Radial Growth of Qilian Juniper on the Northeast Tibetan Plateau and Potential Climate Associations

There is controversy regarding the limiting climatic factor for tree radial growth at the alpine treeline on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. In this study, we collected 594 increment cores from 331 trees, grouped within four altitude belts spanning the range 3550 to 4020 m.a.s.l. on a single hillside. We have developed four equivalent ring-width chronologies and shown that there are no significant differences in their growth-climate responses during 1956 to 2011 or in their longer-term growth patterns during the period AD 1110–2011. The main climate influence on radial growth is shown to be precipitation variability. Missing ring analysis shows that tree radial growth at the uppermost treeline location is more sensitive to climate variation than that at other elevations, and poor tree radial growth is particularly linked to the occurrence of serious drought events. Hence water limitation, rather than temperature stress, plays the pivotal role in controlling the radial growth of Sabina przewalskii Kom. at the treeline in this region. This finding contradicts any generalisation that tree-ring chronologies from high-elevation treeline environments are mostly indicators of temperature changes

Experience of sexual self-esteem among men living with HIV

Much of the focus on sexual health for people living with HIV has been on promoting safe sex behaviours. However, also important for sexual health is a positive sexual self-esteem. This article reports on an interpretative phenomenological analysis of interviews with seven men about the impact that having HIV has had on their sense of sexual self. Five overarching themes were identified: the ‘destruction’ of a sexual self; feeling sexually hazardous; sexual inhibition; reclaiming a sexual self and finding a place through sero-sorting. With HIV now being a chronic illness, interventions are required to support people to lead sexually satisfying lives

Can Computer-Assisted Training of Prerequisite Motor Skills Help Enable Communication in People with Autism?

Our and others' research indicates that in fully a third of people with autism who lack communicative speech, the communication deficit may actually be a deficit in motor skills necessary to move the mouth and the vocal tract. These individuals have difficulties in fine, gross and especially oral motor skills, and a disparity between impaired expressive language and relatively intact receptive language: that is to say, they can listen but not speak. Because involvement in research and receipt of the fullest educational, occupational and other services demands ability to interact verbally and to control one's movements and actions, these people get the short end of the stick when it comes to scientific enquiry and pedagogic and therapeutic practice. Point OutWords, tablet-based software designed in collaboration with autistic clients and their communication therapists, exploits the autistic fascination with parts and details to motivate attention to learning manual motor and oral motor skills essential for communication. Along the way, autistic clients practise pointing and dragging at objects, then pointing at sequences of letters on a keyboard, and even speaking the syllables represented by these letters. Whereas many teaching and learning strategies adapted from methods for non-autistic people end up working against autistic cognition by asking people with autism to do what they cannot easily do, Point OutWords works with autistic cognition, by beginning from the autistic skill at manipulating parts and details. Users and their parents or guardians can opt into collection of data on motor interactions with Point OutWords; these internal measures of motor skills development are complemented by external, standardised tests of motor, oral motor and communicative development. These quantitative measures are collected alongside reports on Point OutWords's acceptability to users, and users' fidelity to a recommended treatment regime, so as to evaluate feasibility of a larger randomised controlled trial

Estimation of greenhouse gas emissions from spontaneous combustion/fire of coal in opencast mines – Indian context

There are a significant number of uncontrolled coal mine fires (primarily due to spontaneous combustion of coal), which are currently burning all over the world. These spontaneous combustion sources emit greenhouse gases (GHGs). A critical review reveals that there are no standard measurement methods to estimate GHG emissions from mine fire/spontaneous combustion areas. The objective of this research paper was to estimate GHGs emissions from spontaneous combustion of coals in the Indian context. A sampling chamber (SC) method was successfully used to assess emissions at two locations of the Enna Opencast Project (OCP), Jharia Coalfield (JCF), for 3 months. The study reveals that measured cumulative average emission rate for CO2 varies from 75.02 to 286.03 gs−1m−1 and CH4 varies from 41.49 to 40.34 gs−1m−1 for low- and medium-temperature zones. The total GHG emissions predicted from this single fire affecting mines of JCF vary from 16.86 to 20.19 Mtyr−

High-levelexpression of functional recombinant human coagulation factor VII in insect cells

Abstract: Recombinant coagulation factor VII (FVII) is used as a potential therapeutic intervention in hemophilia patients who produce antibodies against the coagulation factors. Mammalian cell lines provide low levels of expression, however, the Spodoptera frugiperda Sf9 cell line and baculovirus expression system are powerful systems for high-level expression of recombinant proteins, but due to the lack of endogenous vitamin K-dependent carboxylase, expression of functional FVII using this system is impossible. In the present study, we report a simple but versatile method to overcome the defect for high-level expression of the functional recombinant coagulation FVII in Sf9 cells. This method involves simultaneous expression of both human γ-carboxylase (hGC) and human FVII genes in the host. It may be possible to express other vitamin K-dependent coagulation factors using this method in the future. Keywords: Baculovirus; γ-carboxylase; Coagulation FVII; Factor VII; Insect cel

Direct access:how is it working?

AimThe aim of this study was to identify and survey dental hygienists and therapists working in direct access practices in the UK, obtain their views on its benefits and disadvantages, establish which treatments they provided, and what barriers they had encountered.MethodThe study used a purposive sample of GDC-registered hygienists and therapists working in practices offering direct access, identified through a ‘Google’ search. An online survey was set up through the University of Edinburgh, and no-responses followed up by post.ResultsThe initial search identified 243 individuals working in direct access practices. Where a practice listed more than one hygienist/therapist, one was randomly selected. This gave a total of 179 potential respondents. Eighty six responses were received, representing a response rate of 48%. A large majority of respondents (58, 73%) were favourable in their view of the GDC decision to allow direct access, and most thought advantages outnumbered disadvantages for patients, hygienists, therapists and dentists. There were no statistically significant differences in views between hygienists and therapists. Although direct access patients formed a small minority of their caseload for most respondents, it is estimated that on average respondents saw approximately 13 per month. Treatment was mainly restricted to periodontal work, irrespective of whether the respondent was singly or dually qualified. One third of respondents reported encountering barriers to successful practice, including issues relating to teamwork and dentists’ unfavourable attitudes. However, almost two thirds(64%) felt that direct access had enhanced their job satisfaction, and 45% felt their clinical skills had increased.DiscussionComments were mainly positive, but sometimes raised worrying issues, for example in respect to training, lack of dental nurse support and the limited availability of periodontal treatment under NHS regulations

Pseudo-acetylation of multiple sites on human Tau proteins alters Tau phosphorylation and microtubule binding, and ameliorates amyloid beta toxicity

Tau is a microtubule-associated protein that is highly soluble and natively unfolded. Its dysfunction is involved in the pathogenesis of several neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease (AD), where it aggregates within neurons. Deciphering the physiological and pathogenic roles of human Tau (hTau) is crucial to further understand the mechanisms leading to its dysfunction in vivo. We have used a knock-out/knock-in strategy in Drosophila to generate a strain with hTau inserted into the endogenous fly tau locus and expressed under the control of the endogenous fly tau promoter, thus avoiding potential toxicity due to genetic over-expression. hTau knock-in (KI) proteins were expressed at normal, endogenous levels, bound to fly microtubules and were post-translationally modified, hence displaying physiological properties. We used this new model to investigate the effects of acetylation on hTau toxicity in vivo. The simultaneous pseudo-acetylation of hTau at lysines 163, 280, 281 and 369 drastically decreased hTau phosphorylation and significantly reduced its binding to microtubules in vivo. These molecular alterations were associated with ameliorated amyloid beta toxicity. Our results indicate acetylation of hTau on multiple sites regulates its biology and ameliorates amyloid beta toxicity in vivo

Anti-Allergic Cromones Inhibit Histamine and Eicosanoid Release from Activated Human and Murine Mast Cells by Releasing Annexin A1

PMCID: PMC3601088This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Autism as a disorder of neural information processing: directions for research and targets for therapy

The broad variation in phenotypes and severities within autism spectrum disorders suggests the involvement of multiple predisposing factors, interacting in complex ways with normal developmental courses and gradients. Identification of these factors, and the common developmental path into which theyfeed, is hampered bythe large degrees of convergence from causal factors to altered brain development, and divergence from abnormal brain development into altered cognition and behaviour. Genetic, neurochemical, neuroimaging and behavioural findings on autism, as well as studies of normal development and of genetic syndromes that share symptoms with autism, offer hypotheses as to the nature of causal factors and their possible effects on the structure and dynamics of neural systems. Such alterations in neural properties may in turn perturb activity-dependent development, giving rise to a complex behavioural syndrome many steps removed from the root causes. Animal models based on genetic, neurochemical, neurophysiological, and behavioural manipulations offer the possibility of exploring these developmental processes in detail, as do human studies addressing endophenotypes beyond the diagnosis itself

The extraordinary evolutionary history of the reticuloendotheliosis viruses

The reticuloendotheliosis viruses (REVs) comprise several closely related amphotropic retroviruses isolated from birds. These viruses exhibit several highly unusual characteristics that have not so far been adequately explained, including their extremely close relationship to mammalian retroviruses, and their presence as endogenous sequences within the genomes of certain large DNA viruses. We present evidence for an iatrogenic origin of REVs that accounts for these phenomena. Firstly, we identify endogenous retroviral fossils in mammalian genomes that share a unique recombinant structure with REVs—unequivocally demonstrating that REVs derive directly from mammalian retroviruses. Secondly, through sequencing of archived REV isolates, we confirm that contaminated Plasmodium lophurae stocks have been the source of multiple REV outbreaks in experimentally infected birds. Finally, we show that both phylogenetic and historical evidence support a scenario wherein REVs originated as mammalian retroviruses that were accidentally introduced into avian hosts in the late 1930s, during experimental studies of P. lophurae, and subsequently integrated into the fowlpox virus (FWPV) and gallid herpesvirus type 2 (GHV-2) genomes, generating recombinant DNA viruses that now circulate in wild birds and poultry. Our findings provide a novel perspective on the origin and evolution of REV, and indicate that horizontal gene transfer between virus families can expand the impact of iatrogenic transmission events