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Organic aerosol formation downwind from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
A large fraction of atmospheric aerosols are derived from organic compounds with various volatilities. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) WP-3D research aircraft made airborne measurements of the gaseous and aerosol composition of air over the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that occurred from April to August 2010. A narrow plume of hydrocarbons was observed downwind of DWH that is attributed to the evaporation of fresh oil on the sea surface. A much wider plume with high concentrations of organic aerosol (>25 micrograms per cubic meter) was attributed to the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from unmeasured, less volatile hydrocarbons that were emitted from a wider area around DWH. These observations provide direct and compelling evidence for the importance of formation of SOA from less volatile hydrocarbons
The Role of Diet in the Cardiovascular Health of Childhood Cancer Survivors - A Systematic Review
This is the final version. Available on open access from MDPI via the DOI in this recordBackground: Childhood cancer survivors (CCSs) face an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). This systematic review aims to provide the first synthesis of observational and interventional studies on the relationship between diet and cardiovascular health in CCSs. Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted for studies published between 1990 and July 2023 in PubMed, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Child Development & Adolescent Studies, and Cochrane Library. Eligible studies included observational and interventional studies examining the associations or effects of dietary factors on CVD incidence, cardiac dysfunction, or CVD risk factors in CCSs diagnosed before age 25 years. Results: Ten studies met the inclusion criteria (nine observational and one interventional). Collectively, they comprised 3485 CCSs (male, 1734; female, 1751). The outcomes examined across observational studies included characteristics of obesity, diabetes biomarkers, hypertension indicators, dyslipidaemia biomarkers, and metabolic syndrome. The evidence suggested that greater adherence to healthy diets was associated with lower body mass index, blood pressure, glucose, and triglycerides and higher high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. The 12-week lifestyle intervention study in childhood leukaemia survivors found no impact on obesity indicators. Conclusion: The review results indicate the potentially protective effects of healthy diets. However, the available research remains preliminary and limited, underscoring the need for more rigorous, adequately powered studies.China Scholarship CouncilStiftung fĂŒr krebskranke Kinder, Regio BasiliensisUniversity of Basel Research Fund for Excellent Junior Researcher
The Readability of Information and Consent Forms in Clinical Research in France
BACKGROUND: Quantitative tools have been developed to evaluate the readability of written documents and have been used in several studies to evaluate information and consent forms. These studies all showed that such documents had a low level of readability. Our objective is to evaluate the readability of Information and Consent Forms (ICFs) used in clinical research. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Clinical research protocols were collected from four public clinical research centers in France. Readability was evaluated based on three criteria: the presence of an illustration, the length of the text and its Flesch score. Potential effects of protocol characteristics on the length and readability of the ICFs were determined. Medical and statutory parts of the ICF form were analyzed separately. The readability of these documents was compared with that of everyday contracts, press articles, literary extracts and political speeches. We included 209 protocols and the corresponding 275 ICFs. The median length was 1304 words. Their Flesch readability scores were low (median: 24), and only about half that of selected press articles. ICF s for industrially sponsored and randomized protocols were the longest and had the highest readability scores. More than half (52%) of the text in ICFs concerned medical information, and this information was statistically (p<0.05) more readable (Flesch: 28) than statutory information (Flesch: 21). CONCLUSION: Regardless of the field of research, the ICFs for protocols included had poor readability scores. However, a prospective analysis of this test in French should be carried out before it is put into general use
A frequentist framework of inductive reasoning
Reacting against the limitation of statistics to decision procedures, R. A.
Fisher proposed for inductive reasoning the use of the fiducial distribution, a
parameter-space distribution of epistemological probability transferred
directly from limiting relative frequencies rather than computed according to
the Bayes update rule. The proposal is developed as follows using the
confidence measure of a scalar parameter of interest. (With the restriction to
one-dimensional parameter space, a confidence measure is essentially a fiducial
probability distribution free of complications involving ancillary statistics.)
A betting game establishes a sense in which confidence measures are the only
reliable inferential probability distributions. The equality between the
probabilities encoded in a confidence measure and the coverage rates of the
corresponding confidence intervals ensures that the measure's rule for
assigning confidence levels to hypotheses is uniquely minimax in the game.
Although a confidence measure can be computed without any prior distribution,
previous knowledge can be incorporated into confidence-based reasoning. To
adjust a p-value or confidence interval for prior information, the confidence
measure from the observed data can be combined with one or more independent
confidence measures representing previous agent opinion. (The former confidence
measure may correspond to a posterior distribution with frequentist matching of
coverage probabilities.) The representation of subjective knowledge in terms of
confidence measures rather than prior probability distributions preserves
approximate frequentist validity.Comment: major revisio
A comprehensive RNA-Seq-based gene expression atlas of the summer squash (Cucurbita pepo) provides insights into fruit morphology and ripening mechanisms
Background: Summer squash (Cucurbita pepo: Cucurbitaceae) are a popular horticultural crop for which there is insufficient genomic and transcriptomic information. Gene expression atlases are crucial for the identification of genes expressed in different tissues at various plant developmental stages. Here, we present the first comprehensive gene expression atlas for a summer squash cultivar, including transcripts obtained from seeds, shoots, leaf stem, young and developed leaves, male and female flowers, fruits of seven developmental stages, as well as primary and lateral roots. Results: In total, 27,868 genes and 2352 novel transcripts were annotated from these 16 tissues, with over 18,000 genes common to all tissue groups. Of these, 3812 were identified as housekeeping genes, half of which assigned to known gene ontologies. Flowers, seeds, and young fruits had the largest number of specific genes, whilst intermediate-age fruits the fewest. There also were genes that were differentially expressed in the various tissues, the male flower being the tissue with the most differentially expressed genes in pair-wise comparisons with the remaining tissues, and the leaf stem the least. The largest expression change during fruit development was early on, from female flower to fruit two days after pollination. A weighted correlation network analysis performed on the global gene expression dataset assigned 25,413 genes to 24 coexpression groups, and some of these groups exhibited strong tissue specificity. Conclusions: These findings enrich our understanding about the transcriptomic events associated with summer squash development and ripening. This comprehensive gene expression atlas is expected not only to provide a global view of gene expression patterns in all major tissues in C. pepo but to also serve as a valuable resource for functional genomics and gene discovery in Cucurbitaceae
Relevance of the Diversity among Members of the Trypanosoma Cruzi Trans-Sialidase Family Analyzed with Camelids Single-Domain Antibodies
The sialic acid present in the protective surface mucin coat of
Trypanosoma cruzi is added by a membrane anchored
trans-sialidase (TcTS), a modified sialidase that is expressed from a large gene
family. In this work, we analyzed single domain camelid antibodies produced
against trans-sialidase. Llamas were immunized with a recombinant
trans-sialidase and inhibitory single-domain antibody fragments were obtained by
phage display selection, taking advantage of a screening strategy using an
inhibition test instead of the classic binding assay. Four single domain
antibodies displaying strong trans-sialidase inhibition activity against the
recombinant enzyme were identified. They share the same
complementarity-determining region 3 length (17 residues) and have very similar
sequences. This result indicates that they likely derived from a unique clone.
Probably there is only one structural solution for tight binding inhibitory
antibodies against the TcTS used for immunization. To our surprise, this single
domain antibody that inhibits the recombinant TcTS, failed to inhibit the
enzymatic activity present in parasite extracts. Analysis of individual
recombinant trans-sialidases showed that enzymes expressed from different genes
were inhibited to different extents (from 8 to 98%) by the llama
antibodies. Amino acid changes at key positions are likely to be responsible for
the differences in inhibition found among the recombinant enzymes. These results
suggest that the presence of a large and diverse trans-sialidase family might be
required to prevent the inhibitory response against this essential enzyme and
might thus constitute a novel strategy of T. cruzi to evade the
host immune system
Impact damage and CAI strength of a woven CFRP material with fire retardant properties
This paper presents the interrogation of low velocity impact and compression after impact test results on a woven fibre composite having a fire retardant, syntactic core, two phase epoxy matrix. The results of the study were to be utilized in a decision making process regarding the appropriateness of the material usage in question for a certain aerospace application. The epoxy matrix of the material system had dispersed black-pigmented particles with flame-retarding properties. Impact tests were performed at five impact energy levels. Two different laminate layup configurations were tested. Visual and C-Scan inspection were conducted, in order to observe the extent of the damage in the composite material. Compression tests were performed to study the residual strength after impact. Analytical formulation correlations with the test results presented opportunities for quantifying the interfacial fracture toughness resistance. Micro-graphs of the specimen's cross section were also produced in an effort to observe the fractured sections and characterise the various fracture mechanisms involved. The results exploitation in terms of design decision making are presented
Rapid and sensitive real-time assay for the detection of respiratory syncytial virus using RT-SIBAÂź
Isolation and characterisation of human gingival margin-derived STRO-1/MACS+ and MACSâ cell populations
Recently, gingival margin-derived stem/progenitor cells isolated via
STRO-1/magnetic activated cell sorting (MACS) showed remarkable periodontal
regenerative potential in vivo. As a second-stage investigation, the present
study's aim was to perform in vitro characterisation and comparison of the
stem/progenitor cell characteristics of sorted STRO-1-positive (MACS+) and
STRO-1-negative (MACSâ) cell populations from the human free gingival margin.
Cells were isolated from the free gingiva using a minimally invasive technique
and were magnetically sorted using anti-STRO-1 antibodies. Subsequently, the
MACS+ and MACSâ cell fractions were characterized by flow cytometry for
expression of CD14, CD34, CD45, CD73, CD90, CD105, CD146/MUC18 and STRO-1.
Colony-forming unit (CFU) and multilineage differentiation potential were
assayed for both cell fractions. Mineralisation marker expression was examined
using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). MACS+ and MACSâ cell
fractions showed plastic adherence. MACS+ cells, in contrast to MACSâ cells,
showed all of the predefined mesenchymal stem/progenitor cell characteristics
and a significantly higher number of CFUs (P<0.01). More than 95% of MACS+
cells expressed CD105, CD90 and CD73; lacked the haematopoietic markers CD45,
CD34 and CD14, and expressed STRO-1 and CD146/MUC18. MACSâ cells showed a
different surface marker expression profile, with almost no expression of CD14
or STRO-1, and more than 95% of these cells expressed CD73, CD90 and
CD146/MUC18, as well as the haematopoietic markers CD34 and CD45 and CD105.
MACS+ cells could be differentiated along osteoblastic, adipocytic and
chondroblastic lineages. In contrast, MACSâ cells demonstrated slight
osteogenic potential. Unstimulated MACS+ cells showed significantly higher
expression of collagen I (P<0.05) and collagen III (P<0.01), whereas MACSâ
cells demonstrated higher expression of osteonectin (P<0.05; MannâWhitney).
The present study is the first to compare gingival MACS+ and MACSâ cell
populations demonstrating that MACS+ cells, in contrast to MACSâ cells,
harbour stem/progenitor cell characteristics. This study also validates the
effectiveness of the STRO-1/MACS+ technique for the isolation of gingival
stem/progenitor cells. Human free gingival margin-derived STRO-1/MACS+ cells
are a unique renewable source of multipotent stem/progenitor cells
Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set
We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s
using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays
in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at
production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton
collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment
at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity.
We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the
B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2,
-1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in
agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model
value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +-
0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +-
0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by
other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012
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