Gut Microbiome Composition and Its Association with Sleep in Major Psychiatric Disorders.

Introduction: Sleep disturbances are highly prevalent across most major psychiatric disorders. Alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, neuroimmune mechanisms, and circadian rhythm disturbances partially explain this connection. The gut microbiome is also suspected to play a role in sleep regulation, and recent studies suggest that certain probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, and fecal microbiome transplantation can improve sleep quality.

Developments of a field gas extraction device and krypton purification system for groundwater radio-krypton dating at the IAEA.

The long-lived radio-krypton isotope Kr (t = 2.29 × 10 yr) is an ideal tracer for old groundwater age dating in the range of 10-10 years which goes beyond the reach of radio-carbon (C) age dating. Analytical breakthrough made over the last two decades in Atom Trap Trace Analysis (ATTA) has enabled the use of this isotope with extremely low abundance (Kr/Kr = 6 × 10) to be used as a practical dating tool for very old groundwater.

An approach to high throughput measurement of accurate retention data in liquid chromatography.

Efforts to model and simulate various aspects of liquid chromatography (LC) separations (e.g., retention, selectivity, peak capacity, injection breakthrough) depend on experimental retention measurements to use as the basis for the models and simulations.

Influence of maternal age in mode of delivery after term induction of labor.

Objective: To determine the impact of maternal age on the rate of cesarean delivery in women undergoing induction at term.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study of term singleton gestations in nulliparous women induced for any indication at Lehigh Valley Health Network from July 2010 to July 2013. Exposure of interest was maternal age.

A simple polymer electrolyte membrane system for enrichment of low-level tritium (H) in environmental water samples.

Tritium (H) is an essential tracer of the Earth's water cycle; yet widespread adoption of tritium in hydrologic studies remains a challenge because of analytical barriers to quantification and detection of H by electrolytic pre-concentration. Here, we propose a simple tritium electrolytic enrichment system based on the use of solid polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) that can be used to enrich H in 250-3000 mL environmental water samples to a 10-mL final volume. The IAEA PEM-H system reported here can produce high enrichment factors (>70-fold) and, importantly, removes some of the deterrents to conventional H enrichments methods, including the use of toxic electrolysis and neutralization chemicals, spike standards, a complex electrolysis apparatus that requires extensive cooling and temperature controls, and improves precision by eliminating the need for tracking recovery gravimetrics.