Tech

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have found that crystals of a recently discovered superconducting material, a layered bismuth chalcogenide with a four-fold symmetric structure, shows only two-fold symmetry in its superconductivity. The origin of superconductivity in these structures is not yet well understood; this finding suggests a connection with an enigmatic class of materials known as nematic superconductors and the extraordinary mechanisms by which superconductivity can emerge at easier-to-reach temperatures.

Superconductors are materials with extremely low electrical resistance. They have already seen numerous applications to powerful electromagnets, particularly in medical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) units, where they are used to generate the strong magnetic fields required for high resolution non-invasive imaging. However, significant barriers exist which prevent more widespread usage e.g. for power transmission over long distances. The most notable is that conventional superconductivity only arises at extremely low temperatures. The first "high-temperature" superconductors were only found in the latter half of the 1980s, and the mechanisms behind how they work are still hotly debated.

In 2012, Prof Yoshikazu Mizuguchi of Tokyo Metropolitan University succeeded in engineering layered bismuth chalcogenide materials with alternating insulating and superconducting layers for the first time. (Chalcogenides are materials containing elements from group 16 of the periodic table.) Now, the same team have taken measurements on single crystals of the material and found that the rotational symmetry characteristics of the crystalline structure are not replicated in how the superconductivity changes with orientation.

The material the group studied consisted of superconducting layers made of bismuth, sulfur and selenium, and insulating layers made of lanthanum, fluorine and oxygen. Importantly, the chalcogenide layers had four-fold rotational (or tetragonal) symmetry i.e. the same when rotated by 90 degrees. However, when the team measured the magnetoresistance of the material at different orientations, they only found two-fold symmetry i.e. the same when rotated by 180 degrees. Further analyses at different temperatures did not suggest any changes to the structure; they concluded that this breakage of symmetry must arise from the arrangement of the electrons in the layer.

The concept of nematic phases comes from liquid crystals, where disordered, amorphous arrays of rod-like particles can point in the same direction, breaking rotational symmetry while remaining randomly distributed over space. Very recently, it has been hypothesized that something similar in the electronic structure of materials, electronic nematicity, may be behind the emergence of superconductivity in high temperature superconductors. This finding clearly links this highly customizable system to high temperature superconductors like copper and iron-based materials. The team hope that further investigation will reveal critical insights into how otherwise widely different materials give rise to similar behavior, and how they work.

New research presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Amsterdam, Netherlands (13-16 April) shows the danger posed by bloodstream infections (BSIs), and the large variation in mortality rates associated with different infectious microorganisms. The study is by Liya Lomsadze and colleagues from Northwell Health, Great Neck, New York, United States.

BSIs are ranked among the top seven causes of death, however relatively little is known about the risks posed by the different species of microorganism that give rise to them. The researchers sought to evaluate this link by performing a multi-centre retrospective analysis of hospitalised patients who had been discharged from 10 New York health facilities over a one-year period from January to December 2018.

Patients with a suspected BSI had 2 sets of blood samples taken, which were cultured to look for infection. Where infections were found, the cultures were sent for molecular analysis to identify the species of microorganism present. During the study period there were a total of 212,257 hospital discharges of which 4,133 involved the death of a patient. Out of those discharges, 6,149 (3%) were found to have a BSI caused by one or more microorganisms in their blood, and 744 (12%) of these patients died in the hospital.

For those individuals with some form of BSI, 5,688 (93%) were infected with a single species of microorganism, with the remaining 461 (7%) showing two or more different species in their blood. Mortality rates varied significantly according to the type of pathogen present, from 8% for Streptococcus species to 22% for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and 46% for Acinetobacter baumanii infections (see table below).

The research highlighted the risk posed by BSIs, which were associated with an overall mortality rate much higher (12% vs 2%) than that of the general hospitalised patient population. In addition to this, certain species of microorganism; Acinetobacter, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus species, carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (KPC), and Candida species were associated with the highest rates of in-hospital mortality (30-46%). Illicit drug use, pressure ulcers and acute kidney injury were strongly associated with BSI.

The researchers say: "When an infection is suspected, a patient is generally started on broad-spectrum antibiotics while our team tests their blood for infection. Molecular identification of the correct organism causing the infection is vital, as it helps doctors narrow the antibiotic treatment to the correct one for that particular infection."

They add: "One surprising finding was the high (13%) mortality rate that is associated with Coagulase negative Staphylococcus. This organism is usually considered to have low virulence. Further research is needed to find out what is behind this higher than expected mortality rate."

They conclude that: "Since most (86%) of BSIs were suspected within 3 days of admission, this indicates that the majority of these infections were community-acquired -- meaning that patients were already infected when they entered hospital. Further study is needed to work out where these infections originate."

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April 9, 2019--Air pollution from diesel engines may worsen allergy-induced lung impairment more when tiny particles are filtered from the exhaust than when they are not, according to new research published online in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

This surprising result may be due to the fact that some particle-depletion technologies, including the one used by the researchers, increase the amount of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in the exhaust. NO2, which is subject to national air quality standards, has been shown to reduce lung function and may be a cause of asthma in children.

In "Particle Depletion Does Not Remediate Acute Effects of Traffic-Related Air Pollution and Allergen," Denise J. Wooding, MSc, and co-authors report on a randomized, controlled study of 14 non-smoking adults who were sensitive to at least one of three common allergens.

"We previously demonstrated that diesel exhaust augmented allergic responses as well as airflow declines in those genetically susceptible, but we wondered if removing particles from the exhaust would lessen these effects," said senior study author Chris Carlsten, MD, MPH, professor, head of respiratory medicine and Canada Research Chair in Occupational and Environmental Lung Disease at the University of British Columbia.

In this cross-over study, all 14 participants at various times were exposed in a laboratory to air with just the allergen, the allergen plus diesel exhaust and the allergen plus filtered diesel exhaust. They all also breathed air with no diesel exhaust or allergen, which served as the control.

After each exposure, the participants underwent a commonly used test called methacholine challenge to determine how a patient responds to an inhaled allergen. Neither they nor those conducting the study were aware of which exposure they had undergone before being tested.

The researchers also measured numbers of white blood cells, which marshal the body's immune response but can "overreact" to allergens, causing breathing problems.

The study found:

The particle-depleted diesel exhaust produced by HEPA filtration and electrostatic precipitation generated higher NO2 levels than unfiltered diesel exhaust.

Exposure to filtered diesel exhaust and allergen impaired the amount of air participants could forcibly exhale in one second (FEV1) more than allergen alone and more than unfiltered diesel exhaust and allergen.

Increasing levels of white blood cells were associated with declining FEV1 scores, suggesting that white blood cells "play a meaningful role in reducing lung function in the context of these exposures."

The effects of filtered diesel exhaust on lung function and on white blood cells were more pronounced in those participants who were genetically susceptible to oxidative stress, which occurs when there is an imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants in the body.

"The take-home message," said Dr. Carlsten, "is that technologies that remove particulate matter from diesel exhaust cannot be simply assumed to be beneficial to health, especially in susceptible populations."

Young children explore the world by putting things in their mouths. While many of these items are relatively harmless, some can cause serious injuries and require immediate medical attention. A new study from researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy and the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Nationwide Children's Hospital analyzed data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) for children younger than six years who were treated in a U.S. emergency department due to concern of a foreign body ingestion from 1995 through 2015.

The study, published online today in Pediatrics, found that more than 759,000 children younger than six years were estimated to have been evaluated for foreign body ingestions in emergency departments over the 21-year study period. The rate of foreign body ingestions per 10,000 children increased by 91.5%, from 9.5 in 1995 to 18 in 2015. The number of estimated cases among children under six nearly doubled from about 22,000, or about 61 per day in 1995 to nearly 43,000, or 118 per day in 2015.

Foreign body ingestions most frequently involved children between one to three years of age (62%). Coins were the most frequent type of objects ingested (62%), followed by toys (10%), jewelry (7%), and batteries (7%). Just over 10% of children were admitted to the hospital as a result of their ingestion.

While batteries represented only 7% of all cases, they can do considerable damage when ingested. This increase is of concern because battery ingestions increased 150-fold over the study period. Button batteries, found in everyday items like toys, key fobs, and greeting cards, represented 86% of battery ingestions.

"The dramatic increase in foreign body injuries over the 21-year study period, coupled with the sheer number and profundity of injuries is cause for concern," said Danielle Orsagh-Yentis, MD, lead author of this study and Pediatric GI Motility Fellow at Nationwide Children's Hospital. "Continued advocacy and product regulations are needed to keep children safe, and the data shows that vigilance, advocacy and regulations are effective."

Consumer groups, healthcare providers, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) have attempted to make toys, batteries, and magnets safer for children. Since 2008, the CPSC's Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) requires manufacturers to take certain precautions in toys for young children including securing batteries and banning toys that fit in a choke-test cylinder. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has designed a task force to develop strategies to decrease button battery ingestions.

Recommendations for prevention of foreign body ingestions by both the AAP and the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (NASPGHAN) include:

Parents:

Safe storage: Store small items, especially button batteries, high-powered magnets, and loose change up, away, and out of sight.

Check the age recommendations: Labels on a toy's packaging can tell you if a toy is appropriate for your child's age. Read and follow manufacturer's instructions for assembly and use.

How to get help: If you think your child may have ingested a foreign body, first call your pediatrician or poison control (1-800-222-1222). If you think your child may have ingested a button battery or high-powered magnet, go to your local emergency department as quickly as possible.

Advocates and manufacturers:

Ensure child-resistant packaging is utilized and work to keep particularly dangerous products off the market.

Data for this study were obtained from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) database, which is maintained by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. The NEISS database provides information about consumer product-related injuries treated in hospital emergency departments across the country.

Scientists from the University of East Anglia have discovered a unique oil eating bacteria in the deepest part of the Earth's oceans - the Mariana Trench.

Together with researchers from the China and Russia, they undertook the most comprehensive analysis of microbial populations in the trench.

The Mariana Trench is located in the Western Pacific Ocean and reaches a depth of approximately 11,000 metres. By comparison, Mount Everest is 8,848 metres high.

"We know more about Mars than the deepest part of the ocean," said Prof Xiao-Hua Zhang of the Ocean University in China, who led the study.

To date, only a few expeditions have investigated the organisms inhabiting this ecosystem.

One of these expeditions was organized and led by noted marine explorer and Academy Award-winning film director James Cameron, who built a specialised submersible to collect samples in the trench.

Dr Jonathan Todd, from UEA's School of Biological Sciences, said: "Our research team went down to collect samples of the microbial population at the deepest part of the Mariana Trench - some 11,000 metres down. We studied the samples that were brought back and identified a new group of hydrocarbon degrading bacteria.

"Hydrocarbons are organic compounds that are made of only hydrogen and carbon atoms, and they are found in many places, including crude oil and natural gas.

"So these types of microorganisms essentially eat compounds similar to those in oil and then use it for fuel. Similar microorganisms play a role in degrading oil spills in natural disasters such as BP's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico."

"We also found that this bacteria is really abundant at the bottom of the Mariana Trench."

In fact, the team found that the proportion of hydrocarbon degrading bacteria in the Trench is the highest on Earth.

The scientists isolated some of these microbes and demonstrated that they consume hydrocarbons in the laboratory under environmental conditions that simulate those in the Mariana Trench.

In order to understand the source of the hydrocarbons 'feeding' this bacteria, the team analysed samples of sea water taken at the surface, and all the way down a column of water to the sediment at the bottom of the trench.

Dr Nikolai Pedentchouk, from UEA's School of Environmental Sciences, said: "We found that hydrocarbons exist as deep as 6,000 meters below the surface of the ocean and probably even deeper. A significant proportion of them probably derived from ocean surface pollution.

"To our surprise, we also identified biologically produced hydrocarbons in the ocean sediment at the bottom of the trench. This suggests that a unique microbial population is producing hydrocarbons in this environment."

"These hydrocarbons, similar to the compounds that constitute diesel fuel, have been found in algae at the ocean surface but never in microbes at these depths."

Dr David Lea-Smith, from UEA's School of Biological Sciences, said: "These hydrocarbons may help microbes survive the crushing pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, which is equal to 1,091 kilograms pressed against a fingernail.

"They may also be acting as a food source for other microbes, which may also consume any pollutant hydrocarbons that happen to sink to the ocean floor. But more research is needed to fully understand this unique environment."

"Identifying the microbes that produce these hydrocarbons is one of our top priorities, as is understanding the quantity of hydrocarbons released by human activity into this isolated environment," added Prof Xiao-Hua Zhang.

'Proliferation of hydrocarbon degrading microbes at the bottom of the Mariana Trench' is published in the journal Microbiome on April 12, 2019.

SEATTLE - Many African nations have made substantial progress in vaccinating children against life-threatening diseases, however, within countries wide discrepancies remain, according to a new scientific study.

The proportion of children receiving the full infant series of three vaccinations against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DPT3) increased in almost three quarters of districts in Africa between 2000 and 2016. In 29 of 52 nations studied, however, coverage with DPT3 varied by more than 25% at the district level, highlighting substantial variation within countries.

The study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, was published in the international medical journal The Lancet.

"Despite substantial gains in coverage, progress was far from universal," said Dr. Jonathan Mosser, the lead author on the study. "Routine childhood vaccinations are among the most successful and cost-effective public health interventions, substantially contributing to children living beyond their fifth birthdays. We continue to see wide areas of low coverage at the local level, however, illustrating that targeted improvements are needed to ensure that all children have access to lifesaving immunizations."

The study, "Mapping diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine coverage in Africa, 2000-2016: a spatial and temporal modelling study," maps nations in fine-scale, 5x5 kilometer increments, so that health officials nationally and locally can identify gaps in vaccine coverage and target interventions with precision, tailoring health policy decisions at local levels.

Using data from nearly 900,000 children, this analysis provides the first annual estimates of childhood DPT3 coverage across the entire African continent. It measures each community against the Global Vaccine Action Plan benchmark of reaching 90% national coverage and 80% in every district. These goals were established in 2012 by WHO member nations, as well as other organizations, including UNICEF, the Gates Foundation, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a public-private health partnership committed to increasing access to immunizations in poor countries.

Of the 52 countries studied, only Morocco and Rwanda are estimated to have already met the district-level goal of 80% coverage. In contrast, on the local level, areas of DPT3 coverage at or below 25% were found in several countries, including Nigeria, Chad, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Angola. Moreover, dropout rates exceeding 25% were identified in portions of Nigeria, Angola, Chad, Mali, Guinea, Liberia, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, South Africa, Somalia, and Ethiopia.

"National estimates can mask subnational pockets of low coverage, leaving children in at risk for preventable diseases and death," Mosser said. "Our study offers insights for nations' health ministers and other decision makers to better understand local patterns of vaccine coverage and to identify where to improve vaccine delivery systems."

An official with the Gates Foundation underscored the value of the study and its geospatial mapping techniques.

"We know that there are many children not getting the vaccines they need, but there's a real lack of detail about where those children are," said Violaine Mitchell, director of Vaccine Delivery at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "These maps are a critical step forward in revealing important detail on where the unvaccinated children are so that tailored strategies can be developed to reach them and truly achieve equitable coverage."

Graphene can come from graphite. But borophene? There's no such thing as borite.

Unlike its carbon cousin, two-dimensional borophene can't be reduced from a larger natural form. Bulk boron is usually only found in combination with other elements, and is certainly not layered, so borophene has to be made from the atoms up. Even then, the borophene you get may not be what you need.

For that reason, researchers at Rice and Northwestern universities have developed a method to view 2D borophene crystals, which can have many lattice configurations -- called polymorphs -- that in turn determine their characteristics.

Knowing how to achieve specific polymorphs could help manufacturers incorporate borophene with desirable electronic, thermal, optical and other physical properties into products.

Boris Yakobson, a materials physicist at Rice's Brown School of Engineering, and materials scientist Mark Hersam of Northwestern led a team that not only discovered how to see the nanoscale structures of borophene lattices but also built theoretical models that helped characterize the crystalline forms.

Their results are published in Nature Communications.

Borophene remains hard to make in even small quantities. If and when it can be scaled up, manufacturers will likely want to fine-tune it for applications. What the Rice and Northwestern teams learned will help in that regard.

Graphene takes a single form - an array of hexagons, like chicken wire - but perfect borophene is a grid of triangles. However, borophene is a polymorph, a material that can have more than one crystal structure. Vacancies that leave patterns of "hollow hexagons" in a borophene lattice determine its physical and electrical properties.

Yakobson said there could theoretically be more than 1,000 forms of borophene, each with unique characteristics.

"It has many possible patterns and networks of atoms being connected in the lattice," he said.

The project started at Hersam's Northwestern lab, where researchers modified the blunt tip of an atomic force microscope with a sharp tip of carbon and oxygen atoms. That gave them the ability to scan a flake of borophene to sense electrons that correspond to covalent bonds between boron atoms. They used a similarly modified scanning tunneling microscope to find hollow hexagons where a boron atom had gone missing.

Scanning flakes grown on silver substrates under various temperatures via molecular-beam epitaxy showed them a range of crystal structures, as the changing growth conditions altered the lattice.

"Modern microscopy is very sophisticated, but the result is, unfortunately, that the image you get is generally difficult to interpret," Yakobson said. "That is, it's hard to say an image corresponds to a particular atomic lattice. It's far from obvious, but that's where theory and simulations come in."

Yakobson's team used first-principle simulations to determine why borophene took on particular structures based on calculating the interacting energies of both boron and substrate atoms. Their models matched many of the borophene images produced at Northwestern.

"We learned from the simulations that the degree of charge transfer from the metal substrate into borophene is important," he said. "How much of this is happening, from nothing to a lot, can make a difference."

The researchers confirmed through their analysis that borophene is also not an epitaxial film. In other words, the atomic arrangement of the substrate doesn't dictate the arrangement or rotational angle of borophene.

The team produced a phase diagram that lays out how borophene is likely to form under certain temperatures and on a variety of substrates, and noted their microscopy advances will be valuable for finding the atomic structures of emerging 2D materials.

Looking to the future, Hersam said, "The development of methods to characterize and control the atomic structure of borophene is an important step toward realizing the many proposed applications of this material, which range from flexible electronics to emerging topics in quantum information sciences."

One of the most promising clean energy technologies just got even better. Researchers from the University of Delaware have developed the most powerful, durable hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cell components on record, which they recently described in the journal Nature Energy. The key ingredient? Membranes made from poly(aryl piperidinium) polymers.

Fuel cells work by converting chemical energy into electricity, and they are a promising source of power for eco-friendly vehicles. A few fuel cell vehicles already exist on the market, including the Toyota Mirai, the Honda Clarity and the Hyundai Nexo, and more fuel cell cars are under development worldwide. The fuel cells in automobiles require the use of an expensive catalyst material, usually platinum, to hasten the chemical reactions inside. These are called proton membrane exchange fuel cells, and they contain membranes made of a fluorinated polymeric material.

For nearly two decades, Yushan Yan, Distinguished Engineering Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, has been working to develop fuel cells that don't require platinum catalysts and instead employ cheaper metals, such as silver or nickel. These fuel cells contain hydroxide exchange membranes, which shift the environment within fuel cells from acidic -- the current standard -- to alkaline. The membrane of the fuel cell is what determines the pH inside.

"We can make components much cheaper by switching from proton exchange membrane fuel cells to hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cells," said Yan. In order to make these membranes, Yan has been on a quest to develop optimal, scalable materials. For this project, Yan enlisted the expertise of another electrochemistry expert at UD -- Bingjun Xu, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

Hydroxide exchange polymers consist of a long chain, or backbone, and a side chain with a positively charged ion, or cation. In Yan's past work, the side chains used in hydroxide exchange membranes contained very large positively cations, which made them stable but hindered their conductivity. The backbone material, on the other hand, was inexpensive, but not sufficiently stable.

"The question was: how do you create a new polymer that is stable both for the organic cation and the backbone at the same time, with a small cation?" said Yan.

Using poly(aryl piperidinium) polymers, the team developed hydroxide exchange membranes and ionomers with favorable properties, including good ion conductivity, chemical stability, mechanical robustness, gas separation and selective solubility. When the team tested these materials in a system with only a very small amount of platinum, the fuel cells fed with air had a peak power density of 920 milliwatts per square centimeter and operated in a stable manner at a current density of 500 milliamperes per square centimeter for 300 hours in air at 95 degrees Celsius.

These are the best power and stability stats yet for a hydroxide exchange membrane at above 90 degrees Celsius and the closest anyone has come to the 5000 operating hours that would be required to use this technology in a car.

The team developed a family of polymers, making this technology versatile. "There are a lot of knobs we can turn to deliver different properties," said Yan. "This is a platform technology."

The paper's first author is research associate Junhua Wang, who has been working on this project since 2011. "For this discovery to be made, he had to be very patient," said Yan. "He is a wonderful scientist, very creative and diligent."

11 April 2019, Vienna, Austria: The increasing burden and risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) associated with HIV infection have today been highlighted in two studies presented at The International Liver Congress™ 2019 in Vienna, Austria. These studies found that, whilst prevalence and mortality rates associated with viral hepatitis in HIV-infected individuals have been declining, rates associated with NAFLD are increasing, leading to a risk of progressive liver disease.

People living with HIV infection appear to be at greater risk of developing NAFLD than the general population. The prevalence of NAFLD worldwide has been estimated to be 25%, while the prevalence in populations with HIV has been far higher in most reported studies. NAFLD represents an important risk factor for the development and progression of liver disease,5 and with the availability of effective hepatitis B and C antiviral medications, it is conceivable that NAFLD could become the most prominent liver disease affecting individuals with HIV in the future.

The first study presented in Vienna aimed to assess the prevalence and mortality trends of NAFLD, viral hepatitis, and other liver diseases in HIV-infected individuals. The records of >47,000 HIV-infected Medicare recipients in the USA were searched, and >10,000 individuals with liver disease were identified: 5,628 with HCV-related disease, 1,374 with HBV-related disease, 645 with HCV/HBV-related disease, 2,629 with NAFLD, and 198 with other liver diseases. During the 10 years between 2006 and 2016, the prevalence rates for viral hepatitis decreased from 27.75 to 24.17 per 100,000 population (p=0.009) whilst the rates for NAFLD more than doubled from 5.32 to 11.62 per 100,000 population (p

'Our study shows that, as highly effective treatments for HBV and HCV infections lead to reduced associated mortality in HIV-infected populations, NAFLD is becoming an increasingly important cause of liver disease,' said Dr Zobair Younossi, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Inova Fairfax Medical Campus in Falls Church, Virginia, USA, who presented the study results.

The second study, involving teams from Canada, the UK and Italy, used a diagnostic algorithm based on current EASL guidelines in HIV-negative populations6 to identify individuals with NAFLD from two cohorts of adults with living with HIV without significant alcohol intake or viral hepatitis coinfection (the LIVEr disease in HIV [LIVEHIV] and Modena HIV Metabolic Clinic [MHMC] cohorts). Of the 1,228 HIV-infected individuals reviewed (mean age 50 years; 73% males; time since diagnosis 16 years), 31.8% had NAFLD. Based on elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels and/or significant fibrosis, 25.2% of these patients were considered to be at risk of progressive liver disease compared with 18.4% of patients without NAFLD. Independent predictors of liver disease progression requiring specialist referral were found to be male sex, diabetes, and duration of HIV infection.

'Applying current NAFLD guidelines developed for HIV-negative populations, we have identified significant proportions of patients with HIV infection at risk of NAFLD and progressive liver disease,' said Dr Sila Cocciolillo from the Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Canada. 'We think this supports the need for dedicated monitoring of these patients, with referral to hepatology services when required.'

Professor Philip Newsome (Vice-Secretary, EASL) said, "These studies indicate the changing profile of liver disease in patients with HIV - whilst viral hepatitis is still the major cause of liver disease in such groups, NAFLD is becoming a much commoner problem. This reinforces the need to study of therapeutic agents in patients with NAFLD and HIV, an area which is seldom examined."

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a common gastrointestinal disorder affecting 10 - 20 per cent of people. Abdominal pain, bloating and altered bowel habit significantly affect patients' quality of life and can force them to take days off work.

New research has shown that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) tailored specifically for IBS and delivered over the telephone or through an interactive website is more effective in relieving the symptoms of IBS than current standard care. These results could make a real difference to patients with IBS who currently have very limited access to CBT in a resource constrained NHS.

The research was led by Dr Hazel Everitt, Associate Professor in General Practice at the University of Southampton. Dr Everitt comments: "We previously knew that face-to-face CBT sessions could be helpful for treating IBS and this type of treatment is recommended in the National Institute for Clinical Excellence's guidelines. However, in my experience as a GP, I have found that availability is extremely limited."

In the largest study of its kind, researchers at the University of Southampton and King's College London carried out a trial involving 558 patients who had ongoing significant IBS symptoms despite having tried other IBS treatments for at least a year. Rona Moss-Morris, Professor of Psychology as Applied to Medicine and Trudie Chalder, Professor of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy from King's College London, developed the IBS specific CBT programmes, which both involve 8 treatment sessions but differing amounts of therapist input.

The findings, published today in the journal GUT, show that those who received either form of CBT were more likely to report significant improvement in severity of symptoms and impact on their work and life after 12 months of treatment compared to those who only received current standard IBS treatments.

Dr Everitt added: "The fact that both telephone and web based CBT sessions were shown to be effective treatments is a really important and exciting discovery. Patients are able to undertake these treatments at a time convenient to them, without having to travel to clinics.''

Professor Moss-Morris said: "The most important next step is for these tailored CBT treatments to be made more widely available. Professor Trudie Chalder and I are currently training NHS therapists at pre-existing Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) services, so that more people suffering from IBS can access these treatments quickly. We are also working with a commercial partner to bring web-based CBT to the NHS and other parts of the world."

Globally, the estimates suggest that there are 170 new cases of traffic pollution-related asthma per 100,000 children every year, and 13% of childhood asthma cases diagnosed each year are linked to traffic pollution

The country with the highest proportion of traffic pollution-attributable childhood asthma incidence was South Korea (31%), the UK ranked 24th out of 194 countries, the US 25th, China 19th, and India 58th

Of the 125 cities studied, there was a large variation in the proportion of childhood asthma cases attributable to traffic pollution - from 6% in Orlu, Nigeria, to 48% in Shanghai, China. Of the ten cities with the highest proportion of cases, eight were in China, alongside Moscow, Russia, and Seoul, South Korea

Authors suggest that pollution guidelines may need to be re-evaluated, as most children developing traffic pollution-related asthma lived in areas within recommended levels

The first global estimates of their kind suggest that more than one in ten childhood asthma cases could be linked to traffic-related air pollution every year, according to a health impact assessment of children in 194 countries and 125 major cities worldwide, published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal.

With 92% of cases developing in areas that have traffic pollution levels below the WHO guideline level [1], the authors suggest that this limit may need to be reviewed.

"Nitrogen dioxide pollution appears to be a substantial risk factor for childhood asthma incidence in both developed and developing countries, especially in urban areas," says senior author Dr Susan Anenberg, George Washington University, USA. "Our findings suggest that the World Health Organization guideline for annual average NO2 concentrations might need to be revisited, and that traffic emissions should be a target to mitigate exposure." [2]

Lead author Ploy Achakulwisut, George Washington University, USA, adds: "Our study indicates that policy initiatives to alleviate traffic-related air pollution can lead to improvements in children's health and also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Recent examples include Shenzhen's electrification of its entire bus fleet and London's Ultra-Low Emission Zone congestion charges." [2]

Globally, asthma is the most common non-communicable disease among children, and, according to the WHO, prevalence has increased dramatically since the 1950s. The reasons for this are multiple.

Traffic-related air pollution may result in asthma development as pollutants may cause damage to the airways, leading to inflammation that triggers asthma in genetically predisposed children. Although it is not yet clear which specific pollutant within the traffic-related air pollution mixture is the source of asthma development, reviews by the US Environmental Protection Agency and Health Canada suggest that a causal relationship is likely to exist between long-term nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure and childhood asthma development.

In the new study, the authors used NO2 as a surrogate for the traffic pollution mixture to focus specifically on the effects of traffic pollution on childhood asthma development. NO2 is a pollutant formed mainly from fossil fuel combustion, and traffic emissions can contribute up to 80% of ambient NO2 in cities. NO2 is just one component of air pollution, which is made up of many pollutants (including particulate matter, ozone, carbon monoxide), which are known to have numerous adverse effects on health.

The authors combined a global dataset of ambient NO2 (modelled from ground-level monitors, satellite data, and land use variables such as road networks) with data on population distribution and asthma incidence to estimate the number of new traffic pollution-related asthma cases in children aged 1-18 years.

Globally, the estimates suggest that there are 170 new cases of traffic pollution-related asthma per 100,000 children every year, and 13% of childhood asthma cases diagnosed each year are linked to traffic pollution.

The country with the highest rate of traffic pollution-related childhood asthma was Kuwait (550 cases per 100,000 children each year), followed by the United Arab Emirates (460 per 100,000), and Canada (450 per 100,000). Of the 125 cities studied, there was a large variation in the estimated rate of traffic pollution-related childhood asthma - from 83 cases per 100,000 children every year in Orlu, Nigeria, to 690 cases per 100,000 children in Lima, Peru. These rates of traffic pollution-related asthma are influenced by asthma rates overall, as well as pollution levels, and may underestimate true levels in many low- and middle-income countries. This is because asthma cases often go undiagnosed in these regions.

The largest number of cases of traffic pollution-related asthma were estimated for China (760,000 cases), which is likely a result of China having the second largest population of children and the third highest concentrations of NO2. Although less than half the size of China's burden, India had the next largest number of cases (350,000) due to its large population of children. The USA (240,000), Indonesia (160,000) and Brazil (140,000) had the next largest burdens, with the USA having the highest pollution levels of these three countries, while Indonesia had the highest underlying asthma rates.

The country with the highest percentage of traffic pollution-attributable childhood asthma incidence was South Korea (31%), followed Kuwait (30%), Qatar (30%), United Arab Emirates (30%), and Bahrain (26%). The UK ranked 24th out of 194 countries, the US 25th, China 19th, and India 58th. The authors explain that India ranks below other countries for this metric because, although levels of other pollutants (particularly PM2.5) in India are among the highest in the world, NO2 levels from 2010-2012 in Indian cities appear to be lower than or comparable to levels in European and US cities.

Two-thirds of traffic pollution-related asthma cases occurred in urban centres globally, and when suburbs were included this proportion increased to 90% of cases.

The percentage of new asthma cases attributable to traffic pollution by city ranged from 6% in Orlu, Nigeria, to 48% in Shanghai, China, and largely reflected the variations in NO2 exposures within each region. Of the ten cities with the highest proportion of traffic pollution-related asthma cases, eight were in China (Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing, Shenyang, Xi'an, Taiyuan, Zhengzhou, and Harbin) alongside Moscow, Russia, and Seoul, South Korea - all of which had high urban NO2 concentrations. Paris ranked 21st (33%), New York ranked 29th (32%), London 35th (29%), and New Delhi 38th (28%).

The authors note some limitations, including that studies linking traffic pollution and asthma, and NO2 monitoring data are largely from North America, Europe and east Asia, and NO2 ground-level monitors are mostly in urban areas, so could overestimate pollution levels in rural areas.

Due to limited data availability, the NO2 levels used in this study are for 2010-2012, whereas the population and asthma incidence rates are for 2015. Given recent global changes in NO2 levels (decreases in US and European cities, and increases in Asia), the estimates may not be exact and further research with the latest NO2 levels is needed.

Writing in a linked Comment, Professor Rajen N Naidoo, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, says: "An important outcome from this study is the further evidence that the existing WHO standards are not protective against childhood asthma. Achakulwisut and colleagues estimated that approximately 92% of the childhood asthma incidence attributable to NO2 exposure was in areas with NO2 concentrations below the values of the WHO annual average guidelines. This strengthens the case for the downward revision of these global standards and for stronger national policy initiatives in countries without air quality standards. Furthermore, these findings not only support the association of NO2 exposure with childhood asthma incidence, but also, because this pollutant serves as an important proxy for broader traffic related air pollutants, highlight that urgent intervention is necessary to protect the health of those most vulnerable in society: children, particularly those with pre-existing respiratory disease."

The recent emergence of immunotherapy has marked a sea change in research and care for many forms of cancer, bringing new hope to patients and families around the world. For those who respond to treatment, the results can be dramatic. Activation of a patient's immune system against cancer can kill or shrink tumors and, in some cases, lead to complete remission.

Despite significant advances, only a minority of individuals benefit from immunotherapy, and the reasons why remain unclear.

Immunotherapy research has largely centered on T-cells, a type of immune cell that learns to recognize specific proteins and launch an attack. Tumors, however, are a complex mixture of many different cell types, including other immune cells known collectively as tumor-infiltrating myeloid cells. These cells represent alternative targets for immunotherapy, but their role in tumors is still poorly understood.

To shed light on this under-examined family of immune cells, Harvard Medical School researchers based at the Blavatnik Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham and Women's Hospital used single-cell sequencing to map the landscape of myeloid cells in tumors from patients with lung cancer.

Their study, published online in Immunity on April 9, reveals 25 myeloid cell subpopulations, many previously undescribed, with distinct gene expression signatures that are consistent across patients. Most of these subpopulations were also identified in a mouse model of lung cancer, indicating a high degree of similarity in myeloid cells across species.

The findings serve as a foundation for future research to explain the precise roles of myeloid cells in cancer and to assess their potential as targets for new or improved immunotherapies, the authors said.

"Immunotherapy is clearly a transformational approach to cancer treatment, but there are many patients who don't respond, and the question is why," said co-corresponding author Allon Klein, assistant professor of systems biology at HMS.

"Part of the answer could certainly lie at the level of myeloid cells, which interact heavily with both tumor cells and T-cells," Klein continued. "By identifying the rich complexity of myeloid cell states in tumors, we now have a powerful starting point to better understand their functions and clinical applications."

Of particular importance, the authors said, was the finding that myeloid subpopulations can be reliably identified in different human patients and in mice--an observation that underscores the fundamental use of mouse models in immunotherapy research.

"Tumor cells were different in each patient analyzed, but the identity of tumor-infiltrating myeloid cells greatly overlapped between the same patients. Also, many myeloid populations were incredibly well conserved across patients and mice," said co-corresponding author Mikael Pittet, HMS associate professor of radiology at Mass General.

"This is exciting because a growing body of evidence based on mouse studies suggests that myeloid cells can control cancer progression and affect virtually all types of cancer therapy, including immunotherapy" Pittet added.

Consistent complexity

Myeloid cells--comprised of immune cells including monocytes, macrophages, dendritic cells and granulocytes--are part of the innate immune system, the body's first and broad line of defense against foreign pathogens. They play an important role in activating the adaptive immune system, including T-cells, which can precisely target and destroy pathogens.

To better understand the diversity of myeloid cells in tumors, Pittet teamed with Klein, who led the development of InDrops, a key technique for single-cell gene expression analysis. In the current study, Pittet, Klein and colleagues applied this technique to tumors from a small group of patients and mice with non-small cell lung cancer. In total, they collected gene expression data from more than 56,000 individual cells, one cell at a time.

Their analyses revealed myeloid cell gene expression signatures that fell into 25 distinct clusters, greatly expanding the number of known myeloid cell states.

They found that dendritic cells, for example--which Pittet and colleagues previously found are critical to successful anti-PD-1 immunotherapy in mice--contained four different subtypes that are largely mirrored between humans and mice. Monocyte subtypes also matched well between humans and mice, while macrophages were both conserved and varied by species.

Neutrophils, which are the most abundant white blood cells in mammals, formed a spectrum of five similar subtypes in humans and mice, with one subset unique to mice. Pittet, in a previous collaboration with Klein, found that neutrophils expressing high levels of the gene Siglecf have tumor-promoting properties. The new analyses corroborated this finding, showing that these neutrophils are highly enriched in tumors.

"Myeloid cell populations are complex, but we see the same complexity across patients and species, which gives us confidence that insights in mouse models can be translated to humans," said Pittet, who is director of the Cancer Immunology Program in the Mass General Center for Systems Biology.

"Now that we have this granular landscape, we can better design studies to assess the role of unique subpopulations in tumor progression and look for ways to manipulate specific cells in the hopes of making immunotherapies more effective," Pittet added.

For example, with the landscape of myeloid cell gene-expression patterns mapped, scientists can mine existing datasets of patients with known clinical outcomes to look for the presence of a given population of myeloid cells and assess their relationship with patient survival.

Klein, Pittet and colleagues examined the feasibility of this approach in their study and found promising candidates but will need larger patient sample sizes to draw conclusive results. For this effort they teamed with Raphael Bueno, HMS professor of surgery at Brigham and Women's, and Elena Levantini, HMS instructor in medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess, who were studying patient survival-associated factors in lung cancer specimens.

"Lung cancer remains a common lethal malignancy in the U.S., and this important collaborative effort provides new clues and directions in the development of personalized therapies for patients with lung cancer and no other good therapeutic options," said Bueno, who is chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery and the Fredric G. Levin Distinguished Chair in Thoracic Surgery and Lung Cancer Research at Brigham and Women's.

The team also looked at whether the behavior of myeloid cells in tumors could be gleaned by sampling myeloid cells circulating in blood and found a poor relationship between the two.

In addition to immediate basic and translational research opportunities, the study findings inform the work of initiatives such as the Human Tumor Atlas, an effort to map the landscape of all cell types in the human body, and the Human Tumor Atlas Network, an effort to create atlases of a wide variety of cancer types in cellular and molecular detail.

"This work fits into a single-cell revolution that's happening in many areas of biomedicine, particularly in immunology," Klein said. "To improve immunotherapies, we need to know as much as we can about the cells and processes involved. This requires a true team effort, and our study couldn't have been possible without fantastic collaborations across the medical school."

BINGHAMTON, NY - New research from Binghamton University, State University of New York, could make it easier to track and process suspicious activity in surveillance footage.

Traditional surveillance cameras do not always detect suspicious activities or objects in a timely manner. To combat this issue, Binghamton University Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Yu Chen and his team developed a hybrid lightweight tracking algorithm known as Kerman (Kernelized Kalman filter). The research uses single board computers (SBCs) mounted on surveillance cameras to process videos and extract features that focus on enhanced detection of people, tracking their movement and recognizing behaviors for increased surveillance coverage.

"The Kerman algorithm enables the smart cameras at the edge (the source of data generation) to raise an alert as soon as something suspicious is detected in the incoming video streams," said Chen.

The research team introduced SBCs to be implemented in decentralized computing platforms, which distributes the workload among multiple Fog computing nodes, instead of to one centralized server. Because of decentralized computing, the video does not need to be transferred to one remote server, making the surveillance system more agile and robust. Data processing can then be processed and analyzed in a more effective and timely manner.

The algorithm does not identify, track or record the activities of anyone, thereby maintaining a high-level of privacy within a secure system. Future models of this algorithm will take advantage of more advanced hardware and security mechanisms to ensure that this surveillance system is evolutionary and maintains high performance in the lifespan.

The paper, "Kerman: A Hybrid Lightweight Tracking Algorithm to Enable Smart Surveillance as an Edge Service," won the best paper award at the 2019 IEEE CCNC conference.

A study led by researchers at the University of Southampton has used data collected by volunteer bird watchers to study how the importance of wildlife habitat management for British birds depends on changing temperatures.

The team studied data from the British Trust for Ornithology's "Bird Atlas 2007 - 11" on the abundance of Eurasian jays over the whole of Great Britain. The University of Southampton researchers focused on jays for this trial as they are a species of bird known to frequent a mixture of different natural environments.

The findings, published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution, showed that an even range of habitats - forests fields and meadows - are needed in an area of around 200m2 to 1km2 in order for the jays to thrive. An even spread of coniferous and broad leaved forests within this space is also necessary. The data showed that in higher temperatures it is even more important for the jays to have this mix of different surroundings in a relatively small space.

The Bird Atlas 2007 - 11 was one of the most ambitious volunteer projects undertaken. Volunteers for the British Trust for Ornithology were allocated squares of land around the country in which they counted every bird they spotted during winter and in the breeding season.

The University researchers gathered this data and combined with satellite imagery of Great Britain to get a complete picture of the habitats in which there was an abundance of jays and how the changing climates affected their numbers.

The success of the trial means that this method of studying wildlife numbers could be an effective way to look at the impact climate change has on habitats for other species.

Dr Laura Graham Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Southampton said: "One of the key challenges in ecological climate change research is gaining an understanding of how climate interacts with changes in habitat to impact species' abundance and distributions. The method we developed for this project allows us to do this."

A ground-breaking scientific collaboration is harnessing technology used to study the luminosity of stars, to carry out detailed monitoring of orangutan populations in Borneo. Liverpool John Moores University, WWF and HUTAN came together to examine better ways of detecting the great apes in the Bornean forest canopy, by using drones fitted with thermal-imaging cameras.

Orangutans, like all great apes, build a sleeping nest in trees. Traditionally orangutan numbers are estimated by counting these nests from the ground. However, this method is costly and time consuming due to the large areas that need to be surveyed.

Drones can cover large areas of difficult ground quickly and monitor endangered wildlife from above. The addition of thermal-imaging cameras has even more benefits, as a new study shows: They can detect difficult to find animals at any time of day or night because of their heat signatures. The field team conducted 28 flights at two sites over six days and successfully spotted 41 orangutans from the air, all of which were confirmed by ground observers.

"All orangutan species are critically endangered and monitoring their numbers is crucial for their conservation", said Professor Serge Wich, Liverpool John Moores University's expert in primate behavioural ecology.

By combining drone technology with thermal-imaging cameras, which are usually used by astronomers, researchers were able to spot and classify the animals' heat signatures. To distinguish the primates from their surroundings, they performed flights before 9 a.m. or after 7 p.m. local time.

Dr Claire Burke, an astro-ecologist at the university, who will present the findings at the 'Unifying Tropical Ecology' conference in Edinburgh today said:

"We tested the technology on orangutans in the dense tropical rainforest of Sabah in Malaysia. In thermal images, animals shine in a similar way to stars and galaxies, so we used techniques from astronomy to detect and distinguish them. We were not sure at all whether this would work, but with the thermal-infrared camera we could see the orangutans quite clearly because of their body heat, even during fog or at night."

Dr Burke added:

"The biggest difficulties occur when the temperature of the ground is very similar to that of the animal we are trying to detect, so the images from morning or evening flights are more reliable. Absolute surface temperatures cannot be used to differentiate species as animal body temperatures change with that of their environment."

This innovative technology could potentially be used to understand and monitor population numbers of orangutans or other endangered primate species.

Nicola Loweth, Asian Programme Manager at WWF, who was on the Bornean study said:

"As ever more species are decimated, due to human activity such as deforestation, we must embrace and scale up innovative approaches to monitoring wildlife populations, to better protect them for generations to come.

Our collaboration with Liverpool John Moores University to test the feasibility of thermal-imaging and drone technology to monitor orangutan populations in Sabah has proven promising and could have a wide range of applications, benefiting wildlife conservation as a whole."

The team also spotted a troop of proboscis monkeys during the field trial, which they were able to distinguish from orangutans based on their smaller size. Besides that, proboscis monkeys are generally found in groups, whereas orangutans tend to be solitary or in pairs. Pygmy elephants were also captured on a night-time forage through an oil palm plantation.

The astro-ecologists are now developing a machine learning algorithm to tell animal species apart, based on their unique thermal fingerprint.

"In the future, we hope to be able to track, distinguish and monitor large numbers of different species of animals in real time, all around the globe, so that this technology can be used to make a real impact on conservation and stop poaching before it happens", Dr Burke concluded.

The group previously tested the technology with spider monkeys in Mexico and riverine rabbits in South Africa and will soon be embarking on a field study with the Lac Alaotra bamboo lemurs in Madagascar.

The 'Unifying Tropical Ecology' conference in Edinburgh is organised by the British Ecological Society and Society for Tropical Ecology (gto). There will be an entire session on the use of drones for animal and plant monitoring, including a presentation of the 'Orangutan Nest Watch' project where citizen scientists can help researchers look through images to spot orangutans and fig trees.