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"Harding, R R"
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Crystal & gem
Crystals are all around us -- in our plants, our homes, and even in our bodies! \"Eyewitness: Crystal & Gem\" describes the seven basic shapes of crystals and other aspects of crystallography, including how they form in nature, how crystals are studied and identified, what gives them their amazing color, and how they are used in everyday life.
Book
A real-time electronic symptom monitoring system for patients after discharge following surgery: a pilot study in cancer-related surgery
Background
Advances in peri-operative care of surgical oncology patients result in shorter hospital stays. Earlier discharge may bring benefits, but complications can occur while patients are recovering at home. Electronic patient-reported outcome (ePRO) systems may enhance remote, real-time symptom monitoring and detection of complications after hospital discharge, thereby improving patient safety and outcomes. Evidence of the effectiveness of ePRO systems in surgical oncology is lacking. This pilot study evaluated the feasibility of a real-time electronic symptom monitoring system for patients after discharge following cancer-related upper gastrointestinal surgery.
Methods
A pilot study in two UK hospitals included patients who had undergone cancer-related upper gastrointestinal surgery. Participants completed the ePRO symptom-report at discharge, twice in the first week and weekly post-discharge. Symptom-report completeness, system actions, barriers to using the ePRO system and technical performance were examined. The ePRO surgery system is an online symptom-report that allows clinicians to view patient symptom-reports within hospital electronic health records and was developed as part of the eRAPID project. Clinically derived algorithms provide patients with tailored self-management advice, prompts to contact a clinician or automated clinician alerts depending on symptom severity. Interviews with participants and clinicians determined the acceptability of the ePRO system to support patients and their clinical management during recovery.
Results
Ninety-one patients were approached, of which 40 consented to participate (27 male, mean age 64 years). Symptom-report response rates were high (range 63–100%). Of 197 ePRO completions analysed, 76 (39%) triggered self-management advice, 72 (36%) trigged advice to contact a clinician, 9 (5%) triggered a clinician alert and 40 (20%) did not require advice. Participants found the ePRO system reassuring, providing timely information and advice relevant to supporting their recovery. Clinicians regarded the system as a useful adjunct to usual care, by signposting patients to seek appropriate help and enhancing their understanding of patients’ experiences during recovery.
Conclusion
Use of the ePRO system for the real-time, remote monitoring of symptoms in patients recovering from cancer-related upper gastrointestinal surgery is feasible and acceptable. A definitive randomised controlled trial is needed to evaluate the impact of the system on patients’ wellbeing after hospital discharge.
Journal Article
Enhancing validity, reliability and participation in self-reported health outcome measurement for children and young people
Introduction
Self-report is the gold standard for measuring children’s health-related outcomes. Design of such measures is complex and challenging. This review aims to systematically appraise the evidence on recall period, response scale format, mode of administration and approaches needed to enable children and young people < 19 years to participate in valid and reliable self-reporting of their health outcomes.
Method
PsycInfo, Medline, CINAHL and Embase were searched from 1 January 1990 to 15 March 2020, and citation searching undertaken in Scopus. Articles were included if they were primary research or case reports of ≥ 3 participants reporting the following: recall period, response scale selection, administration modality. Quality was assessed using QualSyst, and results synthesised narratively. This review was conducted and reported according to PRISMA guidelines.
Results
81 of 13,215 retrieved articles met the inclusion criteria. Children < 5 years old cannot validly and reliably self-report health outcomes. Face scales demonstrate better psychometric properties than visual analogue or Likert scales. Computerised and paper scales generally show equivalent construct validity. Children prefer computerised measures. Children ≤ 7 years old think dichotomously so need two response options. Those > 8 years old can reliably use a 3-point scale.
Conclusion
The results of this review have both clinical and research implications. They can be used to inform appropriate choice of PROM for use with CYP in the clinical setting. We also give eight recommendations for future development of self-reported outcome measures for children and young people.
Journal Article
Watts and bots: the energy implications of AI adoption
Rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence is expected to drive proportional expansion of economic activity through productivity gains–potentially leading to higher energy consumption and associated environmental impacts, including increased carbon dioxide emissions. We combine data on economic activity with early estimates of likely adoption of AI across occupations and industries to quantify the potential change in energy use and carbon dioxide emissions for the United States. At the industry level, we estimate annual increases in energy use ranging from 0 and 12 petajoules (PJ) and carbon emissions from 0 tonnes to 272 kt (ktCO2). Aggregated across the economy, AI adoption could lead to an additional 28 PJ of energy use and 896 ktCO2 in emissions annually–equivalent to approximately 0.03% of annual national energy use and 0.02% of annual national CO2 emissions. These results highlight the need to account not only for the aggregate energy and environmental implications of AI-driven productivity gains, but also for how these impacts vary across industries based on their specific characteristics.
Journal Article
Low atmospheric CO2 levels before the rise of forested ecosystems
The emergence of forests on Earth (~385 million years ago, Ma)
1
has been linked to an order-of-magnitude decline in atmospheric CO
2
levels and global climatic cooling by altering continental weathering processes, but observational constraints on atmospheric CO
2
before the rise of forests carry large, often unbound, uncertainties. Here, we calibrate a mechanistic model for gas exchange in modern lycophytes and constrain atmospheric CO
2
levels 410–380 Ma from related fossilized plants with bound uncertainties of approximately ±100 ppm (1 sd). We find that the atmosphere contained ~525–715 ppm CO
2
before continents were afforested, and that Earth was partially glaciated according to a palaeoclimate model. A process-driven biogeochemical model (COPSE) shows the appearance of trees with deep roots did not dramatically enhance atmospheric CO
2
removal. Rather, shallow-rooted vascular ecosystems could have simultaneously caused abrupt atmospheric oxygenation and climatic cooling long before the rise of forests, although earlier CO
2
levels are still unknown.
Dahl et al. present new evidence based on leaf gas-exchange in primitive vascular plants and fossil remains of some of their earliest ancestors. This alters our thinking on how plants impacted the Earth System and climate.
Journal Article
Iron-mediated post-transcriptional regulation in Toxoplasma gondii
Iron is required to support almost all life; however, levels must be carefully regulated to maintain homeostasis. Although the obligate parasite Toxoplasma gondii requires iron, how it responds upon iron limitation has not been investigated. Here, we show that iron depletion triggers significant transcriptional changes in the parasite, including in iron-dependent pathways. We find that a subset of T. gondii transcripts contain stem-loop structures, which have been associated with post-transcriptional iron-mediated regulation in other cellular systems. We validate one of these (found in the 3’ UTR of TGME49_261720) using a reporter cell line. We show that the presence of the stem-loop-containing UTR is sufficient to confer accumulation at the transcript and protein levels under low iron. This response is dose and time-dependent and is specific for iron. The accumulation of transcript is likely driven by an increased reporter mRNA stability under low iron. Interestingly, we find iron-mediated changes in mRNA stability in around 400 genes. To examine the potential mechanism of this stability, we tested aconitase interaction with mRNA in low iron and found 43 enriched transcripts, but no specific interaction with our reporter UTR. However, the endogenous UTR led to maintenance of protein levels and increased survival of the parasite under low iron. Our data demonstrate the existence of iron-mediated post-transcriptional regulation in Toxoplasma for the first time; and suggests iron-mediated regulation may be important to the parasite in low iron environments.
Journal Article
Climate econometric models indicate solar geoengineering would reduce inter-country income inequality
Exploring heterogeneity in the economic impacts of solar geoengineering is a fundamental step towards understanding the risk tradeoff associated with a geoengineering option. To evaluate impacts of solar geoengineering and greenhouse gas-driven climate change on equal terms, we apply macroeconomic impact models that have been widely applied to climate change impacts assessment. Combining historical evidence with climate simulations of mean annual temperature and precipitation, we project socio-economic outcomes under high anthropogenic emissions for stylized climate scenarios in which global temperatures are stabilized or over-cooled by blocking solar radiation. We find impacts of climate changes on global GDP-per-capita by the end of the century are temperature-driven, highly dispersed, and model dependent. Across all model specifications, however, income inequality between countries is lower with solar geoengineering. Consistent reduction in inter-country inequality can inform discussions of the distribution of impacts of solar geoengineering, a topic of concern in geoengineering ethics and governance debates.
Exploring the heterogeneity in impacts and outcomes of using solar geoengineering to counteract global warming is important. Here the authors found that solar geoengineering that reduces temperature below present-day would grow GDP by accelerating economic development in tropics, but projections for global GDP-per-capita by the end of the century are highly dispersed and model dependent.
Journal Article
The vacuolar iron transporter mediates iron detoxification in Toxoplasma gondii
Iron is essential to cells as a cofactor in enzymes of respiration and replication, however without correct storage, iron leads to the formation of dangerous oxygen radicals. In yeast and plants, iron is transported into a membrane-bound vacuole by the vacuolar iron transporter (VIT). This transporter is conserved in the apicomplexan family of obligate intracellular parasites, including in
Toxoplasma gondii
. Here, we assess the role of VIT and iron storage in
T. gondii
. By deleting VIT, we find a slight growth defect in vitro, and iron hypersensitivity, confirming its essential role in parasite iron detoxification, which can be rescued by scavenging of oxygen radicals. We show VIT expression is regulated by iron at transcript and protein levels, and by altering VIT localization. In the absence of VIT,
T. gondii
responds by altering expression of iron metabolism genes and by increasing antioxidant protein catalase activity. We also show that iron detoxification has an important role both in parasite survival within macrophages and in virulence in a mouse model. Together, by demonstrating a critical role for VIT during iron detoxification in
T. gondii
, we reveal the importance of iron storage in the parasite and provide the first insight into the machinery involved.
Iron is essential to cells, however without correct storage can lead to cell damage. Aghabi et al. show that the vacuolar iron transporter (VIT) is required for iron storage in the parasite
Toxoplasma gondii
. They find VIT protects against iron toxicity and has a role in parasite virulence.
Journal Article
Alveolar proteins stabilize cortical microtubules in Toxoplasma gondii
Single-celled protists use elaborate cytoskeletal structures, including arrays of microtubules at the cell periphery, to maintain polarity and rigidity. The obligate intracellular parasite
Toxoplasma gondii
has unusually stable cortical microtubules beneath the alveoli, a network of flattened membrane vesicles that subtends the plasmalemma. However, anchoring of microtubules along alveolar membranes is not understood. Here, we show that GAPM1a, an integral membrane protein of the alveoli, plays a role in maintaining microtubule stability. Degradation of GAPM1a causes cortical microtubule disorganisation and subsequent depolymerisation. These changes in the cytoskeleton lead to parasites becoming shorter and rounder, which is accompanied by a decrease in cellular volume. Extended GAPM1a depletion leads to severe defects in division, reminiscent of the effect of disrupting other alveolar proteins. We suggest that GAPM proteins link the cortical microtubules to the alveoli and are required to maintain the shape and rigidity of apicomplexan zoites.
Cortical microtubules of
Toxoplasma gondii
are exceptionally stable, but it isn’t known how they are anchored along membranes. Here, Harding
et al
. show that GAPM proteins localize to the inner membrane complex and are essential for maintaining the structural stability of parasites.
Journal Article