scholarly journals Characterisation of Staphylococcus argenteus carried by healthy Royal Marines: a molecular epidemiology case-study

Author(s):  
Elita Jauneikaite ◽  
Bruno Pichon ◽  
Mia Mosavie ◽  
Joanne L. Fallowfield ◽  
Trish Davey ◽  
...  

Objectives: During a prospective study of S. aureus carriage in Royal Marines (RM) recruits, six S. argenteus strains were identified in four recruits undertaking military training together. As S. argenteus sepsis leads to mortality similar to S. aureus, we determined the potential for person-to-person transmission, to evaluate future outbreak risk. Methods: We used whole-genome sequencing to characterise S. argenteus and investigate phylogenetic relationships between isolates. Participant colonisation with S. aureus and skin and soft tissue infection acquisition were recorded. Results: All six S. argenteus strains were spa-type t5078, ST2250. Strains were detected in 4/40 recruits in the same troop (training cohort) in weeks 1, 6 or 15 of training. No mec, tsst or LukPV genes were detected. We identified differences of 10-35 core SNPs between S. argenteus from different recruits. In two recruits, two S. argenteus strains were isolated; these could be distinguished by 3 and 15 core SNPs in each case. S. argenteus was not identified in any one of the other 21 participating troops (1,012 recruits). Conclusions: The identification of S. argenteus within a single troop from the total recruit population supports a common source for transmission, supported by SNP analysis. The high number of SNPs between some isolates may indicate a common source of diverse isolates or a high level of S. argenteus mutation in carriage. S. argenteus ST2250 is a newly recognised lineage; a better understanding of the frequency of genetic changes during transmission and transition from asymptomatic carriage to disease is required.

Author(s):  
James McDevitt ◽  
◽  
Dave Moore ◽  
Felicity Lamm ◽  
Nadine McDonnell ◽  
...  

This paper is the result of a desire to include social factors alongside environmental and economic considerations in Life Cycle Assessment studies for the construction sector. We describe a specific search for a method to include injurious impact for construction Life Cycle Assessment studies, by evaluating a range of methods and data sources. A simple case study using selected Accident Compensation Corporation information illustrates that data relating to injury could provide a compelling evidence to cause changes in construction supply chains, and could provide an economic motive to pursue further research in this area. The paper concludes that limitations notwithstanding, the suggested approach could be useful as a fast and cheap high level tool that can accelerate the discussions and research agenda that will bring about the inclusion of social metrics in construction sector supply chain management and declarations.


GIS Business ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 206-212
Author(s):  
Dr. D. Shoba ◽  
Dr. G. Suganthi

Employees and employers are facing issues in work life balance. It has become a difficult domain now, because the work needs have increased due to an increase in work pressure and complexities in handling the technology. As there are drastic changes in the rules and regulations in the work scenario of the aviation industry, it makes work life balance of employees difficult and set more hurdles. Hence there are many distractions and imbalances in the life of women employees in the aviation industry working across all levels. This work pressure is creating high level of hurdles in maintaining a harmonious job and family life, especially for female aviation employees. Data is collected from 50 female crew members working at Cochin International Airport. The objective of this study is to analyze the work life balance of working females of Cochin International Airport and its influence on their personal and specialized lives. The result of the study shows that the management should frame certain policies which will help employees to have the balance among their personal and expert lives.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 3246
Author(s):  
Zoe Slattery ◽  
Richard Fenner

Building on the existing literature, this study examines whether specific drivers of forest fragmentation cause particular fragmentation characteristics, and how these characteristics can be linked to their effects on forest-dwelling species. This research uses Landsat remote imaging to examine the changing patterns of forests. It focuses on areas which have undergone a high level of a specific fragmentation driver, in particular either agricultural expansion or commodity-driven deforestation. Seven municipalities in the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso in Brazil are selected as case study areas, as these states experienced a high level of commodity-driven deforestation and agricultural expansion respectively. Land cover maps of each municipality are created using the Geographical Information System software ArcGIS Spatial Analyst extension. The resulting categorical maps are input into Fragstats fragmentation software to calculate quantifiable fragmentation metrics for each municipality. To determine the effects that these characteristics are likely to cause, this study uses a literature review to determine how species traits affect their responses to forest fragmentation. Results indicate that, in areas that underwent agricultural expansion, the remaining forest patches became more complex in shape with longer edges and lost a large amount of core area. This negatively affects species which are either highly dispersive or specialist to core forest habitat. In areas that underwent commodity-driven deforestation, it was more likely that forest patches would become less aggregated and create disjunct core areas. This negatively affects smaller, sedentary animals which do not naturally travel long distances. This study is significant in that it links individual fragmentation drivers to their landscape characteristics, and in turn uses these to predict effects on species with particular traits. This information will prove useful for forest managers, particularly in the case study municipalities examined in this study, in deciding which species require further protection measures. The methodology could be applied to other drivers of forest fragmentation such as forest fires.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (08) ◽  
pp. 919-931
Author(s):  
Mustafa K. Mian ◽  
Subhashaan Sreedharan ◽  
Neeraj S. Limaye ◽  
Chris Hogan ◽  
Jai N. Darvall

AbstractA large volume of literature has become available to practitioners prescribing anticoagulants. The aim of this study was to analyze the bibliometric characteristics of the top 100 most cited articles related to anticoagulation over the past 25 years, with special consideration to impact of direct or “nonvitamin K antagonist” oral anticoagulants (NOACs) compared with vitamin K antagonists. A bibliometric analysis of the 100 most cited journal articles related to anticoagulants published between 1994 and 2019 was performed in April 2019. The top 100 articles by citation count were analyzed to extract bibliometric data related to journal title, impact factor, year of publication, place of publication, anticoagulant studied, indication for anticoagulation, study design, and conflicts of interest. The median (interquartile range) number of citations per article was 806 (621–1,085). The anticoagulant most frequently researched was warfarin (37%). NOAC publications (21%) grew at a relative rate of 3.4 times faster compared with all publications. The indication most commonly researched was venous thromboembolism (26%). Eighty articles constituted level I or II evidence, with randomized controlled trials the most common type of study (74). A financial conflict of interest was declared in 87% of articles with private, for-profit organizations the most common source of funding (26%). In summary, top research related to anticoagulation is highly impactful but may be at risk of sponsorship bias. High-level evidence for NOACs continues to expand across a range of indications with citation metrics likely to soon approach or surpass that of older drugs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-46
Author(s):  
David Sanan ◽  
Yongwang Zhao ◽  
Shang-Wei Lin ◽  
Liu Yang

To make feasible and scalable the verification of large and complex concurrent systems, it is necessary the use of compositional techniques even at the highest abstraction layers. When focusing on the lowest software abstraction layers, such as the implementation or the machine code, the high level of detail of those layers makes the direct verification of properties very difficult and expensive. It is therefore essential to use techniques allowing to simplify the verification on these layers. One technique to tackle this challenge is top-down verification where by means of simulation properties verified on top layers (representing abstract specifications of a system) are propagated down to the lowest layers (that are an implementation of the top layers). There is no need to say that simulation of concurrent systems implies a greater level of complexity, and having compositional techniques to check simulation between layers is also desirable when seeking for both feasibility and scalability of the refinement verification. In this article, we present CSim 2 a (compositional) rely-guarantee-based framework for the top-down verification of complex concurrent systems in the Isabelle/HOL theorem prover. CSim 2 uses CSimpl, a language with a high degree of expressiveness designed for the specification of concurrent programs. Thanks to its expressibility, CSimpl is able to model many of the features found in real world programming languages like exceptions, assertions, and procedures. CSim 2 provides a framework for the verification of rely-guarantee properties to compositionally reason on CSimpl specifications. Focusing on top-down verification, CSim 2 provides a simulation-based framework for the preservation of CSimpl rely-guarantee properties from specifications to implementations. By using the simulation framework, properties proven on the top layers (abstract specifications) are compositionally propagated down to the lowest layers (source or machine code) in each concurrent component of the system. Finally, we show the usability of CSim 2 by running a case study over two CSimpl specifications of an Arinc-653 communication service. In this case study, we prove a complex property on a specification, and we use CSim 2 to preserve the property on lower abstraction layers.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 699
Author(s):  
Ruifeng Wang ◽  
Xiong Wu ◽  
Yanliang Zhai ◽  
Yuxuan Su ◽  
Chenhui Liu

Chengde City boasts a wealth of high-quality mineral water resources characterized by a high level of strontium (Sr), a low level of sodium, and low alkalinity. In order to study the mechanism of formation of Sr-bearing mineral water in Chengde and to scientifically guide future mineral water exploration, taking three typical mineral water exploration areas in Chengde as examples, this paper studies the sources of Sr in mineral water and the general rules of its dissolution via a laboratory static leaching experiment and impact experiments, and it provides an analysis of the characteristics of typical rock samples. The research results indicate that the content of Sr in surrounding rock and the characteristics of minerals existing in surrounding rock jointly control the dissolution of Sr in water; that CO2 can promote the formation of mineral water containing Sr; and that temperature increases may boost the dissolution of Sr from carbonate minerals but also inhibit the dissolution of Sr from silicate minerals.


Author(s):  
Peng Lu ◽  
Xiao Cong ◽  
Dongdai Zhou

Nowadays, E-learning system has been widely applied to practical teaching. It was favored by people for its characterized course arrangement and flexible learning schedule. However, the system does have some problems in the process of application such as the functions of single software are not diversified enough to satisfy the requirements in teaching completely. In order to cater more applications in the teaching process, it is necessary to integrate functions from different systems. But the difference in developing techniques and the inflexibility in design makes it difficult to implement. The major reason of these problems is the lack of fine software architecture. In this article, we build domain model and component model of E-learning system and components integration method on the basis of WebService. And we proposed an abstract framework of E-learning which could express the semantic relationship among components and realize high level reusable on the basis of informationized teaching mode. On this foundation, we form an E-learning oriented layering software architecture contain component library layer, application framework layer and application layer. Moreover, the system contains layer division multiplexing and was not built upon developing language and tools. Under the help of the software architecture, we could build characterized E-learning system flexibly like building blocks through framework selection, component assembling and replacement. In addition, we exemplify how to build concrete E-learning system on the basis of this software architecture.


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