Belowground life is traditionally considered to rely on leaf litter as the main basal resource, whereas the importance of roots remains little understood, especially in the tropics. Here, we analysed the response of 30 soil animal groups to root trenching and litter removal in rainforest and plantations in Sumatra and found that roots are similarly important to soil fauna as litter. Trenching effects were stronger in soil than in litter with animal abundance being overall decreased by 42% in rainforest and by 30% in plantations. Litter removal little affected animals in soil, but decreased the total abundance by 60% both in rainforest and rubber plantations but not in oil palm plantations. Litter and root effects were explained either by the body size or vertical distribution of specific animal groups. Our findings highlight the importance of root-derived resources for soil animals and quantify principle carbon pathways in tropical soil food webs.

Background Microbiome studies are often limited by a lack of statistical power due to small sample sizes and a large number of features. This problem is exacerbated in correlative studies of multi-omic datasets. Statistical power can be increased by finding and summarizing modules of correlated observations, which is one dimensionality reduction method. Additionally, modules provide biological insight as correlated groups of microbes can have relationships among themselves. Results To address these challenges, we developed SCNIC: Sparse Cooccurrence Network Investigation for compositional data. SCNIC is open-source software that can generate correlation networks and detect and summarize modules of highly correlated features. Modules can be formed using either the Louvain Modularity Maximization (LMM) algorithm or a Shared Minimum Distance algorithm (SMD) that we newly describe here and relate to LMM using simulated data. We applied SCNIC to two published datasets and we achieved increased statistical power and identified microbes that not only differed across groups, but also correlated strongly with each other, suggesting shared environmental drivers or cooperative relationships among them. Conclusions SCNIC provides an easy way to generate correlation networks, identify modules of correlated features and summarize them for downstream statistical analysis. Although SCNIC was designed considering properties of microbiome data, such as compositionality and sparsity, it can be applied to a variety of data types including metabolomics data and used to integrate multiple data types. SCNIC allows for the identification of functional microbial relationships at scale while increasing statistical power through feature reduction.

Sickle cell disease (SCD) requires coordinated, specialized medical care for optimal outcomes. There are no United States (US) guidelines that define a pediatric comprehensive SCD program. We report a modified Delphi consensus-seeking process to determine essential, optimal, and suggested elements of a comprehensive pediatric SCD center. Nineteen pediatric SCD specialists participated from the US. Consensus was predefined as 2/3 agreement on each element’s categorization. Twenty-six elements were considered essential (required for guideline-based SCD care), ten were optimal (recommended but not required), and five were suggested. This work lays the foundation for a formal recognition process of pediatric comprehensive SCD centers.

Herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE) is the most common type of sporadic encephalitis that inflicts high rates of morbidity and mortality. Differentiating a progressing encephalitis syndrome from a lobar hemorrhage as a complication presents a challenge and requires great vigilance and insight on part of the treating physician.

Fibrolipoma is a variant of lipoma that is relatively uncommon in the mouth tissues, especially the attached gingiva. It is diagnosed by histopathologic and immunohistochemistry evaluation and treated by total excision. A case of a patient with attached gingiva fibrolipoma, treated by surgical excision under local anesthesia is reported.

This paper is concerned with nonlinear stability of rarefaction wave to the Cauchy problem for a blood flow model, which describes the motion of blood through axi-symmetric compliant vessels. Inspired by the stability analysis of classical $p$-system, we show the solution of this typical model tends time-asymptotically toward the rarefaction wave under some suitably small conditions and there are more difficulties in the proof due to the appearance of strong nonlinear terms including second-order derivative of $v$ with respect to the spatial variable $x$. The main result is proved by employing the elementary $L^2$ energy methods. This is the first result about nonlinear stability of some nontrivial profiles (i.e., non-constant function patterns) for the blood flow model.

Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is an autosomal dominant genetic disorder. TSC consists of a wide variety of clinical manifestations, with neurological and dermatological symptoms being the most frequent. This study aims to describe the clinical characteristics and management of a pregnant patient incidentally diagnosed with TSC.

Most biomolecules become functional and bioactive by forming protein complexes through interaction with ligands that are diverse in size, shape, and physicochemical properties. In the complex biological milieu, the interaction is ligand-specific, driven by molecular sensing and recognition of a binding interface localized within a protein structure. Mapping interfaces of protein complexes is a highly sought area of research as it delivers fundamental insights into proteomes and pathology and hence strategies for therapeutics. While X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy still serve as a gold standard for structural elucidation of protein complexes, artificial and static analytic nature thereof often results in a non-native interface that otherwise might be negligible or non-existent in biological environment. In recent years, the mass spectrometry-coupled approaches, chemical crosslinking (CLMS) and hydrogen-deuterium exchange (HDMS), have become valuable analytic complements to traditional techniques. These methods explicitly identify hot residues and motifs embedded in binding interfaces, in particular, for which the interaction is predominantly dynamic, transient, and/or caused by an intrinsically disordered domain. Here we review the principal role of CLMS and HDMS in protein structural biology with a particular emphasis on the contribution of recent examples to exploring biological interfaces. In addition, we describe recent studies that utilized these methods to expand our understanding of protein complex formation and related biological processes and to increase probability of structure-based drug design.

The direct Z-scheme provide a potential strategy for high efficient CO2 photoreduction, whereas the heterointerface contact resistance is significantly limited the interfacial electron transfer kinetic. Herein, we build the directional charge-transfer channels in a direct Z-scheme system over metal−organic frameworks (MOFs), that is the lattice-guided MOF-on-MOF hybrids, to facilitate CO2 photoreduction. The heteroepitaxial lattice growth along the c-axis of MIL-88B(Fe) via the high-activity (001) facet over the stable (111) facet of UiO-66-NH2. Theoretical calculations and experimental results provide the direct evidence that engineering direct Z-scheme of these MOFs hybrids can induce the electrons migration from UiO-66-NH2 to the holes of MIL-88B(Fe) by directional charge-transfer channels owing to their lattice match. This can dramatically boosts photocatalytic CO2-to-CO selectivity up to nearly 100%, with a rate of 2.26 μmol·g-1·h-1. This work demonstrates that the efficiently selective CO2 photoreduction processes can be achieved by engineering Z-scheme via lattice intergrown of MOF hybrids strategy.

CO2 methanation is one of the vital reactions to utilize CO2 and realize power to gas process. To decrease the CO2 capture cost and alleviate the hot spots during the strong exothermic methanation reaction, here, we report a coupling of CO2 capture process with in situ CO2 methanation process through a ceramic-molten carbonate (MC) dual phase membrane reactor over the Ni-based catalyst. The performance of the membrane reactor was systematically investigated and compared with the traditional fixed-bed reactor. The results show that the performance of the membrane reactor is higher than that of the fixed-bed reactor, since the produced steam through the methanation process can be partially removed through the dual-phase membrane, which promotes the reaction shift to right side. A stability test shows no obvious degradation within 32 h. These results indicate that the membrane reactor is promising for coupling CO2 capture with in situ methanation process.

Because of very high potential barrier for thermionic emission and trap-assisted charge recombination, photocatalytic reaction rate that determined by semiconductor-cocatalyst interfacial electron transfer severely deviates from linearity to the photocatalyst dosage or to the light intensity. This makes it challenging to maximize utilization of practical irradiation by referring the parameters evaluated from method used in conventional catalysis. We here develop a model and predict that photocatalytic reaction rate positively correlates to photocatalyst concentration under weak illumination while the correlation becomes negative under intense irradiation. The theoretical simulation that matches the experimental values can be used to guide maximizing photocatalytic photon utilization under various intensity of irradiation. The strong correlation can rationalize photocatalytic evaluation instead of obtaining a numerically high value by excessively lowering the denominators. To realize efficient utilization of real-time changing sunlight, we propose a reactor configuration that can optimize the amount of photocatalyst participating into the reaction.

Nitrates from agricultural wastewater are harmful to human health and result in eutrophication. Several emerging electrochemical technologies have been developed independently to enable efficient recovery and recycling of nitrate waste; however, it remains unclear whether the implementation of such combined technologies can be economically viable. Herein, we perform a technoeconomic and global warming potential analysis on several hypothetical nitrate capture and conversion (NCC) systems for the recovery of nitrates from agricultural wastewater and conversion of nitrate to ammonia. The energy efficient technologies incorporated include: electrodialysis for nitrate separation, electrocatalysis for ambient ammonia production, and agrophotovoltaics as a clean energy source. Our technoeconomic analysis reveals that despite advancements in nitrate separation and conversion, capital investments for system installation cannot be recovered by the financial benefit of on-site fertilizer production. Our analysis highlights the necessity of government intervention to promote nitrate abatement technologies to ensure environmental compliance and protect public health.

Statins are a widely used class of drug, usually safe and well-tolerated. Their cutaneous side effects are exceedingly rare. We describe a case of photoexposed purpuric eruption mediated by rosuvastatin.

An important hypothesis for how plants respond to introduction to new ranges is the evolution of increased competitive ability (EICA). EICA predicts that biogeographical release from natural enemies initiates a tradeoff in which exotic species in non-native ranges become larger and more competitive, but invest less in consumer defenses, relative to populations in native ranges. This tradeoff is exceptionally complex because detecting concomitant biogeographical shifts in competitive ability and consumer defense depend upon which traits are targeted, how competition is measured, the defense chemicals quantified, whether defense chemicals do more than defend, whether “herbivory” is artificial or natural, and where consumers fall on the generalist-specialist spectrum. Previous meta-analyses have successfully identified patterns but have yet to fully disentangle this complexity. We used meta-analysis to reevaluate traditional metrics used to test EICA theory and then expanded on these metrics by partitioning competitive effect and competitive tolerance measures and testing Leaf Specific Mass in detail as a response trait. Unlike previous syntheses, our meta-analyses detected evidence consistent with the classic tradeoff inherent to EICA. Plants from non-native ranges imposed greater competitive effects than plants from native ranges and were less quantitatively defended than plants from native ranges. Our results for defense were not based on complex leaf chemistry, but instead were estimated from tannins, toughness traits, and primarily Leaf Specific Mass. Species specificity occurred but did not influence the general patterns. As for all evidence for EICA-like tradeoffs, we do not know if the biogeographical differences we found were caused by tradeoffs per se, but they are consistent with predictions derived from the overarching hypothesis. Underestimating physical leaf structure may have contributed to two decades of tepid perspectives on the tradeoffs fundamental to EICA.

Guillain-Barré syndrome is an acute immune-mediated demyelinating disease. Typical features include progressive ascending lower extremity weakness and areflexia. Several variants have been described which can make the diagnosis challenging . Here, we report a case of GBS presenting with progressive lower limb weakness and T6 sensory level.

Iatrogenic pseudoaneurysm is common vascular complications of angiographic procedures. Patients with uncomplicated pseudoaneurysms can be managed with ultrasound-guided techniques. However, for complicated pseudoaneurysms, surgical repair of the artery is mandatory. We report a case of successful repair of complicated pseudoaneurysm using access-site closure device, Perclose ProglideTM without surgical approach.

A document by Elias Tsakos. Click on the document to view its contents.

With continued global change, recovery of species listed under the Endangered Species Act is increasingly challenging. One rare success was the recovery and delisting of the Channel Island fox (Urocyon littoralis) after 90-99% population declines in the 1990s. While their demographic recovery was dramatic, less is known about their genetic recovery. To address genetic changes we conducted the first multi-individual and population-level direct genetic comparison of samples collected before and after the recent bottlenecks. Using whole exome sequencing, we found that already genetically depauperate populations were further degraded by the 1990s declines and remain low, particularly on San Miguel Island which underwent one of the most severe bottlenecks. The three other islands that experienced recent bottlenecks (Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Santa Catalina islands) showed mixed results based on multiple metrics of genetic diversity. Previous island fox genomics studies showed low genetic diversity before the declines and no change after the demographic recovery, thus this is the first study to show a decrease in genetic diversity over time in U. littoralis. Additionally, we found that divergence between populations consistently increased over time, complicating prospects for using inter-island translocation as a conservation tool. The Santa Catalina subspecies is now federally listed as threatened, yet other de-listed subspecies are still recovering genetic variation which may limit their ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions. This study further demonstrates that species conservation is more complex than population size and that some island fox populations are not yet “out of the woods”.