Publications by authors named "Cindy Smith"

Background: Management guidelines for stable three-vessel coronary artery disease have become a subject of debate. We aim to provide a benchmark for the survival of patients with normal ejection fraction, stable three-vessel disease, and elective coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.

Methods: Data from consecutive patients with normal ejection fraction undergoing elective primary isolated CABG for triple-vessel disease in a diverse 11-center surgical network between 2008 and 2020 were analyzed.

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Microbial chemotaxis plays a key role in a diversity of biological and ecological processes. Although microfluidics-based assays have been applied to investigate bacterial chemotaxis, retrieving chemotactic cells off-chip based on their dynamic chemotactic responses remains limited. Here, we present a simple three-dimensional microfluidic platform capable of programmable delivery of solutions, maintaining static, stable gradients for over 20 hours, followed by active sorting and retrieval of bacteria based on their chemotactic phenotypes.

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In this study, we explored the morphological and electrochemical properties of carbon-based electrodes derived from laser-induced graphene (LIG) and compared them to commercially available graphene-sheet screen-printed electrodes (GS-SPEs). By optimizing the laser parameters (average laser power, speed, and focus) using a design of experiments response surface (DoE-RS) approach, binder-free LIG electrodes were achieved in a single-step process. Traditional trial-and-error methods can be time-consuming and may not capture the interactions between all variables effectively.

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Background: Salmon aquaculture involves freshwater and seawater phases. Recently there has been an increase in multifactorial gill health challenges during the seawater phase which has led to an urgent need to understand the gill microbiome. There is a lack of understanding on what drives the composition of the gill microbiome, and the influence the freshwater stage has on its long-term composition.

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Crustaceans are a valuable resource globally, both ecologically and economically, and investigations into their health are becoming increasingly important as exploitation rises. The microbiome plays a crucial role in crustacean immunity, and understanding its composition and structure can provide insights into the health of an organism and its interactions with various factors. In this study, we investigated the hepatopancreas microbiome of the velvet swimming crab, Necora puber, and compared its composition and structure with several study factors, including two different sampling points and infection with a paramyxid parasite, Paramarteilia canceri.

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Biofiltration is a low-cost, low-energy technology that employs a biologically activated bed of porous medium to reduce the biodegradable fraction of the dissolved organic matter (DOM) pool in source water, resulting in the production of drinking water. Microbial communities at different bed depths within the biofilter play crucial roles in the degradation and removal of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), ultimately impacting its performance. However, the relationships between the composition of microbial communities inhabiting different biofilter depths and their utilisation of various DOC fractions remain poorly understood.

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Exploring differences in nitrification within adjacent sedimentary structures of ridges and runnels on the Brouage mudflat, France, we quantified Potential Nitrification Rates (PNR) alongside amoA genes and transcripts. PNR was lower in ridges (≈1.7 fold-lower) than runnels, despite higher (≈1.

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Professional identity formation is a key component of health professional education. Changing expectations of healthcare requires more than competencies, but also an ingrained responsibility to patients, with our values and behaviors aligned with community expectations of patient-centered health professionals. Research into professional identity formation has focused on nursing and medical training, and, although allied health professionals make up one third of the workforce, research is uneven across these disciplines.

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Antimicrobial resistance is a global crisis, and wastewater treatment, including septic tanks, remains an important source of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes. The role of septic tanks in disseminating class 1 integron, and by extension AMR genes, in Thailand, where antibiotic use is unregulated remains understudied. We aimed to monitor gene abundance as a proxy to infer potential AMR from septic tanks in Thailand.

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Nitrospira has been revealed as a high versatile genus. Although previously considered only responsible for the conversion of nitrite to nitrate, now we know that Nitrospira can perform complete ammonia oxidation to nitrate too (comammox). Comammox activity was firstly reported as dominant in extremely limited oxygen environments, where anaerobic ammonia oxidation was also occurring (anammox).

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In microbial communities, the ecological interactions between species of different populations are responsible for the spatial distributions observed in aggregates (granules, biofilms or flocs). To explore the underlying mechanisms that control these processes, we have developed a mathematical modelling framework able to describe, label and quantify defined spatial structures that arise from microbial and environmental interactions in communities. An artificial system of three populations collaborating or competing in an aggregate is simulated using individual-based modelling under different environmental conditions.

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Anaerobic digestion (AD)-based biogas production mitigates the environmental footprint of organic wastes (e.g., food waste and sewage sludge) and facilitates a circular economy.

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Amoebic gill disease (AGD) and complex gill disease (CGD) are recurrent gill disorders in Atlantic salmon, resulting in significant aquaculture losses. The role of gill microbiomes in gill disease development is unclear. We undertook a longitudinal study to characterise the gill tissue and gill mucus microbiomes of farmed Atlantic salmon before, and during, a gill disease episode.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study compares two methods for analyzing genetic data from microbial communities: the traditional OTU (operational taxonomic units) approach based on sequence similarity and the newer ASV (amplicon sequence variant) method that uses a noise-error model for more precise classification.
  • - Researchers examined these methods using functional gene data from nitrogen-cycling microbes in Brouage mudflat, observing significant effects of sediment structure on microbial diversity, with mixed results depending on the reconstruction method used.
  • - Findings highlight that the choice of analysis method (NBC vs. BLCA) matters based on the similarity of reference sequences, indicating that context is crucial for making accurate ecological classifications with amplicon data.
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Biodiesel has the potential to mitigate the fossil fuel-related carbon emission and energy insecurity challenges. There are limited studies examining the impacts of biodiesel production scales on the environmental impacts, while such information will be valuable for guiding practical system design. This work applied the approach of life cycle assessment to evaluate the environmental impacts of biodiesel production from rapeseed oil which accounts for 80% of the European biofuel market.

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Is it possible to find trends between the parameters that define microbial growth to help us explain the vast microbial diversity? Through an extensive database of kinetic parameters of nitrifiers, we analyzed if the dominance of specific populations of nitrifiers could be predicted and explained. We concluded that, in general, higher growth yield (Y ) and ammonia affinity (a ) and lower growth rate (µ ) are observed for ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) than bacteria (AOB), which would explain their considered dominance in oligotrophic environments. However, comammox (CMX), with the maximum energy harvest per mole of ammonia, and some AOB, have higher a and lower µ than some AOA.

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A meta-analysis of existing and available Illumina 16S rRNA datasets from drinking water source, treatment and drinking water distribution systems (DWDS) were collated to compare changes in abundance and diversity throughout. Samples from bulk water and biofilm were used to assess principles governing microbial community assembly and the value of amplicon sequencing to water utilities. Individual phyla relationships were explored to identify competitive or synergistic factors governing DWDS microbiomes.

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Background: Solid organ transplant recipients are at increased risk of COVID-19-associated morbidity and mortality.

Aims: We describe a nosocomial outbreak investigation on an immunocompromised inpatient unit.

Methods: Patients positive for SARS-CoV-2 were identified.

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During in situ biogas up-gradation by supplying hydrogen from an external source and enrichment of hydrogenotrophic methanogens, high pressure of H negatively affects hydrolytic and fermentative activities. To overcome this problem, the present study aimed to enrich the hydrogenotrophic methanogens by optimization of various parameters associated with gas recirculation along-with hydrogen supply from the external source. Due to recirculation of gases and supplied hydrogen, methane generation was two-fold higher in the optimal condition than in conventional anaerobic digestion, with the highest methane content of 99%.

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Microbial communities are complex but there are basic principles we can apply to constrain the assumed stochasticity of their activity. By understanding the trade-offs behind the kinetic parameters that define microbial growth, we can explain how local interspecies dependencies arise and shape the emerging properties of a community. If we integrate these theoretical descriptions with experimental 'omics' data and bioenergetics analysis of specific environmental conditions, predictions on activity, assembly and spatial structure can be obtained reducing the a priori unpredictable complexity of microbial communities.

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Reverse-transcriptase-quantitative PCR (RT-Q-PCR) and RT-PCR amplicon sequencing, provide a convenient, target-specific, high-sensitivity approach for gene expression studies and are widely used in environmental microbiology. Yet, the effectiveness and reproducibility of the reverse transcription step has not been evaluated. Therefore, we tested a combination of four commercial reverse transcriptases with two priming techniques to faithfully transcribe 16S rRNA and amoA transcripts from marine sediments.

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