ALBERT

Description: We developed an iPad-based application to administer an HIV risk assessment tool in a clinical setting. We conducted focus group discussions (FGDs) with gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) to assess their opinions about using such a device to share risk behavior information in a clinical setting. Participants were asked about their current assessment of their risk or any risk reduction strategies that they discussed with their healthcare providers. Participants were then asked to provide feedback about the iPad-based risk assessment, their opinions about using it in a clinic setting, and suggestions on how the assessment could be improved. FGD participants were generally receptive to the idea of using an iPad-based risk assessment during healthcare visits. Based on the results of the FGDs, an iPad-based risk assessment is a promising method for identifying those patients at highest risk for HIV transmission.

Description: To respond to the need for new HIV prevention services for men who have sex with men (MSM) in the United States, and to respond to new data on the key role of main partnerships in US MSM epidemics, we sought to develop a new service for joint HIV testing of male couples. We used the ADAPT-ITT framework to guide our work. From May 2009 to July 2013, a multiphase process was undertaken to identify an appropriate service as the basis for adaptation, collect data to inform the adaptation, adapt the testing service, develop training materials, test the adapted service, and scale up and evaluate the initial version of the service. We chose to base our adaptation on an African couples HIV testing service that was developed in the 1980s and has been widely disseminated in low- and middle-income countries. Our adaptation was informed by qualitative data collections from MSM and HIV counselors, multiple online surveys of MSM, information gathering from key stakeholders, and theater testing of the adapted service with MSM and HIV counselors. Results of initial testing indicate that the adapted service is highly acceptable to MSM and to HIV counselors, that there are no evident harms (e.g., intimate partner violence, relationship dissolution) associated with the service, and that the service identifies a substantial number of HIV serodiscordant male couples. The story of the development and scale-up of the adapted service illustrates how multiple public and foundation funding sources can collaborate to bring a prevention adaptation from concept to public health application, touching on research, program evaluation, implementation science, and public health program delivery. The result of this process is an adapted couples HIV testing approach, with training materials and handoff from academic partners to public health for assessment of effectiveness and consideration of the potential benefits of implementation; further work is needed to optimally adapt the African couples testing service for use with male-female couples in the United States.

Description: Article B-Raf is mutated in many melanomas but treatment of the disease with small molecules targeting the mutant protein often results in tumour resistance. Here, the authors show that mixed lineage kinases (MLK1-4) can reactivate the B-Raf signalling pathway in the presence of inhibitors, resulting in drug resistance. Nature Communications doi: 10.1038/ncomms4901 Authors: Anna A. Marusiak, Zoe C. Edwards, Willy Hugo, Eleanor W. Trotter, Maria R. Girotti, Natalie L. Stephenson, Xiangju Kong, Michael G. Gartside, Shameem Fawdar, Andrew Hudson, Wolfgang Breitwieser, Nicholas K. Hayward, Richard Marais, Roger S. Lo, John Brognard

Description: Article Fluorine-18 containing molecules are important for PET imaging, but due to the short half-life it is necessary to develop rapid methods for its introduction. Here, the authors use spirocyclic iodine(III) precursors, allowing direct 18F labelling of highly functionalized non-activated arenes and PET radiopharmaceuticals. Nature Communications doi: 10.1038/ncomms5365 Authors: Benjamin H. Rotstein, Nickeisha A. Stephenson, Neil Vasdev, Steven H. Liang

Description: Article Atom probe tomography is known to be an important tool for probing atomic-scale chemical distribution in various materials. Now, Moody and colleagues demonstrate an approach by which atom probe data can be used to directly inform first-principles calculations, for the determination of local properties. Nature Communications doi: 10.1038/ncomms6501 Authors: Michael P. Moody, Anna V. Ceguerra, Andrew J. Breen, Xiang Yuan Cui, Baptiste Gault, Leigh T. Stephenson, Ross K. W. Marceau, Rebecca C. Powles, Simon P. Ringer

Description: Nature Materials 13, 954 (2014). doi:10.1038/nmat4035 Authors: Linjiang Chen, Paul S. Reiss, Samantha Y. Chong, Daniel Holden, Kim E. Jelfs, Tom Hasell, Marc A. Little, Adam Kewley, Michael E. Briggs, Andrew Stephenson, K. Mark Thomas, Jayne A. Armstrong, Jon Bell, Jose Busto, Raymond Noel, Jian Liu, Denis M. Strachan, Praveen K. Thallapally & Andrew I. Cooper

Description: Forests are major components of the global carbon cycle, providing substantial feedback to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Our ability to understand and predict changes in the forest carbon cycle--particularly net primary productivity and carbon storage--increasingly relies on models that represent biological processes across several scales of biological organization, from tree leaves to forest stands. Yet, despite advances in our understanding of productivity at the scales of leaves and stands, no consensus exists about the nature of productivity at the scale of the individual tree, in part because we lack a broad empirical assessment of whether rates of absolute tree mass growth (and thus carbon accumulation) decrease, remain constant, or increase as trees increase in size and age. Here we present a global analysis of 403 tropical and temperate tree species, showing that for most species mass growth rate increases continuously with tree size. Thus, large, old trees do not act simply as senescent carbon reservoirs but actively fix large amounts of carbon compared to smaller trees; at the extreme, a single big tree can add the same amount of carbon to the forest within a year as is contained in an entire mid-sized tree. The apparent paradoxes of individual tree growth increasing with tree size despite declining leaf-level and stand-level productivity can be explained, respectively, by increases in a tree's total leaf area that outpace declines in productivity per unit of leaf area and, among other factors, age-related reductions in population density. Our results resolve conflicting assumptions about the nature of tree growth, inform efforts to undertand and model forest carbon dynamics, and have additional implications for theories of resource allocation and plant senescence.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Stephenson, N L -- Das, A J -- Condit, R -- Russo, S E -- Baker, P J -- Beckman, N G -- Coomes, D A -- Lines, E R -- Morris, W K -- Ruger, N -- Alvarez, E -- Blundo, C -- Bunyavejchewin, S -- Chuyong, G -- Davies, S J -- Duque, A -- Ewango, C N -- Flores, O -- Franklin, J F -- Grau, H R -- Hao, Z -- Harmon, M E -- Hubbell, S P -- Kenfack, D -- Lin, Y -- Makana, J-R -- Malizia, A -- Malizia, L R -- Pabst, R J -- Pongpattananurak, N -- Su, S-H -- Sun, I-F -- Tan, S -- Thomas, D -- van Mantgem, P J -- Wang, X -- Wiser, S K -- Zavala, M A -- England -- Nature. 2014 Mar 6;507(7490):90-3. doi: 10.1038/nature12914. Epub 2014 Jan 15.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉US Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Three Rivers, California 93271, USA. ; Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Republic of Panama. ; School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588, USA. ; Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3121, Australia. ; 1] School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588, USA [2] Mathematical Biosciences Institute, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA (N.G.B.); German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany (N.R.). ; Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EA, UK. ; Department of Geography, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK. ; School of Botany, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. ; 1] Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Republic of Panama [2] Spezielle Botanik und Funktionelle Biodiversitat, Universitat Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany [3] Mathematical Biosciences Institute, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA (N.G.B.); German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany (N.R.). ; Jardin Botanico de Medellin, Calle 73, No. 51D-14, Medellin, Colombia. ; Instituto de Ecologia Regional, Universidad Nacional de Tucuman, 4107 Yerba Buena, Tucuman, Argentina. ; Research Office, Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, Bangkok 10900, Thailand. ; Department of Botany and Plant Physiology, Buea, Southwest Province, Cameroon. ; Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory-Center for Tropical Forest Science, Smithsonian Institution, PO Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013, USA. ; Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Departamento de Ciencias Forestales, Medellin, Colombia. ; Wildlife Conservation Society, Kinshasa/Gombe, Democratic Republic of the Congo. ; Unite Mixte de Recherche-Peuplements Vegetaux et Bioagresseurs en Milieu Tropical, Universite de la Reunion/CIRAD, 97410 Saint Pierre, France. ; School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. ; State Key Laboratory of Forest and Soil Ecology, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110164, China. ; Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331, USA. ; 1] Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Balboa, Republic of Panama [2] Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA. ; Department of Life Science, Tunghai University, Taichung City 40704, Taiwan. ; Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias, Universidad Nacional de Jujuy, 4600 San Salvador de Jujuy, Argentina. ; Faculty of Forestry, Kasetsart University, ChatuChak Bangkok 10900, Thailand. ; Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, Taipei 10066, Taiwan. ; Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, National Dong Hwa University, Hualien 97401, Taiwan. ; Sarawak Forestry Department, Kuching, Sarawak 93660, Malaysia. ; Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331, USA. ; US Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Arcata, California 95521, USA. ; Landcare Research, PO Box 40, Lincoln 7640, New Zealand. ; Forest Ecology and Restoration Group, Department of Life Sciences, University of Alcala, Alcala de Henares, 28805 Madrid, Spain.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24429523" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: 〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Stephenson, Brian -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 May 2;344(6183):470. doi: 10.1126/science.344.6183.470-a.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Director, Advanced Photon Source, Associate Laboratory Director for Photon Sciences, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24786062" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: N/A (correction article)