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Emerging links between household cleaning products and childhood overweight may involve the gut microbiome. We determined mediating effects of infant gut microbiota on associations between home use of cleaning products and future overweight. From the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) birth cohort, we tested associations between maternal report of cleaning product use and overweight at age 3, and whether associations were mediated by microbial profiles of fecal samples in 3- to 4-month-old infants. Among 757 infants, the abundance of specific gut microbiota was associated with household cleaning with disinfectants and eco-friendly products in a dose-dependent manner. With more frequent use of disinfectants, Lachnospiraceae increasingly became more abundant (highest v. lowest quintile of use: adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.93, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.08 to 3.45) while genus Haemophilus declined in abundance (highest v. lowest quintile of use: AOR 0.36, 95% CI 0.20 to 0.65). Enterobacteriaceae were successively depleted with greater use of eco-friendly products (AOR 0.45, 95% CI 0.27 to 0.74). Lachnospiraceae abundance significantly mediated associations of the top 30th centile of household disinfectant use with higher body mass index (BMI) z score (p = 0.02) and with increased odds of overweight or obesity (p = 0.04) at age 3. Use of eco-friendly products was associated with decreased odds of overweight or obesity independently of Enterobacteriaceae abundance (AOR 0.44, 95% CI 0.22 to 0.86), with no significant mediation (p = 0.2). Exposure to household disinfectants was associated with higher BMI at age 3, mediated by gut microbial composition at age 3–4 months. Although child overweight was less common in households that cleaned with eco-friendly products, the lack of mediation by infant gut microbiota suggests another pathway for this association.

A computational method is proposed to calculate bound and resonant states by solving the Klein–Gordon and Dirac equations for real and complex energies, respectively. The method is an extension of a non-relativistic one, where the potential is represented in a Coulomb–Sturmian basis. This basis facilitates the exact analytic evaluation of the Coulomb Green’s operator in terms of a continued fraction. In the extension to relativistic problems, we cast the Klein–Gordon and Dirac equations into an effective Schrödinger form. Then the solution method is basically an analytic continuation of non-relativistic quantities like the angular momentum, charge, energy and potential into the effective relativistic counterparts.

BackgroundBRI is estimated to occur in 10% of skull-base surgery and 5% of aneurysm surgery. These estimates are based on a few studies with unclear methodology. The purpose of this study is to assess the rate of BRI occurrence, its risk factors, and the association between BRI and postoperative focal neurological deficit in patients that underwent elective aneurysm surgery in a single institution.MethodsAll patients that underwent elective aneurysm surgery in a single tertiary center in the Netherlands were included. BRI was defined as cortical hypodensities in the surgical trajectory not matching areas of large arterial infarction. Risk ratios were calculated between BRI and (a) the use of temporary parent artery occlusion during clipping, (b) anterior communicating artery (ACom), and (c) middle cerebral artery (MCA) location of the aneurysm, (d) presence of mentioned CVA risk factors, (e) the clipping of > 1 aneurysm during the same procedure, and (f) new focal neurological deficit. Statistical analysis further included t-tests and binary logistical regression analysis on the correlation between age and BRI.ResultsBRI was identified postoperatively in 42 of the 94 patients included in this study. A new focal neurological deficit was found in 7 patients in the BRI group. A total of 5 patients had persisting symptoms at 3-month follow-up, of which 2 were caused by BRI. Increasing age is a risk factor for developing BRI.ConclusionsThe high rate of BRI and significant risk of new postoperative focal neurological deficit in our patients should be considered when counseling patients for elective aneurysm surgery.

Colonization with occurs in up to half of infants under the age of 3 months, is strongly influenced by feeding modality and is largely asymptomatic. In spite of this, 's presence has been associated with susceptibility to chronic disease later in childhood, perhaps by promoting or benefiting from changes in infant gut microbiome development, including colonization with pathogenic bacteria and disrupted production of microbial bioactive metabolites and proteins. In this study, the microbiomes of 1554 infants from the CHILD Cohort Study were described according to colonization status and feeding mode at 3-4 months of age. colonization was associated with a different gut microbiome profile in exclusively breastfed (EBF) vs. exclusively formula fed (EFF) infants. EBF infants colonized with had an increased relative abundance of Firmicutes and Proteobacteria, decreased relative abundance of Bifidobacteriaceae, greater microbiota alpha-diversity, greater detectable fecal short chain fatty acids (SCFA), and lower detectable fecal secretory Immunoglobulin A (sIgA) than those not colonized. Similar but less pronounced differences were seen among partially breastfed infants (PBF) but EFF infants did not possess these differences in the gut microbiome according to colonization status. Thus, breastfed infants colonized with appear to possess a gut microbiome that differs from non-colonized infants and resembles that of EFF infants, but the driving force and direction of this association remains unknown. Understanding these compositional differences as drivers of colonization may be important to ensure future childhood health.

A common practice on Israeli dairy barns comprises daily cultivation of the manure. Cultivation is a mechanical process used to break up and till the manure bedding and it results in a drier and aerated bedding and cleaner cows, which consequently reduces the incidence of mastitis. Cultivation was associated with a shorter survival of Escherichia coli in cultivated manure as compared with noncultivated manure. The objective of the current study was to elucidate the mechanism responsible for the shorter survival duration of E. coli in the cultivated manure. We hypothesized that microorganisms that are antagonistic to E. coli, developing in the cultivated manure, are responsible for this phenomenon. A cow manure derived E. coli strain expressing the green fluorescence protein and antibiotic resistance markers was used to inoculate cow manure in 1.5-L jars. Manure treatments included cultivated and noncultivated manure. Half the jars of each cultivation treatment were autoclave sterilized at 121°C for 1 h on 3 successive days to eliminate from the manure antagonistic microorganisms. Each cultivation-sterilization treatment was performed in triplicate jars. Following sterilization, E. coli numbers in the cultivated and noncultivated manure were comparable, while in the nonsterilized manure the numbers were lower in the cultivated compared with the noncultivated manure. Several fungi isolated from the cultivated manure samples displayed inhibition effect on the tagged E. coli. Antagonistic fungi were also isolated from large-scale cultivated manure samples collected on several dairy farms in Israel. These findings support the notion that manure cultivation might facilitate the development of microorganisms that are antagonistic to E. coli, thus contributing to the general hygiene of the cattle. Identifying the mechanisms by which the antagonistic fungi affect the survival of E. coli in manure could be exploited for improvement of the animal health and for limiting the transmission of zoonotic pathogens to food and water.

A common practice on Israeli dairy barns comprises daily cultivation of the manure. Cultivation is a mechanical process used to break up and till the manure bedding and it results in a drier and aerated bedding and cleaner cows, which consequently reduces the incidence of mastitis. Cultivation was associated with a shorter survival of Escherichia coli in cultivated manure as compared with noncultivated manure. The objective of the current study was to elucidate the mechanism responsible for the shorter survival duration of E. coli in the cultivated manure. We hypothesized that microorganisms that are antagonistic to E. coli, developing in the cultivated manure, are responsible for this phenomenon. A cow manure derived E. coli strain expressing the green fluorescence protein and antibiotic resistance markers was used to inoculate cow manure in 1.5-L jars. Manure treatments included cultivated and noncultivated manure. Half the jars of each cultivation treatment were autoclave sterilized at 121°C for 1 h on 3 successive days to eliminate from the manure antagonistic microorganisms. Each cultivation-sterilization treatment was performed in triplicate jars. Following sterilization, E. coli numbers in the cultivated and noncultivated manure were comparable, while in the nonsterilized manure the numbers were lower in the cultivated compared with the noncultivated manure. Several fungi isolated from the cultivated manure samples displayed inhibition effect on the tagged E. coli. Antagonistic fungi were also isolated from large-scale cultivated manure samples collected on several dairy farms in Israel. These findings support the notion that manure cultivation might facilitate the development of microorganisms that are antagonistic to E. coli, thus contributing to the general hygiene of the cattle. Identifying the mechanisms by which the antagonistic fungi affect the survival of E. coli in manure could be exploited for improvement of the animal health and for limiting the transmission of zoonotic pathogens to food and water. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Scientific research communities have benefited recently from the increasing availability of computing and data infrastructures with unprecedented capabilities for large scale distributed initiatives. These infrastructures are largely defined and enabled by the middleware they deploy. One of the major issues in the current usage of research infrastructures is the need to use similar but often incompatible middleware solutions. The European Middleware Initiative (EMI) is a collaboration of the major European middleware providers ARC, dCache, gLite and UNICORE. EMI aims to: deliver a consolidated set of middleware components for deployment in EGI, PRACE and other Distributed Computing Infrastructures; extend the interoperability between grids and other computing infrastructures; strengthen the reliability of the services; establish a sustainable model to maintain and evolve the middleware; fulfil the requirements of the user communities. This paper presents the consolidation and development objectives of the EMI software stack covering the last two years. The EMI development roadmap is introduced along the four technical areas of compute, data, security and infrastructure. The compute area plan focuses on consolidation of standards and agreements through a unified interface for job submission and management, a common format for accounting, the wide adoption of GLUE schema version 2.0 and the provision of a common framework for the execution of parallel jobs. The security area is working towards a unified security model and lowering the barriers to Grid usage by allowing users to gain access with their own credentials. The data area is focusing on implementing standards to ensure interoperability with other grids and industry components and to reuse already existing clients in operating systems and open source distributions. One of the highlights of the infrastructure area is the consolidation of the information system services via the creation of a common information backbone.

We present a search for magnetic monopoles and high-electric-charge objects using LHC Run (Formula presented.) TeV proton-proton collisions recorded by the ATLAS detector. A total integrated luminosity of 138 fb−1 was collected by a specialized trigger. No highly ionizing particle candidate was observed. Considering the Drell-Yan and photon-fusion pair production mechanisms as benchmark models, cross-section upper limits are presented for spin-0 and spin-1/2 magnetic monopoles of magnetic charge 1gD and 2gD and for high-electric-charge objects of electric charge 20 ≤ |z| ≤ 100, for masses between 200 GeV and 4000 GeV. The search improves by approximately a factor of three the previous cross-section limits on the Drell-Yan production of magnetic monopoles and high-electric charge objects. Also, the first ATLAS limits on the photon-fusion pair production mechanism of magnetic monopoles and high-electric-charge objects are obtained. © The Author(s) 2023.

A search for flavour-changing neutral interactions involving the top quark, the Higgs boson and an up-type quark q (q = c, u) is presented. The proton-proton collision data set used, with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1, was collected at (Formula presented.) TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Both the decay process t → qH in tt¯ production and the production process pp → tH, with the Higgs boson decaying into two photons, are investigated. No significant excess is observed and upper limits are set on the t → cH and the t → uH branching ratios of 4.3 × 10−4 and 3.8 × 10−4, respectively, at the 95% confidence level, while the expected limits in the absence of signal are 4.7 × 10−4 and 3.9 × 10−4. Combining this search with ATLAS searches in the H → τ+τ− and H → bb¯ final states yields observed (expected) upper limits on the t → cH branching ratio of 5.8 × 10−4 (3.0 × 10−4) at the 95% confidence level. The corresponding observed (expected) upper limit on the t → uH branching ratio is 4.0 × 10−4 (2.4 × 10−4). © The Author(s) 2024.

This paper reports the measurement of Higgs boson production in association with a t t ¯ pair in the H → b b ¯ decay channel. The analysis uses 140 fb - 1 of 13 TeV proton–proton collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The final states with one or two electrons or muons are employed. An excess of events over the expected background is found with an observed (expected) significance of 4.6 (5.4) standard deviations. The t t ¯ H cross-section is σ t t ¯ H = 411 - 92 + 101 fb = 411 ± 54 ( stat. ) - 75 + 85 ( syst. ) fb for a Higgs boson mass of 125.09 GeV , consistent with the prediction of the Standard Model of 507 - 50 + 35 fb. The cross-section is also measured differentially in bins of the Higgs boson transverse momentum within the simplified template cross-section framework.