Rapid infant growth increases the risk for adult obesity. The gut microbiome is associated with early weight status; however, no study has examined how interactions between microbial and host ribonucleic acid (RNA) expression influence infant growth. We hypothesized that dynamics in infant stool micro-ribonucleic acids (miRNAs) would be associated with both microbial activity and infant growth via putative metabolic targets. Stool was collected twice from 30 full-term infants, at 1 month and again between 6 and 12 months. Stool RNA were measured with high-throughput sequencing and aligned to human and microbial databases. Infant growth was measured by weight-for-length z-score at birth and 12 months. Increased RNA transcriptional activity of Clostridia (R = 0.55; Adj p = 3.7E-2) and Burkholderia (R = −0.820, Adj p = 2.62E-3) were associated with infant growth. Of the 25 human RNAs associated with growth, 16 were miRNAs. The miRNAs demonstrated significant target enrichment (Adj p < 0.05) for four metabolic pathways. There were four associations between growth-related miRNAs and growth-related phyla. We have shown that longitudinal trends in gut microbiota activity and human miRNA levels are associated with infant growth and the metabolic targets of miRNAs suggest these molecules may regulate the biosynthetic landscape of the gut and influence microbial activity.

Ever since the first deep ice cores were drilled, it has been a challenge to determine their original, in-situ orientation. In general, the orientation of an ice core is lost as the drill is free to rotate during transport to the surface. For shallow ice cores, it is usually possible to match the adjacent core breaks, which preserves the orientation of the ice column. However, this method fails for deep ice cores, such as the EastGRIP ice core in Northeast Greenland. We provide a method to reconstruct ice core orientation using visual stratigraphy and borehole geometry. As the EastGRIP ice core is drilled through the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream, we use information about the directional structures to perform a full geographical re-orientation. We compared the core orientation with logging data from core break matching and the pattern of the stereographic projections of the crystals’ c-axis orientations. Both comparisons agree very well with the proposed orientation method. The method works well for 441 out of 451 samples from a depth of 1375–2120 m in the EastGRIP ice core. It can also be applied to other ice cores, providing a better foundation for interpreting physical properties and understanding the flow of ice.

The number of active and non active satellites in Earth orbit has dramatically increased in recent decades, requiring the development of novel surveillance techniques to monitor and track them. In this paper, we build upon previous non-coherent passive radar space surveillance demonstrations undertaken using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). We develop the concept of the Dynamic Signal to Noise Ratio Spectrum (DSNRS) in order to isolate signals of interest (reflections of FM transmissions of objects in orbit) and efficiently differentiate them from direct path reception events. We detect and track Alouette-2, ALOS, UKube-1, the International Space Station, and Duchifat-1 in this manner. We also identified out-of-band transmissions from Duchifat-1 and UKube-1 using these techniques, demonstrating the MWA’s capability to look for spurious transmissions from satellites. We identify an offset from the locations predicted by the cataloged orbital parameters for some of the satellites, demonstrating the potential of using MWA for satellite catalog maintenance. These results demonstrate the capability of the MWA for Space Situational Awareness and we describe future work in this area.

Scholars engaged in debates about the use of public reason often view religious arguments as being out of bounds. Yet the real-world impact of religious discourse remains under-explored. This study contributes to research in this area with an empirical test looking at the impact of religious arguments on a particular policy debate. A survey experiment explored the effects of religious and secular cues with varied policy directions on the issue of assisted dying. The findings showed that secular arguments were considerably more likely to elicit a positive response, and that, while religious arguments were not a conversation stopper, they produced significant distortions in political perceptions among participants, though not necessarily along the identity lines critical to the public reason debate.

The efficient and effective movement of research into practice is acknowledged as crucial to improving population health and assuring return on investment in healthcare research. The National Center for Advancing Translational Science which sponsors Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) recognizes that dissemination and implementation (D&I) sciences have matured over the last 15 years and are central to its goals to shift academic health institutions to better align with this reality. In 2016, the CTSA Collaboration and Engagement Domain Task Force chartered a D&I Science Workgroup to explore the role of D&I sciences across the translational research spectrum. This special communication discusses the conceptual distinctions and purposes of dissemination, implementation, and translational sciences. We propose an integrated framework and provide real-world examples for articulating the role of D&I sciences within and across all of the translational research spectrum. The framework’s major proposition is that it situates D&I sciences as targeted “sub-sciences” of translational science to be used by CTSAs, and others, to identify and investigate coherent strategies for more routinely and proactively accelerating research translation. The framework highlights the importance of D&I thought leaders in extending D&I principles to all research stages.

The topology and unsteady behaviour of ventilated and natural cavity flows over a two-dimensional (2-D) wall-mounted fence are investigated for fixed length cavities with varying free-stream velocity using high-speed and still imaging, X-ray densitometry and dynamic surface pressure measurement in two experimental facilities. Cavities in both ventilated and natural flows were found to have a re-entrant jet closure, but not to exhibit large-scale oscillations, yet the irregular small-scale shedding at the cavity closure. Small-scale cavity break-up was associated with a high-frequency broadband peak in the wall pressure spectra, found to be governed by the overlying turbulent boundary layer characteristics, similar to observations from single-phase flow over a forward-facing step. A low-frequency peak reflecting the oscillations in size of the re-entrant jet region, analogous to ‘flapping’ motion in single-phase flow, was found to be modulated by gravity effects (i.e. a Froude number dependence). Likewise, a significant change in cavity behaviour was observed as the flow underwent transition analogous to the transition from sub- to super-critical regime in open-channel flow. Differences in wake topology were examined using shadowgraphy and proper orthogonal decomposition, from which it was found that the size and number of shed structures increased with an increase in free-stream velocity for the ventilated case, while remaining nominally constant in naturally cavitating flow due to condensation of vaporous structures.

Increasing the number of quantum bits while preserving precise control of their quantum electronic properties is a significant challenge in materials design for the development of semiconductor quantum computing devices. Semiconductor heterostructures can host multiple quantum dots that are electrostatically defined by voltages applied to an array of metallic nanoelectrodes. The structural distortion of multiple-quantum-dot devices due to elastic stress associated with the electrodes has been difficult to predict because of the large micrometer-scale overall sizes of the devices, the complex spatial arrangement of the electrodes, and the sensitive dependence of the magnitude and spatial variation of the stress on processing conditions. Synchrotron X-ray nanobeam Bragg diffraction studies of a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure reveal the magnitude and nanoscale variation of these distortions. Investigations of individual linear electrodes reveal lattice tilts consistent with a 28-MPa compressive residual stress in the electrodes. The angular magnitude of the tilts varies by up to 20% over distances of less than 200 nm along the length of the electrodes, consistent with heterogeneity in the metal residual stress. A similar variation of the crystal tilt is observed in multiple-quantum-dot devices, due to a combination of the variation of the stress and the complex electrode arrangement. The heterogeneity in particular can lead to significant challenges in the scaling of multiple-quantum-dot devices due to differences between the charging energies of dots and uncertainty in the potential energy landscape. Alternatively, if incorporated in design, stress presents a new degree of freedom in device fabrication.

Viscoelastic flow past a cylinder is a classic benchmark problem that is not completely understood. Using novel three-dimensional (3D) holographic particle velocimetry, we report three main discoveries of the elastic instability upstream of a single cylinder in viscoelastic channel flow. First, we observe that upstream vortices initiate at the corner between the cylinder and the wall, and grow with increasing flow rate. Second, beyond a critical Weissenberg number, the flow upstream becomes unsteady and switches between two bistable configurations, leading to symmetry breaking in the cylinder axis direction that is highly 3D in nature. Lastly, we find that the disturbance of the elastic instability propagates relatively far upstream via an elastic wave, and is weakly correlated with that in the cylinder wake. The wave speed and the extent of the instability increase with Weissenberg number, indicating an absolute instability in viscoelastic fluids.