Shelf-ocean exchange and hydrography west of the Antarctic Peninsula: A review

The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is a highly productive marine ecosystem where extended periods of change have been observed in the form of glacier retreat, reduction of sea-ice cover and shifts in marine populations, among others. The physical environment on the shelf is known to be strongly influenced by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flowing along the shelf slope and carrying warm, nutrient-rich water, by cold waters flooding into the northern Bransfield Strait from the Weddell Sea, by an extensive network of glaciers and ice shelves, and by strong seasonal to inter-annual variability in sea-ice formation and air–sea interactions, with significant modulation by climate modes like El Niño–Southern Oscillation and the Southern Annular Mode. However, significant gaps have remained in understanding the exchange processes between the open ocean and the shelf, the pathways and fate of oceanic water intrusions, the shelf heat and salt budgets, and the long-term evolution of the shelf properties and circulation. Here, we review how recent advances in long-term monitoring programmes, process studies and newly developed numerical models have helped bridge these gaps and set future research challenges for the WAP system

Thermal adaptation and clinal mitochondrial DNA variation of European anchovy

Natural populations of widely distributed organisms often exhibit genetic clinal variation over their geographical ranges. The European anchovy, Engraulis encrasicolus, illustrates this by displaying a two-clade mitochondrial structure clinally arranged along the eastern Atlantic. One clade has low frequencies at higher latitudes, whereas the other has an anti-tropical distribution, with frequencies decreasing towards the tropics. The distribution pattern of these clades has been explained as a consequence of secondary contact after an ancient geographical isolation. However, it is not unlikely that selection acts on mitochondria whose genes are involved in relevant oxidative phosphorylation processes. In this study, we performed selection tests on a fragment of 1044 bp of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene using 455 individuals from 18 locations. We also tested correlations of six environmental features: temperature, salinity, apparent oxygen utilization and nutrient concentrations of phosphate, nitrate and silicate, on a compilation of mitochondrial clade frequencies from 66 sampling sites comprising 2776 specimens from previously published studies. Positive selection in a single codon was detected predominantly (99%) in the anti-tropical clade and temperature was the most relevant environmental predictor, contributing with 59% of the variance in the geographical distribution of clade frequencies. These findings strongly suggest that temperature is shaping the contemporary distribution of mitochondrial DNA clade frequencies in the European anchovy.FCT [SFRH/BD/36600/2007, IF/00043/2012

Fault-Tolerant Exact State Transmission

We show that a category of one-dimensional XY-type models may enable high-fidelity quantum state transmissions, regardless of details of coupling configurations. This observation leads to a fault- tolerant design of a state transmission setup. The setup is fault-tolerant, with specified thresholds, against engineering failures of coupling configurations, fabrication imperfections or defects, and even time-dependent noises. We propose the implementation of the fault-tolerant scheme using hard-core bosons in one-dimensional optical lattices.Comment: 5 pages and 4 figure

Toward molecular trait-based ecology through integration of biogeochemical, geographical and metagenomic data

Using metagenomic ‘parts lists' to study microbial ecology remains a significant challenge. This work proposes a molecular trait-based approach to biogeography by integrating metagenomic data with external metadata and using functional community composition as readout

Developing a Critical Understanding of Smart Urbanism?

Smart urbanism is emerging at the intersection of visions for the future of urban places, new technologies and infrastructures. Smart urbanism discourses are deeply rooted in seductive and normative visions of the future where digital technology stands as the primary driver for change. Yet our understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and implications of smart urbanism is limited. Research in this field is in its infancy, fragmented along disciplinary lines and often based on single city case studies. As a result, we lack both the theoretical insight and empirical evidence required to assess the implications of this potentially transformative phenomenon. Given the significant implications of smart urbanism there is an urgent need to critically engage with why, how, for whom and with what consequences smart urbanism is emerging in different urban contexts. The aim of this review is to unpack the different logics and rationales behind smart urbanism discourses and proposals, and in this way understand the ways by which imaginaries of urban futures are currently being constructed, along with their socio-technical and political implications for future research priorities

The Holocene history of the NE Black Sea and surrounding areas: An integrated record of marine and terrestrial palaeoenvironmental change

Here we present an almost complete and integrated Holocene record of marine and terrestrial palaeoenvironmental change from the NE shelf of the Black Sea. A dinoflagellate cyst record used to reconstruct Holocene sea-surface conditions highlights that the NE shelf was a brackish water environment, with a minimum salinity of 7 psu in the early-Holocene before changing at a gradual rate to a more saline environment with maximum salinities of ~18 psu being reached around 3 cal. ka. A warming phase was detected from 6 cal. ka BP, with warmest conditions between 3 and 2.5 cal. ka BP. A pollen record is used to examine the major climate and land-use changes in the eastern Black Sea region. Biome reconstructions show that the temperate deciduous forest dominates throughout the record, although with an overall decline. From early-Holocene to the first hiatus around ~9 cal. ka BP, Pinus pollen dominates, while taxa representing a mixed oak-hornbeam-beech forest are less abundant, indicating relatively cool and dry conditions. Between ~7.9 and ~6.1 cal. ka BP, a thermophilous deciduous forest established, suggesting an overall warming trend and humid conditions. From 4 cal. ka BP, Pinus dominates the pollen record, accompanied by an increase of herbs, implying an opening of the landscape, which would coincide with the beginning of the Meghalayan Age. The integrated record of the marine and terrestrial climate indicators supports the notion that this change in landscape may have been triggered by a combination of warmer and drier conditions and human activities in this region

ACL injuries identifiable for pre-participation imagiological analysis: Risk factors

Identification of pre-participation risk factors for noncontact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries has been attracting a great deal of interest in the sports medicine and traumatology communities. Appropriate methods that enable predicting which patients could benefit from pre- ventive strategies are most welcome. This would enable athlete-specific training and conditioning or tailored equipment in order to develop appropriate strategies to reduce incidence of injury. In order to accomplish these goals, the ideal system should be able to assess both anatomic and functional features. Complementarily, the screening method must be cost-effective and suited for widespread application. Anatomic study protocol requiring only standard X rays could answer some of such demands. Dynamic MRI/CT evaluation and electronically assisted pivot-shift evaluation can be powerful tools providing complementary information. These upcoming insights, when validated and properly combined, envision changing pre-participation knee examination in the near future. Herein different methods (validated or under research) aiming to improve the capacity to identify persons/athletes with higher risk for ACL injury are overviewed.

Dramatic Repositioning of c-Myb to Different Promoters during the Cell Cycle Observed by Combining Cell Sorting with Chromatin Immunoprecipitation

The c-Myb transcription factor is a critical regulator of proliferation and stem cell differentiation, and mutated alleles of c-Myb are oncogenic, but little is known about changes in c-Myb activity during the cell cycle. To map the association of c-Myb with specific target genes during the cell cycle, we developed a novel Fix-Sort-ChIP approach, in which asynchronously growing cells were fixed with formaldehyde, stained with Hoechst 33342 and separated into different cell cycle fractions by flow sorting, then processed for chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays. We found that c-Myb actively repositions, binding to some genes only in specific cell cycle phases. In addition, the specificity of c-Myb is dramatically different in small subpopulations of cells, for example cells in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle, than in the bulk population. The repositioning of c-Myb during the cell cycle is not due to changes in its expression and also occurs with ectopically expressed, epitope-tagged versions of c-Myb. The repositioning occurs in established cell lines, in primary human CD34+ hematopoietic progenitors and in primary human acute myeloid leukemia cells. The combination of fixation, sorting and ChIP analysis sheds new light on the dynamic nature of gene regulation during the cell cycle and provides a new type of tool for the analysis of gene regulation in small subsets of cells, such as cells in a specific phase of the cell cycle

Prime–boost vaccination with plasmid and adenovirus gene vaccines control HER2/neu(+ )metastatic breast cancer in mice

INTRODUCTION: Once metastasis has occurred, the possibility of completely curing breast cancer is unlikely, particularly for the 30 to 40% of cancers overexpressing the gene for HER2/neu. A vaccine targeting p185, the protein product of the HER2/neu gene, could have therapeutic application by controlling the growth and metastasis of highly aggressive HER2/neu(+ )cells. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of two gene vaccines targeting HER2/neu in preventive and therapeutic tumor models. METHODS: The mouse breast cancer cell line A2L2, which expresses the gene for rat HER2/neu and hence p185, was injected into the mammary fat pad of mice as a model of solid tumor growth or was injected intravenously as a model of lung metastasis. SINCP-neu, a plasmid containing Sindbis virus genes and the gene for rat HER2/neu, and Adeno-neu, an E1,E2a-deleted adenovirus also containing the gene for rat HER2/neu, were tested as preventive and therapeutic vaccines. RESULTS: Vaccination with SINCP-neu or Adeno-neu before tumor challenge with A2L2 cells significantly inhibited the growth of the cells injected into the mammary fat or intravenously. Vaccination 2 days after tumor challenge with either vaccine was ineffective in both tumor models. However, therapeutic vaccination in a prime–boost protocol with SINCP-neu followed by Adeno-neu significantly prolonged the overall survival rate of mice injected intravenously with the tumor cells. Naive mice vaccinated using the same prime–boost protocol demonstrated a strong serum immunoglobulin G response and p185-specific cellular immunity, as shown by the results of ELISPOT (enzyme-linked immunospot) analysis for IFNγ. CONCLUSION: We report herein that vaccination of mice with a plasmid gene vaccine and an adenovirus gene vaccine, each containing the gene for HER2/neu, prevented growth of a HER2/neu-expressing breast cancer cell line injected into the mammary fat pad or intravenously. Sequential administration of the vaccines in a prime–boost protocol was therapeutically effective when tumor cells were injected intravenously before the vaccination. The vaccines induced high levels of both cellular and humoral immunity as determined by in vitro assessment. These findings indicate that clinical evaluation of these vaccines, particularly when used sequentially in a prime–boost protocol, is justified