Oxygen isotope stratigraphy Ojplus03 for the last 838,000 years

Global warming is real and has been with us for at least two decades. Questions arise regarding the response of the ocean to greenhouse forcing, including expectations for changes in ocean circulation, in uptake of excess carbon dioxide, and in upwelling activity. The large climate variations of the ice ages, within the last million years, offer the opportunity to study responses of the ocean to climate change. A histogram of sealevel positions for the last 700,000 years (based on a new d/sup 18/O stratigraphy here compiled) shows that the present is near the margin of the range of fluctuations, with only 6 percent of positions indicating a warmer climate. Thus, the future will be largely outside of experience with regard to fluctuations of the recent geologic past. The same is true for greenhouse forcing. Our inability to explain sudden climate change in the past, including the rapid rise of carbon dioxide during deglaciation, and differences in ocean productivity between glacial and interglacial conditions, demonstrates a lack of understanding that makes predictions suspect. This is the lesson from ice age studies.

The elderly care and domestic services sector during the recent economic crisis. The case of Italy, Spain and France.

Over the past ten years in Italy, Spain and France, the demographic pressure and the increasing women’s participation in labour market have fuelled the expansion of the private provision of domestic and care services. In order to ensure the difficult balance between affordability, quality and job creation, each countries’ response has been different. France has developed policies to sustain the demand side introducing instruments such as vouchers and fiscal schemes, since the mid of the 2000s. Massive public funding has contributed to foster a regular market of domestic and care services and France is often presented as a “best practices” of those policies aimed at encouraging a regular private sector. Conversely in Italy and Spain, the development of a private domestic and care market has been mostly uncontrolled and without a coherent institutional design: the osmosis between a large informal market and the regular private care sector has been ensured on the supply side by migrant workers’ regularizations or the introduction of new employment regulations . The analysis presented in this paper aims to describe the response of these different policies to the challenges imposed by the current economic crisis. In dealing with the retrenchment of public expenditure and the reduced households’ purchasing power, Italy, Spain and France are experiencing greater difficulties in ensuring a regular private sector of domestic and care services. In light of that, the paper analyses the recent economic conjuncture presenting some assumptions about the future risk of deeper inequalities rising along with the increase of the process of marketization of domestic and care services in all the countries under analysis.    

Mathematical Modeling to Assess the Drivers of the Recent Emergence of Typhoid Fever in Blantyre, Malawi

BACKGROUND: Multiyear epidemics of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi have been reported from countries across eastern and southern Africa in recent years. In Blantyre, Malawi, a dramatic increase in typhoid fever cases has recently occurred, and may be linked to the emergence of the H58 haplotype. Strains belonging to the H58 haplotype often exhibit multidrug resistance and may have a fitness advantage relative to other Salmonella Typhi strains.

METHODS: To explore hypotheses for the increased number of typhoid fever cases in Blantyre, we fit a mathematical model to culture-confirmed cases of Salmonella enterica infections at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre. We explored 4 hypotheses: (1) an increase in the basic reproductive number (R0) in response to increasing population density; (2) a decrease in the incidence of cross-immunizing infection with Salmonella Enteritidis; (3) an increase in the duration of infectiousness due to failure to respond to first-line antibiotics; and (4) an increase in the transmission rate following the emergence of the H58 haplotype.

RESULTS: Increasing population density or decreasing cross-immunity could not fully explain the observed pattern of typhoid emergence in Blantyre, whereas models allowing for an increase in the duration of infectiousness and/or the transmission rate of typhoid following the emergence of the H58 haplotype provided a good fit to the data.

CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that an increase in the transmissibility of typhoid due to the emergence of drug resistance associated with the H58 haplotype may help to explain recent outbreaks of typhoid in Malawi and similar settings in Africa.

Clinical implications of recent findings in schistosome proteomics

Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease of clinical significance that, despite years of research, still requires an effective vaccine and improved diagnostics for surveillance, control and potential elimination. Furthermore, the causes of host pathology during schistosomiasis are still not completely understood. The recent sequencing of the genomes of the three key schistosome species has enabled the discovery of many new possible vaccine and drug targets, as well as diagnostic biomarkers, using high-throughput and sensitive proteomics methods. This review focuses on the literature of the last 5 years that has reported on the use of proteomics to both better understand the biology of the schistosome parasites and the disease they cause in definitive mammalian hosts.

Life expectancy: recent trends in older ages

Over the last 30 years there has been an upward trend in life expectancy at older ages in England. Figures 1 and 2 show life expectancy in England at ages 65, 75, 85 and 95 from 1981 to 2014. The data points shaded red in Figures 1 and 2 indicate where life expectancy in that year was lower than in the previous year, showing that there is some fluctuation in life expectancy at these age groups, although the overall trend has been upwards. Male life expectancy was lower in 2012 than 2011 at ages 85 and 95, and at ages 65 and 75 it was the same in both years. There were no further falls in 2013. This flattening of the recent trend has not continued in 2014, which saw a rise in male life expectancy at all four ages. Male life expectancy increased by 0.3 years at age 65 and 0.2 years at ages 75, 85 and 95. For females, life expectancy at all four ages was lower in 2012 than 2011. At age 65, that was the first fall since 1995 and at age 75 the first fall since 2003. At ages 85 and 95, there have been frequent occasions when life expectancy in a year was lower than in the previous year. Between 2012 and 2013, there were no further falls in life expectancy at any of these ages. Between 2013 and 2014, there was an increase in female life expectancy at all four ages. Female life expectancy increased by 0.3 years at age 65 and by 0.2 years at ages 75, 85 and 95.  

Utilizing “Big Data” to Improve the Hotel Sector’s Energy Efficiency: Lessons from Recent Economics Research

Hotel chains have access to a treasure trove of “big data” on individual hotels’ monthly electricity and water consumption. Benchmarked comparisons of hotels within a specific chain create the opportunity to cost-effectively improve the environmental performance of specific hotels. This paper describes a simple approach for using such data to achieve the joint goals of reducing operating expenditure and achieving broad sustainability goals. In recent years, energy economists have used such “big data” to generate insights about the energy consumption of the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. Lessons from these studies are directly applicable for the hotel sector. A hotel’s administrative data provide a “laboratory” for conducting random control trials to establish what works in enhancing hotel energy efficiency.

Heart Transplantation in Patients Older than 65 Years: Worthwhile or Wastage of Organs?

BACKGROUND: Patients older than 65 years have traditionally not been considered candidates for heart transplantation. However, recent studies have shown similar survival. We evaluated immediate and medium-term results in patients older than 65 years compared with younger patients. METHODS: From November 2003 to December 2013, 258 patients underwent transplantation. Children and patients with other organ transplantations were excluded from this study. Recipients were divided into two groups: 45 patients (18%) aged 65 years and older (Group A) and 203 patients (81%) younger than 65 years (Group B). RESULTS: Patients differed in age (67.0 ± 2.2 vs. 51.5 ± 9.7 years), but gender (male 77.8 vs. 77.3%; p = 0.949) was similar. Patients in Group A had more cardiovascular risk factors and ischemic cardiomyopathy (60 vs. 33.5%; p < 0.001). Donors to Group A were older (38.5 ± 11.3 vs. 34.0 ± 11.0 years; p = 0.014). Hospital mortality was 0 vs. 5.9% (p = 0.095) and 1- and 5-year survival were 88.8 ± 4.7 versus 86.8 ± 2.4% and 81.5 ± 5.9 versus 77.2 ± 3.2%, respectively. Mean follow-up was 3.8 ± 2.7 versus 4.5 ± 3.1 years. Incidence of cellular/humoral rejection was similar, but incidence of cardiac allograft vasculopathy was higher (15.6 vs. 7.4%; p = 0.081). Incidence of diabetes de novo was similar (p = 0.632), but older patients had more serious infections in the 1st year (p = 0.018). CONCLUSION: Heart transplantation in selected older patients can be performed with survival similar to younger patients, hence should not be restricted arbitrarily. Incidence of infections, graft vascular disease, and malignancies can be reduced with a more personalized approach to immunosuppression. Allocation of donors to these patients does not appear to reduce the possibility of transplanting younger patients.

Early Years Teachers and young children’s rights: the need for critical dialogue

The absence of knowledge about children’s rights is frequently associated with ineffective implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC); this directly impacts on children’s lives and the ways they are viewed by adults (Freeman 1998; Pugh 2015). Recent research (Jerome et al. 2015) has highlighted the lack of focus on children’s rights in the initial training of teachers and other education practitioners. In this paper I analyse the status of children’s rights in the standards for Early Years Teachers (EYTs) introduced in 2013 in England. Informed by the findings from research in sites of early years practice, I suggest possibilities for a critical dialogue that repositions the UNCRC as a visible and explicit framework of reference for EYTs’ work with young children.

Wind Farm Facilities in Germany Kill Noctule Bats from Near and Far

Over recent years, it became widely accepted that alternative, renewable energy may come at some risk for wildlife, for example, when wind turbines cause large numbers of bat fatalities. To better assess likely populations effects of wind turbine related wildlife fatalities, we studied the geographical origin of the most common bat species found dead below German wind turbines, the noctule bat (Nyctalus noctula). We measured stable isotope ratios of non-exchangeable hydrogen in fur keratin to separate migrants from local individuals, used a linear mixed-effects model to identify temporal, spatial and biological factors explaining the variance in measured stable isotope ratios and determined the geographical breeding provenance of killed migrants using isoscape origin models. We found that 72% of noctule bat casualties (n = 136) were of local origin, while 28% were long-distance migrants. These findings highlight that bat fatalities at German wind turbines may affect both local and distant populations. Our results indicated a sex and age-specific vulnerability of bats towards lethal accidents at turbines, i.e. a relatively high proportion of killed females were recorded among migratory individuals, whereas more juveniles than adults were recorded among killed bats of local origin. Migratory noctule bats were found to originate from distant populations in the Northeastern parts of Europe. The large catchment areas of German wind turbines and high vulnerability of female and juvenile noctule bats call for immediate action to reduce the negative cross-boundary effects of bat fatalities at wind turbines on local and distant populations. Further, our study highlights the importance of implementing effective mitigation measures and developing species and scale-specific conservation approaches on both national and international levels to protect source populations of bats. The efficacy of local compensatory measures appears doubtful, at least for migrant noctule bats, considering the large geographical catchment areas of German wind turbines for this species.

Review on recent trend of solar photovoltaic technology.

Solar photovoltaic technology is one of the renewable technologies, which has a potential to shape a clean, reliable, scalable and affordable electricity system for the future. This article provides a comprehensive review of solar photovoltaic technology in terms of photovoltaic materials efficiency and globally leading countries. Based on past years review and photovoltaic installations in the year 2014, the major five leading countries identified are China, Japan, USA, Germany and UK. These five countries altogether accounted for 80% of photovoltaic installations in 2014. The article also discusses the driving policies, funding and Research and Development activities: to gauge the reasons behind the success of the leading countries. Finally, this article reviews the photovoltaic cost analysis in terms of the photovoltaic module cost, balance of system cost and project cost with the help of listed 98 globally installed projects.

CSR Reporting in the Finnish Banking Sector – Status and Recent Development

This thesis reviews the development of CSR reporting in the Finnish banking sector. This was achieved by analyzing the content of specific CSR reports published by three banks during years 2012-2014. The banks selected represent the three largest banks operating in Finland according to their market share, constituting approximately 70 percent of the total perceived market share. The purpose of the analysis is to establish a clear descriptive overview of the status of CSR reporting and how it has thematically developed over the years. The research was conducted with the qualitative content analysis method. By analyzing the contents of the CSR reports it was found that CSR reporting is understood in 3 different themes that reflect the general CSR theory: economic, social and environmental responsibility. The following research focused on analyzing these three core themes separately during years 2012-2014 in order to find specific tendencies in the development of CSR reporting. The results confirm that CSR reporting is developing in the Finnish banking sector. Reporting about economic responsibility is based on core financial performance reporting, and it’s mainly developing in the assessment of the global recession and how the potential fiscal reforms affect to the bank sector’s performance. Economic responsibility is also being understood and reported as a wider concept, including intertwined and shared meanings with the other responsibility reporting themes. The research also suggests that banks value social responsibility reporting increasingly each year. Environmental responsibility reporting is the most standardized form of reporting, however, the reporting development includes the increased use of digitalization as source of lessening the environmental impact.

Use of satellite observations for operational oceanography: recent achievements and future prospects

The paper gives an overview of the development of satellite oceanography over the past five years focusing on the most relevant issues for operational oceanography. Satellites provide key essential variables to constrain ocean models and/or serve downstream applications. New and improved satellite data sets have been developed and have directly improved the quality of operational products. The status of the satellite constellation for the last five years was, however, not optimal. Review of future missions shows clear progress and new research and development missions with a potentially large impact for operational oceanography should be demonstrated. Improvement of data assimilation techniques and developing synergetic use of high resolution satellite observations are important future priorities.

The analysis and detection of new psychoactive substances in biological matrices

New psychoactive substances (NPSs) have appeared on the recreational drug market at an unprecedented rate in recent years. Many are not new drugs but failed products of the pharmaceutical industry. The speed and variety of drugs entering the market poses a new complex challenge for the forensic toxicology community. The detection of these substances in biological matrices can be difficult as the exact compounds of interest may not be known. Many NPS are sold under the same brand name and therefore users themselves may not know what substances they have ingested. The majority of analytical methods for the detection of NPSs tend to focus on a specific class of compounds rather than a wide variety. In response to this, a robust and sensitive method was developed for the analysis of various NPS by solid phase extraction (SPE) with gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS). Sample preparation and derivatisation were optimised testing a range of SPE cartridges and derivatising agents, as well as derivatisation incubation time and temperature. The final gas chromatography mass spectrometry method was validated in accordance with SWGTOX 2013 guidelines over a wide concentration range for both blood and urine for 23 and 25 analytes respectively. This included the validation of 8 NBOMe compounds in blood and 10 NBOMe compounds in urine. This GC-MS method was then applied to 8 authentic samples with concentrations compared to those originally identified by NMS laboratories. The rapid influx of NPSs has resulted in the re-analysis of samples and thus, the stability of these substances is crucial information. The stability of mephedrone was investigated, examining the effect that storage temperatures and preservatives had on analyte stability daily for 1 week and then weekly for 10 weeks. Several laboratories identified NPSs use through the cross-reactivity of these substances with existing screening protocols such as ELISA. The application of Immunalysis ketamine, methamphetamine and amphetamine ELISA kits for the detection of NPS was evaluated. The aim of this work was to determine if any cross-reactivity from NPS substances was observed, and to determine whether these existing kits would identify NPS use within biological samples. The cross- reactivity of methoxetamine, 3-MeO-PCE and 3-MeO-PCP for different commercially point of care test (POCT) was also assessed for urine. One of the newest groups of compounds to appear on the NPS market is the NBOMe series. These drugs pose a serious threat to public health due to their high potency, with fatalities already reported in the literature. These compounds are falsely marketed as LSD which increases the chance of adverse effects due to the potency differences between these 2 substances. A liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was validated in accordance with SWGTOX 2013 guidelines for the detection for 25B, 25C and 25I-NBOMe in urine and hair. Long-Evans rats were administered 25B-, 25C- and 25I-NBOMe at doses ranging from 30-300 µg/kg over a period of 10 days. Tail flick tests were then carried out on the rats in order to determine whether any analgesic effects were observed as a result of dosing. Rats were also shaved prior to their first dose and reshaved after the 10-day period. Hair was separated by colour (black and white) and analysed using the validated LC-MS/MS method, assessing the impact hair colour has on the incorporation of these drugs. Urine was collected from the rats, analysed using the validated LC-MS/MS method and screened for potential metabolites using both LC-MS/MS and quadrupole time of flight (QToF) instrumentation.

Heart Transplantation in Patients Older than 65 Years: Worthwhile or Wastage of Organs?

BACKGROUND: Patients older than 65 years have traditionally not been considered candidates for heart transplantation. However, recent studies have shown similar survival. We evaluated immediate and medium-term results in patients older than 65 years compared with younger patients. METHODS: From November 2003 to December 2013, 258 patients underwent transplantation. Children and patients with other organ transplantations were excluded from this study. Recipients were divided into two groups: 45 patients (18%) aged 65 years and older (Group A) and 203 patients (81%) younger than 65 years (Group B). RESULTS: Patients differed in age (67.0 ± 2.2 vs. 51.5 ± 9.7 years), but gender (male 77.8 vs. 77.3%; p = 0.949) was similar. Patients in Group A had more cardiovascular risk factors and ischemic cardiomyopathy (60 vs. 33.5%; p < 0.001). Donors to Group A were older (38.5 ± 11.3 vs. 34.0 ± 11.0 years; p = 0.014). Hospital mortality was 0 vs. 5.9% (p = 0.095) and 1- and 5-year survival were 88.8 ± 4.7 versus 86.8 ± 2.4% and 81.5 ± 5.9 versus 77.2 ± 3.2%, respectively. Mean follow-up was 3.8 ± 2.7 versus 4.5 ± 3.1 years. Incidence of cellular/humoral rejection was similar, but incidence of cardiac allograft vasculopathy was higher (15.6 vs. 7.4%; p = 0.081). Incidence of diabetes de novo was similar (p = 0.632), but older patients had more serious infections in the 1st year (p = 0.018). CONCLUSION: Heart transplantation in selected older patients can be performed with survival similar to younger patients, hence should not be restricted arbitrarily. Incidence of infections, graft vascular disease, and malignancies can be reduced with a more personalized approach to immunosuppression. Allocation of donors to these patients does not appear to reduce the possibility of transplanting younger patients.

Niosomes as Nanoparticular Drug Carriers: Fundamentals and Recent Applications

Drug delivery systems are defined as formulations aiming for transportation of a drug to the desired area of action within the body. The basic component of drug delivery systems is an appropriate carrier that protects the drug from rapid degradation or clearance and thereby enhances drug concentration in target tissues. Based on their biodegradable, biocompatible, and nonimmunogenic structure, niosomes are promising drug carriers that are formed by self-association of nonionic surfactants and cholesterol in an aqueous phase. In recent years, numerous research articles have been published in scientific journals reporting the potential of niosomes to serve as a carrier for the delivery of different types of drugs. The present review describes preparation methods, characterization techniques, and recent studies on niosomal drug delivery systems and also gives up to date information regarding recent applications of niosomes in drug delivery.