Total Synthesis and Structural Revision of the Alkaloid Incargranine B

Seeing double: Consideration of the biosynthetic origins of incargranineB, which was originally assigned an unprecedented indolo[1.7]naphthyridine structure, led to the proposal of a dipyrroloquinoline framework as a more biosynthetically feasible struct

Analysis of Knee Motion to Prevent and Treat the Increasing Incidence of Premature Knee OA

Purpose/Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a costly, debilitating musculoskeletal disease. A disparity in OA incidence in young individuals who don body borne load while physically active, such as service members, reportedly exists. Incidence of premature OA in service members is greater than twice the general population and steadily increasing at the knee. Moreover, there is disparity in knee OA incidence for female and African-American service members, who are 15%-25% more likely to develop the disease. A service member’s physical activity directly contributes to premature knee OA development. Specific knee locomotion biomechanics indicative of joint instability, including large and/or abrupt knee adduction motions, may increase their likelihood of OA development. Yet, no objective measure of knee instability currently exists; nor is it understood how body borne load leads to altered, and potentially hazardous knee locomotion biomechanics that increase incidence of premature knee OA among service members. This study sought to determine whether knee motions posited to be indicative of joint instability progressively increase with body-borne load and duration of load carriage. Materials & Methods: To date, six recreationally active adults had knee biomechanics quantified while walking 1.3 m/s for 60 minutes with a different, randomly ordered body borne load: (unloaded: 0 kg, 15 kg and 30 kg). During the load carriage task, dominant limb knee biomechanics were quantified from three walk trials (1.3 m/s ± 5%) recorded at minute 0, and every 15 minutes thereafter (i.e., 5, 15, 30, etc.). For each trial, the peak, range, and jerk cost of knee adduction angle was quantified using data from the video-based motion capture system and accelerometer-based IMU sensors. To determine whether body-borne load or the duration of load carriage increases knee joint instability, each dependent knee adduction measure was submitted to a RM ANOVA to test the main effect and interaction between time (minutes 0, 15, 30…60) and load (0,15 and 30 kg). To compare the video-based and accelerometer-based data, each dependent knee adduction measure was submitted to equivalence testing, or two one-sided t-tests of the difference between these measures, in the same participant. Alpha was p \u3c 0.05. Results: Preliminary analysis found neither body borne load, nor time had a significant effect on peak, range, or jerk cost of knee adduction (p\u3e0.05) (Table 1 and Figure 1). No significant difference was evident between the video-based and accelerometer-based derived knee adduction measures (p\u3e0.05). Discussion/Conclusion: Walking with body borne load may increase knee OA risk for service members. During locomotion, current participants exhibited a non-significant increased in range and jerk cost of knee adduction, and OA risk with each addition of body borne load. Specifically, participants exhibited a 11% and 22% increase in range and jerk cost of knee adduction with the 30 kg load. In contradiction to our hypothesis, participants did not further increase knee adduction throughout the duration of locomotion, despite the 33% increase in jerk cost after 45 minutes of load carriage. With additional testing, we expect a statistically significant increase range and jerk cost of knee adduction with body borne load, but only an increase in jerk cost throughout the duration of load carriage

Offering patients choices: A pilot study of interactions in the seizure clinic

Using conversation analysis (CA), we studied conversations between one United Kingdom-based epilepsy specialist and 13 patients with seizures in whom there was uncertainty about the diagnosis and for whom different treatment and investigational options were being considered. In line with recent communication guidance, the specialist offered some form of choice to all patients: in eight cases, a course of action was proposed, to be accepted or rejected, and in the remaining five, a "menu" of options was offered. Even when presenting a menu, the specialist sometimes conveyed his own preferences in how he described the options, and in some cases the menu was used for reasons other than offering choice (e.g., to address patient resistance). Close linguistic and, interactional analysis of clinical encounters can show why doctors may feel they are offering choices when patients report that the decision was clinician dominated. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Little Ambergris Cay, a Case Study for Ooid Rich Island Development on the Turks and Caicos Carbonate Platform

Little Ambergris Cay (LAC) within the Turks and Caicos is a useful field site to examine the accumulation of a carbonate island, within a typical carbonate platform environment, because it does not follow the typically accepted modes of island accretion. There are several methods used to describe carbonate island formation after Schlager (2003), who described carbonate “factories” in reference to the modern analogues of Florida and the Bahamas. The Turks and Caicos, and specifically Little Ambergris Cay, offers a field side that differs from the comparison analogues in sediment composition, energy flux, and Holocene development. Little Ambergris Cay is unusual in that it formed during a period of sea level rise (Figure 2, Toscano & Macintyre, 2003), and thus presents an opportunity for research on how modern carbonate platform environments accumulate through time. This paper presents an argument for eastward direction of island accumulation of Little Ambergris Cay. Based on the research of Trower et al. (2018), Dravis & Wanless (2008), and Schlager (2003), I interpret that Little Ambergris Cay formed via eastward accumulation based on the influence of wind-wave current energy as means of supplying ample sediment to a zone of accumulation; in other words, in this system, sediment supply outpaces accommodation space. To support this interpretation, I will present several sets of data that were derived from unlithified sediment cores collected from the interior of LAC as means to characterize and compare against representative environments. First, I performed thin section point-count analysis on loose sediments from a variety of depths in a representative collected core to identify how grain composition varied with depth. I then compared this point count data with a range of grain characteristics such as grain size, sorting, sphericity, etc., determined via Camsizer analysis, in order to determine the parameters that best described the changes in grain concentration as seen in the point count. Finally, by integrating plots of the grain size parameters determined in this paper vs. depth, stereoscope microscopy, and radiocarbon ages of core sediments, I compared representative facies of modern carbonate environments to determine a facies development through time of Little Ambergris Cay. I concluded that Little Ambergris Cay underwent a series of high to low energy facies changes, where early lithification on the south-western edge of the modern LAC allowed successive accumulation of incoming easterly ooids due to sediment entrapment, possibly due to microbial mat and bedrock influence. The incoming sediment grains from the east onto an early lithified fragment to the west allowed eastward accumulation, where facies changed from an ancient shoal to a modern island. This paper furthers the research of modern carbonate analogues and their interpreted growth patterns. LAC offers a unique environment that does not follow typical carbonate island development, and by providing a case study of wind-wave influenced island accretion, sectors of geologic interest have the opportunity to interpret unique climatic and chemical factors. The petroleum unconventional subsurface carbonate play search is greatly related to LAC, as grainstones offer potential reservoirs (Dravis & Wanless, 2008). The geochemical field may have interest in the accumulation of LAC, as specific seawater concentrations play a role in the uniquely high concentrations of ooids found on the Caicos Platform. The geobiological field may be interested in LAC, as the relatively low abundance of microbes and biotic influence differs greatly from the other modern analogues for carbonate platform development

Postsecondary Attainment: Identifying Areas to Improve Retention for North Carolina Community Colleges

This paper details ways that North Carolina Community Colleges can improve retention by investigating curriculum completion and success in students’ first year of college. A complete repository of data from community colleges in North Carolina was built for this analysis featuring 1950 variables related to the colleges and their surrounding communities from five main publicly available data sources. Leading factors were identified to help explain why one-third of students in North Carolina community colleges do not return for their second year of college. Our research revealed that racial demographics along with success from educationally at risk, English as a Second Language (ESL) individuals receiving Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) services are leading factors to predicting retention. Our research uses elastic net regularized regression techniques to determine the feature importance of variables connected to students’ success in their first year of college

Complex CatSper-dependent and independent [Ca2⁺]i signalling in human spermatozoa induced by follicular fluid

STUDY QUESTION: Does progesterone in human follicular fluid (hFF) activate CatSper and do other components of hFF modulate this effect and/or contribute separately to hFF-induced Ca2+ signaling?SUMMARY ANSWER: hFF potently stimulates CatSper and increases [Ca2+]i, primarily due to high concentrations of progesterone, however,other components of hFF also contribute to [Ca2+]i signaling, including modulation of CatSper channel activity and inhibition of [Ca2+]i oscillations.WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: CatSper, the principal Ca2+ channel in spermatozoa, is progesterone-sensitive and essential for fertility. Both hFF and progesterone, which is present in hFF, influence sperm function and increase their [Ca2+]i.STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: This basic medical research study used semen samples from >40 donors and hFF from >50 patients who were undergoing surgical oocyte retrieval for IVF/ICSI.PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: Semen donors and patients were recruited in accordance with local ethics approval (13/ES/0091) from the East of Scotland Research Ethics Service REC1. Activities of CatSper and KSper were assessed by patch clamp electrophysiology. Sperm [Ca2+]i responses were examined in sperm populations and single cells. Computer-assisted sperm analysis (CASA) parameters and penetration into viscous media were used to assess functional effects.MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: hFF and progesterone significantly potentiated CatSper currents. Under quasiphysiologicalconditions, hFF (up to 50%) failed to alter membrane K+ conductance or current reversal potential. hFF and progesterone (at an equivalent concentration) stimulated similar biphasic [Ca2+]i signals both in sperm populations and single cells. At a high hFF concentration (10%), the sustained (plateau) component of the [Ca2+]i signal was consistently greater than that induced by progesterone alone. In single cell recordings, 1% hFF-induced [Ca2+]i oscillations similarly to progesterone but with 10% hFF generation of [Ca2+]i oscillations was suppressed. After treatment to ‘strip’ lipid-derived mediators, hFF failed to significantly stimulate CatSper currents but induced small [Ca2+]i responsesthat were greater than those induced by the equivalent concentration of progesterone after stripping. Similar [Ca2+]i responses were observed when sperm pretreated with 3 μM progesterone (to desensitize progesterone responses) were stimulated with hFF or stripped hFF. hFF stimulated viscous media penetration and was more effective than the equivalent does of progesterone.LARGE SCALE DATA: N/A.LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: This was an in vitro study. Caution must be taken when extrapolating these results in vivo.WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: This study directly demonstrates that hFF activates CatSper and establishes that the biologically important effects of hFF reflect, at least in part, action on this channel, primarily via progesterone. However, these experiments also demonstrate that other components of hFF both contribute to the [Ca2+]i signal and modulate the activation of CatSper. Simple in vitro experiments performed out of the context of the complex in vivo environment need to be interpreted with caution

Crop-share leases in Missouri

"Original authors: Joe Parcell, Ray Massey and David Reinbott"--Page 4."Producers expand their base of operations by purchasing or renting additional land. Some producers may prefer leasing farmland as opposed to purchasing due to a lack of capital, to reserve capital for other purposes, a shortage of land for sale, or the personal belief that leasing farmland is more profitable than owning it. The three most common types of farmland lease agreements in Missouri are cash rentals, flexible-cash leases and crop-share leases. This guide presents information on crop-share leases."--First page.Revised by Ben Brown (Senior Research Associate, Agriculture Business and Policy Extension), Drew Kientzy (Student Research Assistant). Original authors: Joe Parcell, Ray Massey and David Reinbott.Includes bibliographical reference