Case for Establishing a National Stroke Activation Fee in the United States: Learning From Trauma Centers.

There is a large burden of stroke in the United States, and extensive systems of care have been established to address it. The resources devoted to stroke centers are analogous to those of trauma centers, both sharing many strict requirements for certification, clinical preparedness, quality improvement, data management, and reporting. However, trauma programs partly defray these costs through a trauma activation billing code, a billable fee that is charged for activation of the trauma team under strict criteria.

Buruli ulcer in Australia: Evidence for a new endemic focus at Batemans Bay, New South Wales.

We describe two locally acquired cases of Mycobacterium ulcerans infection (Buruli ulcer) in the town of Batemans Bay on the east coast of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, 150 km north of Eden, the only other place in NSW where Buruli ulcer has likely been locally acquired. Genomic analysis showed that the bacterial isolates from the cases were identical but belonged to a phylogenetically distinct M. ulcerans clade that was most closely related to the isolate from the earlier case in Eden to the south.

Antifungal stewardship in Australian hospitals: defining the scope and future targets.

Background: Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) guidelines now recommend antifungal stewardship (AFS) interventions to improve the management of invasive fungal diseases (IFDs). AFS programmes have not been reported in Australia.

Aims: To determine the monitoring of antifungal use, AFS strategies and targets, and barriers to AFS implementation in Australian hospitals.

Introduction into natural environments shifts the gut microbiome of captivity-raised filter-feeding bivalves.

The gut microbiome is influenced by host species and the environment, but how the environment influences the microbiome of animals introduced into a new ecosystem has rarely been investigated. Freshwater mussels are aquatic fauna, with some threatened or endangered species propagated in hatcheries and introduced into natural systems as part of conservation efforts. The effects of the environment on the freshwater mussel gut microbiome were assessed for two hatchery-propagated species (, ) introduced into rivers within their natural range.

Polymorphism in the aggressive mimicry lure of the parasitic freshwater mussel .

Unionoid freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionidae) are free-living apart from a brief, obligately parasitic, larval stage that infects fish hosts, and gravid female mussels have evolved a spectrum of strategies to infect fish hosts with their larvae. In many North American species, this involves displaying a mantle lure: a pigmented fleshy extension that acts as an aggressive mimic of a host fish prey, thereby eliciting a feeding response that results in host infection. The mantle lure of is of particular interest because it is apparently polymorphic, with two distinct primary lure phenotypes.

Mycobacterium ulcerans challenge strain selection for a Buruli ulcer controlled human infection model.

Critical scientific questions remain regarding infection with Mycobacterium ulcerans, the organism responsible for the neglected tropical disease, Buruli ulcer (BU). A controlled human infection model has the potential to accelerate our knowledge of the immunological correlates of disease, to test prophylactic interventions and novel therapeutics. Here we present microbiological evidence supporting M.

Discovery of orbital ordering in BiSrCaCuO.

The primordial ingredient of cuprate superconductivity is the CuO unit cell. Theories usually concentrate on the intra-atom Coulombic interactions dominating the 3d and 3d configurations of each copper ion. However, if Coulombic interactions also occur between electrons of the 2p orbitals of each planar oxygen atom, spontaneous orbital ordering may split their energy levels.

Mosquitoes provide a transmission route between possums and humans for Buruli ulcer in southeastern Australia.

Buruli ulcer, a chronic subcutaneous infection caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans, is increasing in prevalence in southeastern Australia. Possums are a local wildlife reservoir for M. ulcerans and, although mosquitoes have been implicated in transmission, it remains unclear how humans acquire infection.

Description, life cycle, and phylogenetics of Proterometra wigglewomble n. sp. (Digenea: Azygiidae) from the Cahaba River, Alabama, U.S.A.

We herein describe Proterometra wigglewomble n. sp. (Digenea: Azygiidae: Azygiinae) from the Cahaba River, Alabama, USA, which asexually reproduces in the compact elimia, Elimia showalteri (Lea, 1860) (Cerithioidea: Pleuroceridae) and matures in the oesophagus of the blackbanded darter, Percina nigrofasciata (Agassiz, 1854) (Perciformes: Percidae).

Characterizing the Gut Microbial Communities of Native and Invasive Freshwater Bivalves after Long-Term Sample Preservation.

Freshwater mussels are important indicators of the overall health of their environment but have suffered declines that have been attributed to factors such as habitat degradation, a loss of fish hosts, climate change, and excessive nutrient inputs. The loss of mussel biodiversity can negatively impact freshwater ecosystems such that understanding the mussel's gut microbiome has been identified as a priority topic for developing conservation strategies. In this study, we determine whether ethanol-stored specimens of freshwater mussels can yield representative information about their gut microbiomes such that changes in the microbiome through time could potentially be determined from museum mussel collections.

Mycobacterium ulcerans not detected by PCR on human skin in Buruli ulcer endemic areas of south eastern Australia.

Introduction: Mycobacterium ulcerans (MU) causes Buruli ulcer (Buruli), a geographically restricted infection that can result in skin loss, contracture and permanent scarring. Lesion-location maps compiled from more than 640 cases in south eastern Australia suggest biting insects are likely involved in transmission, but it is unclear whether MU is brought by insects to humans or if MU is already on the skin and inoculation is an opportunistic event that need not be insect dependent.

Methods: We validated a PCR swab detection assay and defined its dynamic range using laboratory cultured M.

Attachment, Competitiveness, and Workplace Aggression: A Model of Aggressive Intent and Examination of the Competitive Orientation Scale.

Workplace aggression consists of harmful actions between co-workers, supervisors, and subordinates. In this series of studies, we draw from attachment theory and competitive personality to develop and test a mediated model of workplace aggression that incorporates relational working models (i.e.

A human model of Buruli ulcer: The case for controlled human infection and considerations for selecting a Mycobacterium ulcerans challenge strain.

Critical knowledge gaps regarding infection with Mycobacterium ulcerans, the cause of Buruli ulcer (BU), have impeded development of new therapeutic approaches and vaccines for prevention of this neglected tropical disease. Here, we review the current understanding of host-pathogen interactions and correlates of immune protection to explore the case for establishing a controlled human infection model of M. ulcerans infection.

Statistical modeling based on structured surveys of Australian native possum excreta harboring predicts Buruli ulcer occurrence in humans.

Background: Buruli ulcer (BU) is a neglected tropical disease caused by infection of subcutaneous tissue with . BU is commonly reported across rural regions of Central and West Africa but has been increasing dramatically in temperate southeast Australia around the major metropolitan city of Melbourne, with most disease transmission occurring in the summer months. Previous research has shown that Australian native possums are reservoirs of and that they shed the bacteria in their fecal material (excreta).

Revealing the Origin of Time-Reversal Symmetry Breaking in Fe-Chalcogenide Superconductor FeTe_{1-x}Se_{x}.

Recently, evidence has emerged in the topological superconductor Fe-chalcogenide FeTe_{1-x}Se_{x} for time-reversal symmetry breaking (TRSB), the nature of which has strong implications on the Majorana zero modes (MZM) discovered in this system. It remains unclear, however, whether the TRSB resides in the topological surface state (TSS) or in the bulk, and whether it is due to an unconventional TRSB superconducting order parameter or an intertwined order. Here, by performing in superconducting FeTe_{1-x}Se_{x} crystals both surface-magneto-optic-Kerr effect measurements using a Sagnac interferometer and bulk magnetic susceptibility measurements, we pinpoint the TRSB to the TSS, where we also detect a Dirac gap.

Design and Evaluation of [F]CHDI-650 as a Positron Emission Tomography Ligand to Image Mutant Huntingtin Aggregates.

Therapeutic interventions are being developed for Huntington's disease (HD), a hallmark of which is mutant huntingtin protein (mHTT) aggregates. Following the advancement to human testing of two [C]-PET ligands for aggregated mHTT, attributes for further optimization were identified. We replaced the pyridazinone ring of CHDI-180 with a pyrimidine ring and minimized off-target binding using brain homogenate derived from Alzheimer's disease patients.

Fidelity Overhead for Nonlocal Measurements in Variational Quantum Algorithms.

Measuring quantum observables by grouping terms that can be rotated to sums of only products of Pauli operators (Ising form) is proven to be efficient in near term quantum computing algorithms. This approach requires extra unitary transformations to rotate the state of interest so that the measurement of a fragment's Ising form would be equivalent to the measurement of the fragment for the unrotated state. These extra rotations allow one to perform a fewer number of measurements by grouping more terms into the measurable fragments with a lower overall estimator variance.

Identification of a nematic pair density wave state in BiSrCaCuO.

Electron-pair density wave (PDW) states are now an intense focus of research in the field of cuprate correlated superconductivity. PDWs exhibit periodically modulating superconductive electron pairing that can be visualized directly using scanned Josephson tunneling microscopy (SJTM). Although from theory, intertwining the -wave superconducting (DSC) and PDW order parameters allows a plethora of global electron-pair orders to appear, which one actually occurs in the various cuprates is unknown.

Development of a ligand for in vivo imaging of mutant huntingtin in Huntington's disease.

Huntington's disease (HD) is a dominantly inherited neurodegenerative disorder caused by a CAG trinucleotide expansion in the huntingtin () gene that encodes the pathologic mutant HTT (mHTT) protein with an expanded polyglutamine (polyQ) tract. Whereas several therapeutic programs targeting mHTT expression have advanced to clinical evaluation, methods to visualize mHTT protein species in the living brain are lacking. Here, we demonstrate the development and characterization of a positron emission tomography (PET) imaging radioligand with high affinity and selectivity for mHTT aggregates.