Promotion operator on rigged configurations of type A

Recently, the analogue of the promotion operator on crystals of type A under a generalization of the bijection of Kerov, Kirillov and Reshetikhin between crystals (or Littlewood--Richardson tableaux) and rigged configurations was proposed. In this paper, we give a proof of this conjecture. This shows in particular that the bijection between tensor products of type A_n^{(1)} crystals and (unrestricted) rigged configurations is an affine crystal isomorphism.Comment: 37 page

Revealing evolutionary constraints on proteins through sequence analysis

Statistical analysis of alignments of large numbers of protein sequences has revealed "sectors" of collectively coevolving amino acids in several protein families. Here, we show that selection acting on any functional property of a protein, represented by an additive trait, can give rise to such a sector. As an illustration of a selected trait, we consider the elastic energy of an important conformational change within an elastic network model, and we show that selection acting on this energy leads to correlations among residues. For this concrete example and more generally, we demonstrate that the main signature of functional sectors lies in the small-eigenvalue modes of the covariance matrix of the selected sequences. However, secondary signatures of these functional sectors also exist in the extensively-studied large-eigenvalue modes. Our simple, general model leads us to propose a principled method to identify functional sectors, along with the magnitudes of mutational effects, from sequence data. We further demonstrate the robustness of these functional sectors to various forms of selection, and the robustness of our approach to the identification of multiple selected traits.Comment: 37 pages, 28 figure

Effects of anesthesia on conventional and speckle tracking echocardiographic parameters in a mouse model of pressure overload

Genetically‑modified mice are widely applied in cardiovascular studies as model organisms. Echocardiography is a key tool for evaluating cardiac and hemodynamic functions in mice. The present study aimed to examine the effects of isoflurane (ISF) on conventional and speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) parameters under healthy and pathological conditions using a murine model of pressure overload. In addition, the optimal dose of ISF in the process of echocardiographic measurement, with minimum cardiac contraction depression, was investigated. Conventional echocardiographic and STE examinations were performed on 38 adult C57BL/6 male mice. The mice were divided into the following three groups: The sham (n=15); mild thoracic aortic banding (TAB; n=15); and severe TAB (n=8) groups. ISF was administered under deep anesthesia (DA; 1‑2% ISF), light anesthesia (LA; 0.5‑1% ISF) and immediately prior to the mice waking up (awake; 0‑0.5% ISF). Conventional echocardiographic parameters were preserved within the sham and mild TAB groups (P>0.05 for each parameter) under LA and awake conditions. However, under DA conditions, the majority of these parameters were reduced compared with the LA and awake conditions (P<0.05). In the severe TAB group, conventional echocardiographic parameters remained constant under LA, DA and awake conditions. STE parameters in the groups remained similar between the LA and awake conditions, but were significantly reduced under DA conditions. Therefore, conventional echocardiography and STE may be performed using LA induced with low doses of ISF, under various pathological conditions without affecting cardiac function

Testosterone : of importance in patients with dysglycemia and cardiovascular disease?

Background: Testosterone has been associated with cardiovascular (CV) health in men and women with or without diabetes. There are however conflicting results which warrant further investigations to understand if testosterone is important for prognosis, in particular in relation to diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD). To gain further insight, several aspects such as when and which testosterone fraction to assess as well as genetic variations in the androgen receptor are of interest to study. Aims: To study the role of testosterone in men and women with different levels of dysglycemia and CVD by investigating: 1. the dynamics of testosterone levels up to a year following an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in men with and without dysglycemia 2. the relation between the androgen receptor gene CAG repeat length, testosterone levels and prognosis 3. the prognostic implications of total testosterone, free testosterone and the binding protein sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) in patients with AMI compared to healthy controls as well as in men and women with dysglycemia and high CV risk Methods: Studies I and II were based on data from the GAMI study, a prospective cohort study of patients with AMI providing blood samples at four time points up to a year post-infarction, and healthy, age-matched controls. Study participants were classified as having normal (NGT) or abnormal glucose tolerance (AGT) based on oral glucose tolerance tests and followed for about 11 years for CV events, and CV and all-cause mortality; Study I comprised male patients (n=123) and controls (n=124), Study II comprised male patients (n=121) with blood samples available for DNA analyses. Studies III and IV were based on a biomarker substudy of ORIGIN which was a large, multicenter randomized controlled trial following patients with dysglycemia and high CV risk for about six years for CV events and all-cause mortality. Study III comprised all male patients (n=5 553) and Study IV all female patients (n=2 848) in the biomarker substudy. Results: In Study I, median testosterone levels were lower immediately after an AMI compared to controls at baseline (243 ng/dl vs. 380 ng/dl; p<0.01) but increased at discharge, three months and 12 months to 311, 345 and 357 ng/dl respectively. Patients with AGT had the lowest levels at the first timepoint (230 ng/dl). Total and free testosterone did not predict CV events or all-cause mortality in men with AMI but CV and all-cause mortality in controls. In Study II, contrary to the hypothesis, there was no correlation between CAG repeat length and testosterone and moreover CAG repeat length did not predict CV events or all-cause mortality. In Study III, total and free testosterone did not predict prognosis in Cox regression analyses by one standard deviation increment but low free testosterone (≤7 ng/dl) was associated with increased allcause mortality. Additionally, increasing SHBG was related to a higher risk of CV events (HR 1.07; 95% CI 1.00–1.14; p<0.03) and all-cause mortality (HR 1.13; 95% CI 1.06–1.21; p<0.01). Finally, in Study IV, total and free testosterone did not predict any outcomes in women but SHBG was related to increased all-cause mortality (HR 1.14; 95% CI 1.05-1.24; p<0.01). Conclusions: Low testosterone was common in patients hospitalized with AMI, in particular in those with AGT, but increased over time indicating that samples taken in close proximity to AMI should be interpreted with caution. In contrast to healthy controls where low total and free testosterone was predictive of prognosis, only free testosterone ≤7 ng/dl was associated with all-cause mortality in patients. This suggests that testosterone may be a mediator in CVD and prognosis rather than a traditional risk factor. The potential importance of CAG repeat length in this context was not confirmed. Interestingly, SHBG was an independent predictor for CV events and all-cause mortality in men and for all-cause mortality in women with dysglycemia. This warrants further study to clarify whether the actions of SHBG are mediated through an impact on the distribution of testosterone or if SHBG is a direct prognostic marker

Linear Enamel Hypoplasias in Hasanlu: a Survey

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the presence of LEH in the Hasanlu and Dinkha Tepe collection, compare the LEH presence between the two collections and between the two areas of the Hasanlu site, High Mound and Lower Mound. The overall questions to be answered were what linear enamel hypoplasia prevalence exists, if there was a difference in linear enamel hypoplasia prevalence between sites and if that difference was significant enough to signal phenomena that shapes systemic health status. Every tooth to each individual in the collection was macroscopically surveyed to look for the presence of linear enamel hypoplasia. If present the LEH lines were measured with a Mitutyo needle nosed caliper and recorded. Only teeth with matching LEH were said to have LEH. The LEH prevalence was found to be 54.2% in High Mound Period IVB, 68.9% in Lower Mound, 80% in High Mound Period IIIl, 59.4% in Dinkha Tepe, and 64% overall. The significance of the LEH numbers was determined with a chi-square test, and it was found that there was no statistically significant difference between sites. Statistical significance was found for the Lower Mound age and sex distribution

Effects of Self-Efficacy on Transfer of Cross-Cultural Training and Expatriate Performance

The presented study focused on the effect of self-efficacy, as well as other selected demographic variables, on the transfer of cross-cultural training and expatriate performance. Selected independent variables include self-efficacy, expatriate tenure, level of education, gender, age, marital status, level of foreign language competency and level of formal cross-cultural experience. Expatriates employed by multinational company that were on their current assignments were selected to be the studied sample. The design of this study employed a quantitative research method. A survey instrument crafted specifically for this study was digitized and was made accessible for participants via the Internet. After the data was automatically collected, appropriate statistical analysis tools such as descriptive statistics, correlations of means, Analysis of Variance, and a reliability test such as Cronbach’s alpha were used for data analysis purposes. Expatriate’s perceived self-efficacy was found to interactive with the transfer of cross-cultural training (CCT). While demographic variables such as expatriate tenure, level of education, gender, age, martial status, level of foreign language competency, and level of formal cross-cultural experience were found having no correlation with the transfer of CCT, the test results show self-efficacy to have strong impact on expatriate’s performance. Based on the conclusions, a set of recommendations has been made for future researchers. Implications for HRD practitioners and multinational organizations have also been explored

Outcome of Combined Hepatocellular and Cholangiocarcinoma of the Liver

Background. The objective of this study was to examine the epidemiology, natural history, and prognostic factors of combined hepatocellular and cholangiocarcinoma (cHCC-CC) using population-based registry. Methods. The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program database (1973–2004) was used to identify cases of cHCC-CC. Multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate factors associated with cancer-directed surgery (CDS). The influence of CDS on cancer specific survival was evaluated using Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox proportional hazards modeling. Results. A total of 380 cases of cHCC-CC were identified, which account for approximately 0.87% of primary liver tumors. Of all patients, 69.8% of patients had regional or distant stage; 65.6% of patients had poorly or undifferentiated histology. Only 44.9% of patients with localized disease, received CDS. By logistic regression analysis, being widowed, advanced stage, and earlier diagnosis year were associated with lower rate of utilization of CDS. In multivariate analysis, tumor stage, receipt of CDS, and recent year of diagnosis were found to be significant predictors for cancer-specific survival. Conclusions. Patients with localized cHCC-CC who are selected for CDS were strongly associated with improved survival. However, many patients with localized tumors did not receive potentially curative cancer-directed surgery. Further study is warranted to address the barriers to the delivery of appropriate care to these patients