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Promoting global collaboration to improve bioaerosol exposure assessment and understanding of associated health impacts: outcomes from a series of workshops
Get PDFWe are surrounded, in both indoor and outdoor environments, by air containing particles of biological origin (bioaerosols). We constantly inhale them, and, depending upon their size, they deposit in different parts of our airways. Despite their ubiquitous nature and our constant exposure, bioaerosol diversity and composition of the environment are not well characterized, and we understand little about which bioaerosols we are exposed to and how this impacts our health, either positively or negatively. Indoor/Outdoor Bioaerosols Interface and Relationships Network (BioAirNet), a Clean Air Programme-funded network, has recognized the need for the bioaerosol community to reflect on the current challenges facing bioaerosol exposure assessment and the determination of the associated cellular/molecular responses driving specific health outcomes. A series of online workshops for the bioaerosol community were hosted by BioAirNet in September 2022, which aimed to bring together global expertise to discuss the current challenges impeding improved assessment of bioaerosol exposure and understanding of the downstream cellular and molecular mechanisms driving health outcomes by discussing these challenges; considering where we need to be, where we are now and how we get there. Professional facilitation was key to their success, enabling the multidisciplinary bioaerosol community to explore and address these challenges within a focused and productive environment to prioritize themes and agree on action plans for continued momentum following the workshops. These themes were as follows: (1) conceptual model; (2) stakeholder mapping; (3) knowledge transfer; (4) writing project and (5) conference-type event, collectively covering research, knowledge mobilization and networking activities. A subsequent in-person follow-up workshop was held in November 2023. It provided an opportunity to share progress on the five themes, critique what had already been done and act as a launch-pad to progress the actions further. Delegates also had the opportunity to share ongoing or upcoming work, particularly projects requiring input from others, to encourage collaborative working and sharing expertise. The use of facilitated workshops is a valuable tool for all scientific communities to collectively explore and successfully address key issues within their field
Exploring Barriers and Facilitators to Dietary Assessment and Advice in the Paediatric Population Attending Dental Clinics: A Scoping Review
Get PDFOBJECTIVES: This scoping review aimed to identify barriers and facilitators, from both dental clinic staff and caregivers, to effectively providing and implementing dietary assessment and advice (for both oral and/or systemic health) in dental clinics managing paediatric patients.
METHODS: A protocol was developed a priori (Open Science Framework- https://osf.io/bp4ts.) and followed the PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Studies published in English from 1990 to December 2024 in MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, Embase and CINAHL databases were searched. Additional journal searches targeted articles on dietary assessment or advice in dental clinics treating paediatric patients (aged ≤ 18 years), exploring barriers and facilitators for caregivers and dental clinic staff.
RESULTS: Of 4736 studies identified, 32 were included, with 5 additional studies included from manual searching. Sixteen studies were quantitative, 13 were qualitative, and 8 mixed methods. Across studies, 77 barriers and 45 facilitators were identified in providing and implementing dietary assessment and advice in the paediatric population attending dental clinics. Results were mapped to the Theoretical Domains Framework. Common barriers for dental staff included time constraints and financial compensation, while caregivers cited controlling children\u27s dietary habits as a major barrier.
CONCLUSIONS: Understanding the main barriers and facilitators in providing and implementing dietary assessment and advice in dental clinics treating paediatric patients is crucial to improving preventive healthcare
Characterization and photodegradation of isolated chemical classes from crude oil.
Get PDFCompounds in crude oil are photoactive and can be toxic to marine ecosystems. However, chemical characterisation of crude oil poses a significant analytical challenge owing to its complexity. This challenge is further exacerbated by the photodegradation of crude oils in the environment. The aim of the work herein was to first isolate and characterise targeted fractions from crude oil and then assess the fractions after photodegradation, to better understand the composition of crude oil and photochemical transformation of individual chemical classes.Isolation of target fractions was achieved by validating a solid phase extraction (SPE) method using ion exchange SPE to fractionate Alaska North Slope (ANS) oil into discrete chemical classes. The SPE stationary phases used were strong cation exchange, strong anion exchange, and silica. Once the ANS oil was fractionated, chemical characterisation was complete using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and subsequently comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCxGC-TOFMS) following analytical method development. Fractions were then subject to photodegradation using an accelerated weathering chamber with a xenon lamp.Chemical analysis of the fractions revealed the limitations of GC-MS when analysing crude oil. Many of the fractions, despite reduced complexity compared to the whole oil, exhibited unresolved complex mixtures (UCM). A method was developed for GCxGC-TOFMS where five column sets with varying film thickness, stationary phase, bleed line flow, modulation period, fill/flush time, sample loop length, and primary/secondary flow rates were tested to identify the columns that provided the best separation of compounds in each fraction. This method development led to successful characterisation of fractions containing dibenzothiophenes, fluorenes, fluorenones, sulfides, and xanthones.The experimental conditions of the photodegradation resulted in an excessive loss of mass. Analysis of the fractions showed that the photodegradation procedure was partially successful following the identification of a few photochemical transformation products including sulfoxides to sulfones, DEHP to MEHP, the formation of ketones, and possible conversion of xanthone to fluoren-9-one. Overall, the results show that the method developed for the fractionation and characterisation of the ANS crude oil was successful for the structural identification of individual chemical classes pre- and post-photodegradation. Future research would require optimisation and validation of the photodegradation experiment to avoid excessive evaporative losses and ensure environmental relevance
The immeasurable value of plankton to humanity
Get PDFPlankton, a diverse group of aquatic organisms, make Earth livable, regulate aquatic life, and provide benefits to human societies such as access to clean water, food security, and well-being. They also support economies and inspire biotechnological innovations. This article aims to raise awareness of the value of plankton to humanity and serves as an informative guide for aquatic professionals, policymakers, and anyone interested in plankton. We present the value of plankton across six themes of human interest: biogeochemistry; ecology; climate; the evolution of science; economy; and culture, recreation, and well-being. Guided by the 2022 Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services values assessment, we introduce the six themes under the Life Framework of Values to offer a comprehensive summary of the significance of plankton to humanity. In addition, we provide examples of plankton variables used in policy frameworks and recommendations for enhancing understanding of their value through long-term sustainable research and monitoring
Experiences of general practitioners in supporting the mental health of children and young people: An exploratory qualitative study in the United Kingdom
Get PDFMental health (MH) problems in children and young people (CYP) are on the rise, negatively affecting their quality of life. General Practitioners (GPs) are the first port of call for any health-related issue; however, it has not been fully explored what kind of training, tools or management strategies they use for CYP’s MH. The study’s aim was to explore and report experiences, challenges and strategies that GPs in the UK have to address the MH needs of CYP. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with GPs. Qualitative content analysis was used resulting in two themes and five subthemes. Most GPs reported receiving experiential training to address MH issues on CYP and explained some of the most common presentations and whether these are primary or secondary causes for consultation. In the second theme ‘Management Approaches’, GPs draw on different barriers to communicating with CYP and their families or other relevant parties (school for instance), but they also discuss treatment approaches including pharmaceutical. Participants shared myriad tools, resources and strategies they have used to address CYP’s MH. Although GPs provided valuable insights on this topic, the study shows an urgent need for providing systematic training and management strategies to respond to MH problems appropriately
Restoration of river connectivity enables long-distance spawning migrations in a potamodromous fish
Get PDFRivers across the world are increasingly fragmented due to anthropogenic barriers, with the restoration of connectivity often using fish passes. Fish passes are, however, usually designed for anadromous species, despite ecologically important non-anadromous species being present in the communities impacted by fragmentation. To assess the outcomes for non-anadromous fishes of the installation of multiple fish passes and weir modifications, the movements of the potamodromous European barbel Barbus barbus were evaluated in the lower River Severn basin, western Britain, which was fragmented by six weirs (two on a tributary, four on the Severn mainstem). Movements of individual fish were measured using long-life acoustic transmitters, with stable isotope analysis assisting the assessment of individual variability in movements. The movements of three tagging groups were measured: barbel tagged in 2015 (n = 19; no fish passes/modifications), 2018 (n = 19; tributary weirs modified), and 2020/21 (n = 20; all Severn mainstem weirs fitted with fish passes). No fish in the 2015 group passed the weirs on the Severn mainstem, despite approaches, and only one fish in the 2018 group passed the most downstream weir during high water conditions in winter. Following the opening of all fish passes in early 2021, individuals in the 2020/21 group moved above all the weirs via the fish passes between April and June (the spawning season). These fish then moved upstream for up to 110 km, and some were detected returning downstream. These spawning migrations potentially have high ecological and evolutionary significance, indicating that reconnection schemes designed for anadromous fishes also benefit potamodromous fishes
Speech-aided facial video super resolution with accurate lip motion and enhanced frequency details
No full textDespite recent breakthroughs in face hallucination, video face hallucination remains a challenging task due to the issue of consistency across video frames. The temporal dimension in videos makes it difficult to learn facial motion and maintain color uniformity throughout the sequence. To address these challenges, we propose a novel audio-visual cross-modality support based video face hallucination network. The framework excels in learning fine spatiotemporal motion patterns by leveraging the correlation between movement of the facial structure and associated speech signal. Another significant challenge generic to face hallucination is blurriness around the key facial regions, such as mouth and lips. These areas show higher spatial displacement rendering their recovery in low-resolution images particularly difficult. The proposed approach explicitly defines a lip reading loss to learn the fine-grain motion in these facial regions. Further, during training, GANs show a higher potential to overfit to small frequency bands, which results in missing hard-to-synthesize frequencies. As a remedy, we introduce a frequency based loss function compelling the model to grasp salient frequency features. Visual and quantitative comparisons with state-of-the-art demonstrate significant improvements in visual results as well as higher coherence in the generated outputs across successive frames
Mining Deep Sea Sponges for Novel Antimicrobial Biologics
No full textAntimicrobial resistance is one of the greatest threats to modern day healthcare, with 1.27 million deaths globally attributable to AMR in 2019 alone, and that number is only predicted to increase. One of the most prominent issues is the lack of effective and new antimicrobials on the market to treat multidrug resistant infections. Therefore, investment and research within the area of biodiscovery is desperately needed. Within this thesis, the investigation of a relatively unexplored deep-sea sponge, Pheronema carpenteri, is carried out to assess its potential as a source of novel antimicrobial compounds. Firstly, the microbiome was analysed using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing, to see whether the microbiome contains species identified within literature with known antimicrobial capabilities, such as Streptomyces species. This indicated the presence of Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Crenarchaeota as the dominant species within this sponge. Then, a metabolomic approach was taken to see whether there are antimicrobials present in samples, without employing bacterial cultivation methods. There was a total of 83 unique molecules identified that could be further explored, with a number of various fatty acids present, with previous antimicrobial capability noted in literature. The second chapter involved the use of standard cultivation techniques and dilution to extinction (D:E) methods to generate culture collection of 389 bacteria, which were screened for antimicrobial activity against ESKAPE pathogens. A total of 72 isolates were identified with some level of narrow- or broad-spectrum activity. A One Strain MAny Compounds (OSMAC) approach was introduced at this stage to trigger bioactivity using a range of nutrient conditions and 12 isolates that were previously observed to be inactive were stimulated to produce antimicrobial activity. Finally, one bioactive Streptomyces strain was chosen for in-depth pursual of potential novel compounds. Culture dependent and independent methods were employed to analyse Biosynthetic Gene Clusters (BGCs) within the genome and facilitate prioritisation of four BGCs of interest (out of 40 in total in this strain) for future investigation. Culture methods involved the purification and identification of a potentially novel bioactive antimicrobial peptide with potent activity towards Gram-positive pathogens including MRSA and vancomycin resistant Enterococcus (VRE) and no toxicity in a Galleria mellonella model at concentrations well in excess of the antibacterial concentration.In this body of work, we evidence Pheronema carpenteri as a promising source of antimicrobial compounds. There are many uncultured Actinobacteriota species present within the microbiome that may harbour antimicrobial capabilities ideal for biodiscovery research
What is known about the fish intake of people living in disadvantaged communities in the UK? A Scoping Review
Get PDFFish provides essential nutrients, including protein, omega-3 fatty acids (oily fish) and other micronutrients, and may be seen to have a prominent role in protecting against non-communicable diseases, especially cardiovascular disease. Recent UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey analysis suggests people are not meeting their weekly fish intake recommendation of at least two portions per week, of which one should be oily. Lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to eat poor-quality diets, with low fish intake, resulting in poor health outcomes. The aim of this scoping review was to examine the factors influencing fish consumption in people living within ‘disadvantaged communities’ in the UK. The review was guided by Arksey and O\u27Malley\u27s five-stage framework and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) checklist. Peer-reviewed literature was searched, focusing on studies carried out in the UK (published in CINAHLPlus, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and MEDLINE) and grey literature (Google Scholar, consultations and websites) between January 2000 and December 2023. Selected studies were reviewed and analysed descriptively or using content analysis. A total of n = 26 papers were reviewed, with collated findings suggesting a nuanced picture in relation to fish intake within ‘disadvantaged communities’. Specific barriers were identified, including physical and economic accessibility, with poor access to fish and the high cost of fish (especially oily) positively associated with income level. Demographic characteristics of age, gender, and ethnicity were shown to influence fish intake. Education level also plays a role, namely the higher the education level, the higher the likelihood of regular (i.e., weekly or daily depending on study) fish consumption. Similarly, cultural factors can determine fish-related food choices in adults, which can also influence children\u27s fish intake. Despite some inherent limitations, this review provides important insights into the fish intake of disadvantaged communities. Recommendations are made for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers engaged in (blue) food system strategies to inform the design of interventions and campaigns to promote fish intake, enhance education of its health benefits, and skills in its preparation/cooking in disadvantaged communities to support action to tackle health inequalities