Phylogenomics and the rise of the angiosperms.

Angiosperms are the cornerstone of most terrestrial ecosystems and human livelihoods1,2. A robust understanding of angiosperm evolution is required to explain their rise to ecological dominance. So far, the angiosperm tree of life has been determined primarily by means of analyses of the plastid genome3,4. Many studies have drawn on this foundational work, such as classification and first insights into angiosperm diversification since their Mesozoic origins5-7. However, the limited and biased sampling of both taxa and genomes undermines confidence in the tree and its implications. Here, we build the tree of life for almost 8,000 (about 60%) angiosperm genera using a standardized set of 353 nuclear genes8. This 15-fold increase in genus-level sampling relative to comparable nuclear studies9 provides a critical test of earlier results and brings notable change to key groups, especially in rosids, while substantiating many previously predicted relationships. Scaling this tree to time using 200 fossils, we discovered that early angiosperm evolution was characterized by high gene tree conflict and explosive diversification, giving rise to more than 80% of extant angiosperm orders. Steady diversification ensued through the remaining Mesozoic Era until rates resurged in the Cenozoic Era, concurrent with decreasing global temperatures and tightly linked with gene tree conflict. Taken together, our extensive sampling combined with advanced phylogenomic methods shows the deep history and full complexity in the evolution of a megadiverse clade.

Navigating the Labyrinth of Pregnancy-Related Coverage for Undocumented Immigrants: An Assessment of Current State and Federal Policies.

Insurance coverage for prenatal care, labor and delivery care, and postpartum care for undocumented immigrants consists of a patchwork of state and federal policies, which varies widely by state. According to federal law, states must provide coverage for labor and delivery through Emergency Medicaid. Various states have additional prenatal and postpartum coverage for undocumented immigrants through policy mechanisms such as the Children's Health Insurance Program's "unborn child" option, expansion of Medicaid, and independent state-level mechanisms. Using a search of state Medicaid and federal government websites, we found that 27 states and the District of Columbia provide additional coverage for prenatal care, postpartum care, or both, while 23 states do not. Twelve states include any postpartum coverage; 7 provide coverage for 12 months postpartum. Although information regarding coverage is available publicly online, there exist many barriers to access, such as lack of transparency, lack of availability of information in multiple languages, and incorrect information. More inclusive and easily accessible policies are needed as the first step toward improving maternal health among undocumented immigrants, a population trapped in a complicated web of immigration policy and a maternal health crisis. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(10):1051-1060. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307750).

Palliative Care Psychiatry: Building Synergy Across the Spectrum.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Palliative care (PC) psychiatry is a growing subspecialty focusing on improving the mental health of those with serious medical conditions and their caregivers. This review elucidates the current practice and ongoing evolution of PC psychiatry. RECENT FINDINGS: PC psychiatry leverages training and clinical practices from both PC and psychiatry, addressing a wide range of needs, including enhanced psychiatric care for patients with serious medical illness, PC access for patients with medical needs in psychiatric settings, and PC-informed psychiatric approaches for individuals with treatment-refractory serious mental illness. PC psychiatry is practiced by a diverse workforce comprising hospice and palliative medicine-trained psychiatrists, psycho-oncologists, geriatric psychiatrists, other mental health professionals, and non-psychiatrist PC clinicians. As a result, PC psychiatry faces challenges in defining its operational scope. The manuscript outlines the growth, current state, and prospects of PC psychiatry. It examines its roles across various healthcare settings, including medical, integrated care, and psychiatric environments, highlighting the unique challenges and opportunities in each. PC psychiatry is a vibrant and growing subspecialty of psychiatry that must be operationalized to continue its developmental trajectory. There is a need for a distinct professional identity for PC psychiatry, strategies to navigate administrative and regulatory hurdles, and greater support for novel clinical, educational, and research initiatives.

Clinical significance of cement leakage in kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures affect a large number of elderly people and cause significant issues with pain and mobility. Percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) and kyphoplasty (PKP) are employed to treat those who remain symptomatic, with comparable clinical outcomes. Although PVP is faster and less expensive, concerns around cement-leakage complications make PKP perceptively safer. METHODS: By means of systematic review, we sought to ascertain whether PVP did carry a higher risk of cement-leakage and associated symptomatic complications (neural compromise, pulmonary embolism and need for emergency decompression surgery). RESULTS: Our search of 138 articles returned six studies after shortlisting and manual review: three randomised-controlled trials, and three retrospective comparative studies which met our criteria and directly compared cement-leakage rates and complications between the two treatments. 532 PVPs and 493 PKPs recorded 213 (39.3%) and 143 (28.9%) leaks, respectively (p < 0.0005). Of these, no leaks resulted in any of the aforementioned leak-related complications. No meta-analysis was performed due to heterogeneity of the data. CONCLUSIONS: We therefore concluded that whilst PVP does result in more cement leaks, this does not appear to be clinically significant. Further studies would add weight to this conclusion, and cost-effectiveness should be assessed to restore confidence in PVP. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level III Evidence.

Anti-racism curricula in undergraduate medical education: A scoping review.

PURPOSE: Medical educators have increasingly focused on the systemic effects of racism on health inequities in the United States (U.S.) and globally. There is a call for educators to teach students how to actively promote an anti-racist culture in healthcare. This scoping review assesses the existing undergraduate medical education (UME) literature of anti-racism curricula, implementation, and assessment. METHODS: The Ovid, Embase, ERIC, Web of Science, and MedEdPORTAL databases were queried on 7 April 2023. Keywords included anti-racism, medical education, and assessment. Inclusion criteria consisted of any UME anti-racism publication. Non-English articles with no UME anti-racism curriculum were excluded. Two independent reviewers screened the abstracts, followed by full-text appraisal. Data was extracted using a predetermined framework based on Kirkpatrick's educational outcomes model, Miller's pyramid for assessing clinical competence, and Sotto-Santiago's theoretical framework for anti-racism curricula. Study characteristics and anti-racism curriculum components (instructional design, assessment, outcomes) were collected and synthesized. RESULTS: In total, 1064 articles were screened. Of these, 20 met the inclusion criteria, with 90% (n = 18) published in the past five years. Learners ranged from first-year to fourth-year medical students. Study designs included pre- and post-test evaluations (n = 10; 50%), post-test evaluations only (n = 7; 35%), and qualitative assessments (n = 3; 15%). Educational interventions included lectures (n = 10, 50%), multimedia (n = 6, 30%), small-group case discussions (n = 15, 75%), large-group discussions (n = 5, 25%), and reflections (n = 5, 25%). Evaluation tools for these curricula included surveys (n = 18; 90%), focus groups (n = 4; 20%), and direct observations (n = 1; 5%). CONCLUSIONS: Our scoping review highlights the growing attention to anti-racism in UME curricula. We identified a gap in published assessments of behavior change in applying knowledge and skills to anti-racist action in UME training. We also provide considerations for developing UME anti-racism curricula. These include explicitly naming and defining anti-racism as well as incorporating longitudinal learning opportunities and assessments.

Identifying the asthma research priorities of people with asthma, their carers and other stakeholders.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: People living with asthma, their carers, clinicians and policymakers are the end-users of research and need research that address their individual healthcare needs. We aimed to understand the research priorities of end-users of asthma research. METHODS: A national cross-sectional mixed-methods study was conducted. The study included an online survey that engaged patients, carers, healthcare professionals and policymakers to provide statements to free-text questions about what they would like to see answered by research to improve living with asthma on a day-to-day basis. Responses where thematically analysed followed by three online priority setting consensus workshops. RESULTS: There were 593 respondents who provided 1446 text comments. Participants prioritized 10 asthma research themes which were: (1) asthma in children, (2) COVID 19 and asthma, (3) asthma care and self-management, (4) diagnosis and medication, (5) managing asthma attacks, (6) causes, prevention and features of asthma, (7) mental health, (8) asthma and ageing, (9) severe asthma, (10) asthma and other health conditions. Each theme comprises specific research questions. CONCLUSION: This project successfully established 10 priority research themes for asthma, reflecting the collective voice of the end-users of this research. These novel data can be used to address the documented mismatch in research prioritization between the research community and the end-users of research.

Modal Decomposition of Acoustic Emissions from Pencil-Lead Breaks in an Isotropic Thin Plate.

Acoustic emission (AE) testing and Lamb wave inspection techniques have been widely used in non-destructive testing and structural health monitoring. For thin plates, the AEs arising from structural defect development (e.g., fatigue crack propagation) propagate as Lamb waves, and Lamb wave modes can be used to provide important information about the growth and localisation of defects. However, few sensors can be used to achieve the in situ wavenumber-frequency modal decomposition of AEs. This study explores the ability of a new multi-element piezoelectric sensor array to decompose AEs excited by pencil lead breaks (PLBs) on a thin isotropic plate. In this study, AEs were generated by out-of-plane (transverse) and in-plane (longitudinal) PLBs applied at the edge of the plate, and waveforms were recorded by both the new sensor array and a commercial AE sensor. Finite element analysis (FEA) simulations of PLBs were also conducted and the results were compared with the experimental results. To identify the wave modes present, the longitudinal and transverse PLB test results recorded by the new sensor array at five different plate locations were compared with FEA simulations using the same arrangement. Two-dimensional fast Fourier Transforms were then applied to the AE wavefields. It was found that the AE modal composition was dependent on the orientation of the PLB direction. The results suggest that this new sensor array can be used to identify the AE wave modes excited by PLBs in both in-plane and out-of-plane directions.

Prevention of Lower Extremity Musculoskeletal Injuries in Tactical and First Responder Populations: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials From 1955 to 2020.

ABSTRACT: Sinnott, AM, Krajewski, KT, LaGoy, AD, Beckner, ME, Proessl, F, Canino, MC, Nindl, BC, Turner, RL, Lovalekar, MT, Connaboy, C, and Flanagan, SD. Prevention of lower extremity musculoskeletal injuries in tactical and first responder populations: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials from 1955 to 2020. J Strength Cond Res 37(1): 239-252, 2023-Lower extremity musculoskeletal injuries (LEMSIs) impose a significant burden on tactical and first responder populations. To determine the effectiveness of LEMSI prevention strategies, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials published in English from 1955 to 2020 (PROSPERO: CRD42018081799). MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, CINAHL, ProQuest, and DTIC databases were searched for trials that assigned military service members, police, firefighters, or paramedics to LEMSI prevention interventions with a minimum surveillance period of 12 weeks. Evidence was synthesized as odds ratios (OR) for LEMSI occurrence between individuals assigned to interventions and those assigned to standard activities. Risk of bias was assessed with the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool 2.0. Random-effects meta-analyses were conducted for (a) physical training and (b) footwear modifications to reduce LEMSI and (c) footwear modifications to reduce stress fractures specifically. Certainty in the body of evidence was determined with the GRADE approach. Of 28,499 records, 18 trials comprised of more than 11,000 subjects were synthesized. Interventions included physical training (8, N = 6,838), footwear modifications (8, N = 3,792), nutritional supplementation (1, N = 324), and training modifications (1, N = 350). Overall risk of bias was generally moderate ( N = 7 of 18) or high ( N = 9 of 18). Physical training (OR = 0.87, 95% CI [0.71, 1.08], p = 0.22, I 2 = 58.4%) and footwear modification (OR = 1.13, 95% CI [0.85, 1.49], p = 0.42, I 2 = 0.0%) did not reduce LEMSI or stress fractures (OR = 0.76, 95% CI [0.45, 1.28], p = 0.30, I 2 = 70.7%). Our results indicate that there is weak evidence to support current LEMSI prevention strategies. Future efforts will benefit from longer surveillance periods, assessment of women and nonmilitary populations, improved methodological rigor, and a greater breadth of approaches.

Acoustic and postural displays in a miniature and transparent teleost fish, Danionella dracula.

Acoustic behavior is widespread across vertebrates, including fishes. We report robust acoustic displays during aggressive interactions for a laboratory colony of Danionella dracula, a miniature and transparent species of teleost fish closely related to zebrafish (Danio rerio), which are hypothesized to be sonic based on the presence of a hypertrophied muscle associated with the male swim bladder. Males produce bursts of pulsatile sounds and a distinct postural display - extension of a hypertrophied lower jaw, a morphological trait not present in other Danionella species - during aggressive but not courtship interactions. Females show no evidence of sound production or jaw extension in such contexts. Novel pairs of size-matched or -mismatched males were combined in resident-intruder assays where sound production and jaw extension could be linked to individuals. In both dyad contexts, resident males produced significantly more sound pulses than intruders. During heightened sonic activity, the majority of the highest sound producers also showed increased jaw extension. Residents extended their jaw more than intruders in size-matched but not -mismatched contexts. Larger males in size-mismatched dyads produced more sounds and jaw extensions compared with their smaller counterparts, and sounds and jaw extensions increased with increasing absolute body size. These studies establish D. dracula as a sonic species that modulates putatively acoustic and postural displays during aggressive interactions based on residency and body size, providing a foundation for further investigating the role of multimodal displays in a new model clade for neurogenomic and neuroimaging studies of aggression, courtship and other social interactions.

Pregnancy and Preeclampsia Are Associated With Acute Adverse Peripheral Arterial Events.

OBJECTIVE: Acute peripheral arterial events, such as aortic dissection, carotid artery dissection, vertebral artery dissection, and ruptured renoviseral aneurysms, have been reported during pregnancy in case series, but there is a paucity of population-based data. This study sought to establish pregnancy and preeclampsia as risk factors for acute peripheral arterial events. Approach and Results: All women who gave birth between 1998 and 2020 within a multicenter health care system were identified. Births that occurred in women <18 or >50 years of age were excluded. Primary outcome was any acute peripheral arterial event that was symptomatic or required intervention. Cox regression model was used to evaluate the association between vascular events and pregnancy as a time-varying covariate. The pregnancy exposure period was from the estimated date of conception to 3 months postpartum. There were 277 697 pregnancies (81.3% deliveries, 17.0% abortions, and 1.7% ectopics) among 176 635 women with 1.68 million patient-years of total follow-up (median, 7.9 years; interquartile range, 2.4-16.2). Preeclampsia complicated 5.3% of pregnancies; 67 790 of 225 763 (30.0%) deliveries were delivered by cesarean. Ninety-six acute arterial events occurred during follow-up, of which 24 occurred during pregnancy, including the postpartum period. Pregnancy (hazard ratio, 1.85 [95% CI, 1.01-3.38]; P=0.046) and preeclampsia (hazard ratio, 10.9 [95% CI, 5.24-22.7]; P<0.001) were significant independent predictors of acute arterial events. CONCLUSIONS: While taking into account limitations from estimating conception and outcome dates, pregnancy, especially when complicated by preeclampsia, is associated with an increased risk of acute peripheral arterial events.

Addressing Racial/Ethnic Inequities in Maternal Health Through Community-Based Social Support Services: A Mixed Methods Study.

INTRODUCTION: In the US, there are striking inequities in maternal health outcomes between racial and ethnic groups. Community-based organizations (CBOs) provide social support services that are critical in addressing the needs of clients of color during and after pregnancy. METHODS: We conducted a descriptive, cross-sectional mixed methods study of CBOs in Greater Boston that provide social support services to pregnant and postpartum clients. In May-August 2020, we administered an online survey about organizational characteristics, client population, and services offered. In July-August 2020, we conducted semi-structured interviews focused on services provided, gaps in services, and the impact of structural racism on clients. We used descriptive statistics to characterize CBOs and services and used thematic analysis to extract themes from the qualitative data. RESULTS: A total of 21 unique CBOs participated with 17 CBOs completing the survey and 14 participating in interviews. CBOs served between 10 and 35,000 pregnant and postpartum clients per year (median = 200), and about half (n = 8) focused their programming on pregnant and postpartum clients. The most significant gaps in social support services were housing and childcare. Respondents identified racism and lack of coordination among organizations as the two primary barriers to accessing social support. DISCUSSION: CBOs face multiple challenges to providing social support to pregnant and postpartum clients of color, and significant gaps exist in the types of services currently provided. Improved coordination among CBOs and advocacy efforts to develop community-informed solutions are needed to reduce barriers to social support.

Trends in Controlled Vocabulary and Health Equity.

Medical librarians collaborate with physicians and other healthcare professionals to improve the quality and accessibility of medical information, which includes assembling the best evidence to advance health equality through teaching and research. This column brings together brief cases highlighting the experiences and perspectives of medical librarians, educators, and healthcare professionals using their organizational, pedagogical, and information-analysis skills to advance health equality indexing.

Racial/Ethnic Inequities in Pregnancy-Related Social Support: Design Workshops With Community-Based Organizations in Greater Boston.

Community-based organizations are uniquely positioned to address critical gaps in social support that contribute to inequities in maternal health. Using a human-centered design process, we held 3 design workshops with members of 15 organizations in Greater Boston, including community-based organizations, allied hospital systems, and public health departments, to assess proposed solutions for gaps in social support services during pregnancy and the first year after childbirth. The workshops focused on solutions to problems that emerged from a mixed-methods research study with community-based organizations that provide social support services; workshop attendees explored facilitators and barriers to implementing solutions. Key considerations included colocation of solutions, shared ownership of program and client data, decision making about triage and referrals, and strengthening coordination of existing programs. Collaborative design workshops surfaced potential solutions to improve coordination of services, which require addressing structural and interpersonal racism in Greater Boston.

Annual and perennial Medicago show signatures of parallel adaptation to climate and soil in highly conserved genes.

Human induced environmental change may require rapid adaptation of plant populations and crops, but the genomic basis of environmental adaptation remain poorly understood. We analysed polymorphic loci from the perennial crop Medicago sativa (alfalfa or lucerne) and the annual legume model species M. truncatula to search for a common set of candidate genes that might contribute to adaptation to abiotic stress in both annual and perennial Medicago species. We identified a set of candidate genes of adaptation associated with environmental gradients along the distribution of the two Medicago species. Candidate genes for each species were detected in homologous genomic linkage blocks using genome-environment (GEA) and genome-phenotype association analyses. Hundreds of GEA candidate genes were species-specific, of these, 13.4% (M. sativa) and 24% (M. truncatula) were also significantly associated with phenotypic traits. A set of 168 GEA candidates were shared by both species, which was 25.4% more than expected by chance. When combined, they explained a high proportion of variance for certain phenotypic traits associated with adaptation. Genes with highly conserved functions dominated among the shared candidates and were enriched in gene ontology terms that have shown to play a central role in drought avoidance and tolerance mechanisms by means of cellular shape modifications and other functions associated with cell homeostasis. Our results point to the existence of a molecular basis of adaptation to abiotic stress in Medicago determined by highly conserved genes and gene functions. We discuss these results in light of the recently proposed omnigenic model of complex traits.

Cannabinoids for Agitation in Alzheimer's Disease.

Agitation is a common neuropsychiatric symptom of Alzheimer's disease (AD) that greatly impacts quality of life and amplifies caregiver burden. Agitation in AD may be associated with volume loss in the anterior cingulate cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, insula, amygdala, and frontal cortex, as well as with degeneration of monoaminergic neurotransmission, disrupted circadian rhythms, and frailty. Current pharmacologic options have troubling safety concerns and only modest efficacy. There is increasing interest in cannabinoids as promising agents due to preclinical and early clinical research that suggest cannabinoids can elicit anxiolytic, antidepressant, and/or anti-inflammatory effects. Cannabinoids may relieve agitation by regulating neurotransmitters, improving comorbidities and circadian rhythms, and increasing cerebral circulation. Here we discuss the possible contributory mechanisms for agitation in AD and the therapeutic relevance of cannabinoids, including CBD and THC.

Effect of birthweight measurement quality improvement on low birthweight prevalence in rural Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: Low birthweight (LBW) (< 2500 g) is a significant determinant of infant morbidity and mortality worldwide. In low-income settings, the quality of birthweight data suffers from measurement and recording errors, inconsistent data reporting systems, and missing data from non-facility births. This paper describes birthweight data quality and the prevalence of LBW before and after implementation of a birthweight quality improvement (QI) initiative in Amhara region, Ethiopia. METHODS: A comparative pre-post study was performed in selected rural health facilities located in West Gojjam and South Gondar zones. At baseline, a retrospective review of delivery records from February to May 2018 was performed in 14 health centers to collect birthweight data. A birthweight QI initiative was introduced in August 2019, which included provision of high-quality digital infant weight scales (precision 5 g), routine calibration, training in birth weighing and data recording, and routine field supervision. After the QI implementation, birthweight data were prospectively collected from late August to early September 2019, and December 2019 to June 2020. Data quality, as measured by heaping (weights at exact multiples of 500 g) and rounding to the nearest 100 g, and the prevalence of LBW were calculated before and after QI implementation. RESULTS: We retrospectively reviewed 1383 delivery records before the QI implementation and prospectively measured 1371 newborn weights after QI implementation. Heaping was most frequently observed at 3000 g and declined from 26% pre-initiative to 6.7% post-initiative. Heaping at 2500 g decreased from 5.4% pre-QI to 2.2% post-QI. The percentage of rounding to the nearest 100 g was reduced from 100% pre-initiative to 36.5% post-initiative. Before the QI initiative, the prevalence of recognized LBW was 2.2% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.5-3.1) and after the QI initiative increased to 11.7% (95% CI: 10.1-13.5). CONCLUSIONS: A QI intervention can improve the quality of birthweight measurements, and data measurement quality may substantially affect estimates of LBW prevalence.

Optically addressable nuclear spins in a solid with a six-hour coherence time.

Space-like separation of entangled quantum states is a central concept in fundamental investigations of quantum mechanics and in quantum communication applications. Optical approaches are ubiquitous in the distribution of entanglement because entangled photons are easy to generate and transmit. However, extending this direct distribution beyond a range of a few hundred kilometres to a worldwide network is prohibited by losses associated with scattering, diffraction and absorption during transmission. A proposal to overcome this range limitation is the quantum repeater protocol, which involves the distribution of entangled pairs of optical modes among many quantum memories stationed along the transmission channel. To be effective, the memories must store the quantum information encoded on the optical modes for times that are long compared to the direct optical transmission time of the channel. Here we measure a decoherence rate of 8 × 10(-5) per second over 100 milliseconds, which is the time required for light transmission on a global scale. The measurements were performed on a ground-state hyperfine transition of europium ion dopants in yttrium orthosilicate ((151)Eu(3+):Y2SiO5) using optically detected nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. The observed decoherence rate is at least an order of magnitude lower than that of any other system suitable for an optical quantum memory. Furthermore, by employing dynamic decoupling, a coherence time of 370 ± 60 minutes was achieved at 2 kelvin. It has been almost universally assumed that light is the best long-distance carrier for quantum information. However, the coherence time observed here is long enough that nuclear spins travelling at 9 kilometres per hour in a crystal would have a lower decoherence with distance than light in an optical fibre. This enables some very early approaches to entanglement distribution to be revisited, in particular those in which the spins are transported rather than the light.

Language Preference and Risk of Primary Cesarean Delivery: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

OBJECTIVES: While some medical indications for cesarean delivery are clear, subjective provider and patient factors contribute to the rising cesarean delivery rates and marked disparities between racial/ethnic groups. We aimed to determine the association between language preference and risk of primary cesarean delivery. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of nulliparous, term, singleton, vertex (NTSV) deliveries of patients over 18 years old from 2011-2016 at an academic medical center, supplemented with data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. We used modified Poisson regression with robust error variance to calculate risk ratios for cesarean delivery between patients with English language preference and other language preference, with secondary outcomes of Apgar score, maternal readmission, blood transfusion, and NICU admission. RESULTS: Of the 11,298 patients included, 10.3% reported a preferred language other than English, including Mandarin and Cantonese (61.7%), Portuguese (9.7%), and Spanish (7.5%). The adjusted risk ratio for cesarean delivery among patients with a language preference other than English was 0.85 (95% CI 0.72-0.997; p = 0.046) compared to patients with English language preference. No significant differences in risk of secondary outcomes between English and other language preference were found. DISCUSSION: After adjusting for confounders, this analysis demonstrates a decreased risk of cesarean delivery among women who do not have an English language preference at one institution. This disparity in cesarean delivery rates in an NTSV population warrants future research, raising the question of what clinical and social factors may be contributing to these lower cesarean delivery rates.

Multiple chromosomal inversions contribute to adaptive divergence of a dune sunflower ecotype.

Both models and case studies suggest that chromosomal inversions can facilitate adaptation and speciation in the presence of gene flow by suppressing recombination between locally adapted alleles. Until recently, however, it has been laborious and time-consuming to identify and genotype inversions in natural populations. Here we apply RAD sequencing data and newly developed population genomic approaches to identify putative inversions that differentiate a sand dune ecotype of the prairie sunflower (Helianthus petiolaris) from populations found on the adjacent sand sheet. We detected seven large genomic regions that exhibit a different population structure than the rest of the genome and that vary in frequency between dune and nondune populations. These regions also show high linkage disequilibrium and high heterozygosity between, but not within, arrangements, consistent with the behaviour of large inversions, an inference subsequently validated in part by comparative genetic mapping. Genome-environment association analyses show that key environmental variables, including vegetation cover and soil nitrogen, are significantly associated with inversions. The inversions colocate with previously described "islands of differentiation," and appear to play an important role in adaptive divergence and incipient speciation within H. petiolaris.

Sexually Transmitted Infections in Pregnancy: A Narrative Review of the Global Research Gaps, Challenges, and Opportunities.

BACKGROUND: Sexually transmitted infections (STI), such as chlamydial, gonorrheal, and trichomonal infections, are prevalent in pregnant women in many countries and are widely reported to be associated with increased risk of poor maternal and neonatal outcomes. Syndromic STI management is frequently used in pregnant women in low- and middle-income countries, yet its low specificity and sensitivity lead to both overtreatment and undertreatment. Etiologic screening for chlamydial, gonorrheal, and/or trichomonal infection in all pregnant women combined with targeted treatment might be an effective intervention. However, the evidence base is insufficient to support the development of global recommendations. We aimed to describe key considerations and knowledge gaps regarding chlamydial, gonorrheal, and trichomonal screening during pregnancy to inform future research needed for developing guidelines for low- and middle-income countries. METHODS: We conducted a narrative review based on PubMed and clinical trials registry searches through January 20, 2020, guidelines review, and expert opinion. We summarized our findings using the frameworks adopted by the World Health Organization for guideline development. RESULTS: Adverse maternal-child health outcomes of potential interest are wide-ranging and variably defined. No completed randomized controlled trials on etiologic screening and targeted treatment were identified. Evidence from observational studies was limited, and trials of presumptive STI treatment have shown mixed results. Subgroups that might benefit from specific recommendations were identified. Evidence on harms was limited. Cost-effectiveness was influenced by STI prevalence and availability of testing infrastructure and high-accuracy/low-cost tests. Preliminary data suggested high patient acceptability. DISCUSSION: Preliminary data on harms, acceptability, and feasibility and the availability of emerging test technologies suggest that etiologic STI screening deserves further evaluation as a potential tool to improve maternal and neonatal health outcomes worldwide.