Land-use change is predicted to act as a driver of zoonotic disease emergence through human exposure to novel microbial diversity, but evidence for the effects of environmental change on microbial ...communities in vertebrates is lacking. We sample wild birds at 99 wildlife-livestock-human interfaces across Nairobi, Kenya, and use whole genome sequencing to characterise bacterial genes known to be carried on mobile genetic elements (MGEs) within avian-borne Escherichia coli (n = 241). By modelling the diversity of bacterial genes encoding virulence and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) against ecological and anthropogenic forms of urban environmental change, we demonstrate that communities of avian-borne bacterial genes are shaped by the assemblage of co-existing avian, livestock and human communities, and the habitat within which they exist. In showing that non-random processes structure bacterial genetic communities in urban wildlife, these findings suggest that it should be possible to forecast the effects of urban land-use change on microbial diversity.
Context: There has been a resurgence of vitamin D deficiency rickets throughout the developed world, with infants and adolescents being primarily affected. Adolescence is a crucial period for muscle ...and bone mineral accumulation.
Objective: The aim was to determine the effect of vitamin D supplementation on the adolescent musculoskeletal system.
Design and Setting: We conducted a community-based, double-blind, randomized controlled trial in a secondary school.
Participants: Postmenarchal 12- to 14-yr-old females participated in the trial. Ninety-nine were screened, 73 were included in randomized controlled trial, and 69 completed the trial. There were no adverse events.
Intervention: Four doses of 150,000 IU vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) were given over 1 yr.
Main Outcome Measures: Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, peripheral quantitative computed tomography, and jumping mechanography were used.
Results: At follow-up, 25-hydroxyvitamin D 25(OH)D status was 56.0 ± 8.9 nmol/liter in the intervention group and 15.8 ± 6.6 nmol/liter in controls. There were no effects of supplementation on bone; however, for muscle function, efficiency of movement improved in the vitamin D-treated group. There was an interaction between baseline 25(OH)D concentration and response to vitamin D supplementation for muscle jump velocity.
Conclusions: Despite improvements in 25(OH)D status, treatment with vitamin D2 was not shown to increase mineral accretion, bone geometry or strength, muscle force, or power. There were greater increases in jump velocity in girls with the lowest baseline 25(OH)D concentrations. Lack of effect of intervention after the period of peak mineral and muscle mass accretion suggests that earlier action is required.
Vitamin D supplementation did not increase bone mineral density or change bone geometry in post-menarchal girls, but there was an effect on muscle function.
•Studies examining DTI findings and cognition following TBI were meta-analysed.•Better cognitive functioning was related to DTI findings from many brain regions.•Memory and attention were most ...strongly associated with DTI findings.
Cognitive impairments are common following a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and frequently result from white matter (WM) damage. This damage can be quantified using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which measures the directionality (fractional anisotropy: FA) and amount (mean diffusivity/apparent diffusion coefficient: MD/ADC) of water diffusion in WM, with high FA and low MD/ADC thought to indicate greater WM integrity. However, the relationship between DTI and cognitive outcomes is currently unclear. The data from 20 studies that examined the relationship between WM integrity (measured using DTI) and cognition (categorised into seven domains) following mild-severe adult TBI were meta-analysed. Overall, high FA and low MD/ADC in most brain regions was associated with better cognitive performance, with memory and attention most strongly related to DTI findings. Specifically, memory and/or attention were very strongly related to DTI findings in the corpus callosum, fornix, internal capsule, arcuate and uncinate fasciculi. However, most findings were based on single studies and therefore await replication. Larger-scale, longitudinal studies are now needed to determine the predictive utility of DTI.
Climate field reconstructions (CFRs) of the global annual surface air temperature (SAT) field and associated global area‐weighted mean annual temperature (GMAT) are derived in a collection of ...pseudoproxy experiments for the past millennium. Pseudoproxies are modeled from temperature (T), precipitation (P), T+P, and VS‐Lite (VSL), a nonlinear and multivariate proxy system model for tree ring widths. Spatial patterns of reconstruction skill and spectral bias for the T+P and VSL‐derived CFRs are similar to those previously shown using temperature‐only pseudoproxies but demonstrate overall degraded skill and spectral bias for SAT reconstruction. Analysis of GMAT spectra nevertheless suggests that the true GMAT frequency spectrum is resolved by those pseudoproxies (T, T+P, and VSL) that contain some temperature information. The results suggest that mixed temperature and moisture‐responding paleoclimate data may produce actual GMAT reconstructions with skill, error, and spectral characteristics like those expected from univariate and linear temperature responders, but spatially resolved CFR results should be analyzed cautiously.
Key Points
Uncertainties may be larger than previously estimated from PPEsReconstructed GMAT based on mixed responders is relatively spectrally unbiasedCFRs based on mixed responders should be interpreted with caution
The emergent patterns of collective motion are thought to arise from application of individual-level rules that govern how individuals adjust their velocity as a function of the relative position and ...behaviours of their neighbours. Empirical studies have sought to determine such rules of interaction applied by 'average' individuals by aggregating data from multiple individuals across multiple trajectory sets. In reality, some individuals within a group may interact differently from others, and such individual differences can have an effect on overall group movement. However, comparisons of rules of interaction used by individuals in different contexts have been largely qualitative. Here we introduce a set of randomization methods designed to determine statistical differences in the rules of interaction between individuals. We apply these methods to a case study of leaders and followers in pairs of freely exploring eastern mosquitofish (
). We find that each of the randomization methods is reliable in terms of: repeatability of
-values, consistency in identification of significant differences and similarity between distributions of randomization-based test statistics. We observe convergence of the distributions of randomization-based test statistics across repeat calculations, and resolution of any ambiguities regarding significant differences as the number of randomization iterations increases.
The mammalian spinal cord functions as a community of cell types for sensory processing, autonomic control, and movement. While animal models have advanced our understanding of spinal cellular ...diversity, characterizing human biology directly is important to uncover specialized features of basic function and human pathology. Here, we present a cellular taxonomy of the adult human spinal cord using single-nucleus RNA sequencing with spatial transcriptomics and antibody validation. We identified 29 glial clusters and 35 neuronal clusters, organized principally by anatomical location. To demonstrate the relevance of this resource to human disease, we analyzed spinal motoneurons, which degenerate in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other diseases. We found that compared with other spinal neurons, human motoneurons are defined by genes related to cell size, cytoskeletal structure, and ALS, suggesting a specialized molecular repertoire underlying their selective vulnerability. We include a web resource to facilitate further investigations into human spinal cord biology.
Display omitted
•Single-nucleus RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics of adult human spinal cord•Glial classes include proliferative microglia and white and gray matter astrocytes•Dorsal neuron types are more discrete and ventral neuron groups are more overlapping•The human motoneuron transcriptional profile is enriched for genes related to ALS
Yadav, Matson, et al. use single-nucleus RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, and immunohistochemistry to profile the cell types of the adult human spinal cord, identifying 64 glial and neuronal populations. This resource reveals how the unique molecular environments of specific cell types could contribute to chronic pain or neurodegeneration.
Spatiotemporal predictions of bycatch (i.e., catch of nontargeted species) have shown promise as dynamic ocean management tools for reducing bycatch. However, which spatiotemporal model framework to ...use for generating these predictions is unclear. We evaluated a relatively new method, Gaussian Markov random fields (GMRFs), with two other frameworks, generalized additive models (GAMs) and random forests. We fit geostatistical delta-models to fisheries observer bycatch data for six species with a broad range of movement patterns (e.g., highly migratory sea turtles versus sedentary rockfish) and bycatch rates (percentage of observations with nonzero catch, 0.3%–96.2%). Random forests had better interpolation performance than the GMRF and GAM models for all six species, but random forests performance was more sensitive when predicting data at the edge of the fishery (i.e., spatial extrapolation). Using random forests to identify and remove the 5% highest bycatch risk fishing events reduced the bycatch-to-target species catch ratio by 34% on average. All models considerably reduced the bycatch-to-target ratio, demonstrating the clear potential of species distribution models to support spatial fishery management.
Abstract Relatively little is known about the bone health of ethnic groups within the UK and data are largely restricted to women. The aim of this study was to investigate ethnic differences in areal ...bone mineral density (aBMD), volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD), bone geometry and strength in UK men. White European, Black Afro-Caribbean and South Asian men aged over 40 years were recruited from Greater Manchester, UK. aBMD at the spine, hip, femoral neck and whole body were measured by DXA. Bone geometry, strength and vBMD were measured at the radius and tibia using pQCT at the metaphysis (4%) and diaphysis (50% radius; 38% tibia) sites. Adjustments were made for age, weight and height. Black men had higher aBMD at the whole body, total hip and femoral neck compared to White and South Asian men independent of body size adjustments, with no differences between the latter two groups. White men had longer hip axis lengths than both Black and South Asian men. There were fewer differences in vBMD but White men had significantly lower cortical vBMD at the tibial diaphysis than Black and South Asian men ( p < 0.001). At the tibia and radius diaphysis, Black men had larger bones with thicker cortices and greater bending strength than the other groups. There were fewer differences between White and South Asian men. At the metaphysis, South Asian men had smaller bones ( p = 0.02) and lower trabecular vBMD at the tibia ( p = 0.003). At the diaphysis, after size-correction, South Asian men had similar sized bones but thinner cortices than White men; measures of strength were not broadly reduced in the South Asian men. Combining pQCT and DXA measurements has given insight into differences in bone phenotype in men from different ethnic backgrounds. Understanding such differences is important in understanding the aetiology of male osteoporosis.
Abstract We present a targeted search for continuous gravitational waves (GWs) from 236 pulsars using data from the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo (O3) combined with data from the second ...observing run (O2). Searches were for emission from the l = m = 2 mass quadrupole mode with a frequency at only twice the pulsar rotation frequency (single harmonic) and the l = 2, m = 1, 2 modes with a frequency of both once and twice the rotation frequency (dual harmonic). No evidence of GWs was found, so we present 95% credible upper limits on the strain amplitudes h 0 for the single-harmonic search along with limits on the pulsars’ mass quadrupole moments Q 22 and ellipticities ε . Of the pulsars studied, 23 have strain amplitudes that are lower than the limits calculated from their electromagnetically measured spin-down rates. These pulsars include the millisecond pulsars J0437−4715 and J0711−6830, which have spin-down ratios of 0.87 and 0.57, respectively. For nine pulsars, their spin-down limits have been surpassed for the first time. For the Crab and Vela pulsars, our limits are factors of ∼100 and ∼20 more constraining than their spin-down limits, respectively. For the dual-harmonic searches, new limits are placed on the strain amplitudes C 21 and C 22 . For 23 pulsars, we also present limits on the emission amplitude assuming dipole radiation as predicted by Brans-Dicke theory.
PDF
