Hearing impairment and vestibular function in patients with a pathogenic splice variant in the LHX3 gene.

Background: LHX3 is a gene encoding a LIM-homeodomain transcription factor important for the fetal development of several organs, such as the pituitary gland, spinal motor neurons and the inner ear. Pathogenic and likely pathogenic variants in the LHX3 gene are infrequent and result in a rare syndrome known as combined pituitary hormone deficiency-3, CPHD3.

Methods: We have studied hearing and vestibular functions in a group of eight individuals, aged 8-36 years, all of whom were homozygous for a specific variant in the LHX3 gene at chromosome 9q34.

Sweden surpasses the UNAIDS 95-95-95 target: estimating HIV-1 incidence, 2003 to 2022.

BackgroundSweden reached the UNAIDS 90-90-90 target in 2015. It is important to reassess the HIV epidemiological situation due to ever-changing migration patterns, the roll-out of PrEP and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.AimWe aimed to assess the progress towards the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets in Sweden by estimating the proportion of undiagnosed people with HIV (PWHIV) and HIV incidence trends.

Operando XANES Reveals the Chemical State of Iron-Oxide Monolayers During Low-Temperature CO Oxidation.

We have used grazing incidence X-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy (XANES) to investigate the behavior of monolayer FeO films on Pt(111) under near ambient pressure CO oxidation conditions with a total gas pressure of 1 bar. Spectra indicate reversible changes during oxidation and reduction by O and CO at 150 °C, attributed to a transformation between FeO bilayer and FeO trilayer phases. The trilayer phase is also reduced upon heating in CO+O , consistent with a Mars-van-Krevelen type mechanism for CO oxidation.

Australia's recently established predators restore complexity to food webs simplified by extinction.

Since prehistory, humans have altered the composition of ecosystems by causing extinctions and introducing species. However, our understanding of how waves of species extinctions and introductions influence the structure and function of ecological networks through time remains piecemeal. Here, focusing on Australia, which has experienced many extinctions and introductions since the Late Pleistocene, we compared the functional trait composition of Late Pleistocene (130,00-115,000 years before present [ybp]), Holocene (11,700-3,000 ybp), and current Australian mammalian predator assemblages (≥70% vertebrate meat consumption; ≥1 kg adult body mass).

Long-term biotic homogenization in the East African Rift System over the last 6 million years of hominin evolution.

Eastern Africa preserves the most complete record of human evolution anywhere in the world but we have little knowledge of how long-term biogeographic dynamics in the region influenced hominin diversity and distributions. Here, we use spatial beta diversity analyses of mammal fossil records from the East African Rift System to reveal long-term biotic homogenization (increasing compositional similarity of faunas) over the last 6 Myr. Late Miocene and Pliocene faunas (~6-3 million years ago (Ma)) were largely composed of endemic species, with the shift towards biotic homogenization after ~3 Ma being driven by the loss of endemic species across functional groups and a growing number of shared grazing species.

Preventing extinction in an age of species migration and planetary change.

International and national conservation policies almost exclusively focus on conserving species in their historic native ranges, thus excluding species that have been introduced by people and some of those that have extended their ranges on their own accord. Given that many of such migrants are threatened in their native ranges, conservation goals that explicitly exclude these populations may overlook opportunities to prevent extinctions and respond dynamically to rapidly changing environmental and climatic conditions. Focusing on terrestrial mammals, we quantified the number of threatened mammals that have established new populations through assisted migration (i.

Meta-analysis shows that wild large herbivores shape ecosystem properties and promote spatial heterogeneity.

Megafauna (animals ≥45 kg) have probably shaped the Earth's terrestrial ecosystems for millions of years with pronounced impacts on biogeochemistry, vegetation, ecological communities and evolutionary processes. However, a quantitative global synthesis on the generality of megafauna effects on ecosystems is lacking. Here we conducted a meta-analysis of 297 studies and 5,990 individual observations across six continents to determine how wild herbivorous megafauna influence ecosystem structure, ecological processes and spatial heterogeneity, and whether these impacts depend on body size and environmental factors.

Functional traits-not nativeness-shape the effects of large mammalian herbivores on plant communities.

Large mammalian herbivores (megafauna) have experienced extinctions and declines since prehistory. Introduced megafauna have partly counteracted these losses yet are thought to have unusually negative effects on plants compared with native megafauna. Using a meta-analysis of 3995 plot-scale plant abundance and diversity responses from 221 studies, we found no evidence that megafauna impacts were shaped by nativeness, "invasiveness," "feralness," coevolutionary history, or functional and phylogenetic novelty.

Inferring Viral Transmission Time from Phylogenies for Known Transmission Pairs.

When the time of an HIV transmission event is unknown, methods to identify it from virus genetic data can reveal the circumstances that enable transmission. We developed a single-parameter Markov model to infer transmission time from an HIV phylogeny constructed of multiple virus sequences from people in a transmission pair. Our method finds the statistical support for transmission occurring in different possible time slices.

A Polycrystalline Pd Surface Studied by Two-Dimensional Surface Optical Reflectance during CO Oxidation: Bridging the Materials Gap.

Industrial catalysts are complex materials systems operating in harsh environments. The active parts of the catalysts are nanoparticles that expose different facets with different surface orientations at which the catalytic reactions occur. However, these facets are close to impossible to study in detail under industrially relevant operating conditions.

Long-Term Follow-Up in Active Transcutaneous Bone Conduction Implants.

Objective: To evaluate long-term outcomes of active transcutaneous bone conduction implants (atBCIs) regarding safety, hearing, and quality of life.

Study Design: A clinical study with retrospective medical record analysis combined with prospective audiometry and quality of life questionnaires.

Setting: Three secondary to tertiary care hospitals.

Worldwide Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene population declines in extant megafauna are associated with Homo sapiens expansion rather than climate change.

The worldwide extinction of megafauna during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene is evident from the fossil record, with dominant theories suggesting a climate, human or combined impact cause. Consequently, two disparate scenarios are possible for the surviving megafauna during this time period - they could have declined due to similar pressures, or increased in population size due to reductions in competition or other biotic pressures. We therefore infer population histories of 139 extant megafauna species using genomic data which reveal population declines in 91% of species throughout the Quaternary period, with larger species experiencing the strongest decreases.

Animal cognition and culture mediate predator-prey interactions.

Predator-prey ecology and the study of animal cognition and culture have emerged as independent disciplines. Research combining these disciplines suggests that both animal cognition and culture can shape the outcomes of predator-prey interactions and their influence on ecosystems. We review the growing body of work that weaves animal cognition or culture into predator-prey ecology, and argue that both cognition and culture are significant but poorly understood mechanisms mediating how predators structure ecosystems.

Inferring viral transmission time from phylogenies for known transmission pairs.

When the time of an HIV transmission event is unknown, methods to identify it from virus genetic data can reveal the circumstances that enable transmission. We developed a single-parameter Markov model to infer transmission time from an HIV phylogeny constructed of multiple virus sequences from people in a transmission pair. Our method finds the statistical support for transmission occurring in different possible time slices.

Formation of Epitaxial PdO(100) During the Oxidation of Pd(100).

The catalytic oxidation of CO and CH can be strongly influenced by the structures of oxide phases that form on metallic catalysts during reaction. Here, we show that an epitaxial PdO(100) structure forms at temperatures above 600 K during the oxidation of Pd(100) by gaseous O atoms as well as exposure to O-rich mixtures at millibar partial pressures. The oxidation of Pd(100) by gaseous O atoms preferentially generates an epitaxial, multilayer PdO(101) structure at 500 K, but initiating Pd(100) oxidation above 600 K causes an epitaxial PdO(100) structure to grow concurrently with PdO(101) and produces a thicker and rougher oxide.

Effect of Different InO(111) Surface Terminations on CO Adsorption.

InO-based catalysts have shown high activity and selectivity for CO hydrogenation to methanol; however, the origin of the high performance of InO is still unclear. To elucidate the initial steps of CO hydrogenation over InO, we have combined X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations to study the adsorption of CO on the InO(111) crystalline surface with different terminations, namely, the stoichiometric, reduced, and hydroxylated surface. The combined approach confirms that the reduction of the surface results in the formation of In adatoms and that water dissociates on the surface at room temperature.

Hydride formation and dynamic phase changes during template-assisted Pd electrodeposition.

We investigated the structural evolution of electrochemically fabricated Pd nanowiresby means of grazing-incidence transmission small- and wide-angle x-ray scattering (GTSAXS and GTWAXS), x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and two-dimensional surface optical reflectance (2D-SOR). This shows how electrodeposition and the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) compete and interact during Pd electrodepositon. During the bottom-up growth of the nanowires, we show that-phase Pd hydride is formed.

Adsorption and Thermal Decomposition of Triphenyl Bismuth on Silicon (001).

We investigate the adsorption and thermal decomposition of triphenyl bismuth (TPB) on the silicon (001) surface using atomic-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy, synchrotron-based X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and density functional theory calculations. Our results show that the adsorption of TPB at room temperature creates both bismuth-silicon and phenyl-silicon bonds. Annealing above room temperature leads to increased chemical interactions between the phenyl groups and the silicon surface, followed by phenyl detachment and bismuth subsurface migration.

The Oxygen Evolution Reaction Drives Passivity Breakdown for Ni-Cr-Mo Alloys.

Corrosion is the main factor limiting the lifetime of metallic materials, and a fundamental understanding of the governing mechanism and surface processes is difficult to achieve since the thin oxide films at the metal-liquid interface governing passivity are notoriously challenging to study. In this work, a combination of synchrotron-based techniques and electrochemical methods is used to investigate the passive film breakdown of a Ni-Cr-Mo alloy, which is used in many industrial applications. This alloy is found to be active toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and the OER onset coincides with the loss of passivity and severe metal dissolution.

Patient complaints about communication in cancer care settings: Hidden between the lines.

Objectives: To investigate patient complaints in cancer care settings reported to patient advisory committees (PACs) and describe the frequency and content of communication failures across all reports.

Methods: Content analysis, with a summative approach, was applied to cancer care complaints (2016-2020) by 692 patients to PACs in one Swedish healthcare region.

Results: More than half the patients reported communication failures.

: a high-energy surface X-ray diffraction analysis toolkit.

This work introduces the high-energy surface X-ray diffraction analysis toolkit (), an open-source cross-platform software package written in Python to allow the extraction and processing of high-energy surface X-ray diffraction (HESXRD) data sets. Thousands of large-area detector images are collected in a single HESXRD scan, corresponding to billions of pixels and hence reciprocal space positions. is an optimized reciprocal space binner that implements a graphical user interface to allow the easy and interactive exploration of HESXRD data sets.

Savviness of prey to introduced predators.

The prey naivety hypothesis posits that prey are vulnerable to introduced predators because many generations in slow gradual coevolution are needed for appropriate avoidance responses to develop. It predicts that prey will be more responsive to native than introduced predators and less responsive to introduced predators that differ substantially from native predators and from those newly established. To test these predictions, we conducted a global meta-analysis of studies that measured the wariness responses of small mammals to the scent of sympatric mammalian mesopredators.