Meat yields and primal cut weights from beef carcasses can be predicted with similar accuracies using in-abattoir 3D measurements or EUROP classification grade.

Three-dimensional (3D) measurements extracted from beef carcass images were used to predict the weight of four saleable meat yield (SMY) traits (total SMY and the SMY of the forequarter, flank, and hindquarter) and four primal cuts (sirloin, ribeye, topside and rump). Data were collected at two UK abattoirs using time-of-flight cameras and manual bone out methods. Predictions were made for 484 carcasses, using multiple linear regression (MLR) or machine learning (ML) techniques.

Exploiting environmental asymmetry for vessel localization from the vertical coherence of radiated noise.

A method to determine the range and bearing of a moving broadband acoustic source, such as a surface vessel, using the coherence measured on two omni-directional, vertically separated hydrophones is demonstrated using acoustic data recorded near Alvin Canyon on the New England shelf break. To estimate the vessel's range, two theoretical approaches, a half-space model and a Pekeris waveguide model based on normal modes, establish simple relationships between the broadband signal coherence and frequency, source range, and the vertical separation of the receiver hydrophones. A brute force inversion produces a passive acoustic estimate of vessel range.

Afghan refugees at risk in the UK: enhancing healthcare access and integration.

Background: Following Kabul's fall in August 2021, there was influx of Afghan refugees in the UK. Southampton's Bridging Hotel provided temporary shelter to 22 families, totaling 116 individuals. The Living Well Partnership (LWP); assumed primary care provision for these vulnerable residents facing health inequalities.

Implications of an Altered Gut Microbiome in Rat Experimental Vascularized Composite Transplantation.

Objectives: Vascularized composite allotransplantation is a reconstructive option after severe injury but is fraught with complications, including transplant rejection due to major histocompatibility complex mismatch in the context of allogeneic transplant, which in turn is due to altered immuno-inflammation secondary to transplant. The immunosuppressant tacrolimus can prevent rejection. Because tacrolimus is metabolized predominantly by the gut, this immunosuppressant alters the gut microbiome in multiple ways, thereby possibly affecting immunoinflammation.

Unraveling the complex relationship between mRNA and protein abundances: a machine learning-based approach for imputing protein levels from RNA-seq data.

The correlation between messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein abundances has long been debated. RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), a high-throughput, commonly used method for analyzing transcriptional dynamics, leaves questions about whether we can translate RNA-seq-identified gene signatures directly to protein changes. In this study, we utilized a set of 17 widely assessed immune and wound healing mediators in the context of canine volumetric muscle loss to investigate the correlation of mRNA and protein abundances.

Using in-abattoir 3-dimensional measurements from images of beef carcasses for the prediction of EUROP classification grade and carcass weight.

Imaging technology can aid the automatic extraction of measurements from beef carcasses, which can be used for objective grading. Many abattoirs, however, rely on manual grading due to the required infrastructure and cost, making technology unfeasible. This study explores 3-dimensional (3D) imaging technology, requiring limited infrastructure, and its ability to predict carcass weight, conformation class and fat class for non-invasive, objective classification.

A common single nucleotide polymorphism is associated with inflammation and critical illness outcomes.

Acute inflammation is heterogeneous in critical illness and predictive of outcome. We hypothesized that genetic variability in novel, yet common, gene variants contributes to this heterogeneity and could stratify patient outcomes. We searched algorithmically for significant differences in systemic inflammatory mediators associated with any of 551,839 SNPs in one derivation (n = 380 patients with blunt trauma) and two validation (n = 75 trauma and n = 537 non-trauma patients) cohorts.

Ambient noise levels with depth from an underwater glider survey across shipping lanes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada.

A two-month-long glider deployment in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada, measured the ambient sound level variability with depth and lateral position across a narrow channel that serves as an active commercial shipping corridor. The Honguedo Strait between the Gaspé Peninsula and Anticosti Island has a characteristic sound channel during the Summer and Fall due to temperature variation with depth.

Creating an Autonomous Hovercraft for Bathymetric Surveying in Extremely Shallow Water (<1 m).

Coastal shallow water environments (<5 m) are extremely biodiverse and dynamic yet are often mapped too infrequently or at too low resolutions to capture the important processes occurring in these regions. Common forms of coastal surveying can leave gaps in data in the shallow water zone due to optical instrument capabilities and a vessel's ability to navigate in this region. One solution to these issues is an autonomous hovercraft that can fly over land and water and begin surveying at sub-meter water depths, bridging the gap between common optical and acoustic surveying methods.

Observed transmissions and ocean-ice-acoustic coupled modelling in the Beaufort Sea.

An ocean-ice-acoustic coupled model is configured for the Beaufort Sea. The model uses outputs from a data assimilating global scale ice-ocean-atmosphere forecast to drive a bimodal roughness algorithm for generating a realistic ice canopy. The resulting range-dependent ice cover obeys observed roughness, keel number density, depth, and slope, and floe size statistics.

Peripheral nerve repair is associated with augmented cross-tissue inflammation following vascularized composite allotransplantation.

Introduction: Vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA), with nerve repair/coaptation (NR) and tacrolimus (TAC) immunosuppressive therapy, is used to repair devastating traumatic injuries but is often complicated by inflammation spanning multiple tissues. We identified the parallel upregulation of transcriptional pathways involving chemokine signaling, T-cell receptor signaling, Th17, Th1, and Th2 pathways in skin and nerve tissue in complete VCA rejection compared to baseline in 7 human hand transplants and defined increasing complexity of protein-level dynamic networks involving chemokine, Th1, and Th17 pathways as a function of rejection severity in 5 of these patients. We next hypothesized that neural mechanisms may regulate the complex spatiotemporal evolution of rejection-associated inflammation post-VCA.

Global wood anatomical perspective on the onset of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) in the mid-6th century CE.

Linked to major volcanic eruptions around 536 and 540 CE, the onset of the Late Antique Little Ice Age has been described as the coldest period of the past two millennia. The exact timing and spatial extent of this exceptional cold phase are, however, still under debate because of the limited resolution and geographical distribution of the available proxy archives. Here, we use 106 wood anatomical thin sections from 23 forest sites and 20 tree species in both hemispheres to search for cell-level fingerprints of ephemeral summer cooling between 530 and 550 CE.

Care of the dying - medical student confidence and preparedness: mixed-methods simulation study.

Objectives: Of all doctors, Foundation Year 1 trainees spend the most time caring for dying patients yet report poor preparation and low confidence in providing this care. Despite documented effectiveness of simulation in teaching end-of-life care to undergraduate nurses, undergraduate medicine continues to teach this subject using a more theoretical, classroom-based approach. By increasing undergraduate exposure to interactive dying patient scenarios, simulation has the potential to improve confidence and preparedness of medical students to care for dying patients.

Inferring Tissue-Specific, TLR4-Dependent Type 17 Immune Interactions in Experimental Trauma/Hemorrhagic Shock and Resuscitation Using Computational Modeling.

Trauma/hemorrhagic shock followed by resuscitation (T/HS-R) results in multi-system inflammation and organ dysfunction, in part driven by binding of damage-associated molecular pattern molecules to Toll-like Receptor 4 (TLR4). We carried out experimental T/HS-R (pseudo-fracture plus 2 h of shock followed by 0-22 h of resuscitation) in C57BL/6 (wild type [WT]) and TLR4-null (TLR4) mice, and then defined the dynamics of 20 protein-level inflammatory mediators in the heart, gut, lung, liver, spleen, kidney, and systemic circulation. Cross-correlation and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on data from the 7 tissues sampled suggested that TLR4 samples express multiple inflammatory mediators in a small subset of tissue compartments as compared to the WT samples, in which many inflammatory mediators were localized non-specifically to nearly all compartments.

Oceanography by ear.

The Reflections series takes a look back on historical articles from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America that have had a significant impact on the science and practice of acoustics.

Real-time acoustic observations in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

The main sources of noise in the Arctic Ocean are naturally occurring, rather than related to human activities. Sustained acoustic monitoring at high latitudes provides quantitative measures of changes in the sound field attributable to evolving human activity or shifting environmental conditions. A 12-month ambient sound time series (September 2018 to August 2019) recorded and transmitted from a real-time monitoring station near Gascoyne Inlet, Nunavut is presented.

Recommended metrics for quantifying underwater noise impacts on North Atlantic right whales.

Anthropogenic underwater noise has been identified as a potentially serious stressor for the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale (NARW). The Government of Canada is undertaking steps to better characterize the noise sources of most concern and their associated impacts, but there is currently an insufficient understanding of which noise sources are most impacting NARW in their Canadian habitat. This knowledge gap together with the myriad possible methods and metrics for quantifying underwater noise presents a confounding and challenging problem that risks delaying timely mitigation.

Inflammatory signals and network connections implicate cell-mediated immunity in chronic venous insufficiency.

Background: The role of inflammation in superficial venous reflux in varicose veins (VVs) is unknown. Computational network modeling has deduced inflammation in experimental and clinical settings. We measured immune mediators in plasma from competent and incompetent leg veins inferring the role of cellular immunity based on cytokine networks.

Changes in tail posture detected by a 3D machine vision system are associated with injury from damaging behaviours and ill health on commercial pig farms.

To establish whether pig tail posture is affected by injuries and ill health, a machine vision system using 3D cameras to measure tail angle was used. Camera data from 1692 pigs in 41 production batches of 42.4 (±16.

Seeking Excellence in End of Life Care (SEE Care): A Multi-Centered Acute Hospitals Service Evaluation.

Context: A proportion of UK hospital inpatients have palliative care needs but do not access specialist services.

Objectives: To contemporaneously evaluate the significance of unmet specialist palliative care needs within the hospital inpatient population.

Methods: Prospective multi-centered service evaluation was conducted through 4 snapshots across 4 acute NHS hospital trusts.

Global COVID-19 lockdown highlights humans as both threats and custodians of the environment.

The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats during the early lockdown months of 2020, based on 877 qualitative reports and 332 quantitative assessments from 89 different studies. Hundreds of reports of unusual species observations from around the world suggest that animals quickly responded to the reductions in human presence.

The Effects of Tacrolimus on Tissue-Specific, Protein-Level Inflammatory Networks in Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation.

Systems-level insights into inflammatory events after vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA) are critical to the success of immunomodulatory strategies of these complex procedures. To date, the effects of tacrolimus (TAC) immunosuppression on inflammatory networks in VCA, such as in acute rejection (AR), have not been investigated. We used a systems biology approach to elucidate the effects of tacrolimus on dynamic networks and principal drivers of systemic inflammation in the context of dynamic tissue-specific immune responses following VCA.

A putative "chemokine switch" that regulates systemic acute inflammation in humans.

Systemic inflammation is complex and likely drives clinical outcomes in critical illness such as that which ensues following severe injury. We obtained time course data on multiple inflammatory mediators in the blood of blunt trauma patients. Using dynamic network analyses, we inferred a novel control architecture for systemic inflammation: a three-way switch comprising the chemokines MCP-1/CCL2, MIG/CXCL9, and IP-10/CXCL10.

Underwater sound levels in the Canadian Arctic, 2014-2019.

The Arctic has been a refuge from anthropogenic underwater noise; however, climate change has caused summer sea ice to diminish, allowing for unprecedented access and the potential for increased underwater noise. Baseline underwater sound levels must be quantified to monitor future changes and manage underwater noise in the Arctic. We analyzed 39 passive acoustic datasets collected throughout the Canadian Arctic from 2014 to 2019 using statistical models to examine spatial and temporal trends in daily mean sound pressure levels (SPL) and quantify environmental and anthropogenic drivers of SPL.