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Bacterial community structure in the Bohai Strait provides insights into organic matter niche partitioning
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available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This author accepted manuscript is made available following 24 month embargo from date of publication (Sept 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyThe Bohai Strait is a crucial pathway for water exchange between the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea, and exhibits a robust spatiotemporal pattern of hydrodynamic conditions. 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing was applied to study the spatiotemporal patterns of bacterial community composition and diversity in the Bohai Strait. Physical and chemical parameters were measured in order to explain what might control the observed patterns in community composition and diversity. In response to environmental changes between seasons, especially the dramatic changes of temperature and nutrient (NO2-N and PO4-P) levels, Synechococcus and unclassified genera in Family I predominated in summer while some oligotrophic taxa (e.g., Pelagibacter, OM43 clade) are more abundant in winter. The spatial heterogeneity and overall patchiness of bacterial assemblages in the Bohai Strait could not be well explained by the measured factors. However, the taxa with the most spatially variable presence and absence, e.g. Vibrionaceae, SAR11 and Sva0996 marine group, possess differentiated niches for utilization of organic matter (OM) and display a close relationship with the distribution of OM sources in this area, which may indicate the significance of OM sources to bacterial community structure. Our results suggest that local factors rather than regional factors, such as dispersal limited by hydrodynamics, structure the bacterial communities in the Bohai Strait.This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program (973 Program) of China (No. 2015CB453300), the External Cooperation Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. 133337KYSB20180015), the Key Research Project of Frontier Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. QYZDB-SSW-DQC041), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA11020403), and the Technology Service Network Plan of Chinese Academy of Sciences (STS, No. ZSYS-006)
Contrast enhancement by multi-level histogram shape segmentation with adaptive detail enhancement for noise suppression
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available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This author accepted manuscript is made available following 24 month embargo from date of publication (November 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyThe usual problems associated with image enhancement include over- and under-enhancement, halo effects at edges and the degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio as the enhancement of details increases. Some of those problems manifest in the background and some in the details of the enhanced image. Our proposed method is to apply different techniques to enhance the background and details separately. For enhancement of the image background, a novel multi-level histogram shape segmentation method which will detect abrupt changes in the histogram is proposed so that regions of intensity values with a similar frequency of occurrence are segmented for individual equalization to avoid over-enhancement. For detail enhancement, a novel adaptive median based enhancement method is applied to the details to avoid over- and under-enhancement while suppressing noise by limiting the degree of enhancement in homogeneous regions. Halo effects due to the over-enhancement of edges are avoided in our proposed method by using an edge preserving filter for the separation of the background and details so that edges are excluded from detail enhancement. It has been shown that our proposed method is able to avoid the usual adverse problems of image enhancement while producing adequate overall enhancement
Semantic prediction-errors are context-dependent: An ERP study
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available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This author accepted manuscript is made available following 12 month embargo from date of publication (October 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyThe human brain is an efficient, adaptive, and predictive machine, constructing a generative model of the environment that we then perceive and become conscious of. Here, we show that different types of prediction-errors – the discrepancies between top-down expectations and bottom-up sensory input – are integrated across processing levels and sensory modalities of the cortical hierarchy. We designed a novel, hybrid protocol in which five prediction-establishing sounds were played in rapid succession (e.g., “meow”, “meow”, “meow”, etc.), followed by either a standard (e.g., “meow”) or a deviant (e.g., “woof”) prime sound, then a visual target word that was either congruent or incongruent (e.g., “cat” or “dog”) with the prime sound. We found that the deviants elicited a more negative voltage than the standards at about 150 ms – the mismatch negativity (MMN), an event-related potential (ERP) sensitive to low-level perceptual violations – and that the incongruent words elicited a more negative voltage than the congruent words at about 350 ms – the N400, an ERP sensitive to high-level semantic violations. We also found that the N400 was context-dependent: the N400 was larger when the target words were preceded by a standard than a deviant. Our results suggest that perceptual prediction-errors modulate subsequent semantic prediction-errors. We conclude that our results are consistent with one of the most important assumptions of predictive coding theories: hierarchical prediction-error processing.This work was supported by the Australian Research Council (DP140104394, DP170103094, FT100100260, and DE150100667) and by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (APP1090507)
Validating injury burden estimates using population birth cohorts and longitudinal cohort studies of injury outcomes: the VIBES-Junior study protocol
Get PDFThis is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.Introduction Traumatic injury is a leading contributor to the global disease burden in children and adolescents, but methods used to estimate burden do not account for differences in patterns of injury and recovery between children and adults. A lack of empirical data on postinjury disability in children has limited capacity to derive valid disability weights and describe the long-term individual and societal impacts of injury in the early part of life. The aim of this study is to establish valid estimates of the burden of non-fatal injury in children and adolescents.
Methods and analysis Five longitudinal studies of paediatric injury survivors 1 million children from two whole-of-population cohorts (South Australian Early Childhood Data Project and Wales Electronic Cohort for Children). Systematic analysis of pooled injury-specific cohort data using a variety of statistical techniques, and parallel analysis of whole-of-population cohorts, will be used to develop estimated disability weights for years lost due to disability, establish appropriate injury classifications and explore factors influencing recovery.
Ethics and dissemination The project was approved by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee project number 12 311. Results of this study will be submitted for publication in internationally peer-reviewed journals. The findings from this project have the capacity to improve the validity of paediatric injury burden measurements in future local and global burden of disease studies
Development of Lateral Prestress in High-Strength Concrete-Filled FRP Tubes
Get PDFContent from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.This paper reports on an experimental investigation into the axial and lateral strain development of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) confined high-strength concrete (HSC) with prestressed FRP shells. A total of 24 aramid FRP (AFRP)-confined concrete specimens were manufactured as concrete-filled FRP tubes (CFFTs) with instrumentation to measure the strain variations during application of prestress, removal of end constraints and progressive prestress losses. Prestressed CFFT specimens were prepared with three different dose rates of expansive mineral admixture to create a range of lateral prestress applied to AFRP tubes manufactured with sheet thicknesses of 0.2 or 0.3 mm/ply and referred to as lightly- or well-confined, respectively. In addition to these three levels of prestress, non-prestressed companion specimens were manufactured and tested to determine baseline performance. The experimental results from this study indicate that lateral prestressing of CFFTs manufactured with HSC can be achieved by varying the expansive mineral admixture dose rate with a lateral prestress of up to 7.3 MPa recorded in this study. Significant strain variations were measured during removal of the end constraints with up to 700 microstrain recorded in the axial direction. Finally, the measurement of prestress losses for the month following prestress application revealed minimal progressive losses, with only 250 and 100 με recorded for the axial and hoop strains, respectively
Mobilising evidence to improve nursing practice: A qualitative study of leadership roles and processes in four countries
Get PDF© 2018 Elsevier B.V. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
This author accepted manuscript is made available following 12 month embargo from date of publication (November 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyBackground: The approach and style of leaders is known to be an important factor influencing the translation of research evidence into nursing practice. However, questions remain as to what types of roles are most effective and the specific mechanisms through which influence is achieved.
Objectives: The aim of the study was to enhance understanding of the mechanisms by which key nursing roles lead the implementation of evidence-based practice across different care settings and countries and the contextual factors that influence them.
Design: The study employed a qualitative descriptive approach.
Settings: Data collection was undertaken in acute care and primary/community health care settings in Australia, Canada, England and Sweden.
Participants: 55 individuals representing different levels of the nursing leadership structure (executive to frontline), roles (managers and facilitators), sectors (acute and primary/community) and countries.
Methods: Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with all participants exploring their roles and experiences of leading evidence-based practice. Data were analysed through a process of qualitative content analysis.
Results: Different countries had varying structural arrangements and roles to support evidence-based nursing practice. At a cross-country level, three main themes were identified relating to different mechanisms for enacting evidence-based practice, contextual influences at a policy, organisational and service delivery level and challenges of leading evidence-based practice.
Conclusions: National policies around quality and performance shape priorities for evidence-based practice, which in turn influences the roles and mechanisms for implementation that are given prominence. There is a need to maintain a balance between the mechanisms of managing and monitoring performance and facilitating critical questioning and reflection in and on practice. This requires a careful blending of managerial and facilitative leadership. The findings have implications for theory, practice, education and research relating to implementation and evidence-based practice
Characterising the invertebrate megafaunal assemblages of a deep-sea (200–3000 m) frontier region for oil and gas exploration: the Great Australian Bight, Australia
Get PDFCrown Copyright © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
This author accepted manuscript is made available following 24 month embargo from date of publication (August 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyThe first systematic benthic survey in the deep sea (200–3000 m) of Australia’s Great Australian Bight (GAB) was undertaken in 2015 to characterise the invertebrate megafauna, and to inform the selection of indicators and metrics for ecological monitoring ahead of oil and gas exploration. The survey yielded more than 629 species of invertebrate megafauna; of the 376 species with distributional data, 92 (25%) were undescribed and 77 were new records for Australian waters. The families and genera present were all known to occur in the deep sea and many species had been previously recorded in Australia and worldwide; faunal composition was broadly typical for temperate deep-sea regions. The highest diversities (>80 putative species, or Operational Taxonomic Units, OTUs) were recorded within the higher taxa Demospongiae, Decapoda, Gastropoda and Echinodermata. Multispecies analyses showed clear changes in the assemblage structure with depth; sponges and echinoderms dominated the overall biomass and density, with the former being more prominent in shallower depths. The assemblage structure is consistent with the GAB being a single provincial-scale bioregion, with no longitudinal pattern in assemblage, biomass or density distribution. Approximately 70% of species that could be assigned biogeographic data were previously recorded from Australia, with less than half (146 species, 39%) previously known from the GAB. Only two described species, the crab Choniognathus granulosus and barnacle Arcoscalpellum inum, appear restricted to the GAB; it would be premature to assign any undescribed species as having endemic status. The clear eastwards biogeographic affinity of the GAB fauna is influenced by the relatively high deep-sea sampling effort to the east off southeastern Australia and New Zealand. Our survey of invertebrate megafauna at baseline (unperturbed) sites provides the basis to evaluate indicators and metrics using a reference-site monitoring approach. A robust (consistent species-level) taxonomic foundation will enable a variety of assemblage-level (composite) metrics (e.g. richness, diversity, distinctness) to be derived, and this is possible across several major taxa including Porifera, Cnidaria, Mollusca, Echinodermata and Crustacea. Species-level data also permit structural and functional changes (including recovery) to be assessed in response to disturbance. Where reference sites should be established can only be determined once the exploration phase of industry development is further advanced because the spatial scales of potential impact are highly activity-specific. However, our data show the high importance of depth to selecting monitoring sites because invertebrate megafaunal assemblage composition (turnover), diversity, and abundance are all highly correlated with depth. Conversely, latitude is not important because the central GAB is a single biogeographic province
The benefits of sensory modulation on levels of distress for consumers in a mental health emergency setting
Get PDFCopyright © 2018 The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists DOI: 10.1177/1039856217751988Objectives:
This paper reports a pilot study exploring the benefits of offering sensory modulation within a mental health emergency setting for consumers experiencing distress during a psychiatric presentation.
Methods:
Seventy-four consumers with a mental health presentation reported on their sensory modulation use experiences during their stay in a South Australian tertiary teaching hospital emergency department. An evaluation form was used to document use of items, self-reported distress pre and post sensory modulation use, and other consumer experiences.
Results:
Consumers used between one and six sensory items for a median duration of 45 min. There was a statistically significant reduction (t(73) = 15.83, p < .001) in self-reported distress post sensory modulation use, and consumers also reported that use was helpful, distracting, calming and assisted in managing negative emotions and thoughts.
Conclusions:
The results demonstrate the potential value of sensory-based interventions in reducing behavioural and emotional dysregulation in an emergency setting whilst also promoting consumer self-management strategies
