Animal-based food choice and associations with long-term weight maintenance and metabolic health after a large and rapid weight loss : The PREVIEW study

Peer reviewe

Higher Protein Intake Is Not Associated with Decreased Kidney Function in Pre-Diabetic Older Adults Following a One-Year Intervention—A Preview Sub-Study

Concerns about detrimental renal effects of a high-protein intake have been raised due to an induced glomerular hyperfiltration, since this may accelerate the progression of kidney disease. The aim of this sub-study was to assess the effect of a higher intake of protein on kidney function in pre-diabetic men and women, aged 55 years and older. Analyses were based on baseline and one-year data in a sub-group of 310 participants included in the PREVIEW project (PREVention of diabetes through lifestyle Intervention and population studies in Europe and around the World). Protein intake was estimated from four-day dietary records and 24-hour urinary urea excretion. We used linear regression to assess the association between protein intake after one year of intervention and kidney function markers: creatinine clearance, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), urinary albumin/creatinine ratio (ACR), urinary urea/creatinine ratio (UCR), serum creatinine, and serum urea before and after adjustments for potential confounders. A higher protein intake was associated with a significant increase in UCR (p = 0.03) and serum urea (p = 0.05) after one year. There were no associations between increased protein intake and creatinine clearance, eGFR, ACR, or serum creatinine. We found no indication of impaired kidney function after one year with a higher protein intake in pre-diabetic older adults.Peer reviewe

Search for transient optical counterparts to high-energy IceCube neutrinos with Pan-STARRS1

In order to identify the sources of the observed diffuse high-energy neutrino flux, it is crucial to discover their electromagnetic counterparts. IceCube began releasing alerts for single high-energy ($E > 60$ TeV) neutrino detections with sky localisation regions of order 1 deg radius in 2016. We used Pan-STARRS1 to follow-up five of these alerts during 2016-2017 to search for any optical transients that may be related to the neutrinos. Typically 10-20 faint ($m < 22.5$ mag) extragalactic transients are found within the Pan-STARRS1 footprints and are generally consistent with being unrelated field supernovae (SNe) and AGN. We looked for unusual properties of the detected transients, such as temporal coincidence of explosion epoch with the IceCube timestamp. We found only one transient that had properties worthy of a specific follow-up. In the Pan-STARRS1 imaging for IceCube-160427A (probability to be of astrophysical origin of $\sim$50 %), we found a SN PS16cgx, located at 10.0' from the nominal IceCube direction. Spectroscopic observations of PS16cgx showed that it was an H-poor SN at z = 0.2895. The spectra and light curve resemble some high-energy Type Ic SNe, raising the possibility of a jet driven SN with an explosion epoch temporally coincident with the neutrino detection. However, distinguishing Type Ia and Type Ic SNe at this redshift is notoriously difficult. Based on all available data we conclude that the transient is more likely to be a Type Ia with relatively weak SiII absorption and a fairly normal rest-frame r-band light curve. If, as predicted, there is no high-energy neutrino emission from Type Ia SNe, then PS16cgx must be a random coincidence, and unrelated to the IceCube-160427A. We find no other plausible optical transient for any of the five IceCube events observed down to a 5$\sigma$ limiting magnitude of $m \sim 22$ mag, between 1 day and 25 days after detection.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, accepted to A&

FIBCD1 Binds Aspergillus fumigatus and Regulates Lung Epithelial Response to Cell Wall Components

Aspergillus fumigatus (A. fumigatus) is a ubiquitous fungus of clinical importance associated with development of various pulmonary diseases and allergic hypersensitivity reactions. It is protected against environmental stress by a cell wall that contains polysaccharides such as chitin. We previously demonstrated that fibrinogen C domain-containing protein 1 (FIBCD1) is a membrane-bound protein that binds chitin through a conserved S1 binding site and is expressed in intestinal epithelium and salivary glands. Here, we further localized FIBCD1 protein expression at the surface of bronchial and alveolar human lung epithelium, observed recognition of A. fumigatus cell wall with S1 site-independent recognition. We observed FIBCD1-mediated suppression of IL-8 secretion, mucin production, and transcription of genes associated with airway inflammation and homeostasis in FIBCD1-transfected lung epithelial cells. These modulations were generally enforced by stimulation with A. fumigatus cell wall polysaccharides. In parallel, we demonstrated a FIBCD1-mediated modulation of IL-8 secretion induced by TLR2,−4, and −5. Collectively, our findings support FIBCD1 as a human lung epithelial pattern recognition receptor that recognizes the complex A. fumigatus cell wall polysaccharides and modulates the lung epithelial inflammatory response by suppressing inflammatory mediators and mucins

One Right Answer?: The Meta Edition

Legal philosophers concerned with the nature of law have focused much of their attention to the relationships between law and morality. Much less attention has been paid to the question of the relationship between law and politics. In this essay I examine this question by comparing the way the relationship between law and politics is understood in two legal systems usually thought to be fairly similar - the American and the British. I argue, first, that this relationship is understood in fundamentally different ways in the two legal systems; second, that this difference is reflected in the legal philosophers of (British) H.L.A. Hart and (American) Ronald Dworkin; and third and most important, that these differences pose a challenge to attempts to identify the nature of law through a priori conceptual analysis. This last point depends on showing that there are different prevailing understandings of politics, and that these different understandings of politics lead, through the interaction of law with politics, to different understandings of what law is. If, plausibly, there is no right answer to the question of the nature of politics, the link between law and politics suggests there is also no right answer to the question of the nature of law. I conclude, however, on a more positive note suggesting tentatively that there might be a different way of thinking about the nature of law: not through a priori reflection on law, but through a posteriori investigation of human nature and its potential implications for law