278 research outputs found
Expression of choline acetyltransferase mRNA in spermatogenic cells results in an accumulation of the enzyme in the postacrosomal region of mature spermatozoa.
Foodways in transition: food plants, diet and local perceptions of change in a Costa Rican NgÀbe community
Background
Indigenous populations are undergoing rapid ethnobiological, nutritional and socioeconomic transitions while being increasingly integrated into modernizing societies. To better understand the dynamics of these transitions, this article aims to characterize the cultural domain of food plants and analyze its relation with current day diets, and the local perceptions of changes given amongst the NgÀbe people of Southern Conte-Burica, Costa Rica, as production of food plants by its residents is hypothesized to be drastically in recession with an decreased local production in the area and new conservation and development paradigms being implemented.
Methods
Extensive freelisting, interviews and workshops were used to collect the data from 72 participants on their knowledge of food plants, their current dietary practices and their perceptions of change in local foodways, while cultural domain analysis, descriptive statistical analyses and development of fundamental explanatory themes were employed to analyze the data.
Results
Results show a food plants domain composed of 140 species, of which 85 % grow in the area, with a medium level of cultural consensus, and some age-based variation. Although many plants still grow in the area, in many key species a decrease on local productionâeven abandonmentâwas found, with much reduced cultivation areas. Yet, the domain appears to be largely theoretical, with little evidence of use; and the diet today is predominantly dependent on foods bought from the store (more than 50 % of basic ingredients), many of which were not salient or not even recognized as âfood plantsâ in freelists exercises. While changes in the importance of food plants were largely deemed a result of changes in cultural preferences for store bought processed food stuffs and changing values associated with farming and being food self-sufficient, NgĂ€be were also aware of how changing household livelihood activities, and the subsequent loss of knowledge and use of food plants, were in fact being driven by changes in social and political policies, despite increases in forest cover and biodiversity.
Conclusions
NgÀbe foodways are changing in different and somewhat disconnected ways: knowledge of food plants is varied, reflecting most relevant changes in dietary practices such as lower cultivation areas and greater dependence on food from stores by all families. We attribute dietary shifts to socioeconomic and political changes in recent decades, in particular to a reduction of local production of food, new economic structures and agents related to the State and globalization
Accelerating glacier volume loss on Juneau icefield driven by hypsometry and melt-accelerating feedbacks
Globally, glaciers and icefields contribute significantly to sea level rise. Here we show that ice loss from Juneau Icefield, a plateau icefield in Alaska, accelerated after 2005 AD. Rates of area shrinkage were 5 times faster from 2015â2019 than from 1979â1990. Glacier volume loss remained fairly consistent (0.65â1.01âkm3 aâ1) from 1770â1979 AD, rising to 3.08â3.72âkm3 aâ1 from 1979â2010, and then doubling after 2010 AD, reaching 5.91â±â0.80 km3 aâ1 (2010â2020). Thinning has become pervasive across the icefield plateau since 2005, accompanied by glacier recession and fragmentation. Rising equilibrium line altitudes and increasing ablation across the plateau has driven a series of hypsometrically controlled melt-accelerating feedbacks and resulted in the observed acceleration in mass loss. As glacier thinning on the plateau continues, a mass balance-elevation feedback is likely to inhibit future glacier regrowth, potentially pushing glaciers beyond a dynamic tipping point
Iron Deficiency and the Well-being of Older Adults: Early Results From a Randomized Nutrition Intervention
Iron deficiency is widespread throughout the developing world. We provide new evidence on the effect of iron deficiency on economic and social prosperity of older adults drawing on data from a random assignment treatment-control design intervention. The Work and Iron Status Evaluation is an on-going study following over 17,000 individuals in Central Java, Indonesia. Half the respondents receive a treatment of 120 mg of iron every week for a year; the controls receive a placebo. Compliance is monitored carefully. Results from the first six months of the intervention are presented for adults age 30 through 70 years. Males who were iron deficient prior to the intervention and who are assigned to the treatment are better off in terms of physical health, psycho-social health and economic success. These men are more likely to be working, sleep less, lose less work time to illness, are more energetic, more able to conduct physically arduous activities and their psycho-social health is better. There is evidence that economic productivity of these males also increased. Among iron-deficient males assigned to the treatment who were also self-employed prior to the baseline, hourly earnings rose substantially and so they earned more on a monthly basis. Benefits for women are in the same direction but the effects are more muted. The results provide unambiguous evidence in support of the hypothesis that health has a causal effect on economic prosperity of males during middle and older ages
Two loop electroweak corrections to and in the B-LSSM
The rare decays and are important to research new physics beyond standard model. In
this work, we investigate two loop electroweak corrections to and in the minimal
supersymmetric extension of the SM with local gauge symmetry (B-LSSM),
under a minimal flavor violating assumption for the soft breaking terms. In
this framework, new particles and new definition of squarks can affect the
theoretical predictions of these two processes, with respect to the MSSM.
Considering the constraints from updated experimental data, the numerical
results show that the B-LSSM can fit the experimental data for the branching
ratios of and . The
results of the rare decays also further constrain the parameter space of the
B-LSSM.Comment: 33 pages, 9 figures, Published in EPJ
Dark matter scenarios in the minimal SUSY B-L model
We perform a study of the dark matter candidates of a constrained version of
the minimal R-parity-conserving supersymmetric model with a gauged
. It turns out that there are four additional candidates for dark
matter in comparison to the MSSM: two kinds of neutralino, which either
correspond to the gaugino of the or to a fermionic bilepton, as
well as "right-handed" CP-even and -odd sneutrinos. The correct dark matter
relic density of the neutralinos can be obtained due to different mechanisms
including new co-annihilation regions and resonances. The large additional
Yukawa couplings required to break the radiatively often lead to
large annihilation cross sections for the sneutrinos. The correct treatment of
gauge kinetic mixing is crucial to the success of some scenarios. All
candidates are consistent with the exclusion limits of Xenon100.Comment: 45 pages, 22 figures; v2: extended discussion of direct detection
cross section, matches published versio
International criteria for electrocardiographic interpretation in athletes: Consensus statement.
Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is the leading cause of mortality in athletes during sport. A variety of mostly hereditary, structural or electrical cardiac disorders are associated with SCD in young athletes, the majority of which can be identified or suggested by abnormalities on a resting 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG). Whether used for diagnostic or screening purposes, physicians responsible for the cardiovascular care of athletes should be knowledgeable and competent in ECG interpretation in athletes. However, in most countries a shortage of physician expertise limits wider application of the ECG in the care of the athlete. A critical need exists for physician education in modern ECG interpretation that distinguishes normal physiological adaptations in athletes from distinctly abnormal findings suggestive of underlying pathology. Since the original 2010 European Society of Cardiology recommendations for ECG interpretation in athletes, ECG standards have evolved quickly, advanced by a growing body of scientific data and investigations that both examine proposed criteria sets and establish new evidence to guide refinements. On 26-27 February 2015, an international group of experts in sports cardiology, inherited cardiac disease, and sports medicine convened in Seattle, Washington (USA), to update contemporary standards for ECG interpretation in athletes. The objective of the meeting was to define and revise ECG interpretation standards based on new and emerging research and to develop a clear guide to the proper evaluation of ECG abnormalities in athletes. This statement represents an international consensus for ECG interpretation in athletes and provides expert opinion-based recommendations linking specific ECG abnormalities and the secondary evaluation for conditions associated with SCD
The state of the Martian climate
60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981â2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes
International criteria for electrocardiographic interpretation in athletes: Consensus statement
Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is the leading cause of mortality in athletes during sport. A variety of mostly hereditary, structural or electrical cardiac disorders are associated with SCD in young athletes, the majority of which can be identified or suggested by abnormalities on a resting 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG). Whether used for diagnostic or screening purposes, physicians responsible for the cardiovascular care of athletes should be knowledgeable and competent in ECG interpretation in athletes. However, in most countries a shortage of physician expertise limits wider application of the ECG in the care of the athlete. A critical need exists for physician education in modern ECG interpretation that distinguishes normal physiological adaptations in athletes from distinctly abnormal findings suggestive of underlying pathology. Since the original 2010 European Society of Cardiology recommendations for ECG interpretation in athletes, ECG standards have evolved quickly, advanced by a growing body of scientific data and investigations that both examine proposed criteria sets and establish new evidence to guide refinements. On 26-27 February 2015, an international group of experts in sports cardiology, inherited cardiac disease, and sports medicine convened in Seattle, Washington (USA), to update contemporary standards for ECG interpretation in athletes. The objective of the meeting was to define and revise ECG interpretation standards based on new and emerging research and to develop a clear guide to the proper evaluation of ECG abnormalities in athletes. This statement represents an international consensus for ECG interpretation in athletes and provides expert opinion-based recommendations linking specific ECG abnormalities and the secondary evaluation for conditions associated with SCD
Primer Extension Mutagenesis Powered by Selective Rolling Circle Amplification
Primer extension mutagenesis is a popular tool to create libraries for in vitro evolution experiments. Here we describe a further improvement of the method described by T.A. Kunkel using uracil-containing single-stranded DNA as the template for the primer extension by additional uracil-DNA glycosylase treatment and rolling circle amplification (RCA) steps. It is shown that removal of uracil bases from the template leads to selective amplification of the nascently synthesized circular DNA strand carrying the desired mutations by phi29 DNA polymerase. Selective RCA (sRCA) of the DNA heteroduplex formed in Kunkel's mutagenesis increases the mutagenesis efficiency from 50% close to 100% and the number of transformants 300-fold without notable diversity bias. We also observed that both the mutated and the wild-type DNA were present in at least one third of the cells transformed directly with Kunkel's heteroduplex. In contrast, the cells transformed with sRCA product contained only mutated DNA. In sRCA, the complex cell-based selection for the mutant strand is replaced with the more controllable enzyme-based selection and less DNA is needed for library creation. Construction of a gene library of ten billion members is demonstrated with the described method with 240 nanograms of DNA as starting material
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