The environment is increasingly being recognized for the role it might play in the global spread of clinically relevant antibiotic resistance. Environmental regulators monitor and control many of the ...pathways responsible for the release of resistance-driving chemicals into the environment (e.g., antimicrobials, metals, and biocides). Hence, environmental regulators should be contributing significantly to the development of global and national antimicrobial resistance (AMR) action plans. It is argued that the lack of environment-facing mitigation actions included in existing AMR action plans is likely a function of our poor fundamental understanding of many of the key issues. Here, we aim to present the problem with AMR in the environment through the lens of an environmental regulator, using the Environment Agency (England's regulator) as an example from which parallels can be drawn globally. The issues that are pertinent to environmental regulators are drawn out to answer: What are the drivers and pathways of AMR? How do these relate to the normal work, powers and duties of environmental regulators? What are the knowledge gaps that hinder the delivery of environmental protection from AMR? We offer several thought experiments for how different mitigation strategies might proceed. We conclude that: (1) AMR Action Plans do not tackle all the potentially relevant pathways and drivers of AMR in the environment; and (2) AMR Action Plans are deficient partly because the science to inform policy is lacking and this needs to be addressed.
Timely and accurate biodiversity analysis poses an ongoing challenge for the success of biomonitoring programs. Morphology-based identification of bioindicator taxa is time consuming, and rarely ...supports species-level resolution especially for immature life stages. Much work has been done in the past decade to develop alternative approaches for biodiversity analysis using DNA sequence-based approaches such as molecular phylogenetics and DNA barcoding. On-going assembly of DNA barcode reference libraries will provide the basis for a DNA-based identification system. The use of recently introduced next-generation sequencing (NGS) approaches in biodiversity science has the potential to further extend the application of DNA information for routine biomonitoring applications to an unprecedented scale. Here we demonstrate the feasibility of using 454 massively parallel pyrosequencing for species-level analysis of freshwater benthic macroinvertebrate taxa commonly used for biomonitoring. We designed our experiments in order to directly compare morphology-based, Sanger sequencing DNA barcoding, and next-generation environmental barcoding approaches. Our results show the ability of 454 pyrosequencing of mini-barcodes to accurately identify all species with more than 1% abundance in the pooled mixture. Although the approach failed to identify 6 rare species in the mixture, the presence of sequences from 9 species that were not represented by individuals in the mixture provides evidence that DNA based analysis may yet provide a valuable approach in finding rare species in bulk environmental samples. We further demonstrate the application of the environmental barcoding approach by comparing benthic macroinvertebrates from an urban region to those obtained from a conservation area. Although considerable effort will be required to robustly optimize NGS tools to identify species from bulk environmental samples, our results indicate the potential of an environmental barcoding approach for biomonitoring programs.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Antibiotic resistance is a global health crisis linked to increased, and often unrestricted, antibiotic use in humans and animals. As one of the world's largest producers and consumers of ...antibiotics, China is witness to some of the most acute symptoms of this crisis. Antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are widely distributed in surface water, sewage treatment plant effluent, soils and animal wastes. The emergence and increased prevalence of ARGs in the clinic/hospitals, especially carbapenem-resistant gram negative bacteria, has raised the concern of public health officials. It is important to understand the current state of antibiotic use in China and its relationship to ARG prevalence and diversity in the environment. Here we review these relationships and their relevance to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) trends witnessed in the clinical setting. This review highlights the issues of enrichment and dissemination of ARGs in the environment, and also future needs in mitigating the spread of antibiotic resistance in the environment, particularly under the ‘planetary health’ perspective, i.e., the systems that sustain or threaten human health.
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•Antibiotics and ARGs are widely distributed in environment media in China.•Antibiotic resistance varies geographically in China.•Strategies to mitigate the spread of antibiotic resistance are suggested.
The hippocampus frequently replays memories of past experiences during sharp-wave ripple (SWR) events. These events can represent spatial trajectories extending from the animal’s current location to ...distant locations, suggesting a role in the evaluation of upcoming choices. While SWRs have been linked to learning and memory, the specific role of awake replay remains unclear. Here we show that there is greater coordinated neural activity during SWRs preceding correct, as compared to incorrect, trials in a spatial alternation task. As a result, the proportion of cell pairs coactive during SWRs was predictive of subsequent correct or incorrect responses on a trial-by-trial basis. This effect was seen specifically during early learning, when the hippocampus is essential for task performance. SWR activity preceding correct trials represented multiple trajectories that included both correct and incorrect options. These results suggest that reactivation during awake SWRs contributes to the evaluation of possible choices during memory-guided decision making.
► Greater SWR reactivation of past experience precedes correct decisions ► Increased reactivation is specifically seen during learning ► Possible future paths are reactivated most strongly ► Hippocampal reactivation is related to memory-guided decision making
How does the brain use past experience to make decisions? Singer et al. report that, during learning, stronger hippocampal replay predicts subsequent correct decisions. Their findings provide a link between replay and an internal exploration of possible options during decision making.
Air quality monitors using low-cost optical PM2.5 sensors can track the dispersion of wildfire smoke; but quantitative hazard assessment requires a smoke-specific adjustment factor (AF). This study ...determined AFs for three professional-grade devices and four monitors with low-cost sensors based on measurements inside a well-ventilated lab impacted by the 2018 Camp Fire in California (USA). Using the Thermo TEOM-FDMS as reference, AFs of professional monitors were 0.85 for Grimm mini wide-range aerosol spectrometer, 0.25 for TSI DustTrak, and 0.53 for Thermo pDR1500; AFs for low-cost monitors were 0.59 for AirVisual Pro, 0.48 for PurpleAir Indoor, 0.46 for Air Quality Egg, and 0.60 for eLichens Indoor Air Quality Pro Station. We also compared public data from 53 PurpleAir PA-II monitors to 12 nearby regulatory monitoring stations impacted by Camp Fire smoke and devices near stations impacted by the Carr and Mendocino Complex Fires in California and the Pole Creek Fire in Utah. Camp Fire AFs varied by day and location, with median (interquartile) of 0.48 (0.44–0.53). Adjusted PA-II 4-h average data were generally within ±20% of PM2.5 reported by the monitoring stations. Adjustment improved the accuracy of Air Quality Index (AQI) hazard level reporting, e.g., from 14% to 84% correct in Sacramento during the Camp Fire.
•This ESMO Clinical Practice Guideline provides key recommendations and algorithms for managing metastatic breast cancer.•It covers diagnosis, staging, risk assessment, treatment, disease monitoring, ...palliative care and the patient perspective.•ESMO-MCBS and ESCAT scores are given to describe the levels of evidence for treatment choices.•The authors comprise an international expert group, with recommendations based on available evidence and expert opinion.•In clinical practice, all recommendations provided need to be discussed with patients in a shared decision-making approach.
The occurrence of nineteen pharmaceutically active compounds and personal care products was followed monthly for 12 months after various stages of treatment in an advanced wastewater reclamation ...plant in Gwinnett County, GA, U.S.A. Twenty-four hour composite samples were collected after primary clarification, activated sludge biological treatment, membrane filtration, granular media filtration, granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption, and ozonation in the wastewater reclamation plant. Compounds were identified and quantified using high performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC–MS) after solid-phase extraction. Standard addition methods were employed to compensate for matrix effects. Sixteen of the targeted compounds were detected in the primary effluent; sulfadimethoxine, doxycycline, and iopromide were not found. Caffeine and acetaminophen were found at the highest concentrations (∼10
5 ng/L), followed by ibuprofen (∼10
4 ng/L), sulfamethoxazole and DEET (∼10
3 ng/L). Most of the other compounds were found at concentrations on the order of hundreds of ng/L. After activated sludge treatment and membrane filtration, the concentrations of caffeine, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, DEET, tetracycline, and 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2) had decreased by more than 90%. Erythromycin and carbamazepine, which were resistant to biological treatment, were eliminated by 74 and 88%, on average, by GAC. Primidone, DEET, and caffeine were not amenable to adsorption by GAC. Ozonation oxidized most of the remaining compounds by >60%, except for primidone and DEET. Of the initial 16 compounds identified in the primary effluent, only sulfamethoxazole, primidone, caffeine and DEET were frequently detected in the final effluent, but at concentrations on the order of 10–100 ng/L. Removal of the different agents by the various treatment processes was related to the physical–chemical properties of the compounds.
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► The occurrence of 19 PPCPs was followed monthly for 12 months. ► Standard addition methods were employed to compensate for matrix effects. ► Sixteen of the targeted compounds were detected in the primary effluent. ► Activated sludge treatment, GAC and ozonation were effect to remove some PPCPs.
Turbo Equalization: An Overview Tüchler, Michael; Singer, A C
IEEE transactions on information theory,
2011-Feb., 2011-02-00, 20110201, Letnik:
57, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Turbo codes and the iterative algorithm for decoding them sparked a new era in the theory and practice of error control codes. Turbo equalization followed as a natural extension to this development, ...as an iterative technique for detection and decoding of data that has been both protected with forward error correction and transmitted over a channel with intersymbol interference (ISI). In this paper, we review the turbo equalization approach to coded data transmission over ISI channels, with an emphasis on the basic ideas, some of the practical details, and many of the research directions that have arisen from this offshoot, introduced by Douillard, of the original turbo decoding algorithm. The subsequent relaxation of the maximum a posteriori (MAP) equalization algorithm to include linear and other simpler receivers sparked a decade and a half of research into iterative algorithms, spanning research problems ranging from trellis coded modulation to underwater acoustic communications.
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