Mycoplasma myocarditis presenting with sustained SVT and acute heart failure without signs of myocardiocytolysis and extra-cardiac disease.

Key Clinical Message: Mycoplasma myocarditis is a rare but potentially serious condition that can cause inflammation of the heart muscle, leading to arrhythmia and heart failure. It is important to consider this condition in the differential diagnosis of young patients presenting with unexplained signs of heart failure and SVT, even in the absence of signs of myocardiocytolysis and extra-cardiac disease. Abstract: Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections are often underdiagnosed as a great proportion of patients remain asymptomatic, pauci-symptomatic, or exhibit varying presentations. M. Pneumoniae manifestations can affect different systems, including the heart, with the potential to lead to high degree of morbidity and debilitating sequelae. Here we present an atypical case of M. Pneumoniae associated myocarditis which presented with sustained refractory SVT, symptoms of heart failure, and with no signs of myocardiocytolysis, pulmonary involvement, or systemic infection. Given the lack of signs of myocardial inflammation, the patient was initially misdiagnosed with tachycardia induced cardiomyopathy (TIC), but later correctly diagnosed after showing signs of pneumonia during the hospitalization. The patient received the appropriate antibiotic treatment in addition to corticosteroids, was discharged on the 15th day of hospitalization, and completely recovered after 1 month with no arrhythmia recurrence and normalization of ventricular function.

Public Health Data Applications Using the CDC Tracking Network: Augmenting Environmental Hazard Information With Lower-Latency NASA Data.

Exposure to environmental hazards is an important determinant of health, and the frequency and severity of exposures is expected to be impacted by climate change. Through a partnership with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network is integrating timely observations and model data of priority environmental hazards into its publicly accessible Data Explorer (https://ephtracking.cdc.gov/DataExplorer/). Newly integrated data sets over the contiguous U.S. (CONUS) include: daily 5-day forecasts of air quality based on the Goddard Earth Observing System Composition Forecast, daily historical (1980-present) concentrations of speciated PM2.5 based on the modern era retrospective analysis for research and applications, version 2, and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) daily near real-time maps of flooding (MCDWD). Data integrated into the CDC Tracking Network are broadly intended to improve community health through action by informing both research and early warning activities, including (a) describing temporal and spatial trends in disease and potential environmental exposures, (b) identifying populations most affected, (c) generating hypotheses about associations between health and environmental exposures, and (d) developing, guiding, and assessing environmental public health policies and interventions aimed at reducing or eliminating health outcomes associated with environmental factors.

InSPECtor: an end-to-end design framework for compressive pixelated hyperspectral instruments.

Classic designs of hyperspectral instrumentation densely sample the spatial and spectral information of the scene of interest. Data may be compressed after the acquisition. In this paper, we introduce a framework for the design of an optimized, micropatterned snapshot hyperspectral imager that acquires an optimized subset of the spatial and spectral information in the scene. The data is thereby already compressed at the sensor level but can be restored to the full hyperspectral data cube by the jointly optimized reconstructor. This framework is implemented with TensorFlow and makes use of its automatic differentiation for the joint optimization of the layout of the micropatterned filter array as well as the reconstructor. We explore the achievable compression ratio for different numbers of filter passbands, number of scanning frames, and filter layouts using data collected by the Hyperscout instrument. We show resulting instrument designs that take snapshot measurements without losing significant information while reducing the data volume, acquisition time, or detector space by a factor of 40 as compared to classic, dense sampling. The joint optimization of a compressive hyperspectral imager design and the accompanying reconstructor provides an avenue to substantially reduce the data volume from hyperspectral imagers.

A Bayesian inversion for emissions and export productivity across the end-Cretaceous boundary.

The end-Cretaceous mass extinction was marked by both the Chicxulub impact and the ongoing emplacement of the Deccan Traps flood basalt province. To understand the mechanism of extinction, we must disentangle the timing, duration, and intensity of volcanic and meteoritic environmental forcings. In this study, we used a parallel Markov chain Monte Carlo approach to invert for carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions, export productivity, and remineralization from 67 to 65 million years ago using the LOSCAR (Long-term Ocean-atmosphere-Sediment CArbon cycle Reservoir) model. Our results closely match observed and proxy data and suggest decoupled CO2 and SO2 emissions, a two-step decline in export productivity with a protracted recovery, and no clear volatile impulse at the boundary. More broadly, our methods provide a potential path forward for efficient parallel inversion of complex Earth system models.

Continental flood basalts drive Phanerozoic extinctions.

Refinements of the geological timescale driven by the increasing precision and accuracy of radiometric dating have revealed an apparent correlation between large igneous provinces (LIPs) and intervals of Phanerozoic faunal turnover that has been much discussed at a qualitative level. However, the extent to which such correlations are likely to occur by chance has yet to be quantitatively tested, and other kill mechanisms have been suggested for many mass extinctions. Here, we show that the degree of temporal correlation between continental LIPs and faunal turnover in the Phanerozoic is unlikely to occur by chance, suggesting a causal relationship linking extinctions and continental flood basalts. The relationship is stronger for LIPs with higher estimated eruptive rates and for stage boundaries with higher extinction magnitudes. This suggests LIP magma degassing as a primary kill mechanism for mass extinctions and other intervals of faunal turnover, which may be related to [Formula: see text], Cl, and F release. Our results suggest continental LIPs as a major, direct driver of extinctions throughout the Phanerozoic.

Timescales for pluton growth, magma-chamber formation and super-eruptions.

Generation of silicic magmas leads to emplacement of granite plutons, huge explosive volcanic eruptions and physical and chemical zoning of continental and arc crust1-7. Whereas timescales for silicic magma generation in the deep and middle crust are prolonged8, magma transfer into the upper crust followed by eruption is episodic and can be rapid9-12. Ages of inherited zircons and sanidines from four Miocene ignimbrites in the Central Andes indicate a gap of 4.6 Myr between initiation of pluton emplacement and onset of super-eruptions, with a 1-Myr cyclicity. We show that inherited zircons and sanidine crystals were stored at temperatures <470 °C in these plutons before incorporation in ignimbrite magmas. Our observations can be explained by silicic melt segregation in a middle-crustal hot zone with episodic melt ascent from an unstable layer at the top of the zone with a timescale governed by the rheology of the upper crust. After thermal incubation of growing plutons, large upper-crustal magma chambers can form in a few thousand years or less by dike transport from the hot-zone melt layer. Instability and disruption of earlier plutonic rock occurred in a few decades or less just before or during super-eruptions.

NASA GEOS Composition Forecast Modeling System GEOS-CF v1.0: Stratospheric Composition.

The NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Composition Forecast (GEOS-CF) provides recent estimates and 5-day forecasts of atmospheric composition to the public in near-real time. To do this, the GEOS Earth system model is coupled with the GEOS-Chem tropospheric-stratospheric unified chemistry extension (UCX) to represent composition from the surface to the top of the GEOS atmosphere (0.01 hPa). The GEOS-CF system is described, including updates made to the GEOS-Chem UCX mechanism within GEOS-CF for improved representation of stratospheric chemistry. Comparisons are made against balloon, lidar, and satellite observations for stratospheric composition, including measurements of ozone (O3) and important nitrogen and chlorine species related to stratospheric O3 recovery. The GEOS-CF nudges the stratospheric O3 toward the GEOS Forward Processing (GEOS FP) assimilated O3 product; as a result the stratospheric O3 in the GEOS-CF historical estimate agrees well with observations. During abnormal dynamical and chemical environments such as the 2020 polar vortexes, the GEOS-CF O3 forecasts are more realistic than GEOS FP O3 forecasts because of the inclusion of the complex GEOS-Chem UCX stratospheric chemistry. Overall, the spatial patterns of the GEOS-CF simulated concentrations of stratospheric composition agree well with satellite observations. However, there are notable biases-such as low NO x and HNO3 in the polar regions and generally low HCl throughout the stratosphere-and future improvements to the chemistry mechanism and emissions are discussed. GEOS-CF is a new tool for the research community and instrument teams observing trace gases in the stratosphere and troposphere, providing near-real-time three-dimensional gridded information on atmospheric composition.

Thermochronologic constraints on the origin of the Great Unconformity.

The origin of the phenomenon known as the Great Unconformity has been a fundamental yet unresolved problem in the geosciences for over a century. Recent hypotheses advocate either global continental exhumation averaging 3 to 5 km during Cryogenian (717 to 635 Ma) snowball Earth glaciations or, alternatively, diachronous episodic exhumation throughout the Neoproterozoic (1,000 to 540 Ma) due to plate tectonic reorganization from supercontinent assembly and breakup. To test these hypotheses, the temporal patterns of Neoproterozoic thermal histories were evaluated for four North American locations using previously published medium- to low-temperature thermochronology and geologic information. We present inverse time-temperature simulations within a Bayesian modeling framework that record a consistent signal of relatively rapid, high-magnitude cooling of ∼120 to 200 °C interpreted as erosional exhumation of upper crustal basement during the Cryogenian. These models imply widespread, synchronous cooling consistent with at least ∼3 to 5 km of unroofing during snowball Earth glaciations, but also demonstrate that plate tectonic drivers, with the potential to cause both exhumation and burial, may have significantly influenced the thermal history in regions that were undergoing deformation concomitant with glaciation. In the cratonic interior, however, glaciation remains the only plausible mechanism that satisfies the required timing, magnitude, and broad spatial pattern of continental erosion revealed by our thermochronological inversions. To obtain a full picture of the extent and synchroneity of such erosional exhumation, studies on stable cratonic crust below the Great Unconformity must be repeated on all continents.

Solvent-free dehydration, cyclization, and hydrogenation of linalool with a dual heterogeneous catalyst system to generate a high-performance sustainable aviation fuel.

The development of efficient catalytic methods for the synthesis of bio-based, full-performance jet fuels is critical for limiting the impacts of climate change while enabling a thriving modern society. To help address this need, here, linalool, a terpene alcohol that can be produced via fermentation of biomass sugars, was dehydrated, cyclized, and hydrogenated in a one-pot reaction under moderate reaction conditions. This sequence produced a biosynthetic fuel mixture primarily composed of 1-methyl-4-isopropylcyclohexane (p-menthane) and 2,6-dimethyloctane (DMO). The reaction was promoted by a catalyst composed of commercial Amberlyst-15, H+ form, and 10% Pd/C. Two other terpenoid substrates (1,8-cineole and 1,4-cineole) were subjected to the same conditions and excellent conversion to high purity p-menthane was observed. The fuel mixture derived from linalool exhibits a 1.7% higher gravimetric heat of combustion and 66% lower kinematic viscosity at -20 °C compared to the limits for conventional jet fuel. These properties suggest that isomerized hydrogenated linalool (IHL) can be blended with conventional jet fuel or synthetic paraffinic kerosenes to deliver high-performance sustainable aviation fuels for commercial and military applications.

Sub-City Scale Hourly Air Quality Forecasting by Combining Models, Satellite Observations, and Ground Measurements.

While multiple information sources exist concerning surface-level air pollution, no individual source simultaneously provides large-scale spatial coverage, fine spatial and temporal resolution, and high accuracy. It is, therefore, necessary to integrate multiple data sources, using the strengths of each source to compensate for the weaknesses of others. In this study, we propose a method incorporating outputs of NASA's GEOS Composition Forecasting model system with satellite information from the TROPOMI instrument and ground measurement data on surface concentrations. Although we use ground monitoring data from the Environmental Protection Agency network in the continental United States, the model and satellite data sources used have the potential to allow for global application. This method is demonstrated using surface measurements of nitrogen dioxide as a test case in regions surrounding five major US cities. The proposed method is assessed through cross-validation against withheld ground monitoring sites. In these assessments, the proposed method demonstrates major improvements over two baseline approaches which use ground-based measurements only. Results also indicate the potential for near-term updating of forecasts based on recent ground measurements.

Vector-apodizing phase plate coronagraph: design, current performance, and future development [Invited].

Over the last decade, the vector-apodizing phase plate (vAPP) coronagraph has been developed from concept to on-sky application in many high-contrast imaging systems on 8 m class telescopes. The vAPP is a geometric-phase patterned coronagraph that is inherently broadband, and its manufacturing is enabled only by direct-write technology for liquid-crystal patterns. The vAPP generates two coronagraphic point spread functions (PSFs) that cancel starlight on opposite sides of the PSF and have opposite circular polarization states. The efficiency, that is, the amount of light in these PSFs, depends on the retardance offset from a half-wave of the liquid-crystal retarder. Using different liquid-crystal recipes to tune the retardance, different vAPPs operate with high efficiencies (${\gt}96\%$) in the visible and thermal infrared (0.55 µm to 5 µm). Since 2015, seven vAPPs have been installed in a total of six different instruments, including Magellan/MagAO, Magellan/MagAO-X, Subaru/SCExAO, and LBT/LMIRcam. Using two integral field spectrographs installed on the latter two instruments, these vAPPs can provide low-resolution spectra (${\rm{R}} \sim 30$) between 1 µm and 5 µm. We review the design process, development, commissioning, on-sky performance, and first scientific results of all commissioned vAPPs. We report on the lessons learned and conclude with perspectives for future developments and applications.

Heterogeneous Hadean crust with ambient mantle affinity recorded in detrital zircons of the Green Sandstone Bed, South Africa.

The nature of Earth's earliest crust and the processes by which it formed remain major issues in Precambrian geology. Due to the absence of a rock record older than ∼4.02 Ga, the only direct record of the Hadean is from rare detrital zircon and that largely from a single area: the Jack Hills and Mount Narryer region of Western Australia. Here, we report on the geochemistry of Hadean detrital zircons as old as 4.15 Ga from the newly discovered Green Sandstone Bed in the Barberton greenstone belt, South Africa. We demonstrate that the U-Nb-Sc-Yb systematics of the majority of these Hadean zircons show a mantle affinity as seen in zircon from modern plume-type mantle environments and do not resemble zircon from modern continental or oceanic arcs. The zircon trace element compositions furthermore suggest magma compositions ranging from higher temperature, primitive to lower temperature, and more evolved tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite (TTG)-like magmas that experienced some reworking of hydrated crust. We propose that the Hadean parental magmas of the Green Sandstone Bed zircons formed from remelting of mafic, mantle-derived crust that experienced some hydrous input during melting but not from the processes seen in modern arc magmatism.

LOUPE: observing Earth from the Moon to prepare for detecting life on Earth-like exoplanets.

LOUPE, the Lunar Observatory for Unresolved Polarimetry of the Earth, is a small, robust spectro-polarimeter for observing the Earth as an exoplanet. Detecting Earth-like planets in stellar habitable zones is one of the key challenges of modern exoplanetary science. Characterizing such planets and searching for traces of life requires the direct detection of their signals. LOUPE provides unique spectral flux and polarization data of sunlight reflected by Earth, the only planet known to harbour life. These data will be used to test numerical codes to predict signals of Earth-like exoplanets, to test algorithms that retrieve planet properties, and to fine-tune the design and observational strategies of future space observatories. From the Moon, LOUPE will continuously see the entire Earth, enabling it to monitor the signal changes due to the planet's daily rotation, weather patterns and seasons, across all phase angles. Here, we present both the science case and the technology behind LOUPE's instrumental and mission design. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Astronomy from the Moon: the next decades'.

Increased ecological resource variability during a critical transition in hominin evolution.

Although climate change is considered to have been a large-scale driver of African human evolution, landscape-scale shifts in ecological resources that may have shaped novel hominin adaptations are rarely investigated. We use well-dated, high-resolution, drill-core datasets to understand ecological dynamics associated with a major adaptive transition in the archeological record ~24 km from the coring site. Outcrops preserve evidence of the replacement of Acheulean by Middle Stone Age (MSA) technological, cognitive, and social innovations between 500 and 300 thousand years (ka) ago, contemporaneous with large-scale taxonomic and adaptive turnover in mammal herbivores. Beginning ~400 ka ago, tectonic, hydrological, and ecological changes combined to disrupt a relatively stable resource base, prompting fluctuations of increasing magnitude in freshwater availability, grassland communities, and woody plant cover. Interaction of these factors offers a resource-oriented hypothesis for the evolutionary success of MSA adaptations, which likely contributed to the ecological flexibility typical of Homo sapiens foragers.

Constraining crustal silica on ancient Earth.

Accurately quantifying the composition of continental crust on Hadean and Archean Earth is critical to our understanding of the physiography, tectonics, and climate of our planet at the dawn of life. One longstanding paradigm involves the growth of a relatively mafic planetary crust over the first 1 to 2 billion years of Earth history, implying a lack of modern plate tectonics and a paucity of subaerial crust, and consequently lacking an efficient mechanism to regulate climate. Others have proposed a more uniformitarian view in which Archean and Hadean continents were only slightly more mafic than at present. Apart from complications in assessing early crustal composition introduced by crustal preservation and sampling biases, effects such as the secular cooling of Earth's mantle and the biologically driven oxidation of Earth's atmosphere have not been fully investigated. We find that the former complicates efforts to infer crustal silica from compatible or incompatible element abundances, while the latter undermines estimates of crustal silica content inferred from terrigenous sediments. Accounting for these complications, we find that the data are most parsimoniously explained by a model with nearly constant crustal silica since at least the early Archean.

Highly multiplexed Bragg gratings for large field of view gas sensing in planetary atmospheres.

Detecting and monitoring gas species is an important part of remote sensing because the state of the environment can be retrieved from the state of the gas species. This can be used to track temperature and pressure structures in the atmosphere for weather predictions, or monitor the air quality. Discriminating different species is easier at higher spectral resolution when the spectral lines are clearly resolved. The need to do this at high spatial resolution and over large fields of view leads to a trade-off between spectral and spatial resolution and spectral bandwidth. We propose to use a highly multiplexed Bragg grating that can optically combine the relevant information from the spectrum without the need to disperse the whole spectrum. This allows us to circumvent the spatial and spectral trade-off and therefore substantially increase the field of view compared to conventional hyperspectral imagers. A dynamic implementation based on acousto-optical filters that can be adapted on the fly is discussed as an easy and flexible way to create the multiplexed gratings. We describe the details of multiplexed Bragg gratings and show that we can retrieve the spatial distribution of individual species abundances in gas mixtures, and we show that we can even do this for the atmospheres of exoplanets orbiting far-away stars.

[Perioperative infusion therapy in children : Are infusion sets with precision flow regulators suitable for pediatric anesthesia?] / Perioperative Infusionstherapie im Kindesalter : Eignen sich Infusionssysteme mit Laufratenbeschränkung für die Kinderanästhesie?

BACKGROUND: Infusion sets with precision flow regulators are frequently used in children undergoing surgery in order to control the perioperative administration of fluids. There are no data about the safety and accuracy of these infusion sets. A study was therefore conducted to compare adjusted and actual flow rates of three different infusion sets with precision flow regulators under standardized conditions. METHODS: The study evaluated three different infusion sets with precision flow regulators each at two different static levels. The actual flow rates of 5 infusions were recorded each time for adjusted flow rates of 50 ml/h, 100 ml/h, 150 ml/h, 200 ml/h and 250 ml/h over 1 h. Statistical analysis was performed with Excel (Excel, Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA) and SOFA (Paton-Simpson and Associates Ltd., USA). The results are presented as means (standard deviation). RESULTS: For the adjusted flow rates of 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 ml/h, actual flow rates were 107 (5.3), 174.8 (6.5), 255.8 (10.2), 312.4 (15.7) and 362.6 (20.2) ml/h for the Frekadrop® infusion set at a static level of 128 cm and 83.8 (4.4), 147.8 (5.5), 197 (12.4), 257.2 (4.97) and 311.6 (17.9) ml/h at a static level of 100 cm, respectively. For the Exadrop® infusion set actual flow rates were 88.6 (6.9), 131.2 (14.1), 224.4 (14.1), 296.6 (27.6) and 330.4 (22.4) ml/h at a static level of 128 cm and 54 (4), 82.4 (10.2), 138.8 (15.7), 209.4 (36.8) and 249 (12) ml/h at a static level of 76 cm, respectively. For the D-Flo infusion set actual flow rates were 95.6 (2.8), 167.6 (29), 217.8 (9.9), 281.6 (10.6) and 396.8 (37.5) ml/h at a static level of 128 cm and 69.2 (4.4), 110.2 (12.6), 169.2 (6), 205.2 (14) and 243 (15.9) ml/h at a static level of 80 cm, respectively. CONCLUSION: The actual flow rates differed considerably from the adjusted flow rates in the evaluated infusion sets. The flow rates substantially depended on the static level of the infusion. First and foremost, regulation of the administered infusion volume does not seem to be reliable when using an infusion set with a precision flow regulator.