The authors describe the technique of percutaneous balloon mitral valvuloplasty and the results in the first 12 patients treated in Norway. One patient experienced a serious complication, but has later been treated successfully. The average maximal gradient and mean gradient were reduced from 21 mm Hg to 8 mm Hg and from 12 mm Hg to 4 mm Hg respectively. The average size of the valve orifice increased from 1.0 cm2 to 2.2 cm2. Echo-cardiographic follow-up after one year revealed no restenoses. The indications and contraindications are discussed.
Winter climate is expected to change under future climate scenarios, yet the majority of winter ecology research is focused in cold-climate ecosystems. In many temperate systems, it is unclear how winter climate relates to biotic responses during the growing season. The objective of this study was to examine how winter weather relates to plant and animal communities in a variety of terrestrial ecosystems ranging from warm deserts to alpine tundra. Specifically, we examined the association between winter weather and plant phenology, plant species richness, consumer abundance, and consumer richness in 11 terrestrial ecosystems associated with the U.S. Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network. To varying degrees, winter precipitation and temperature were correlated with all biotic response variables. Bud break was tightly aligned with end of winter temperatures. For half the sites, winter weather was a better predictor of plant species richness than growing season weather. Warmer winters were correlated with lower consumer abundances in both temperate and alpine systems. Our findings suggest winter weather may have a strong influence on biotic activity during the growing season and should be considered in future studies investigating the effects of climate change on both alpine and temperate systems.
The Canadian National Outcomes Measurement Study in Schizophrenia (CNOMSS) is a prospective survey of routine clinical practice.
Patients with schizophrenia or a related disorder were consecutively enrolled from all regions of Canada. Both academic and community psychiatric clinics were included and patients were followed up for 2 years. Clinical and functional status, quality of life, medication and economic costs were assessed at enrollment and monitored throughout the follow-up period.
Patients attending an academic clinic tended to be younger and more severely ill than those from community clinics. Both types of sites prescribed atypical neuroleptics to more than three-quarters of the patients. The majority of those enrolled were unemployed and living in poverty. Poor clinical status was associated with poverty.
The CNOMSS provides demographic, clinical and treatment-related information about a large Canada-wide sample of psychiatric patients. The following three articles in this issue of Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica explore issues related to medication, quality of life and resource utilization.
Inflammatory diseases and inflammatory markers secreted by the liver, including C-reactive protein (CRP) and ceruloplasmin, have been associated with incident atrial fibrillation (AF). Genetic studies have not supported a causal relationship between CRP and AF, but the relationship between ceruloplasmin and AF has not been studied. The purpose of this Mendelian randomization study was to explore whether genetic polymorphisms in the gene encoding ceruloplasmin are associated with elevated ceruloplasmin levels, and whether such genetic polymorphisms are also associated with the incidence of AF.
Genetic polymorphisms in the ceruloplasmin gene (CP) were genotyped in a population-based cohort study of men from southern Sweden (Malmö Preventive Project; n = 3900). Genetic polymorphisms associated with plasma ceruloplasmin concentration were also investigated for association with incident AF (n = 520) during a mean follow-up of 29 years in the same cohort. Findings were replicated in an independent case-control sample (The Malmö AF cohort; n = 2247 cases, 2208 controls).
A single nucleotide polymorphism (rs11708215, minor allele frequency 0.12) located in the CP gene promoter was strongly associated with increased levels of plasma ceruloplasmin (P = 9 × 10(-10) ) and with AF in both the discovery cohort [hazard ratio 1.24 per risk allele, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.06-1.44, P = 0.006] and the replication cohort (odds ratio 1.13, 95% CI 1.02-1.26, P = 0.02).
Our findings indicate a causal role of ceruloplasmin in AF pathophysiology and suggest that ceruloplasmin might be a mediator in a specific inflammatory pathway that causally links inflammatory diseases and incidence of AF.
1. All members of a Spanish family (father, mother and six children) developed chloracne. 2. The causative agent was found to be the family's stock of olive oil, which had become contaminated with polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), pentachlorophenol, and hexachlorobenzene. 3. The more highly chlorinated PCDDs, in particular octachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, were the predominant congeners in the oil. 4. Three members of the family exhibited either an overt or a sub-clinical disturbance of kidney function. The father also had a chronic respiratory problem. These changes could not be unequivocally attributed to the PCDDs. 5. Experimental toxicity of the oil was limited to the development of an hepatic porphyria in mice. 6. A serum sample, taken 5 years after consumption of the oil ceased, contained high levels of the PCDDs and PCDFs. Extrapolation back to ingested dose was used to validate dosage estimates. 7. The use of toxicity equivalence factors (TEFs) provided estimates of cumulative dosage to produce chloracne as 0.13-0.31 micrograms 2378-TCDD kg-1 (using EPA TEFs) or 6.7-16 micrograms 2378-TCDD kg-1 (using Nordic/NATO TEFs). 8. This is the first incident in which human toxicity is related primarily to ingestion of PCDDs and for which estimates of dosage can be made.
Resilience of ecological communities to perturbation is important in the face of increased global change from anthropogenic stressors. Monitoring is required to detect the impact of, and recovery from, perturbations, and before-after-control-impact (BACI) analysis provides a powerful framework in this regard. However, species in a community are not observed with perfect detection, and occupancy analysis is required to correct for imperfect detectability of species. We present a Bayesian community occupancy before-after-control-impact (CO-BACI) framework to monitor ecological community response to perturbation when constituent species are imperfectly detected. We test the power of the model to detect changes in community composition following an acute perturbation with simulation. We then apply the model to a study of the impact of a large hurricane on the forest bird community of Sweden, using data from the national bird survey scheme. Although simulation shows the model can detect changes in community occupancy following an acute perturbation, application to a Swedish forest bird community following a major hurricane detected no change in community occupancy despite widespread forest loss. Birds with landscape occupancy less than 50% required correcting for detectability. We conclude that CO-BACI analysis is a useful tool that can incorporate rare species in analyses and detect occupancy changes in ecological communities following perturbation, but, because it does not include abundance, some impacts may be overlooked.
It has been suggested that organic farming may benefit farmland biodiversity more in landscapes that have lost a significant part of its former landscape heterogeneity. We tested this hypothesis by comparing bird species richness and abundance during the breeding season in organic and conventional farms, matched to eliminate all differences not directly linked to the farming practice, situated in either homogeneous plains with only a little semi-natural habitat or in heterogeneous farmland landscapes with abundant field borders and semi-natural grasslands. The effect of farm management on species richness interacted with landscape structure, such that there was a positive relationship between organic farming and diversity only in homogeneous landscapes. This pattern was mainly dependent on the species richness of passerine birds, in particular those that were invertebrate feeders. Species richness of non-passerines was positively related to organic farming independent of the landscape context. Bird abundance was positively related to landscape heterogeneity but not to farm management. This was mainly because the abundance of passerines, particularly invertebrate feeders, was positively related to landscape heterogeneity. We suggest that invertebrate feeders particularly benefit from organic farming because of improved foraging conditions through increased invertebrate abundances in otherwise depauperate homogeneous landscapes. Although many seed-eaters also benefit from increased insect abundance, they may also utilize crop seed resources in homogeneous landscapes and conventional farms. The occurrence of an interactive effect of organic farming and landscape heterogeneity on bird diversity will have consequences for the optimal allocation of resources to restore the diversity of farmland birds.
When a student is away from school for an extended time due to illness, he/she is provided with a tutor or access to in-hospital classrooms to keep up with his/her studies. This isolates the child from normal classroom experiences. A remote-control videoconferencing system (VCS), P.E.B.B.L.E.S.trade mark (Providing Education by Bringing Learning Environments to Students), was developed to allow a student access to his/her regular classroom from the hospital. Remote control is provided by a game pad, which allows the student to direct the system. The first iteration, P.E.B. B.L.E.S. I, tested feasibility. The design of P.E.B.B.L.E.S. II provides an integrated version of the system with user interface aimed at children. Four studies examined its efficacy in allowing a student to participate in typical classroom activities and in providing him/her a sense of presence in the classroom. Results indicate that the system can be used with relatively few errors when set to perform the majority of required activities. The study-participants reported positive experiences using the system, and remote users appeared to have a sense of presence in the classroom.
Dynamics of body burdens and doses due to internal irradiation from intakes of long-lived radionuclides by residents of Ozyorsk situated near Mayak PA.
This paper presents and discusses new autopsy results and other historic data from earlier autopsies and environmental monitoring linked to releases from the Mayak PA facilities in the Chelyabinsk oblast in the southern Urals. The focus is on residents of the town of Ozyorsk located near to Mayak PA and the dynamics of body burdens and radiation doses from inhalation of plutonium alpha and americium-241, and ingestion of strontium-90 and caesium-137. It is demonstrated that accumulation and exposure from these radionuclides was mainly due to unplanned releases in the 1950s and 60s. The mean content of plutonium alpha at the time of autopsy of people commencing residence in Ozyorsk from 1949 to 1959 was about 3.5 Bq, falling to 0.2 Bq in those arriving after 1990. A reducing trend was also seen for (241)Am. The highest (90)Sr content in Ozyorsk residents was measured in 1967. The (137)Cs body content of residents arriving in Ozyorsk at any time was in almost all cases below the limit of detection. The committed effective dose from internal exposure to these long-lived radionuclides which would have been accumulated in Ozyorsk residents if present from 1949 to 2013 is estimated to be 13 mSv. This dose is primarily attributed to intakes during 1949 to 1959 when the annual effective dose rate was approximately 1 mSv y(-1). The current value is about 0.1 mSv y(-1). This dose is about 20 times higher than the dose from global man-made fallout, which is about 0.005 mSv y(-1) at present, but much lower than that from natural background radiation, i.e. about 2 mSv y(-1). The experience gained from this work and continuing activities can contribute to the development of improved international guidance in legacy situations, particularly as regards the provision and use of monitoring data to test and thereby build confidence in prognostic models for radiation conditions and potential future exposures. The scope includes evidence for the rate of reduction in radionuclide concentrations in environmental media and in their bioavailability, resuspension of long-lived alpha radionuclides, uptake of (90)Sr and (137)Cs in the food-chain, and confirmation of cumulative uptake via autopsy and whole body counting measurements. Continuing investigations will thus support decisions on future planned releases and contribute to planning of remediation of other areas affected by historic releases.
