Comparison of Yamuna (India) and Mississippi River (United States of America) bacterial communities reveals greater diversity below the Yamunotri Glacier.

The Yamuna River in India and the Mississippi River in the United States hold significant commercial, cultural, and ecological importance. This preliminary survey compares the bacterial communities sampled in surface waters at 11 sites (Yamuna headwaters, Mississippi headwaters, Yamuna River Yamunotri Town, Mississippi River at Winona, Tons River, Yamuna River at Paonta Sahib, Yamuna River Delhi-1, Yamuna River Delhi-2, Yamuna River before Sangam, Sangam, Ganga River before Sangam). Bacterial 16S rDNA analyses demonstrate dominance of Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes phyla.

A More Comfortable Method for Hydrostatic Weighing: Head above Water at Total Lung Capacity.

Hydrostatic weighing (HW) requires full submersion with the lungs at residual volume (RV) which is uncomfortable. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to find a more comfortable way to complete HW. A HW system was used to complete three comparisons: comparison 1: change in head position (head above water vs.

Classifying behavior from short-interval biologging data: An example with GPS tracking of birds.

Recent advances in digital data collection have spurred accumulation of immense quantities of data that have potential to lead to remarkable ecological insight, but that also present analytic challenges. In the case of biologging data from birds, common analytical approaches to classifying movement behaviors are largely inappropriate for these massive data sets.We apply a framework for using -means clustering to classify bird behavior using points from short time interval GPS tracks.

Individual neuronal subtypes control initial myelin sheath growth and stabilization.

Background: In the developing central nervous system, pre-myelinating oligodendrocytes sample candidate nerve axons by extending and retracting process extensions. Some contacts stabilize, leading to the initiation of axon wrapping, nascent myelin sheath formation, concentric wrapping and sheath elongation, and sheath stabilization or pruning by oligodendrocytes. Although axonal signals influence the overall process of myelination, the precise oligodendrocyte behaviors that require signaling from axons are not completely understood.

The implementation of a dedicated education unit in a public health setting.

Introduction: The dedicated education unit (DEU) is an innovative clinical model that prepares preceptors for success in clinical settings with nursing students. Though the DEU is mostly used in acute-care settings, this project explores the implementation of a DEU in a public health setting.

Objectives: Better preparation of public health nurses and social workers as clinical preceptors for nursing students with the implementation of a DEU in a public health setting.

Implementation of a Dedicated Education Unit Model for ADN Students in a Rural Primary Care Setting.

Background: Dedicated education unit (DEU) clinical education models are an innovative, evidence-based approach to create effective learning environments for students. These models have been implemented primarily in acute care settings.

Problem: The gap between nursing education and clinical practice in rural health care settings is a growing concern, compounded by a nursing faculty shortage and decreased availability of clinical sites.

Multipollutant measurement error in air pollution epidemiology studies arising from predicting exposures with penalized regression splines.

Air pollution epidemiology studies are trending towards a multi-pollutant approach. In these studies, exposures at subject locations are unobserved and must be predicted using observed exposures at misaligned monitoring locations. This induces measurement error, which can bias the estimated health effects and affect standard error estimates.

Prediction of fine particulate matter chemical components with a spatio-temporal model for the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis cohort.

Although cohort studies of the health effects of PM2.5 have developed exposure prediction models to represent spatial variability across participant residences, few models exist for PM2.5 components.

Long-Term Air Pollution Exposure and Blood Pressure in the Sister Study.

Background: Exposure to air pollution has been consistently associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, but mechanisms remain uncertain. Associations with blood pressure (BP) may help to explain the cardiovascular effects of air pollution.

Objective: We examined the cross-sectional relationship between long-term (annual average) residential air pollution exposure and BP in the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' Sister Study, a large U.

Individual-level concentrations of fine particulate matter chemical components and subclinical atherosclerosis: a cross-sectional analysis based on 2 advanced exposure prediction models in the multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis.

Long-term exposure to outdoor particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less than or equal to 2.5 µm (PM2.5) has been associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.

Applying morphometrics to early land plant systematics: a new Leclercqia (Lycopsida) species from Washington State, USA.

Premise Of The Study: Early land plant fossils can be challenging to interpret due to their morphological simplicity and often fragmentary nature. Morphometric techniques using commonly preserved characters might increase diagnostic value of such material. To evaluate the utility of morphometrics in assessing morphospecies boundaries in the Devonian, we compared degrees of variation within the cosmopolitan lycopsid genus Leclercqia with that of living relatives (Lycopodium-Spinulum spp.

A regionalized national universal kriging model using Partial Least Squares regression for estimating annual PM concentrations in epidemiology.

Many cohort studies in environmental epidemiology require accurate modeling and prediction of fine scale spatial variation in ambient air quality across the U.S. This modeling requires the use of small spatial scale geographic or "land use" regression covariates and some degree of spatial smoothing.

A national prediction model for PM2.5 component exposures and measurement error-corrected health effect inference.

Background: Studies estimating health effects of long-term air pollution exposure often use a two-stage approach: building exposure models to assign individual-level exposures, which are then used in regression analyses. This requires accurate exposure modeling and careful treatment of exposure measurement error.

Objective: To illustrate the importance of accounting for exposure model characteristics in two-stage air pollution studies, we considered a case study based on data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA).

Quantifying protein function specificity in the gene ontology.

Quantitative or numerical metrics of protein function specificity made possible by the Gene Ontology are useful in that they enable development of distance or similarity measures between protein functions. Here we describe how to calculate four measures of function specificity for GO terms: 1) number of ancestor terms; 2) number of offspring terms; 3) proportion of terms; and 4) Information Content (IC). We discuss the relationship between the metrics and the strengths and weaknesses of each.