Catabolic pathway acquisition by rhizosphere bacteria readily enables growth with a root exudate component but does not affect root colonization.

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a fundamental evolutionary process that plays a key role in bacterial evolution. The likelihood of a successful transfer event is expected to depend on the precise balance of costs and benefits resulting from pathway acquisition. Most experimental analyses of HGT have focused on phenotypes that have large fitness benefits under appropriate selective conditions, such as antibiotic resistance.

Emotional and Financial Stressors in New York City During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Consecutive Cross-Sectional Analysis.

Mental and financial hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City was severe, but how vulnerable groups have been disproportionately impacted is incompletely understood. In partnership with community stakeholders, we administered a web-based survey to a convenience sample of New York City residents (18 + years) from May 2020 to April 2021 to evaluate their financial and emotional stressors. We analyzed outcomes by race, ethnicity, and education level.

The Power of Partnership: NYCEAL Collaborations With Health Agencies and Mobile Vaccination Vans.

New York City experienced a high COVID-19 burden and striking disparities among racial and ethnic minoritized groups. The New York Community Engagement Alliance Against COVID-19 Disparities (NYCEAL) collaborated with health agencies and clinical providers to increase and facilitate COVID-19 vaccinations across New York City. NYCEAL partners and their network of hundreds of community health workers delivered vaccine education, fostered community trust, and supported vaccine uptake among low-income, limited‒English-proficient, and racial and ethnic minoritized communities.

Pressure relieving interventions for the management of diabetes-related foot ulcers: a study from the Northern Territory of Australia.

Background: Offloading intervention is an important component in the management of diabetes-related foot ulcer (DFU). The NT population is unique with certain distinctive challenges. Potential advantages of and barriers to optimal offloading methods in our setting were investigated.

Characteristics and health outcomes of patients hospitalised with hypomagnesaemia: a retrospective study from a single centre in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Background: Magnesium is an essential cation in the human body involved in many processes in the human body. Hypomagnesium has been linked to many poor health outcomes.

Aims: To study the clinical and biochemical characteristics and health outcomes of patients admitted and found to have hypomagnesaemia in an Australian hospital with a high proportion of Indigenous Australians.

Land-Cover Changes to Surface-Water Buffers in the Midwestern USA: 25 Years of Landsat Data Analyses (1993-2017).

To understand the timing, extent, and magnitude of land use/land cover (LULC) change in buffer areas surrounding Midwestern US waters, we analyzed the full imagery archive (1982-2017) of three Landsat footprints covering ~100,000 km. The study area included urbanizing Chicago, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri regions and agriculturally dominated landscapes (i.

Top End Pulmonary Hypertension Study: Understanding Epidemiology, Therapeutic Gaps and Prognosis in Remote Australian Setting.

Introduction: The Top End of Australia has a high proportion of Indigenous people with a high burden of chronic cardiac and pulmonary diseases likely to contribute to pulmonary hypertension (PH). The epidemiology of PH has not been previously studied in this region.

Methods: Patients with PH were identified from the Northern Territory echocardiography database from January 2010 to December 2015 and followed to the end of 2019 or death.

Ectopic ACTH- and/or CRH-Producing Pheochromocytomas.

Context: The characteristics of catecholamine-secreting pheochromocytomas have been well studied. However, less is known about the characteristics, management and outcome in patients with ectopic adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and/or corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH)-secreting pheochromocytomas.

Objective: To review the characteristics and outcomes of ACTH- and/or CRH-secreting pheochromocytomas.

Riedel Thyroiditis.

Context: Riedel thyroiditis (RT) is a rare inflammatory autoimmune disease that is often a clinically diagnostic dilemma because of its insidious presentation and nonspecific symptoms.

Objective: The aim of the present systematic review and meta-analysis is to clarify the presentation, management, and outcomes of RT.

Study Selection: A systematic search of PubMed/MEDLINE and Web of Science was conducted to identify relevant reports published up to September 2019.

Option pricing of weather derivatives based on a stochastic daily rainfall model with Analogue Year component.

In this study, we analyzed option pricing of rainfall derivatives based on stochastic daily rainfall model. We used Markov Chain Analogue Year model (MCAY) in order to describe occurrence process of daily rainfall. We have included the Analogue Year (AY) component in the Markov Chain (MC), which is a new component incorporated in this study and pricing rainfall derivatives.

Amputations in patients with diabetic foot ulcer: a retrospective study from a single centre in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Background: Lower extremity amputations (LEAs) in diabetic patients are common in the indigenous population. There is no published data from the Northern Territory.

Methods: All patients with diabetic foot ulcer, presenting for the first time to the multi-disciplinary foot clinic at Royal Darwin Hospital, between January 2003 and June 2015, were included.

Risk Factors of Gout in MDR-TB Patients in Eritrea: A Case-Control Study.

Though the incidence of gout in general population is less than 5% (globally), a study conducted in Eritrea among patients with multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) revealed a higher incidence (25%). Other similar studies conducted elsewhere, however, did not report gout as an adverse effect. It is unknown why a higher incidence of gout is being reported in Eritrea compared to similar studies from other countries.

Unsupervised Indoor Positioning System Based on Environmental Signatures.

Mobile sensors are widely used in indoor positioning in recent years, but most methods require cumbersome calibration for precise positioning results, thus the paper proposes a new unsupervised indoor positioning (UIP) without cumbersome calibration. UIP takes advantage of environment features in indoor environments, as some indoor locations have their signatures. UIP considers these signatures as the landmarks, and combines dead reckoning with them in a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) frame to reduce positioning errors and convergence time.

The Influence of Region of Interest Heterogeneity on Classification Accuracy in Wetland Systems.

Classifying and mapping natural systems such as wetlands using remote sensing frequently relies on data derived from regions of interest (ROIs), often acquired during field campaigns. ROIs tend to be heterogeneous in complex systems with a variety of land cover classes. However, traditional supervised image classification is predicated on pure single-class observations to train a classifier.

Mortality in patients with diabetic foot ulcer: a retrospective study of 513 cases from a single Centre in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Background: Diabetic foot ulcers (DFU) are a common problem in longstanding diabetes. However, mortality outcomes in Australian patients with DFU are still unclear.

Methods: All patients with DFU presenting for the first time to the Multi-Disciplinary Foot Clinic (MDFC) at Royal Darwin Hospital, Northern Territory Australia, between January 2003 and June 2015 were included in this study.

Blood donation practice and associated factors among health professionals in Tigray regional state public hospitals, northern Ethiopia.

Objective: The demand for blood and blood products are increasing in all part of the globe, especially in the developing nations. However, there is limited information on the level of blood donation practice and their related factors. Therefore, assessing the level of blood donation practice and its determinant factors among health professionals have a paramount importance in designing an effective strategy for sustaining adequate and safe blood provision in the hospitals.

Decision-Tree, Rule-Based, and Random Forest Classification of High-Resolution Multispectral Imagery for Wetland Mapping and Inventory.

Efforts are increasingly being made to classify the world's wetland resources, an important ecosystem and habitat that is diminishing in abundance. There are multiple remote sensing classification methods, including a suite of nonparametric classifiers such as decision-tree (DT), rule-based (RB), and random forest (RF). High-resolution satellite imagery can provide more specificity to the classified end product, and ancillary data layers such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, and hydrogeomorphic layers such as distance-to-a-stream can be coupled to improve overall accuracy (OA) in wetland studies.

Relative Contributions of and Bacteriophage to Bacterial Cell Death under Various Environmental Conditions.

The role of protists and bacteriophages in bacterial predation in the microbial food web has been well studied. There is mounting evidence that and like organisms (BALOs) also contribute to bacterial mortality and, in some cases, more so than bacteriophages. A full understanding of the ecologic function of the microbial food web requires recognition of all major predators and the magnitude of each predator's contribution.

Titration of Folate Pathway Enzymes.

How enzymes behave in cells is likely different from how they behave in the test tube. Previous studies find that osmolytes interact weakly with folate. Removal of the osmolyte from the solvation shell of folate is more difficult than removal of water, which weakens binding of folate to its enzyme partners.

Comparing Pixel- and Object-Based Approaches in Effectively Classifying Wetland-Dominated Landscapes.

Wetland ecosystems straddle both terrestrial and aquatic habitats, performing many ecological functions directly and indirectly benefitting humans. However, global wetland losses are substantial. Satellite remote sensing and classification informs wise wetland management and monitoring.

Kinetic sorption of contaminants of emerging concern by a palygorskite-montmorillonite filter medium.

Kinetic sorption of bisphenol A (BPA), carbamazepine (CMZ) and ciprofloxacin (CIP) by three palygorskite-montmorillonite (Pal-Mt) granule sizes was studied. For BPA, CMZ and CIP, apparent sorption equilibrium was reached within about 3, 5 and 16 h, respectively. The highest and the lowest sorption capacities were by the small and the large granule sizes, respectively.

Halobacteriovorax, an underestimated predator on bacteria: potential impact relative to viruses on bacterial mortality.

Predation on bacteria and accompanying mortality are important mechanisms in controlling bacterial populations and recycling of nutrients through the microbial loop. The agents most investigated and seen as responsible for bacterial mortality are viruses and protists. However, a body of evidence suggests that predatory bacteria such as the Halobacteriovorax (formerly Bacteriovorax), a Bdellovibrio-like organism, contribute substantially to bacterial death.

Sorption-desorption of carbamazepine by palygorskite-montmorillonite (PM) filter medium.

Palygorskite-montmorillonite (PM) was studied as a potential sewage treatment effluent filter material for carbamazepine. Batch sorption experiments were conducted as a function of granule size (0.3-0.