Elevated resource availability sufficient to turn opportunistic into virulent fish pathogens.

There is mounting evidence that organic or inorganic enrichment of aquatic environments increases the risk of infectious diseases, with disease agents ranging from helminth parasites to fungal, bacterial, and viral pathogens. The causal link between microbial resource availability and disease risk is thought to be complex and, in the case of so-called "opportunistic pathogens," to involve additional stressors that weaken host resistance (e.g., temperature shifts or oxygen deficiencies). In contrast to this perception, our experiment shows that the link between resource levels and infection of fish embryos can be very direct: increased resource availability can transform benign microbial communities into virulent ones. We find that embryos can be harmed before further stresses (e.g., oxygen depletion) weaken them, and treatment with antibiotics and fungicides cancels the detrimental effects. The changed characteristics of symbiotic microbial communities could simply reflect density-dependent relationships or be due to a transition in life-history strategy. Our findings demonstrate that simple microhabitat changes can be sufficient to turn "opportunistic" into virulent pathogens.

Multi-level SLA-driven resource management on Cloud Providers

Nowadays, service providers in the Cloud offer complex services ready to be used as it was a commodity like water or electricity to their customers with any other extra effort for them. However, providing these services implies a high management effort which requires a lot of human interaction. Furthermore, an efficient resource management mechanism considering only provider's resources is, though necessary, not enough, because the provider's profit is limited by the amount of resources it owns. Dynamically outsourcing resources to other providers in response to demand variation avoids this problem and makes the provider to get more profit. A key technology for achieving these goals is virtualization which facilitates provider's management and provides on-demand virtual environments, which are isolated and consolidated in order to achieve a better utilization of the provider's resources. Nevertheless, dealing with some virtualization capabilities implies an effort for the user in order to take benefit from them. In order to avoid this problem, we are contributing the research community with a virtualized environment manager which aims to provide virtual machines that fulfils with the user requirements. Another challenge is sharing resources among different federated Cloud providers while exploiting the features of virtualization in a new approach for facilitating providers' management. This project aims for reducing provider's costs and at the same time fulfilling the quality of service agreed with the customers while maximizing the provider's revenue. It considers resource management at several layers, namely locally to each node in the provider, among different nodes in the provider, and among different federated providers. This latter layer supports the novel capabilities of outsourcing when the local resources are not enough to fulfil the users demand, and offering resources to other providers when the local resources are underused.

Dried blood spots collected on filter paper: an international resource for the diagnosis and genetic characterization of human immunodeficiency virus Type-1

The collection of dried blood spots (DBS) on filter paper provides a powerful approach for the development of large-scale, population-based screening programs. DBS methods are particularly valuable in developing countries and isolated rural regions where resources are limited. Large numbers of field specimens can be economically collected and shipped to centralized reference laboratories for genetic and (or) serological analysis. Alternatively, the dried blood can be stored and used as an archival resource to rapidly establish the frequency and distribution of newly recognized mutations, confirm patient identity or track the origins and emergence of newly identified pathogens. In this report, we describe how PCR-based technologies are beginning to interface with international screening programmes for the diagnosis and genetic characterization of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). In particular, we review recent progress using DBS specimens to resolve the HIV-1 infection status of neonates, monitor the genetic evolution of HIV-1 during early infancy and establish a sentinel surveillance system for the systematic monitoring of HIV-1 genetic variation in Asia.

The InterPro database, an integrated documentation resource for protein families, domains and functional sites.

Signature databases are vital tools for identifying distant relationships in novel sequences and hence for inferring protein function. InterPro is an integrated documentation resource for protein families, domains and functional sites, which amalgamates the efforts of the PROSITE, PRINTS, Pfam and ProDom database projects. Each InterPro entry includes a functional description, annotation, literature references and links back to the relevant member database(s). Release 2.0 of InterPro (October 2000) contains over 3000 entries, representing families, domains, repeats and sites of post-translational modification encoded by a total of 6804 different regular expressions, profiles, fingerprints and Hidden Markov Models. Each InterPro entry lists all the matches against SWISS-PROT and TrEMBL (more than 1,000,000 hits from 462,500 proteins in SWISS-PROT and TrEMBL). The database is accessible for text- and sequence-based searches at http://www.ebi.ac.uk/interpro/. Questions can be emailed to interhelp@ebi.ac.uk.

arrayMap 2014: an updated cancer genome resource.

Somatic copy number aberrations (CNA) represent a mutation type encountered in the majority of cancer genomes. Here, we present the 2014 edition of arrayMap (http://www.arraymap.org), a publicly accessible collection of pre-processed oncogenomic array data sets and CNA profiles, representing a vast range of human malignancies. Since the initial release, we have enhanced this resource both in content and especially with regard to data mining support. The 2014 release of arrayMap contains more than 64,000 genomic array data sets, representing about 250 tumor diagnoses. Data sets included in arrayMap have been assembled from public repositories as well as additional resources, and integrated by applying custom processing pipelines. Online tools have been upgraded for a more flexible array data visualization, including options for processing user provided, non-public data sets. Data integration has been improved by mapping to multiple editions of the human reference genome, with the majority of the data now being available for the UCSC hg18 as well as GRCh37 versions. The large amount of tumor CNA data in arrayMap can be freely downloaded by users to promote data mining projects, and to explore special events such as chromothripsis-like genome patterns.

A way to play bankruptcy problems.

The commitment among agents has always been a difficult task, especially when they have to decide how to distribute the available amount of a scarce resource among all. On the one hand, there are a multiplicity of possible ways for assigning the available amount; and, on the other hand, each agent is going to propose that distribution which provides her the highest possible award. In this paper, with the purpose of making this agreement easier, firstly we use two different sets of basic properties, called Commonly Accepted Equity Principles, to delimit what agents can propose as reasonable allocations. Secondly, we extend the results obtained by Chun (1989) and Herrero (2003), obtaining new characterizations of old and well known bankruptcy rules. Finally, using the fact that bankruptcy problems can be analyzed from awards and losses, we define a mechanism which provides a new justification of the convex combinations of bankruptcy rules. Keywords: Bankruptcy problems, Unanimous Concessions procedure, Diminishing Claims mechanism, Piniles’ rule, Constrained Egalitarian rule. JEL classification: C71, D63, D71.

Un cop d’ull a Resource description & acces (RDA) i al seu futur

Es tracta d’una sessió introductòria que se centra en els aspectes més generals de la nova normativa: el marc conceptual en el qual es fonamenta la RDA (els models FRBR i FRAD), els objectius, l’organització de les normes, el nou vocabulari, la continuïtat amb les AACR2 i els punts de divergència, els beneficis que s’espera obtenir del nou codi, etc. El seu objectiu principal és fer una primera introducció de les regles per sensibilitzar els catalogadors dels canvis que tindran lloc a mig termini.

Strategic Resource Framework 2010/2011 (PDF 854 KB)

2010/11

MyHits: a new interactive resource for protein annotation and domain identification.

The MyHits web server (http://myhits.isb-sib.ch) is a new integrated service dedicated to the annotation of protein sequences and to the analysis of their domains and signatures. Guest users can use the system anonymously, with full access to (i) standard bioinformatics programs (e.g. PSI-BLAST, ClustalW, T-Coffee, Jalview); (ii) a large number of protein sequence databases, including standard (Swiss-Prot, TrEMBL) and locally developed databases (splice variants); (iii) databases of protein motifs (Prosite, Interpro); (iv) a precomputed list of matches ('hits') between the sequence and motif databases. All databases are updated on a weekly basis and the hit list is kept up to date incrementally. The MyHits server also includes a new collection of tools to generate graphical representations of pairwise and multiple sequence alignments including their annotated features. Free registration enables users to upload their own sequences and motifs to private databases. These are then made available through the same web interface and the same set of analytical tools. Registered users can manage their own sequences and annotations using only web tools and freeze their data in their private database for publication purposes.

The Nursing and Midwifery Resource - Towards Workforce Planning

The Nursing and Midwifery Resource – Towards Workforce Planning The past five years have seen a dramatic change in the composition and organisation of the nursing and midwifery workforce in Ireland. For many years we had a constant supply of newly qualified nurses and midwives, with strong competition for every available post. Click here to download PDF 1.5mb

The Nursing and Midwifery Resource - Interim Report of the Steering Group

This project arises from the need for an enhanced focus on workforce planning having regard, in particular, to the availability of sufficient nurses now and in the future. For a country which historically has had an abundance of nurses, the recruitment difficulties now being experienced by the health services are unprecedented. Up to the mid 1990s, there was a surplus of registered nurses here and other countries sent recruitment teams to Ireland in order to address their own shortages. As will be seen in this report, the concern of the professional interest groups at the time was the high levels of unemployment among nurses. The conventional wisdom was that the health services were training too many nurses for the jobs available. However, there has been a sea change in the situation over the past five years and the stage has now been reached where Irish health care agencies, particularly the major acute Dublin hospitals, are actively seeking to recruit nurses from abroad. Download the Report here

The Nursing and Midwifery Resource - Guidance for Best Practice on the Recruitment of Overseas Nurses and Midwives

Guidance for Best Practice on the Recruitment of Overseas Nurses and Midwives is prepared specifically for employers. The document includes a set of principles which are fundamental to the development of a model of transcultural nursing and midwifery. The document is based on the assumption that each potential employee has the qualifications and experience required to meet the criteria for registration as a nurse or midwife in Ireland Download the Report here

Gender-based Violence: a resource document for services and organisations working with and for minority ethnic women

Gender-based Violence: a resource document for services and organisations working with and for minority ethnic women Click here to download PDF 492kb This is a publication of the Womens Health Council

Report of the Expert Group on Resource Allocation and Financing in the Health Sector

  Report of the Expert Group on Resource Allocation and Financing in the Health Sector Download this document (PDF 4.77mb) Alternatively, there is a lower resolution version available (PDF 2.31mb) Related Documents Resource Allocation, Financing and Sustainability in Health Care Evidence for the Expert Group on Resource Allocation and Financing in the Health Sector (Volume I) – PDF, 4.25mbAlternatively, a Lower Resolution version is available – PDF, 2.23mb Resource Allocation, Financing and Sustainability in Health Care Evidence for the Expert Group on Resource Allocation and Financing in the Health Sector (Volume II) – PDF 4.87mbAlternatively, a Lower Resolution version is available – PDF, 2.65mb Presentation by Professor, Frances Ruane Director , ESRI and Chair of the Expert Group. PDF 235KB Presentation by Professor Charles Normand, a member of the Expert Group. PDF 32KB

New interactive resource feeds children's curiosity

The Public Health Agency and safefood today (Wednesday 22 June) officially launched Eat, Taste and Grow, a new interactive curriculum based education resource to help increase awareness among primary school children of the origins of their food, local produce and the role this plays in healthy eating. As research in 2006 showed, 18% of children aged 2-15 years in Northern Ireland were reported to be obese; and provisional data in 2008-2009 showed that 22.5% of children entering Year 1 were already overweight (17%) or obese (5%).* The launch of Eat, Taste and Grow is an innovative collaboration between the PHA and safefood that will provide children with lifelong lessons about the food they eat, healthy eating options and the benefits of an active lifestyle.The free teacher-led CD-ROM resource will be sent to every primary school across Northern Ireland by September 2011 and will help increase awareness among primary school children of the origins of their food and local produce, and the role this plays in healthy eating.Speaking at the event, Health Minister Edwin Poots said: "Being obese as a child can store up problems for the future, leading to a reduction in life expectancy and potentially causing other health problems such as increased risk of coronary heart disease, cancer and Type 2 Diabetes."Currently around one in four girls and one in six boys in Primary One (Year 1) are overweight or obese."Many of our children are not as physically active as they should be, nor do they have a healthy, balanced diet."This new resource will help teachers in our primary schools educate children on how to choose what foods are healthier for them which hopefully they will carry with them into adulthood."Dr Eddie Rooney, Chief Executive, PHA said: "The Public Health Agency recognises the need to give every child a healthy start in life. Schools play a vital role in contributing to the development of knowledge and skills necessary to make healthier food choices and laying the foundation for good eating habits which can then be carried through into adulthood. Eat, Taste and Grow is an excellent resource that will help equip teachers to carry out this role and in turn enable children to make healthier choices."Mr Martin Higgins, CEO safefood said: "We know and understand the challenges faced by parents to encourage children to eat healthy foods. As obesity among children continues to rise, this interactive resource will educate children in a fun and engaging way while providing them with the information to make informed, responsible choices throughout their lives."The Eat, Taste and Grow resource is an interactive CD-ROM for use on a whiteboard or computer and is divided into: Foundation, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. Topics include 'Where does our food come from?', 'Who produces our food?', 'How food grows' and 'How food is produced and preserved'. Each topic has accompanying teacher's notes and includes ideas for classroom discussions, role play, games and quiz suggestions.