Nicotine treatment decreases food intake and body weight via a leptin-independent pathway in Psammomys obesus

It has been reported previously that leptin may be involved in nicotine\u27s ability to reduce body weight. Our aim was to investigate whether the anorexic action of nicotine is related to the actions of leptin by utilizing lean leptin-sensitive and obese leptin-resistant Psammomys obesus. Lean and obese P. obesus were assigned to receive nicotine sulphate at 6, 9 or 12 mg/day or saline (control) for 9 days (n = 6-10 in each group), administered using mini-osmotic pumps. Food intake, body weight, plasma leptin concentrations, plasma insulin and blood glucose were measured at baseline and throughout the study period. Nicotine treatment reduced food intake by up to 40% in lean and obese P. obesus. Plasma leptin levels fell significantly only in lean nicotine-treated animals, whereas no changes were observed in obese nicotine-treated animals. However, both lean and obese nicotine-treated animals had similar reductions in body weight. Our results show that nicotine has dramatic effects on food intake and body weight, however, these changes appear to be independent of the leptin signalling pathway.<br /

Perceptions of Political Violence

Recently, political violence in the United States has been an increasingly salient public issue. Previous statistical connections have been made between low yearly income, low education, and right-wing political affiliation to a higher acceptance of political violence (Jasko et al., 2022). Using a dataset published through Harvard, this study aims to address the white population and their beliefs regarding current issues. The dataset was previously assembled by researchers studying the connection of people’s faith to political tendencies. Data is currently being analyzed and results will be presented at BURS

LHCb Data Management on the Computing Grid

The LHCb detector is one of the four experiments being built to harness the proton-proton collisions provided by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). The data rate expected, when the LHC experiments are fully operational, eclipses that of any previous scientific experiments and has motivated the adoption of a grid computing paradigm to store and process the data. Managing PetaBytes of data in a distributed environment provides a rich set of challenges related to scalability, reliability and performance. This thesis will present the data management requirements for executing the workload of the LHCb collab- oration. We present the systems designed that support all aspects of the grid data management for LHCb, from data transfer, to data integrity, and efficient data access. The distributed computing environment is inherently unstable and much focus has been made on providing systems that are ro- bust and resilient to observed failures

Suppressive actions of eicosapentaenoic acid on lipid droplet formation in 3T3-L1 adipocytes

Background : Lipid droplet (LD) formation and size regulation reflects both lipid influx and efflux, and is central in the regulation of adipocyte metabolism, including adipokine secretion. The length and degree of dietary fatty acid (FA) unsaturation is implicated in LD formation and regulation in adipocytes. The aims of this study were to establish the impact of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA; C20:5n-3) in comparison to SFA (STA; stearic acid, C18:0) and MUFA (OLA; oleic acid, C18:1n-9) on 3T3-L1 adipocyte LD formation, regulation of genes central to LD function and adipokine responsiveness. Cells were supplemented with 100 &mu;M FA during 7-day differentiation.Results : EPA markedly reduced LD size and total lipid accumulation, suppressing PPAR&gamma;, Cidea and D9D/SCD1 genes, distinct from other treatments. These changes were independent of alterations of lipolytic genes, as both EPA and STA similarly elevated LPL and HSL gene expressions. In response to acute lipopolysaccharide exposure, EPA-differentiated adipocytes had distinct improvement in inflammatory response shown by reduction in monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 and interleukin-6 and elevation in adiponectin and leptin gene expressions.Conclusions : This study demonstrates that EPA differentially modulates adipogenesis and lipid accumulation to suppress LD formation and size. This may be due to suppressed gene expression of key proteins closely associated with LD function. Further analysis is required to determine if EPA exerts a similar influence on LD formation and regulation in-vivo.<br /

Functional dairy protein supplements for elite athletes

Elite athletes require a greater dietary protein intake than recreationally active people to maintain optimal muscular function. The timing of protein ingestion relative to exercise is critical to maximizing its physiological impact on skeletal muscles. Sports protein supplements provide a convenient means of supplying athletes with an adequate and timely source of quality dietary protein. There is now strong evidence that not all dietary proteins are equipotent in their effects on various aspects of athletic performance and specific protein isolates can provide benefits to athletes beyond simple supply of nutritional amino acids. Thus, there is an opportunity to develop new functional protein supplements to maximize athletic performance. This paper outlines the clinical evidence for the benefits of dairy proteins in sports performance and describes the development of new dairy protein supplements to build muscle strength, and to expedite recovery of strength following muscle-damaging eccentric exercise.<br /

Effect of ageing and exercise training on myokine expression responses to acute exercise

Age-related muscle loss is a major contributor to falls, fraility and mortality. It has been widely suggested that chronic, age-related inflammation contributes to the gradual loss of skeletal muscle mass that occurs with ageing. Indeed, ageing is associated with elevations in a number of circulating inflammatory proteins, many of which have detrimental effects on skeletal muscle growth and protein balance. Exercise training has been shown to reduce chronic inflammation and, therefore, may represent an appropriate means to reduce age-related inflammation and counteract sarcopenia. Yet few studies have evaluated the effect of aging on skeletal muscle expression of inflammatory proteins and the effect of acute and repeated exercise on these factors. The aim of the current study was to determine the effect of 12 weeks of resistance exercise training on the levels of myokines within skeletal muscle, both at rest and following an acute bout of exercise and to examine how these responses may vary in young and older subjects, thus evaluating the potential for exercise to reduce age-related muscle inflammation. Six healthy young (aged 18-25 years) and 8 healthy older men (aged 60-75 years) completed 12 weeks of resistance exercise training. Muscle biopsies were collected before and 2 h after an acute exercise bout at the beginning and the end of the 12 week training period. Muscle tissue was analyzed for the expression of key inflammatory (MCP-1, IL-8, IL-6 and TNF-α) and anti-inflammatory cytokines (IL-10, IL-13 and IL-4) via bead-based multiplex analysis. Acute exercise increased the expression of inflammatory myokines, while anti-inflammatory myokines remained unchanged. In contrast to the hypothesis for this study, neither age nor training had a significant effect on the expression of myokines within skeletal muscle either in the resting state or 2 hours following exercise. However, older individuals displayed an increased inflammatory response to exercise prior to training when compared to younger individuals. Twelve weeks of resistance exercise training appeared to normalize this difference. Given the variability in myokine levels between individuals and the small subject number in the current study, further research is required to confirm this findin

The blending region hybrid framework for the simulation of stochastic reaction-diffusion processes

The simulation of stochastic reaction-diffusion systems using fine-grained representations can become computationally prohibitive when particle numbers become large. If particle numbers are sufficiently high then it may be possible to ignore stochastic fluctuations and use a more efficient coarse-grained simulation approach. Nevertheless, for multiscale systems which exhibit significant spatial variation in concentration, a coarse-grained approach may not be appropriate throughout the simulation domain. Such scenarios suggest a hybrid paradigm in which a computationally cheap, coarse-grained model is coupled to a more expensive, but more detailed fine-grained model enabling the accurate simulation of the fine-scale dynamics at a reasonable computational cost. In this paper, in order to couple two representations of reaction-diffusion at distinct spatial scales, we allow them to overlap in a "blending region". Both modelling paradigms provide a valid representation of the particle density in this region. From one end of the blending region to the other, control of the implementation of diffusion is passed from one modelling paradigm to another through the use of complementary "blending functions" which scale up or down the contribution of each model to the overall diffusion. We establish the reliability of our novel hybrid paradigm by demonstrating its simulation on four exemplar reaction-diffusion scenarios.Comment: 36 pages, 30 figure

Deriving Multiple Benefits from Carbon Market-Based Savanna Fire Management: An Australian Example

Carbon markets afford potentially useful opportunities for supporting socially and environmentally sustainable land management programs but, to date, have been little applied in globally significant fire-prone savanna settings. While fire is intrinsic to regulating the composition, structure and dynamics of savanna systems, in north Australian savannas frequent and extensive late dry season wildfires incur significant environmental, production and social impacts. Here we assess the potential of market-based savanna burning greenhouse gas emissions abatement and allied carbon biosequestration projects to deliver compatible environmental and broader socio-economic benefits in a highly biodiverse north Australian setting.Drawing on extensive regional ecological knowledge of fire regime effects on fire-vulnerable taxa and communities, we compare three fire regime metrics (seasonal fire frequency, proportion of long-unburnt vegetation, fire patch-size distribution) over a 15-year period for three national parks with an indigenously (Aboriginal) owned and managed market-based emissions abatement enterprise. Our assessment indicates improved fire management outcomes under the emissions abatement program, and mostly little change or declining outcomes on the parks. We attribute improved outcomes and putative biodiversity benefits under the abatement program to enhanced strategic management made possible by the market-based mitigation arrangement.For these same sites we estimate quanta of carbon credits that could be delivered under realistic enhanced fire management practice, using currently available and developing accredited Australian savanna burning accounting methods. We conclude that, in appropriate situations, market-based savanna burning activities can provide transformative climate change mitigation, ecosystem health, and community benefits in northern Australia, and, despite significant challenges, potentially in other fire-prone savanna settings

Genomic surveillance of 4CMenB vaccine antigenic variants among disease-causing Neisseria meningitidis isolates, United Kingdom, 2010–2016

In September 2015, 4CMenB meningococcal vaccine was introduced into the United Kingdom infant immunization program without phase 3 trial information. Understanding the effect of this program requires enhanced surveillance of invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) Neisseria meningitidis isolates and comparison with prevaccination isolates. Bexsero Antigen Sequence Types (BASTs) were used to analyze whole-genome sequences of 3,073 prevaccine IMD N. meningitidis isolates obtained during 2010−2016. Isolates exhibited 803 BASTs among 31 clonal complexes. Frequencies of antigen peptide variants were factor H binding protein 1, 13.4%; Neisserial heparin-binding antigen 2, 13.8%; Neisseria adhesin A 8, 0.8%; and Porin A-VR2:P1.4,10.9%. In 2015−16, serogroup B isolates showed the highest proportion (35.7%) of exact matches to &#62;1 Bexsero components. Serogroup W isolates showed the highest proportion (93.9%) of putatively cross-reactive variants of Bexsero antigens. Results highlighted the likely role of cross-reactive antigens. BAST surveillance of meningococcal whole-genome sequence data is rapid, scalable, and portable and enables international comparisons of isolates