most models did not arrive at accurate simulations of GY and GPC by accurately simulating preceding growth dynamics. Ensemble simulations, taking either the mean (e-mean) or median (e-median) of simulated values, gave better estimates than any individual model when all variables were considered. Compared to individual models, e-median ranked first in simulating measured GY and third in GPC. The error of e-mean and e-median declined with an increasing number of ensemble members, with little decrease beyond 10 models. We conclude that multimodel ensembles can be used to create new estimators with improved accuracy and consistency in simulating growth dynamics. We argue that these results are applicable to other crop species, and hypothesize that they apply more generally to ecological system models

LGBTQ2S+ Youth Perspectives on Mental Healthcare Provider Bias, Standards of Care, and Accountability

This study explores the experiences of LGBTQ2S+ youth while accessing mental health and substance use care services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a series of facilitated virtual meetings, 33 LGBTQ2S+ youth from across Ontario participated in collaborative activities to identify barriers they have experienced when accessing mental health services, as well as potential solutions to these barriers. Discussions were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. The study revealed that LGBTQ2S+ youth disproportionately experience bias, discrimination, and heteronormative assumptions when accessing mental health services, resulting in negative care experiences. Youth also reported insufficient availability of quality care, little continuity in care, and a lack of educated providers capable of effectively addressing the needs of the community. Potential solutions proposed by youth include training resources for providers, LGBTQ2S+ specific care centers, better continuity of care, and assessments to ensure care providers are culturally competent. These results show the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the disparities LGBTQ2S+ youth experience when accessing mental health services and highlight the urgent need to implement policies and programs that will advance the standards of care for LGBTQ2S+ youth

Global respiratory syncytial virus-associated mortality in young children (RSV GOLD): a retrospective case series

Background Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection is an important cause of pneumonia mortality in young children. However, clinical data for fatal RSV infection are scarce. We aimed to identify clinical and socioeconomic characteristics of children aged younger than 5 years with RSV-related mortality using individual patient data. Methods In this retrospective case series, we developed an online questionnaire to obtain individual patient data for clinical and socioeconomic characteristics of children aged younger than 5 years who died with community-acquired RSV infection between Jan 1, 1995, and Oct 31, 2015, through leading research groups for child pneumonia identified through a comprehensive literature search and existing research networks. For the literature search, we searched PubMed for articles published up to Feb 3, 2015, using the key terms “RSV”, “respiratory syncytial virus”, or “respiratory syncytial viral” combined with “mortality”, “fatality”, “death”, “died”, “deaths”, or “CFR” for articles published in English. We invited researchers and clinicians identified to participate between Nov 1, 2014, and Oct 31, 2015. We calculated descriptive statistics for all variables. Findings We studied 358 children with RSV-related in-hospital death from 23 countries across the world, with data contributed from 31 research groups. 117 (33%) children were from low-income or lower middle-income countries, 77 (22%) were from upper middle-income countries, and 164 (46%) were from high-income countries. 190 (53%) were male. Data for comorbidities were missing for some children in low-income and middle-income countries. Available data showed that comorbidities were present in at least 33 (28%) children from low-income or lower middle-income countries, 36 (47%) from upper middle-income countries, and 114 (70%) from high-income countries. Median age for RSV-related deaths was 5·0 months (IQR 2·3–11·0) in low-income or lower middle-income countries, 4·0 years (2·0–10·0) in upper middle-income countries, and 7·0 years (3·6–16·8) in high-income countries. Interpretation This study is the first large case series of children who died with community-acquired RSV infection. A substantial proportion of children with RSV-related death had comorbidities. Our results show that perinatal immunisation strategies for children aged younger than 6 months could have a substantial impact on RSV-related child mortality in low-income and middle-income countries

Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set

We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity. We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2, -1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012

Evidence of egg laying grounds for critically endangered flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius) off Orkney, UK

Funding information: Surveys were supported by a grant from WWF Netherlands. The writing of this paper was funded via the SeaMonitor project; supported by the European Union’s INTERREG VA Programme (Environment Theme) and managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) (Grant IVA5060).Essential fish habitats (EFHs) are critical for fish life-history events, including spawning, breeding, feeding or growth. Here we provide evidence of EFH for the Critically Endangered flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius) in the waters around the Orkney Isles, Scotland based on citizen-science observation data. The habitats of potential egg laying sites were parametrised as >20m depth, with boulders or exposed bedrock, in moderate current flow (0.3 - 2.8 knots) with low sedimentation. This information provides a significant contribution to our understanding of EFH for flapper skate. Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Molecular mechanisms of cell death:recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death 2018

Over the past decade, the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death (NCCD) has formulated guidelines for the definition and interpretation of cell death from morphological, biochemical, and functional perspectives. Since the field continues to expand and novel mechanisms that orchestrate multiple cell death pathways are unveiled, we propose an updated classification of cell death subroutines focusing on mechanistic and essential (as opposed to correlative and dispensable) aspects of the process. As we provide molecularly oriented definitions of terms including intrinsic apoptosis, extrinsic apoptosis, mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT)-driven necrosis, necroptosis, ferroptosis, pyroptosis, parthanatos, entotic cell death, NETotic cell death, lysosome-dependent cell death, autophagy-dependent cell death, immunogenic cell death, cellular senescence, and mitotic catastrophe, we discuss the utility of neologisms that refer to highly specialized instances of these processes. The mission of the NCCD is to provide a widely accepted nomenclature on cell death in support of the continued development of the field.</p