1,210 research outputs found
Spatiotemporal analysis of air pollution and asthma patient visits in Taipei, Taiwan
[[abstract]]Background: Buffer analyses have shown that air pollution is associated with an increased incidence of asthma, but little is known about how air pollutants affect health outside a defined buffer. The aim of this study was to better understand how air pollutants affect asthma patient visits in a metropolitan area. The study used an integrated spatial and temporal approach that included the Kriging method and the Generalized Additive Model (GAM). Results: We analyzed daily outpatient and emergency visit data from the Taiwan Bureau of National Health Insurance and air pollution data from the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration during 2000-2002. In general, children (aged 0-15 years) had the highest number of total asthma visits. Seasonal changes of PM10, NO2, O3 and SO2 were evident. However, SO2 showed a positive correlation with the dew point (r = 0.17, p < 0.01) and temperature (r = 0.22, p < 0.01). Among the four pollutants studied, the elevation of NO2 concentration had the highest impact on asthma outpatient visits on the day that a 10% increase of concentration caused the asthma outpatient visit rate to increase by 0.30% (95% CI: 0.16%??.45%) in the four pollutant model. For emergency visits, the elevation of PM10 concentration, which occurred two days before the visits, had the most significant influence on this type of patient visit with an increase of 0.14% (95% CI: 0.01%??.28%) in the four pollutants model. The impact on the emergency visit rate was non-significant two days following exposure to the other three air pollutants. Conclusion: This preliminary study demonstrates the feasibility of an integrated spatial and temporal approach to assess the impact of air pollution on asthma patient visits. The results of this study provide a better understanding of the correlation of air pollution with asthma patient visits and demonstrate that NO2 and PM10 might have a positive impact on outpatient and emergency settings respectively. Future research is required to validate robust spatiotemporal patterns and trends
Downregulation of Mcl-1 has anti-inflammatory pro-resolution effects and enhances bacterial clearance from the lung
Phagocytes not only coordinate acute inflammation and host defense at mucosal sites, but also contribute to tissue damage. Respiratory infection causes a globally significant disease burden and frequently progresses to acute respiratory distress syndrome, a devastating inflammatory condition characterized by neutrophil recruitment and accumulation of protein-rich edema fluid causing impaired lung function. We hypothesized that targeting the intracellular protein myeloid cell leukemia 1 (Mcl-1) by a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor (AT7519) or a flavone (wogonin) would accelerate neutrophil apoptosis and resolution of established inflammation, but without detriment to bacterial clearance. Mcl-1 loss induced human neutrophil apoptosis, but did not induce macrophage apoptosis nor impair phagocytosis of apoptotic neutrophils. Neutrophil-dominant inflammation was modelled in mice by either endotoxin or bacteria (Escherichia coli). Downregulating inflammatory cell Mcl-1 had anti-inflammatory, pro-resolution effects, shortening the resolution interval (R(i)) from 19 to 7 h and improved organ dysfunction with enhanced alveolar–capillary barrier integrity. Conversely, attenuating drug-induced Mcl-1 downregulation inhibited neutrophil apoptosis and delayed resolution of endotoxin-mediated lung inflammation. Importantly, manipulating lung inflammatory cell Mcl-1 also accelerated resolution of bacterial infection (R(i); 50 to 16 h) concurrent with enhanced bacterial clearance. Therefore, manipulating inflammatory cell Mcl-1 accelerates inflammation resolution without detriment to host defense against bacteria, and represents a target for treating infection-associated inflammation
Low migrant mortality in Germany for men aged 65 and older: fact or artifact?
Migrant mortality in Europe was found to be lower than mortality of host populations. In Germany, residents with migrant background constitute nearly one tenth of the population aged 65+ with about 40% of them being foreigners. The German Pension Scheme follows vital status of pensioners very accurately. Mortality re-estimation reveals two-fold underestimation of mortality of foreigners due to biased death numerator and population denominator
TEAD and YAP regulate the enhancer network of human embryonic pancreatic progenitors.
The genomic regulatory programmes that underlie human organogenesis are poorly understood. Pancreas development, in particular, has pivotal implications for pancreatic regeneration, cancer and diabetes. We have now characterized the regulatory landscape of embryonic multipotent progenitor cells that give rise to all pancreatic epithelial lineages. Using human embryonic pancreas and embryonic-stem-cell-derived progenitors we identify stage-specific transcripts and associated enhancers, many of which are co-occupied by transcription factors that are essential for pancreas development. We further show that TEAD1, a Hippo signalling effector, is an integral component of the transcription factor combinatorial code of pancreatic progenitor enhancers. TEAD and its coactivator YAP activate key pancreatic signalling mediators and transcription factors, and regulate the expansion of pancreatic progenitors. This work therefore uncovers a central role for TEAD and YAP as signal-responsive regulators of multipotent pancreatic progenitors, and provides a resource for the study of embryonic development of the human pancreas
Wide-field CO isotopologue emission and the CO-to-H factor across the nearby spiral galaxy M101
Carbon monoxide (CO) emission is the most widely used tracer of the bulk
molecular gas in the interstellar medium (ISM) in extragalactic studies. The
CO-to-H conversion factor, , links the observed CO
emission to the total molecular gas mass. However, no single prescription
perfectly describes the variation of across all environments
across galaxies as a function of metallicity, molecular gas opacity, line
excitation, and other factors. Using resolved spectral line observations of CO
and its isotopologues, we can constrain the molecular gas conditions and link
them to a variation in the conversion factor. We present new IRAM 30-m 1mm and
3mm line observations of CO, CO, and CO} across the nearby
galaxy M101. Based on the CO isotopologue line ratios, we find that selective
nucleosynthesis and opacity changes are the main drivers of the variation in
the line emission across the galaxy. Furthermore, we estimated using different approaches, including (i) the dust mass surface
density derived from far-IR emission as an independent tracer of the total gas
surface density and (ii) LTE-based measurements using the optically thin
CO(1-0) intensity. We find an average value of across the galaxy,
with a decrease by a factor of 10 toward the 2 kpc central region. In contrast,
we find LTE-based values are lower by a factor of 2-3 across the disk relative
to the dust-based result. Accounting for variations, we found
significantly reduced molecular gas depletion time by a factor 10 in the
galaxy's center. In conclusion, our result suggests implications for commonly
derived scaling relations, such as an underestimation of the slope of the
Kennicutt Schmidt law, if variations are not accounted for.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 25 pages, 15 figure
A z=0 Multi-wavelength Galaxy Synthesis I: A WISE and GALEX Atlas of Local Galaxies
We present an atlas of ultraviolet and infrared images of ~15,750 local (d <
50 Mpc) galaxies, as observed by NASA's WISE and GALEX missions. These maps
have matched resolution (FWHM 7.5'' and 15''), matched astrometry, and a common
procedure for background removal. We demonstrate that they agree well with
resolved intensity measurements and integrated photometry from previous
surveys. This atlas represents the first part of a program (the z=0
Multi-wavelength Galaxy Synthesis) to create a large, uniform database of
resolved measurements of gas and dust in nearby galaxies. The images and
associated catalogs are publicly available at the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science
Archive. This atlas allows us estimate local and integrated star formation
rates (SFRs) and stellar masses (M) across the local galaxy population
in a uniform way. In the appendix, we use the population synthesis fits of
Salim et al. (2016, 2018) to calibrate integrated M and SFR estimators
based on GALEX and WISE. Because they leverage an SDSS-base training set of
>100,000 galaxies, these calibrations have high precision and allow us to
rigorously compare local galaxies to Sloan Digital Sky Survey results. We
provide these SFR and M estimates for all galaxies in our sample and
show that our results yield a "main sequence" of star forming galaxies
comparable to previous work. We also show the distribution of intensities from
resolved galaxies in NUV-to-WISE1 vs. WISE1-to-WISE3 space, which captures much
of the key physics accessed by these bands.Comment: 46 pages, 27 figures, published in ApJS
(https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019ApJS..244...24L/abstract ). See that
version for full resolution figures and machine readable tables. Go download
data for your favorite nearby galaxy here:
https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/data/WISE/z0MGS/overview.html . The appendix
presents detailed analysis of translations to physical quantitie
Planck Intermediate Results II: Comparison of Sunyaev-Zeldovich measurements from Planck and from the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager for 11 galaxy clusters
A comparison is presented of Sunyaev-Zeldovich measurements for 11 galaxy
clusters as obtained by Planck and by the ground-based interferometer, the
Arcminute Microkelvin Imager. Assuming a universal spherically-symmetric
Generalised Navarro, Frenk & White (GNFW) model for the cluster gas pressure
profile, we jointly constrain the integrated Compton-Y parameter (Y_500) and
the scale radius (theta_500) of each cluster. Our resulting constraints in the
Y_500-theta_500 2D parameter space derived from the two instruments overlap
significantly for eight of the clusters, although, overall, there is a tendency
for AMI to find the Sunyaev-Zeldovich signal to be smaller in angular size and
fainter than Planck. Significant discrepancies exist for the three remaining
clusters in the sample, namely A1413, A1914, and the newly-discovered Planck
cluster PLCKESZ G139.59+24.18. The robustness of the analysis of both the
Planck and AMI data is demonstrated through the use of detailed simulations,
which also discount confusion from residual point (radio) sources and from
diffuse astrophysical foregrounds as possible explanations for the
discrepancies found. For a subset of our cluster sample, we have investigated
the dependence of our results on the assumed pressure profile by repeating the
analysis adopting the best-fitting GNFW profile shape which best matches X-ray
observations. Adopting the best-fitting profile shape from the X-ray data does
not, in general, resolve the discrepancies found in this subset of five
clusters. Though based on a small sample, our results suggest that the adopted
GNFW model may not be sufficiently flexible to describe clusters universally.Comment: update to metadata author list onl
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