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Successful microbial colonization of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract hinges on an organism's ability to overcome the intense competition for nutrients in the gut between the host and the resident gut microbiome. Enteric pathogens can exploit ethanolamine (EA) in the gut to bypass nutrient competition. However, Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae) is an asymptomatic gut colonizer and, unlike well-studied enteric pathogens, harbors two genetically distinct ethanolamine utilization (eut) loci. Our investigation uncovered unique roles for each eut locus depending on EA utilization as a carbon or nitrogen source. Murine gut colonization studies demonstrated the necessity of both eut loci in the presence of intact gut microbiota for robust GI colonization by K. pneumoniae. Additionally, while some Escherichia coli gut isolates could metabolize EA, other commensals were incapable, suggesting that EA metabolism likely provides K. pneumoniae a selective advantage in gut colonization. Molecular and bioinformatic analyses unveiled the conservation of two eut loci among K. pneumoniae and a subset of the related taxa in the K. pneumoniae species complex, with the NtrC-RpoN regulatory cascade playing a pivotal role in regulation. These findings identify EA metabolism as a critical driver of K. pneumoniae niche establishment in the gut and propose microbial metabolism as a potential therapeutic avenue to combat K. pneumoniae infections. Author summary: Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae) is a leading cause of nosocomial infections but is considered a silent gut colonizer. A molecular understanding of how K. pneumoniae colonizes the GI tract and overcomes host- and resident gut microbiota-mediated colonization resistance requires further investigation. A direct mechanism of colonization resistance is through competition for the same nutrient resources. K. pneumoniae can sidestep nutrient competition by metabolizing ethanolamine as an alternative nutrient source, thus overcoming microbiota-mediated colonization resistance. The unique ethanolamine utilization loci of K. pneumoniae are both required for robust gut colonization and are conserved among K. pneumoniae, suggesting that ethanolamine metabolism is an important mediator of gut colonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind turbines pose a serious threat to bat populations, with hundreds of thousands of fatal collisions per year in the USA and Canada alone. This is concerning because bats are long-lived and slow to reproduce, making recovery from population declines difficult. Studies have shown that bats are attracted to turbines, and the lack of research on bat and wind turbine interactions in Australia limits our understanding of the impacts on bat populations. Curtailment, which restricts blade rotation at low wind speeds when bats are active, has been shown to be the most successful method of reducing collisions globally. Economically, losses from curtailment range from 1% to 4% of annual revenue in the northern hemisphere, while in Australia, the reduction is less than 0.1%. By incorporating site-specific weather and bat activity data, both economic and ecological losses can be further minimized. It is important to incorporate impacts into the planning stages of wind farm development and implement curtailment in Australia to prevent irreversible population declines. [Extracted from the article]

Wind energy is a rapidly expanding renewable technology with massive global investments; however, operating turbines are associated with bat strikes globally, and evidence suggests that without intervention, wind farm collisions could drive some common species to extinction. One widely regarded method for reducing strike mortality is operational mitigation, or curtailment, where turbine operation is restricted at low wind speeds. Despite an increasing number of studies in the Northern Hemisphere demonstrating curtailment effectiveness, no empirical studies have yet been conducted in Australia. This paper reports the findings of a curtailment study implemented at the Cape Nelson North wind farm in southwest Victoria, Australia. Conservation detection dog teams conducted mortality surveys between January and April in 2018 (before; pre‐curtailment) and 2019 (after; during curtailment). Results were consistent with similar studies in the USA and Europe, as curtailment significantly reduced pooled species mortality by 54%. Bat calls did not decline during the study period, and thus were not an explanation for the reduction in fatalities. This study demonstrates that curtailment is a valid method for reducing bat turbine collision in south‐eastern Australia. Consideration should be given to curtailment as a means to reduce bat turbine impacts in Australia, particularly at sites with known endangered and threatened populations, as we act to reduce anthropogenic climate change and its time‐sensitive negative consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COSMOS-UK observation network has been providing field-scale soil moisture and hydrometeorological measurements across the UK since 2013. At the time of publication a total of 51 COSMOS-UK sites have been established, each delivering high-temporal resolution data in near-real time. Each site utilizes a cosmic-ray neutron sensor, which counts epithermal neutrons at the land surface. These measurements are used to derive field-scale near-surface soil water content, which can provide unique insight for science, industry, and agriculture by filling a scale gap between localized point soil moisture and large-scale satellite soil moisture datasets. Additional soil physics and meteorological measurements are made by the COSMOS-UK network including precipitation, air temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, soil heat flux, wind speed and direction, and components of incoming and outgoing radiation. These near-real-time observational data can be used to improve the performance of hydrological models, validate remote sensing products, improve hydro-meteorological forecasting, and underpin applications across a range of other scientific fields. The most recent version of the COSMOS-UK dataset is publically available at 10.5285/b5c190e4-e35d-40ea-8fbe-598da03a1185 (Stanley et al., 2021). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COSMOS-UK observation network has been providing field scale soil moisture and hydrometeorological measurements across the UK since 2013. At the time of publication a total of 51 COSMOS-UK sites have been established, each delivering high temporal resolution data in near-real time. Each site utilises a cosmic-ray neutron sensor, which counts fast neutrons at the land surface. These measurements are used to derive field scale near-surface soil water content, which can provide unique insight for science, industry, and agriculture by filling a scale gap between localised point soil moisture and large-scale satellite soil moisture datasets. Additional soil physics and meteorological measurements are made by the COSMOS-UK network including precipitation, air temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, soil heat flux, wind speed and direction, and components of incoming and outgoing radiation. These near-real time observational data can be used to improve the performance of hydrological models, validate remote sensing products, improve hydro-meteorological forecasting and underpin applications across a range of other scientific fields. The most recent version of the COSMOS-UK dataset is publically available at https://doi.org/10.5285/37702a54-b7a4-40ff-b62e-d14b161b69ca (Stanley et al., 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: cost-benefit analysis; cost-effectiveness; detection dog; eradication; invasive species; scent; threatened species; análisis de costo-beneficio; erradicación; especie amenazada; especie invasora; olfato; perro detector; rentabilidad Perhaps the most useful of the studies that reported costs were those that compared detection dog costs to alternative techniques and provided a full itemization of the expense categories. A number of studies purchased dogs either from shelters or from professional sources for the purpose of the study; dogs sometimes worked with multiple handlers. Eleven studies compared dogs with human surveyors, although 3 of these simply made limited comments without providing supporting evidence (e.g., that dogs can reduce time and cost compared with human-based surveys [Nielsen et al. [54]], dogs are 5 times faster than humans [Bennett [7]], and dogs are 19 times faster than humans [Cristescu et al. [16]]). [Extracted from the article]

This is an essay about birdsong, and an attempt to speak with, of, and in place of, it. Alongside a transcription, composed of the words and sounds I made in my effort emulate the song of a robin, it charts the process by which an apparently flippant declaration of artistic intent, to 'make a performance about birds', was actualized in practice. Aristotle may have famously characterized the human as a 'speaking animal', but what happens, I ask, when a human capacity for speech gets tangled in an effort to catch, or grasp, a more-than-human sound? As I discover, a sound that runs always-ahead of my ability to describe it elicits neither eloquent nor exalted words, but instead a hesitant and spluttering array of 'oohs' and 'umms', 'yeahs' and 'likes'. Moving from Aristotle's most basic definition of speech, 'the articulation of the voice by the tongue', toward Paolo Virno's theorization of phatic talk as emphasizing the fact-of-speaking over what-we-say, I listen again the kind of speech we usually consider inarticulate, diseloquent or downright formulaic. Frequently disparaged as bad speech habits, rising intonation ('you know?'), and descriptive inexactitude ('sort of like ... ') are, I suggest, the means by which speech relinquishes its authority over what remains outside, or beyond, it. These tonal, rhythmic and communal patternings of chit-chat are precisely the means by which human speech might become songful, though only, I argue, through a concerted effort, a multiplicity of versions. Finally, I reflect on how this low-level chit-chat may be expressive of a minor sentiment of 'liking' birds, an easily dismissed, yet widespread, and it may be added, determinedly non-grandiose, mode of engagement with the lives of non-human others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the operations of direct audience address in the stand-up comedy of Stewart Lee. By analyzing the grammatical and interpellative operations of Lee's address to various audiences, both ‘live’ and televisual, it considers the perverse kind of pleasure that arises from being addressed, and insulted, as though one were part of a collective entity of which one may or may not feel ‘part’. In particular, it identifies certain confusions inherent in the personal-pronoun ‘you’ when it is deployed by a performer onstage, or on camera. Via close analysis of excerpts fromStewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle(2009) and90s Comedian(2006), the author suggests that Lee's meticulous attention to grammar reveals the pronoun 'you' as the site of tensions between stand-up's supposed intimacy and directness, and the distance necessarily interposed by the formalities of the performance situation. This reading problematizes what many scholarly and anecdotal accounts of stand-up frame as its friendliness, its claims to intimacy or directness, its ability to make spectators feel as if the comedian is addressing them as part of a one-on-one conversation. Drawing on what Denise Riley has named ‘linguistic unease’, a feeling that emerges from the gulf between the embodied scene of speech and the formal necessity of linguistic convention, this article suggests that a one-on-one conversation is no guarantee of friendly intimacy. It suggests that Lee's stand-up mobilizes precisely this sort of linguistic unease in order to call attention to the formal, conventional nature of the stand-up address. In so doing, it troubles recourse to an easy collectivity, a notion of ‘the public’ that ignores its implication in commercialized structures of entertainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following text is a dialogue between Johanna Linsley and Emma Bennett on the possibility of translating a performance on which they collaborated into text. The performance, a lecture titled The Present Becomes Us, is based on a science fiction premise: what if the Future is a geographical location which derives its materiality by stealing potentiality from the Present? The premise was created by Johanna, but the lecture was performed by Emma, using the subjunctive mood, and opening with the lines ‘This is a performance lecture by Johanna Linsley, or it would be if she were here’. The text explores questions about temporality, geography and the places where histories are made, so that a complex and embodied notion of the archive subtly emerges. The voices of the two writers(/performers) are not strictly delineated, so that in this dialogue as in the performance, a porous and ambiguous understanding of presence and identity remains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with how six of the largest learned associations in the humanities perceive their own futures and the future of academic publishing, and is based upon informal interviews with representatives of these associations. The outcome of this research indicates that although these organizations are aware of the changing role of learned associations in relation to their members and a wider public, they are struggling to embrace the opportunities represented by the transition to electronic forms of interaction within scholarly communities, and are limited by the lack of funding available in the humanities and an historical commitment to traditional forms of publication and evaluation. In conclusion, this study proposes that the future of learned associations in the humanities is closely linked to the future of academic publishers working in these disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distribution of nutrients and assimilates in different organs and tissues is in a constant state of flux throughout the growth and development of a plant. At key stages during the life cycle profound changes occur, and perhaps one of the most critical of these is during seed filling. By restricting the competition for reserves in Arabidopsis plants, the ability to manipulate seed size, seed weight, or seed content has been explored. Removal of secondary inflorescences and lateral branches resulted in a stimulation of elongation of the primary inflorescence and an increase in the distance between siliques. The pruning treatment also led to the development of longer and larger siliques that contained fewer, bigger seeds. This seems to be a consequence of a reduction in the number of ovules that develop and an increase in the fatty acid content of the seeds that mature. The data show that shoot architecture could have a substantial impact on the partitioning of reserves between vegetative and reproductive tissues and could be an important trait for selection in rapid phenotyping screens to optimize crop performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents the script of the play "Dog," by Emma Bennett.

• Successful alternate method for training dogs on restricted invasive plant material. • Dried or frozen plant samples can be used as a training aid for dogs. • Dogs can detect untrained and live plant targets at high mean accuracies. • Dogs did not display a strong preference of the trained over the untrained target. Weeds can have detrimental impacts on agriculture and the environment, and effective detection of individual plants is a crucial component of weed management. An emerging detection tool is the use of dogs (Canis familiaris) trained to recognise a weed's scent. Scent-detection dogs are well established as a tool in other disciplines but deploying dogs within weed management poses novel challenges. It can be difficult (or even illegal) to source a large number of live target weeds for training and evaluation purposes, due to the risk that these targets will create further detrimental impacts. We investigate whether invasive weed samples could be processed into inert and therefore bio secure dried or frozen forms for use in training. There is currently limited understanding of whether training dogs on frozen or dried plant targets can transfer into successful detection of the live target. We trained four dogs to detect frozen plant samples and four dogs to detect dried plant samples and exposed all eight dogs to scent boards containing frozen, dried and/or live plant targets. All dogs detected the three target types with high precision (100 %) and sensitivity (>85 %). Only one dog showed a statistically significant preference for the frozen odour. Our findings support the use of frozen and dried plant matter as an effective training and evaluation tool for dogs, in cases where the live target cannot be safely used at a broad scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of mobile phone devices leaves digital traces which include personal data of the user's location and can be used to produce aggregated and anonymised location data. There is widespread interest in utilising different types of mobile phone location data to optimise emergency health responses within a range of settings, however until now there has been no qualitative research exploring public opinions on sharing such data. A qualitative study with 40 millennials (born between 1981–2000) across six focus groups were conducted before and after widespread news reports about the leaking of personal data on social media and a major public health incident in the UK. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes in the data. Analysis identified four main themes and five subthemes suggesting the main concepts related to attitudes and concerns were 'Control', 'Trust', 'Risks to sharing' and 'Pros and cons of data sharing'. Millennials were generally accepting of sharing different types of location data with ambulance services and a public health agency if they were able to give explicit consent and retain some personal control towards how their data would be used. The results suggest that policymakers who wish to use aggregated and anonymized mobile phone location data to improve healthcare services should focus on reassurance about how data will be used and promoting public trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Textures and compositions of minerals can be used to infer the physiochemical conditions present within magmatic systems. Given that plagioclase is an abundant phase in many magmatic systems, understanding the link between texture and process is vital. Here, we present a database of textural and compositional data for > 1800 plagioclase crystals in mid-ocean ridge basalt from the Gakkel Ridge (Arctic Ocean) to investigate the physiochemical conditions and processes that govern the formation of plagioclase textures and compositions. The Gakkel basalts have high modal crystal contents (up to 50%). The crystal cargo is complex, with both individual plagioclase and glomerocrysts showing large variations in crystal habit, zoning and resorption. The most common types of zoning are reverse and patchy; we attribute patchy zoning to infilling following either skeletal growth or resorption. Resorption is abundant, with multiple resorption events commonly present in a single crystal, and results from both magmatic recharge and decompression. Periods of strong undercooling, distinct to quench crystallisation, are indicated by matured skeletal crystals and thin normally zoned melt inclusion-rich bands following resorption. Individual samples often contain diverse textural and compositional plagioclase groups. Furthermore, most plagioclase is not in equilibrium with its host melt. Finally, the porous open structures of some glomerocrysts suggest that they represent pieces of entrained disaggregated mush. We interpret this to indicate that the crystal cargo is not generally phenocrystic in origin. Instead, plagioclase crystals that formed in different parts of a mush-dominated plumbing system were entrained into ascending melts. The textures of individual crystals are a function of their respective histories of (under)cooling, magma mixing and decompression. The morphologies of melt inclusion trapped in the plagioclase crystals are associated with specific host crystal textures, suggesting a link between plagioclase crystallisation processes and melt inclusion entrapment. The database of plagioclase presented herein may serve as a template for the interpretation of plagioclase textures in magmatic systems elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crystal mush is rapidly emerging as a new paradigm for the evolution of igneous systems. Mid-ocean ridges provide a unique opportunity to study mush processes: geophysical data indicate that, even at the most magmatically robust fast-spreading ridges, the magma plumbing system typically comprises crystal mush. In this paper, we describe some of the consequences of crystal mush for the evolution of the mid-ocean ridge magmatic system. One of these is that melt migration by porous flow plays an important role, in addition to rapid, channelized flow. Facilitated by both buoyancy and (deformation-enhanced) compaction, porous flow leads to reactions between the mush and migrating melts. Reactions between melt and the surrounding crystal framework are also likely to occur upon emplacement of primitive melts into the mush. Furthermore, replenishment facilitates mixing between the replenishing melt and interstitial melts of the mush. Hence, crystal mushes facilitate reaction and mixing, which leads to significant homogenization, and which may account for the geochemical systematics of mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB). A second consequence is cryptic fractionation. At mido-cean ridges, a plagioclase framework may already have formed when clinopyroxene saturates. As a result, clinopyroxene phenocrysts are rare, despite the fact that the vast majority of MORB records clinopyroxene fractionation. Hence, melts extracted from crystal mush may show a cryptic fractionation signature. Another consequence of a mush-dominated plumbing system is that channelized flow of melts through the crystal mush leads to the occurrence of vertical magmatic fabrics in oceanic gabbros, as well as the entrainment of diverse populations of phenocrysts. Overall, we conclude that the occurrence of crystal mush has a number of fundamental implications for the behaviour and evolution of magmatic systems, and that mid-ocean ridges can serve as a useful template for trans-crustal mush columns elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pods play a key role in encapsulating the developing seeds and protecting them from pests and pathogens. In addition to this protective function, it has been shown that the photosynthetically active pod wall contributes assimilates and nutrients to fuel seed growth. Recent work has revealed that signals originating from the pod may also act to coordinate grain filling and regulate the reallocation of reserves from damaged seeds to those that have retained viability. In this review we consider the evidence that pods can regulate seed growth and maturation, particularly in members of the Brassicaceae family, and explore how the timing and duration of pod development might be manipulated to enhance either the quantity of crop yield or its nutritional properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To assess whether fluorexon strips could be used in tear stability [tear film break-up time (TBUT)] measures, as compared with fluorescein strips.The pre-ocular tear film stability was assessed in 40 adults (19–29 years of age), half of whom were adapted soft contact lens wearers, using the dye-assisted tear film break-up time (TBUT) method. The measures were carried out between 10.00 and 17.00 hours, with contact lens wearers removing their lenses just before the assessments. For all subjects, fluorescein or fluorexon ophthalmic strips (pre-wetted with preservative-free saline) were used to add dye to the tear film, the TBUT was assessed three times and then the eye lightly irrigated with saline. The measures were repeated 45 min later with the other dye, with half the subjects receiving fluorescein first and the other half receiving fluorexon first.Overall, the mean TBUT times were 12.2 ± 5.9 s for fluorescein and 12.6 ± 5.6 s for fluorexon (p = n.s.), but the non-lens wearers had longer TBUT times (14.6 and 14.5 s for the two dyes) compared with contact lens wearers (9.8 and 10.7 s,p < 0.01). While the inter-subject variability (as S.D.) was larger for non-contact lens wearers, the intra-subject variability [as coefficient of variation (COV)] was greater in the contact lens wearers when fluorescein was used (p < 0.001). When analysed as a function of the time of day that the measures were made, there were clear trends for both the fluorescein and fluorexon. TBUT values to increase in non-contact lens wearers and decrease in contact lens wearers. These trends failed to reach statistical significance, but the results with the contact lens wearers showed less variation than the non-contact lens wearers.The use of a fluorexon dye-impregnated strip (pre-wetted with preservative-free saline) yielded comparable results with a fluorescein strip for assessments of tear film stability based on TBUT. The studies also indicate that further research is needed on changes in TBUT values during the day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the growth rate of COVID-19 were subject to significant uncertainty, as expected with limited data and difficulties in case ascertainment, but as cases were recorded in multiple countries and robust inferences could bemade. Topics include the impact of physical distancing interventions was typically not seen after implementation, and the temporal patterns are more critical than precise estimates of the time-insensitive basic reproduction number for initiating interventions.

Recruitment of food science and technology graduates remains a priority for the UK food industry in the wake of skills shortages. As a result of the contemporary pressures faced by the food industry, it is essential that students applying for such roles are aware of and ready for management, leadership, and relevant professional competencies. This collaborative study uses the industry‐informed established framework, namely, Competencies for Food Graduate Careers (CFGC) and assesses the integration of this resource into careers education for food‐related programs of four higher education institutions: Cardiff Metropolitan University, Sheffield Hallam University, University of Nottingham and University of Reading. Mixed method analysis was conducted with students prior to and on conclusion of the teaching sessions, including surveys and focus groups. Students confirmed that CFGC was informative and useful for preparing them for a graduate career in food science and technology. No single method of integration of CFGC was proposed; instead, intervention can be undertaken by a variety of approaches, suitable for the level of study and Institutional operation as outlined in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To describe the clinical presentation, course of disease and health-care seeking behaviour of the first few hundred cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Methods We implemented the World Health Organization's First Few X cases and contacts investigation protocol for COVID-19. Trained public health professionals collected information on 381 virologically confirmed COVID-19 cases from 31 January 2020 to 9 April 2020. We actively followed up cases to identify exposure to infection, symptoms and outcomes. We also collected limited data on 752 symptomatic people testing negative for COVID-19, as a control group for analyses of the sensitivity, specificity and predictive value of symptoms. Findings Approximately half of the COVID-19 cases were imported (196 cases; 51.4%), of whom the majority had recent travel to Italy (140 cases; 71.4%). Of the 94 (24.7%) secondary cases, almost all reported close contact with a confirmed case (93 cases; 98.9%), many through household contact (37 cases; 39.8%). By age, a lower proportion of children had COVID-19. Most cases presented with cough, fever and fatigue. The sensitivity and specificity of symptoms varied by age, with nonlinear relationships with age. Although the proportion of COVID-19 cases with fever increased with age, for those with other respiratory infections the occurrence of fever decreased with age. The occurrence of shortness of breath also increased with age in a greater proportion of COVID-19 cases. Conclusion The study has provided useful evidence for generating case definitions and has informed modelling studies of the likely burden of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]