Publications by authors named "Terry O'Connor"

Hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) is an autosomal dominant, multisystem disorder that manifests with a spectrum of disease including cardiopulmonary complications. HHT is characterised by aberrant signalling via the transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) pathway, with loss of vascular integrity, angiogenesis and vascular dysplasia. The disease has an estimated prevalence of 1 in 5000 persons and the penetrance increases with increasing age.

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The rising occurrence of natural disasters linked to climate change has drawn the attention of disaster response leaders to the significance of addressing operational stress injuries among disaster response personnel. We define and describe operational stress injuries in this workforce and explore theoretical frameworks that can inform the development of programs and interventions to mitigate these effects. We aim to establish a conceptual framework for understanding an operational stress injury by introducing a model specific to disaster responders.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Horses transformed human mobility, but the timeline of their domestication and integration as transport is debated, with new genetic data being used to clarify this history.
  • - Analysis of 475 ancient horse genomes indicates that modern domestic horses were shaped by human intervention around 2200 BCE, after a domestication bottleneck began around 2700 BCE, leading to a significant expansion across Eurasia.
  • - Evidence also suggests that there was early horse husbandry in central Asia at Botai around 3500 BCE, prior to the establishment of contemporary horse bloodlines, challenging the notion of large herds being linked to migrations around 3000 BCE.
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The European wildcat population in Scotland is considered critically endangered as a result of hybridization with introduced domestic cats, though the time frame over which this gene flow has taken place is unknown. Here, using genome data from modern, museum, and ancient samples, we reconstructed the trajectory and dated the decline of the local wildcat population from viable to severely hybridized. We demonstrate that although domestic cats have been present in Britain for over 2,000 years, the onset of hybridization was only within the last 70 years.

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Domestic cats were derived from the Near Eastern wildcat (Felis lybica), after which they dispersed with people into Europe. As they did so, it is possible that they interbred with the indigenous population of European wildcats (Felis silvestris). Gene flow between incoming domestic animals and closely related indigenous wild species has been previously demonstrated in other taxa, including pigs, sheep, goats, bees, chickens, and cattle.

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Importance: The US arrival of the Omicron variant led to a rapid increase in SARS-CoV-2 infections. While numerous studies report characteristics of Omicron infections among vaccinated individuals or persons with previous infection, comprehensive data describing infections among adults who are immunologically naive are lacking.

Objectives: To examine COVID-19 acute and postacute clinical outcomes among a well-characterized cohort of unvaccinated and previously uninfected adults who contracted SARS-CoV-2 during the Omicron (BA.

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The distribution of the black rat (Rattus rattus) has been heavily influenced by its association with humans. The dispersal history of this non-native commensal rodent across Europe, however, remains poorly understood, and different introductions may have occurred during the Roman and medieval periods. Here, in order to reconstruct the population history of European black rats, we first generate a de novo genome assembly of the black rat.

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Community-level seroprevalence surveys are needed to determine the proportion of the population with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, a necessary component of COVID-19 disease surveillance. In May, 2020, we conducted a cross-sectional seroprevalence study of IgG antibodies for nucleocapsid of SARS-CoV-2 among the residents of Blaine County, Idaho, a ski resort community with high COVID-19 attack rates in late March and Early April (2.9% for ages 18 and older).

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Shamanic belief systems represent the first form of religious practice visible within the global archaeological record. Here we report on the earliest known evidence of shamanic costume: modified red deer crania headdresses from the Early Holocene site of Star Carr (c. 11 kya).

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Background: The targets of bronchoscopic biopsy now include not only adequate tissue for histologic diagnosis but also tissue for further analysis. We prospectively compared standard and novel bronchoscopic endobronchial biopsy (EBB) retrieval methods attempting to increase tissue yield.

Methods: EBB samples were retrieved using techniques A, B, and C using a standard forceps.

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Background: We conducted a survival analysis of all the confirmed cases of Adult Tuberculosis (TB) patients treated in Cork-City, Ireland. The aim of this study was to estimate Survival time (ST), including median time of survival and to assess the association and impact of covariates (TB risk factors) to event status and ST. The outcome of the survival analysis is reported in this paper.

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Traditional theories on ancient Egyptian mummification postulate that in the prehistoric period (i.e. the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, 5th and 4th millennia B.

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The domestication of cattle is generally accepted to have taken place in two independent centres: around 10,500 years ago in the Near East, giving rise to modern taurine cattle, and two millennia later in southern Asia, giving rise to zebu cattle. Here we provide firmly dated morphological and genetic evidence for early Holocene management of taurine cattle in northeastern China. We describe conjoining mandibles from this region that show evidence of oral stereotypy, dated to the early Holocene by two independent ¹⁴C dates.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Archaeologists debate whether Paleolithic cave paintings, like the "Dappled Horses of Pech-Merle," are realistic representations of the local environment or expressions of artistic creativity, given their detailed depictions of animal coat patterns.
  • - Recent genetic studies on predomestic horses from various regions have identified coat color varieties, including a leopard pattern that matches those seen in ancient paintings, highlighting a connection between the artwork and the actual horses.
  • - The presence of these identifiable horse phenotypes in prehistoric populations suggests that cave paintings are more accurate portrayals of animals rather than symbolic or abstract representations, challenging traditional interpretations of their meaning.
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Acute mountain sickness (AMS) is a common condition in individuals who travel to altitudes over 2000 m. While AMS is an important public health problem, no measurements can reliably support or predict the diagnosis with any degree of confidence. We therefore set out to study whether pulse oximetry data are associated with AMS.

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We have previously shown that the receptor for substance P (SP), neurokinin-1 receptor (NK-1R), is a marker of human mucosal but not peripheral mononuclear cells. In the present study, we investigate NK-1R expression in the human colonic mucosa in vivo, particularly in the epithelial cells. We investigate the influence of proinflammatory Th1 cytokines and SP on expression and function of NK-1R in colonic epithelial cells in vitro.

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This paper aims to examine the contribution of all three of the MAP kinase signaling pathways to Fas-induced IL-8 up-regulation in HT29 colon epithelial cells.

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