Shoreline discharge representing approximately 80% of sewage generated by Sydney (Australia) was replaced with three deepwater ocean outfalls between 1990 and 1991. Beachwatch bacterial monitoring ...data collected between 1989 and 2016 were analysed to assess the impact of commissioning on bathing water quality along 32 km of coastline. Bacterial contamination was reduced by 26–99% during the first 32 months post-commissioning and in the longer post-commissioning period, 1993 to 2016, bathing water quality improved for 31 beaches. Relatively stable bathing water quality was observed for five other beaches after the 2001 upgrade of another shoreline wastewater treatment plant. Bacterial contamination of bathing water in this 24-year post-commissioning period was most influenced by rainfall in the 24-h to 9 am on the day of sampling. Bacterial contamination from surfacing shore-blown wastewater plumes was not evident, whereas stormwater-delivered bacterial contamination was apparent and varied between beaches.
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•Installation of three ocean outfalls reduced bacterial contamination along 32 km of coastline.•A marked decline in human health illness-risk followed inauguration of outfalls.•Over the 24-years after ocean outfall installation all-weather bathing water quality improved.•Poor bathing water quality is now related to rainfall in the period 24-h to 9 am before sampling.•Contaminated stormwater still impacts bathing water quality, albeit at a lower level.
Children experiencing parental incarceration face numerous additional disadvantages, but researchers have often relied on these other co‐occurring factors primarily as controls. In this article, we ...focus on the intimate links between crime and incarceration, as well as on the broader family context within which parental incarceration often unfolds. Thus, parents’ drug use and criminal behavior that precedes and may follow incarceration periods may be ongoing stressors that directly affect child well‐being. We also use our analyses to foreground mechanisms associated with social learning theories, including observations and communications that increase the child's risk for criminal involvement and other problem outcomes. These related family experiences often channel the child's own developing network ties (peers, romantic partners) that then serve as proximal influences. We explore these processes by drawing on qualitative and quantitative data from a study of the lives of a sample of respondents followed from adolescence to young adulthood, as well as on records searches of parents’ incarceration histories. Through our analyses, we find evidence that 1) some effects attributed to parental incarceration likely connect to unmeasured features of the broader family context, and b) together parental incarceration and the broader climate often constitute a tightly coupled package of family‐related risks linked to intergenerational continuities in criminal behavior and other forms of social disadvantage.
Purpose
The identification and targeting of biomarkers specific to prostate cancer (PCa) could improve its detection. Given the high expression of translocator protein (TSPO) in PCa, we investigated ...the use of
18
FVUIIS1008 (a novel TSPO-targeting radioligand) coupled with positron emission tomography (PET) to identify PCa in mice and to characterize their TSPO uptake.
Procedures
Pten
pc−/−
, Trp53
pc−/−
prostate cancer-bearing mice (
n
= 9, 4–6 months old) were imaged in a 7T MRI scanner for lesion localization. Within 24 h, the mice were imaged using a microPET scanner for 60 min in dynamic mode following a retro-orbital injection of ~ 18 MBq
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FVUIIS1008. Following imaging, tumors were harvested and stained with a TSPO antibody. Regions of interest (ROIs) were drawn around the tumor and muscle (hind limb) in the PET images. Time-activity curves (TACs) were recorded over the duration of the scan for each ROI. The mean activity concentrations between 40 and 60 min post radiotracer administration between tumor and muscle were compared.
Results
Tumor presence was confirmed by visual inspection of the MR images. The uptake of
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FVUIIS1008 in the tumors was significantly higher (
p
< 0.05) than that in the muscle, where the percent injected dose per unit volume for tumor was 7.1 ± 1.6 % ID/ml and that of muscle was < 1 % ID/ml. In addition, positive TSPO expression was observed in tumor tissue analysis.
Conclusions
The foregoing preliminary data suggest that TSPO may be a useful biomarker of PCa. Therefore, using TSPO-targeting PET ligands, such as
18
FVUIIS1008, may improve PCa detectability and characterization.
In order to simulate hemodynamics within centrifugal blood pumps and to predict pump hemolysis, CFD simulations must be thoroughly validated against experimental data. They must also account for and ...accurately model the specific working fluid in the pump, whether that is a blood‐analog solution to match an experimental PIV study or animal blood in a hemolysis experiment. Therefore, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) benchmark centrifugal blood pump and its database of experimental PIV and hemolysis data were used to thoroughly validate CFD simulations of the same blood pump. A Newtonian blood model was first used to compare to the PIV data with a blood analog fluid while hemolysis data were compared using a power‐law hemolysis model fit to porcine blood data. A viscoelastic blood model was then incorporated into the CFD solver to investigate the importance of modeling blood’s viscoelasticity in centrifugal pumps. The established computational framework, including a dynamic rotating mesh, animal blood‐specific fluid properties and hemolysis modeling, and a k‐ω SST turbulence model, was shown to more accurately predict pump pressure heads, velocity fields, and hemolysis compared to previously published CFD studies of the FDA centrifugal pump. The CFD simulations were able to match the FDA pressure and hemolysis data for multiple pump operating conditions, with the CFD results being within the standard deviations of the experimental results. While CFD radial velocity profiles between the impeller blades also compared well to the PIV velocity results, more work is still needed to address the large variability among both experimental and computational predictions of velocity in the diffuser outlet jet. Small differences were observed between the Newtonian and viscoelastic blood models in pressure head and hemolysis at the higher flow rate cases (FDA Conditions 4 and 5) but were more significant at lower flow rate and pump impeller speeds (FDA Condition 1). These results suggest that the importance of accounting for blood’s viscoelasticity may be dependent on the specific blood pump operating conditions. This detailed computational framework with improved modeling techniques and an extensive validation procedure will be used in future CFD studies of centrifugal blood pumps to aid in device design and predictions of their biological responses.
Understanding the molecular and cellular processes involved in skin wound healing may pave the way for the development of innovative approaches to transforming the identified natural effectors into ...therapeutic tools. Based on the extensive involvement of the ga(lactoside-binding)lectin family in (patho)physiological processes, it has been well established that galectins are involved in a wide range of cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions.
In the present paper, we provide an overview of the biological role of galectins in repair and regeneration, focusing on four main phases (hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and maturation/remodeling) of skin repair using basic wound models (open excision vs. sutured incision).
The reported data make a strong case for directing further efforts to treat excisional and incisional wounds differently. Functions of galectins essentially result from their modular presentation. In fact, Gal-1 seems to play a role in the early phases of healing (anti-inflammatory) and wound contraction, Gal-3 accelerates re-epithelization and increases tensile strength (scar inductor). Galectins have also become subject of redesigning by engineering to optimize the activity. Clinically relevant, these new tools derived from the carbohydrate recognition domain platform may also prove helpful for other purposes, such as potent antibacterial agglutinins and opsonins.
Plinian and Ignimbrite deposits represent explosive activity (ca. 17–19calka) within the predominantly effusive and mildly explosive (Strombolian) volcanic history of Mount Etna (Italy). Proximal ...glasses from the Biancavilla Ignimbrites and Unit D Plinian fall deposits are characterised. Fall deposits recorded at Acireale (D1b and D2b) and Giarre (D1a and D2a) are geochemically distinct confirming they relate to different eruptions. The Acireale Plinian fall (D1b and D2b) deposits compositionally overlap with the Biancavilla Ignimbrite deposits. These explosive eruptions from Etna are considered responsible for widespread ash dispersals throughout the central Mediterranean region, producing the marker tephra layers (Y-1/Et-1) recorded in marine and lacustrine sedimentary archives. Stratigraphically these distal tephras occur at or close to the onset of the last deglaciation (Termination 1) within their respective palaeoenvironmental records, therefore making them potentially crucial tephrostratigraphic markers. This study investigates distal tephra deposits thought to be from Etna recorded in the Ionian Sea (Y-1), Lago Grande di Monticchio (LGdM, Italy; tephras TM-11 and TM-12-1), Lago di Mezzano (Italy) and the Haua Fteah cave (Libya). The glass chemistry of Y-1 tephras recorded in the Ionian Sea and at Haua Fteah is consistent with the Biancavilla Ignimbrites (16,965–17,670calyrs BP) and the upper Acireale Plinian fall (D2b). The LGdM record indicates that explosive activity on Etna associated with Unit D spans a minimum of 1540±80 varve years. TM-12-1 (19,200–19,804calyrs BP) in LGdM appears to represent the oldest distal counterpart of Etna Unit D explosive activity and is associated with the lower Acireale (D1b) Plinian eruption. The proximally undefined TM-11 (17,640–18,324calyrs BP) and distal correlatives are geochemically distinct from the Ionian Sea Y-1 tephra. Such significant compositional differences seen between distal tephra layers are not observed within individual proximal units and are likely to indicate that the distal tephras relate to separate eruptive phases. Until proximal relationships can be established, the TM-11 type Y-1 equivalents should be termed TM-11. Great care should be exercised when using these distal ash layers to synchronise sedimentary records during a crucial period of environmental change.
•Glass characterisation of Late-glacial Plinian and Ignimbrite deposits, Mount Etna•Glass characterisation of Late-glacial distal Etnean tephras (Y-1)•Proximal–distal tephra correlations•Towards an improved chronology of Late-glacial explosive activity on Mount Etna•Tephrostratigraphical complexity associated with the application of the Y-1 marker
In marine sediments surrounding salmon aquaculture sites, organic matter (OM) enrichment has been shown to influence resident bacterial community composition; however, additional effects on these ...communities due to combined use of the sea-lice therapeutant emamectin benzoate (EMB) and the widely used antibiotic oxytetracycline (OTC) are unknown. Here, we use sediment microcosms to assess the influence of OM, EMB, and OTC on benthic bacterial communities. Microcosms consisted of mud or sand sediments enriched with OM (fish and feed wastes) and spiked with EMB and OTC at environmentally-relevant concentrations. Samples were collected from initial matrices at the initiation of the trial and after 110 days for 16 S rRNA gene sequencing of the V3-V4 region and microbiome profiling. The addition of OM in both mud and sand sediments reduced alpha diversities; for example, an average of 1106 amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) were detected in mud with no OM addition, while only 729 and 596 ASVs were detected in mud with low OM and high OM, respectively. Sediments enriched with OM had higher relative abundances of Spirochaetota, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidota. For instance, Spirochaetota were detected in sediments with no OM with a relative abundance range of 0.01-1.2%, while in sediments enriched with OM relative abundance varied from 0.16% to 26.1%. In contrast, the addition of EMB (60 ng/g) or OTC (150 ng/g) did not result in distinct taxonomic shifts in the bacterial communities compared to un-spiked sediments during the timeline of this experiment. EMB and OTC concentrations may have been below effective inhibitor concentrations for taxa in these communities; further work should explore gene content and the presence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in sediment-dwelling bacteria.
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