On 16 March 2018, a nursing home notified a possible acute gastroenteritis outbreak that affected 11 people. Descriptive and case–control studies and analysis of clinical and environmental samples were carried out to determine the characteristics of the outbreak, its aetiology, the transmission mechanism and the causal food. The extent of the outbreak in and outside the nursing home was determined and the staff factors influencing propagation were studied by multivariate analysis. A turkey dinner on March 14 was associated with the outbreak (OR 4.22, 95% CI 1.11–16.01). Norovirus genogroups I and II were identified in stool samples. The attack rates in residents, staff and household contacts of staff were 23.49%, 46.22% and 22.87%, respectively. Care assistants and cleaning staff were the staff most frequently affected. Cohabitation with an affected care assistant was the most important factor in the occurrence of cases in the home (adjusted OR 6.37, 95% CI 1.13–36.02). Our results show that staff in close contact with residents and their household contacts had a higher risk of infection during the norovirus outbreak.

We used two sunflower genotypes displaying pericarp-imposed dormancy at high incubation temperatures (i.e. 30°C) to investigate the role of the pericarp as a limitation to oxygen availability to the embryo (hypoxia), and its impact on embryo abscisic acid (ABA) content and sensitivity to ABA. Results showed that both genotypes displayed very different oxygen threshold values for inhibition of embryo germination when incubation was performed at 30°C. Expression of dormancy in one genotype was therefore related to exacerbated embryo sensitivity to hypoxia, whereas in the other genotype, the pericarp appeared to act as a more severe restraint to oxygen entry. Increased sensitivity to hypoxia was, in part, related to increased sensitivity to ABA, but not to alterations in ABA metabolism. The activity of pericarp-microbial communities (bacteria and fungi) at high temperatures was also assessed as a potential determinant of hypoxia to the embryo. Oxygen consumption in pericarps incubated at 30°C was attenuated with antibiotics, which concomitantly promoted achene germination. In agreement with the observed more severe oxygen deprivation to the embryo exerted by the pericarp, the bacterial load in the pericarp was significantly higher in the commercial hybrid than in the inbred line; however, the application of antibiotics strongly reduced the bacterial colony counts for each genotype. Different bacterial and fungal communities, assessed through their profiles of carbon-source utilization, were determined between genotypes and after treatment with antibiotics. This work highlights the relationship between enhancement of sensitivity to hypoxia with incubation temperature and seed dormancy expression, and suggests that microbial activity might be part of the mechanism through which hypoxia is imposed.

This manuscript provides a global perspective on physician and nursing education and training in paediatric cardiac critical care, including available resources and delivery of care models with representatives from several regions of the world including Africa, Israel, Asia, Australasia, Europe, South America, and the United States of America.

A huge amount of data has been acquired with the GREGOR Fabry-Pérot Interferometer (GFPI), large-format facility cameras, and since 2016 with the High-resolution Fast Imager (HiFI). These data are processed in standardized procedures with the aim of providing science-ready data for the solar physics community. For this purpose, we have developed a user-friendly data reduction pipeline called “sTools” based on the Interactive Data Language (IDL) and licensed under creative commons license. The pipeline delivers reduced and image-reconstructed data with a minimum of user interaction. Furthermore, quick-look data are generated as well as a webpage with an overview of the observations and their statistics. All the processed data are stored online at the GREGOR GFPI and HiFI data archive of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP). The principles of the pipeline are presented together with selected high-resolution spectral scans and images processed with sTools.

A new generation of solar instruments provides improved spectral, spatial, and temporal resolution, thus facilitating a better understanding of dynamic processes on the Sun. High-resolution observations often reveal multiple-component spectral line profiles, e.g., in the near-infrared He i 10830 Å triplet, which provides information about the chromospheric velocity and magnetic fine structure. We observed an emerging flux region, including two small pores and an arch filament system, on 2015 April 17 with the ‘very fast spectroscopic mode’ of the GREGOR Infrared Spectrograph (GRIS) situated at the 1.5-meter GREGOR solar telescope at Observatorio del Teide, Tenerife, Spain. We discuss this method of obtaining fast (one per minute) spectral scans of the solar surface and its potential to follow dynamic processes on the Sun. We demonstrate the performance of the ‘very fast spectroscopic mode’ by tracking chromospheric high-velocity features in the arch filament system.

Some key physical processes that impact the evolution of Earth's atmosphere on time-scale from days to millennia, such as the EUV emissions, are determined by the solar magnetic field. However, observations of the solar spectral irradiance are restricted to the last few solar cycles and are subject to large uncertainties. We present a physics-based model to reconstruct short-term solar spectral irradiance (SSI) variability. The coronal magnetic field is estimated to employ the Potential Field Source Surface extrapolation (PFSS) based on observational synoptic charts and magnetic flux transport model. The emission is estimated to employ the CHIANTI atomic database 8.0. The performance of the model is compared to the emission observed by TIMED/SORCE.

Magnetic instability is a key consideration for filament eruptions and subsequent CMEs. In this contribution we are considering different magnetic conditions for active and non-active regions, such as coronal hole regions and quiet sun, and also active regions of a simple magnetic configuration. The aim is to assess magnetic instability through potential and non-potential field modelling and 3D evaluation of the magnetic decay index. Some eruptive examples from solar cycle 24 using HMI/SDO data are presented, complemented with observations of AIA/SDO.

We have investigated the case of a coronal mass ejection that was eroded by the fast wind of a coronal hole in the interplanetary medium. When a solar ejection takes place close to a coronal hole, the flux rope magnetic topology of the coronal mass ejection (CME) may become misshapen at 1 AU as a result of the interaction. Detailed analysis of this event reveals erosion of the interplanetary coronal mass ejection (ICME) magnetic field. In this communication, we study the photospheric magnetic roots of the coronal hole and the coronal mass ejection area with HMI/SDO magnetograms to define their magnetic characteristics.