The Financial Status of North Dakota Farmers and Ranchers: January 1, 1985, Survey Results

Agricultural Finance,

Influence of Running and Walking on Hormonal Regulators of Appetite in Women

Nine female runners and ten walkers completed a 60 min moderate-intensity (70% VO2max) run or walk, or 60 min rest in counterbalanced order. Plasma concentrations of the orexogenic peptide ghrelin, anorexogenic peptides peptide YY (PYY), glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), and appetite ratings were measured at 30 min interval for 120 min, followed by a free-choice meal. Both orexogenic and anorexogenic peptides were elevated after running, but no changes were observed after walking. Relative energy intake (adjusted for cost of exercise/rest) was negative in the meal following running (−194 ± 206 kcal) versus walking (41 ± 196 kcal) (P = 0.015), although both were suppressed (P < 0.05) compared to rest (299 ± 308 and 284 ± 121 kcal, resp.). The average rate of change in PYY and GLP-1 over time predicted appetite in runners, but only the change in GLP-1 predicted hunger (P = 0.05) in walkers. Results provide evidence that exercise-induced alterations in appetite are likely driven by complex changes in appetite-regulating hormones rather than change in a single gut peptide

No Effect of Exercise Intensity on Appetite in Highly-Trained Endurance Women

In endurance-trained men, an acute bout of exercise is shown to suppress post-exercise appetite, yet limited research has examined this response in women. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of exercise intensity on appetite and gut hormone responses in endurance-trained women. Highly-trained women (n = 15, 18–40 years, 58.4 ± 6.4 kg, VO₂ₘₐₓ = 55.2 ± 4.3 mL/kg/min) completed isocaloric bouts (500 kcals or 2093 kJ) of moderate-intensity (MIE, 60% VO2MAX) and high-intensity (HIE, 85% VO2MAX) treadmill running at the same time of day, following a similar 48-h diet/exercise period, and at least 1-week apart. Blood was drawn pre-exercise (baseline), immediately post-exercise and every 20-min for the next 60-min. Plasma concentrations of acylated ghrelin, PYY₃₋₃₆, GLP-1 and subjective appetite ratings via visual analog scale (VAS) were assessed at each time point. Acylated ghrelin decreased (p = 0.014) and PYY3–36 and GLP-1 increased (p = 0.036, p < 0.0001) immediately post-exercise, indicating appetite suppression. VAS ratings of hunger and desire to eat decreased immediately post-exercise (p = 0.0012, p = 0.0031, respectively), also indicating appetite suppression. There were no differences between exercise intensities for appetite hormones or VAS. Similar to males, post-exercise appetite regulatory hormones were altered toward suppression in highly-trained women and independent of energy cost of exercise. Results are important for female athletes striving to optimize nutrition for endurance performance

Tamm Review: Management of mixed-severity fire regime forests in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California

Increasingly, objectives for forests with moderate- or mixed-severity fire regimes are to restore successionally diverse landscapes that are resistant and resilient to current and future stressors. Maintaining native species and characteristic processes requires this successional diversity, but methods to achieve it are poorly explained in the literature. In the Inland Pacific US, large, old, early seral trees were a key historical feature of many young and old forest successional patches, especially where fires frequently occurred. Large, old trees are naturally fire-tolerant, but today are often threatened by dense understory cohorts that create fuel ladders that alter likely post-fire successional pathways. Reducing these understories can contribute to resistance by creating conditions where canopy trees will survive disturbances and climatic stressors; these survivors are important seed sources, soil protectors, and critical habitat elements. Historical timber harvesting has skewed tree size and age class distributions, created hard edges, and altered native patch sizes. Manipulating these altered forests to promote development of larger patches of older, larger, and more widely-spaced trees with diverse understories will increase landscape resistance to severe fires, and enhance wildlife habitat for underrepresented conditions. Closed-canopy, multi-layered patches that develop in hot, dry summer environments are vulnerable to droughts, and they increase landscape vulnerability to insect outbreaks and severe wildfires. These same patches provide habitat for species such as the northern spotted owl, which has benefited from increased habitat area. Regional and local planning will be critical for gauging risks, evaluating trade-offs, and restoring dynamics that can support these and other species. The goal will be to manage for heterogeneous landscapes that include variably-sized patches of (1) young, middle-aged, and old, closed canopy forests growing in upper montane, northerly aspect, and valley bottom settings, (2) a similar diversity of open-canopy, fire-tolerant patches growing on ridgetops, southerly aspects, and lower montane settings, and (3) significant montane chaparral and grassland areas. Tools to achieve this goal include managed wildfire, prescribed burning, and variable density thinning at small to large scales. Specifics on ‘‘how much and where?” will vary according to physiographic, topographic and historical templates, and regulatory requirements, and be determined by means of a socio-ecological process

Tamm Review: Management of mixed-severity fire regime forests in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California

Increasingly, objectives for forests with moderate- or mixed-severity fire regimes are to restore successionally diverse landscapes that are resistant and resilient to current and future stressors. Maintaining native species and characteristic processes requires this successional diversity, but methods to achieve it are poorly explained in the literature. In the Inland Pacific US, large, old, early seral trees were a key historical feature of many young and old forest successional patches, especially where fires frequently occurred. Large, old trees are naturally fire-tolerant, but today are often threatened by dense understory cohorts that create fuel ladders that alter likely post-fire successional pathways. Reducing these understories can contribute to resistance by creating conditions where canopy trees will survive disturbances and climatic stressors; these survivors are important seed sources, soil protectors, and critical habitat elements. Historical timber harvesting has skewed tree size and age class distributions, created hard edges, and altered native patch sizes. Manipulating these altered forests to promote development of larger patches of older, larger, and more widely-spaced trees with diverse understories will increase landscape resistance to severe fires, and enhance wildlife habitat for underrepresented conditions. Closed-canopy, multi-layered patches that develop in hot, dry summer environments are vulnerable to droughts, and they increase landscape vulnerability to insect outbreaks and severe wildfires. These same patches provide habitat for species such as the northern spotted owl, which has benefited from increased habitat area. Regional and local planning will be critical for gauging risks, evaluating trade-offs, and restoring dynamics that can support these and other species. The goal will be to manage for heterogeneous landscapes that include variably-sized patches of (1) young, middle-aged, and old, closed canopy forests growing in upper montane, northerly aspect, and valley bottom settings, (2) a similar diversity of open-canopy, fire-tolerant patches growing on ridgetops, southerly aspects, and lower montane settings, and (3) significant montane chaparral and grassland areas. Tools to achieve this goal include managed wildfire, prescribed burning, and variable density thinning at small to large scales. Specifics on ‘‘how much and where?” will vary according to physiographic, topographic and historical templates, and regulatory requirements, and be determined by means of a socio-ecological process

A Strong-Lensing Model for the WMDF JWST/GTO Very Rich Cluster Abell 1489

We present a first strong-lensing model for the galaxy cluster RM J121218.5+273255.1 ($z=0.35$; hereafter RMJ1212; also known as Abell 1489). This cluster is amongst the top 0.1\% richest clusters in the redMaPPer catalog; it is significantly detected in X-ray and through the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect in ROSAT and \emph{Planck} data, respectively; and its optical luminosity distribution implies a very large lens, following mass-to-light scaling relations. Based on these properties it was chosen for the Webb Medium Deep Fields (WMDF) JWST/GTO program. In preparation for this program, RMJ1212 was recently imaged with GMOS on Gemini North and in seven optical and near-infrared bands with the \emph{Hubble Space Telescope}. We use these data to map the inner mass distribution of the cluster, uncovering various sets of multiple images. We also search for high-redshift candidates in the data, as well as for transient sources. We find over a dozen high-redshift ($z\gtrsim6$) candidates based on both photometric redshift and the dropout technique. No prominent ($\gtrsim5 \sigma$) transients were found in the data between the two HST visits. Our lensing analysis reveals a relatively large lens with an effective Einstein radius of $\theta_{E}\simeq32\pm3''$ ($z_{s}=2$), in broad agreement with the scaling-relation expectations. RMJ1212 demonstrates that powerful lensing clusters can be selected in a robust and automated way following the light-traces-mass assumption.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables; To be submitte

High-Redshift Galaxy Candidates at z=9−13z = 9-13 as Revealed by JWST Observations of WHL0137-08

JWST was designed to peer into the distant universe and study galaxies nearer the beginning of time than previously. Here we report the discovery of 12 galaxy candidates observed 300-600 Myr after the Big Bang with photometric redshifts between z ~ 8.5-13 measured using JWST NIRCam imaging of the galaxy cluster WHL0137 observed in 8 filters spanning 0.8-5.0 $\mu$m, plus 9 HST filters spanning 0.4-1.7 $\mu$m. Three of these candidates are gravitationally lensed by the foreground galaxy cluster and have magnifications of $\mu \sim 3 - 8$. The remaining nine candidates are located in a second JWST NIRCam module, centered ~29' from the cluster center, with expected magnifications of $\mu$ <~ 1.1. Our sample of high-redshift candidates have observed F200W AB magnitudes between 25.9 and 28.1 mag and intrinsic F200W AB magnitudes between 26.4 and 29.7 mag ($M_{UV}$ = -22.5 to -17). We find the stellar masses of these galaxies are in the range $\log M_{*}/M_{\odot}$ = 8 - 9, and down to 7.5 for the lensed galaxies. All are young with mass-weighted ages < 100 Myr, low dust content $A_V$ < 0.15 mag, and high specific star formation rates sSFR ~10-50 Gyr$^{-1}$ for most. One z ~ 9 candidate is consistent with an age < 5 Myr and a sSFR ~250 Gyr$^{-1}$, as inferred from a strong F444W excess, implying [OIII]+H-beta rest-frame equivalent width ~2000 Angstrom, although an older and redder z~ 10 object is also allowed. Another z~9 candidate ID9356 is lensed into an arc 2.6" long by the effects of strong gravitational lensing ($\mu$~8), and has at least two bright knots of unevenly distributed star formation. This arc is the most spatially-resolved galaxy at z~9 known to date, revealing structures ~30 pc across. Follow-up spectroscopy of WHL0137 with JWST/NIRSpec is planned for later this year, which will validate some of these candidates and study their physical properties in more detail.Comment: submitted to Ap

Consensus Report of the 2015 Weinman International Conference on Mesothelioma.

On November 9 and 10, 2015, the International Conference on Mesothelioma in Populations Exposed to Naturally Occurring Asbestiform Fibers was held at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. The meeting was cosponsored by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, and the agenda was designed with significant input from staff at the U.S. National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. A multidisciplinary group of participants presented updates reflecting a range of disciplinary perspectives, including mineralogy, geology, epidemiology, toxicology, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, public health, and clinical oncology. The group identified knowledge gaps that are barriers to preventing and treating malignant mesothelioma (MM) and the required next steps to address barriers. This manuscript reports the group's efforts and focus on strategies to limit risk to the population and reduce the incidence of MM. Four main topics were explored: genetic risk, environmental exposure, biomarkers, and clinical interventions. Genetics plays a critical role in MM when the disease occurs in carriers of germline BRCA1 associated protein 1 mutations. Moreover, it appears likely that, in addition to BRCA1 associated protein 1, other yet unknown genetic variants may also influence the individual risk for development of MM, especially after exposure to asbestos and related mineral fibers. MM is an almost entirely preventable malignancy as it is most often caused by exposure to commercial asbestos or mineral fibers with asbestos-like health effects, such as erionite. In the past in North America and in Europe, the most prominent source of exposure was related to occupation. Present regulations have reduced occupational exposure in these countries; however, some people continue to be exposed to previously installed asbestos in older construction and other settings. Moreover, an increasing number of people are being exposed in rural areas that contain noncommercial asbestos, erionite, and other mineral fibers in soil or rock (termed naturally occurring asbestos [NOA]) and are being developed. Public health authorities, scientists, residents, and other affected groups must work together in the areas where exposure to asbestos, including NOA, has been documented in the environment to mitigate or reduce this exposure. Although a blood biomarker validated to be effective for use in screening and identifying MM at an early stage in asbestos/NOA-exposed populations is not currently available, novel biomarkers presented at the meeting, such as high mobility group box 1 and fibulin-3, are promising. There was general agreement that current treatment for MM, which is based on surgery and standard chemotherapy, has a modest effect on the overall survival (OS), which remains dismal. Additionally, although much needed novel therapeutic approaches for MM are being developed and explored in clinical trials, there is a critical need to invest in prevention research, in which there is a great opportunity to reduce the incidence and mortality from MM

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN