Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

A decrease in the abundance and biodiversity of intestinal bacteria within the dominant phylum Firmicutes has been observed repeatedly in Crohn disease (CD) patients. In this study, we determined the composition of the mucosa-associated microbiota of CD patients at the time of surgical resection and 6 months later using FISH analysis. We found that a reduction of a major member of Firmicutes, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, is associated with a higher risk of postoperative recurrence of ileal CD. A lower proportion of F. prausnitzii on resected ileal Crohn mucosa also was associated with endoscopic recurrence at 6 months. To evaluate the immunomodulatory properties of F. prausnitzii we analyzed the anti-inflammatory effects of F. prausnitzii in both in vitro (cellular models) and in vivo [2,4,6-trinitrobenzenesulphonic acid (TNBS)-induced] colitis in mice. In Caco-2 cells transfected with a reporter gene for NF-kappaB activity, F. prausnitzii had no effect on IL-1beta-induced NF-kappaB activity, whereas the supernatant abolished it. In vitro peripheral blood mononuclear cell stimulation by F. prausnitzii led to significantly lower IL-12 and IFN-gamma production levels and higher secretion of IL-10. Oral administration of either live F. prausnitzii or its supernatant markedly reduced the severity of TNBS colitis and tended to correct the dysbiosis associated with TNBS colitis, as demonstrated by real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) analysis. F. prausnitzii exhibits anti-inflammatory effects on cellular and TNBS colitis models, partly due to secreted metabolites able to block NF-kappaB activation and IL-8 production. These results suggest that counterbalancing dysbiosis using F. prausnitzii as a probiotic is a promising strategy in CD treatment.

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Faecalibacterium prausnitzii is an anti-inflammatory commensal bacterium identified by gut microbiota analysis of Crohn disease patients

Clinical epidemiology of inflammatory bowel disease: incidence, prevalence, and environmental influences

Earnings Management and Investor Protection: An International Comparison

The received wisdom tells us that the rigidity and inflexibility of European job markets relative to that in the United States is the reason why Europe has high unemployment. This paper argues that this broad brush analysis is simply too vague to be useful. Indeed it is probably positively misleading. Many labor market institutions that conventionally come under the heading of rigidities have no observable impact on unemployment and may otherwise serve a useful purpose.

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Unemployment and Labor Market Rigidities: Europe versus North America

The nature of the contact between the orthotectonic (late Pre-cambrian to Cambrian) and the paratectonic (Ordovician and Silurian) Caledonides has long been a source of discussion. In western Ireland this junction occurs in a complex zone which crops out along the southern shores of Clew Bay, County Mayo, where Dalradian (Middle Cambrian) and Ordovician (Arenig) rocks are separated by a pre-Silurian rock unit termed the Deer Park Complex1 (Fig. 1). The complex contains both meta-sedimentary and meta-igneous rocks and has been variously interpreted as representing a pre-Caledonian basement ridge1, an imbricate thrust zone2 related to the development of a major fault system, the Fair Head–Clew Bay line3 or an Arenig ophiolite4. We report here geological, geochemical and geophy-sical studies on the Deer Park Complex which indicate that it is a northerly dipping melange unit containing the components of a dismembered ophiolite. These findings imply a source of ophiolitic rocks to the north possibly within the orthotectonic Caledonides.

Ophiolitic mélange separates ortho- and para-tectonic Caledonides in western Ireland

SUMMARY Based on new palaeomagnetic results from the North Norwegian Caledonides, we propose new apparent polar wander paths for Baltica during the Early-Mid Palaeozoic and discuss their palaeogeographic implications. In Cambrian and Early Ordovician times, Baltica occupied southerly latitudes of the order of 30" to SO", but was 'inverted' with respect to its present orientation. Consequently, the Russian Platform faced Avalonia and Gondwana, the latter continent occupying high southerly latitudes. Closure of the Tornquist Sea was then accompanied by continental scale, anticlockwise rotation of Baltica relative to Avalonia. This rotation probably occurred during mid-Ordovician times, although as yet, the timing of final suturing is poorly constrained by available palaeomagnetic data. At this time Laurentia occupied an equatorial position. Baltica then moved northwards in Late Ordovician and Silurian times, and subsequently collided obliquely with Laurentia to produce the Mid-Silurian to Early Devonian Scandian Orogeny . Oblique convergence set up sinistral orogen-parallel shear zones, on which major movements ceased by Late Silurian times. After amalgamation, Baltica and Laurentia occupied equatorial to tropical southerly latitudes. Reconstructions for the Siluro-Devonian boundary are now relatively straightforward. Euramerica was assembled by that time, and occupied equatorial (N. Baltica) to high (c. 60") southerly latitudes (S. Laurentia) prior to northerly movement and the final assembly of Pangea.

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On the palaeogeography of Baltica during the Palaeozoic: new palaeomagnetic data from the Scandinavian Caledonides

The westward continuation of the Highland Border fault of Scotland (HBFZ) into Ireland is problematic. It is widely thought to follow a pronounced magnetic and gravity lineament, the Fair Head-Clew Bay Line (FCL). The advantage of this interpretation is that it places all the Ordovician ophiolitic complexes and associated sedimentary basins to the south of the FCL, which would represent the contact between Laurentia and the outboard terranes. Its main shortcomings are that both the deep structure and timing of strike-slip are different on the HBFZ and FCL. In Ireland the FCL is a north-dipping feature that can be traced to the Moho on BIRPS profiles, while the HBFZ has no such signature. Terrane amalgamation in western Ireland was completed by the late Ordovician, while in Scotland the Midland Valley terrane did not finally dock until the early Devonian. These considerations suggest that in western Ireland a branch of the HBFZ exists, which was active in post-Ordovician time and must lie south of Connemara. An examination of Irish geological, geophysical and image-processed magnetic data shows that a profound lineament can be traced from Antrim to Galway Bay (the Antrim–Galway Line). Stitching plutons date movement on it as pre-405 Ma. We propose that the Antrim–Galway Line represents the continuation of the Scottish HBFZ, while the FCL is a preserved Ordovician splay of the HBFZ system whose northdipping geometry is a product of Ordovician collapse of the orogen in western Ireland.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0016756800011730

The Antrim–Galway Line: a resolution of the Highland Border Fault enigma of the Caledonides of Britain and Ireland

Recent paleomagnetic data and existing paleontological evidence show that Baltica occupied temperate southern latitudes during Cambrian and Early Ordovician time, but was inverted with reference to its present orientation Hence the currently opposed margins of the Baltic and Laurentian shield were not conterminous in the early Paleozoic Laurentian and Baltic late Precambrian rifting episodes may therefore have occurred along unrelated continental margins Closure of the Tornquist sea was accompanied by the counterclockwise rotation of Baltica relative to Avalonia in Early to Middle Ordovician time This rotation, initiated in Late Cambrian-Early Ordovician time, was coeval with the Finnmarkian orogeny in the northern Scandinavian Caledonides

Cambrian-Ordovician paleogeography of Baltica

The Wilson Cycle, the repeated opening and closing of oceans, commonly along roughly the same lines, is here attributed to the presence of eclogite-facies roots of partially collapsed orogens. We present a finite-element thermal model that suggests that such roots will weaken the orogenic lithosphere relative to that of the adjacent foreland for hundreds of millions of years and make it a preferred site for later rifting.

Paul Ryan

Papers

Ophiolitic mélange separates ortho- and para-tectonic Caledonides in western Ireland

On the palaeogeography of Baltica during the Palaeozoic: new palaeomagnetic data from the Scandinavian Caledonides

The Antrim–Galway Line: a resolution of the Highland Border Fault enigma of the Caledonides of Britain and Ireland

Cambrian-Ordovician paleogeography of Baltica

Continental eclogites and the Wilson Cycle