Anterior cingulate cortex is crucial for contra- but not ipsi-lateral electro-acupuncture in the formalin-induced inflammatory pain model of rats

Acupuncture and electro-acupuncture (EA) are now widely used to treat disorders like pain. We and others have shown previously that current frequency, intensity and treatment duration all significantly influence the anti-nociceptive effects of EA. There is evidence that stimulating sites also affect the antinociception, with EA applied ipsilaterally to the pain site being more effective under some pain states but contralateral EA under others. It was recently reported that local adenosine A1 receptors were responsible for ipsilateral acupuncture, but what mechanisms specifically mediate the anti-nociceptive effects of contralateral acupuncture or EA remains unclear. In the present study, we applied 100 Hz EA on the ipsi- or contra-lateral side of rats with inflammatory pain induced by intra-plantar injection of formalin, and reported distinct anti-nociceptive effects and mechanisms between them. Both ipsi- and contra-lateral EA reduced the paw lifting time in the second phase of the formalin test and attenuated formalin-induced conditioned place aversion. Contralateral EA had an additional effect of reducing paw licking time, suggesting a supraspinal mechanism. Lesions of rostral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) completely abolished the anti-nociceptive effects of contra- but not ipsi-lateral EA. These findings were not lateralized effects, since injection of formalin into the left or right hind paws produced similar results. Overall, these results demonstrated distinct anti-nociceptive effects and mechanisms between different stimulating sides and implied the necessity of finding the best stimulating protocols for different pain states

Digit-only sauropod pes trackways from China - evidence of swimming or a preservational phenomenon?

For more than 70 years unusual sauropod trackways have played a pivotal role in debates about the swimming ability of sauropods. Most claims that sauropods could swim have been based on manus-only or manus-dominated trackways. However none of these incomplete trackways has been entirely convincing, and most have proved to be taphonomic artifacts, either undertracks or the result of differential depth of penetration of manus and pes tracks, but otherwise showed the typical pattern of normal walking trackways. Here we report an assemblage of unusual sauropod tracks from the Lower Cretaceous Hekou Group of Gansu Province, northern China, characterized by the preservation of only the pes claw traces, that we interpret as having been left by walking, not buoyant or swimming, individuals. They are interpreted as the result of animals moving on a soft mud-silt substrate, projecting their claws deeply to register their traces on an underlying sand layer where they gained more grip during progression. Other sauropod walking trackways on the same surface with both pes and manus traces preserved, were probably left earlier on relatively firm substrates that predated the deposition of soft mud and silt . Presently, there is no convincing evidence of swimming sauropods from their trackways, which is not to say that sauropods did not swim at all

Next-to-leading order QCD predictions for Z0H0+jetZ^0 H^0 + {\rm jet} production at LHC

We calculate the complete next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to the $Z^0H^0$ production in association with a jet at the LHC. We study the impacts of the NLO QCD radiative corrections to the integrated and differential cross sections and the dependence of the cross section on the factorization/renormalization scale. We present the transverse momentum distributions of the final $Z^0$-, Higgs-boson and leading-jet. We find that the NLO QCD corrections significantly modify the physical observables, and obviously reduce the scale uncertainty of the LO cross section. The QCD K-factors can be 1.183 and 1.180 at the $\sqrt{s}=14 TeV$ and $\sqrt{s}=7 TeV$ LHC respectively, when we adopt the inclusive event selection scheme with $p_{T,j}^{cut}=50 GeV$, $m_H=120 GeV$ and $\mu=\mu_r=\mu_f=\mu_0 \equiv 1/2(m_Z+m_H)$. Furthermore, we make the comparison between the two scale choices, $\mu=\mu_0$ and $\mu=\mu_1=1/2(E_{T}^{Z}+E_{T}^{H}+ \sum_{j}E_{T}^{jet})$, and find the scale choice $\mu=\mu_1$ seems to be more appropriate than the fixed scale $\mu=\mu_0$.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

Major Radiodiagnostic Imaging in Pregnancy and the Risk of Childhood Malignancy: A Population-Based Cohort Study in Ontario

In a record-linkage study, Joel Ray and colleagues examine the association between diagnostic imaging during pregnancy and later childhood cancers

Skeletal growth in class II malocclusion from childhood to adolescence: does the profile straighten?

BACKGROUND There is relatively little appreciation of the changes in maxillary-mandibular relationships occurring during adolescence among subjects with normal and increased overjet. The aim of this study was to assess differences in changes in maxillo-mandibular relationships during the adolescent growth period based on the presence of a normal ( 4 mm) overjet in childhood. Our hypothesis was that there is no difference in the change of the A point, nasion, B point (ANB) angle during growth between these two overjet groups. Lateral cephalograms were obtained from 65 subjects taken from the American Association of Orthodontists Foundation (AAOF) Craniofacial Growth Legacy Collections Project. Cephalograms were obtained at ages 7-10 (T0) and 14-17 (T1) with allocation into two groups based on baseline overjet (> 4 mm: group 1, 2-4 mm: group 2). Random effects linear regression was used to account for multiple within -patient measurements with dependent variables including antero-posterior skeletal pattern (based on sella, nasion, A point (SNA); sella, nasion, B point (SNB); and ANB angles). RESULTS We included a similar number of males (n = 34; 52.3%) and females (n = 31; 47.7%). The mean ANB was higher at baseline in group 1 (5.42, SD 2.16°) than in group 2 (3.08, SD 1.91°). The hypothesis was rejected as the ANB angle reduced by 1.92° more in the larger overjet group with the association being statistically significant after accounting for age and gender (P  4 mm overjet group compared to the 2-4 mm group (0.857°, P = 0.271; 95% CI - 0.669 to 2.383). The SNB angle increased by 1.15° more in the higher overjet group but there was only weak evidence of an association (P = 0.086; 95% CI - 2.464 to 0.164). CONCLUSIONS A slight straightening of the facial profile was observed in both groups with a statistically significant greater reduction in ANB arising in the group with larger baseline overjet. This translated into a marginal reduction in the overjet in this group

Reconstructing phylogenies from noisy quartets in polynomial time with a high success probability

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In recent years, quartet-based phylogeny reconstruction methods have received considerable attentions in the computational biology community. Traditionally, the accuracy of a phylogeny reconstruction method is measured by simulations on synthetic datasets with known "true" phylogenies, while little theoretical analysis has been done. In this paper, we present a new model-based approach to measuring the accuracy of a quartet-based phylogeny reconstruction method. Under this model, we propose three efficient algorithms to reconstruct the "true" phylogeny with a high success probability.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The first algorithm can reconstruct the "true" phylogeny from the input quartet topology set without quartet errors in <it>O</it>(<it>n</it>²) time by querying at most (<it>n </it>- 4) log(<it>n </it>- 1) quartet topologies, where <it>n </it>is the number of the taxa. When the input quartet topology set contains errors, the second algorithm can reconstruct the "true" phylogeny with a probability approximately 1 - <it>p </it>in <it>O</it>(<it>n</it>⁴log <it>n</it>) time, where <it>p </it>is the probability for a quartet topology being an error. This probability is improved by the third algorithm to approximately <inline-formula><m:math name="1748-7188-3-1-i1" xmlns:m="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><m:semantics><m:mrow><m:mfrac><m:mn>1</m:mn><m:mrow><m:mn>1</m:mn><m:mo>+</m:mo><m:msup><m:mi>q</m:mi><m:mn>2</m:mn></m:msup><m:mo>+</m:mo><m:mfrac><m:mn>1</m:mn><m:mn>2</m:mn></m:mfrac><m:msup><m:mi>q</m:mi><m:mn>4</m:mn></m:msup><m:mo>+</m:mo><m:mfrac><m:mn>1</m:mn><m:mrow><m:mn>16</m:mn></m:mrow></m:mfrac><m:msup><m:mi>q</m:mi><m:mn>5</m:mn></m:msup></m:mrow></m:mfrac></m:mrow><m:annotation encoding="MathType-MTEF"> MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaagaart1ev2aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacPC6xNi=xH8viVGI8Gi=hEeeu0xXdbba9frFj0xb9qqpG0dXdb9aspeI8k8fiI+fsY=rqGqVepae9pg0db9vqaiVgFr0xfr=xfr=xc9adbaqaaeGacaGaaiaabeqaaeqabiWaaaGcbaqcfa4aaSaaaeaacqaIXaqmaeaacqaIXaqmcqGHRaWkcqWGXbqCdaahaaqabeaacqaIYaGmaaGaey4kaSYaaSaaaeaacqaIXaqmaeaacqaIYaGmaaGaemyCae3aaWbaaeqabaGaeGinaqdaaiabgUcaRmaalaaabaGaeGymaedabaGaeGymaeJaeGOnaydaaiabdghaXnaaCaaabeqaaiabiwda1aaaaaaaaa@3D5A@</m:annotation></m:semantics></m:math></inline-formula>, where <inline-formula><m:math name="1748-7188-3-1-i2" xmlns:m="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><m:semantics><m:mrow><m:mi>q</m:mi><m:mo>=</m:mo><m:mfrac><m:mi>p</m:mi><m:mrow><m:mn>1</m:mn><m:mo>−</m:mo><m:mi>p</m:mi></m:mrow></m:mfrac></m:mrow><m:annotation encoding="MathType-MTEF"> MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaagaart1ev2aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacPC6xNi=xH8viVGI8Gi=hEeeu0xXdbba9frFj0xb9qqpG0dXdb9aspeI8k8fiI+fsY=rqGqVepae9pg0db9vqaiVgFr0xfr=xfr=xc9adbaqaaeGacaGaaiaabeqaaeqabiWaaaGcbaGaemyCaeNaeyypa0tcfa4aaSaaaeaacqWGWbaCaeaacqaIXaqmcqGHsislcqWGWbaCaaaaaa@3391@</m:annotation></m:semantics></m:math></inline-formula>, with running time of <it>O</it>(<it>n</it>⁵), which is at least 0.984 when <it>p </it>< 0.05.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The three proposed algorithms are mathematically guaranteed to reconstruct the "true" phylogeny with a high success probability. The experimental results showed that the third algorithm produced phylogenies with a higher probability than its aforementioned theoretical lower bound and outperformed some existing phylogeny reconstruction methods in both speed and accuracy.</p

Phylogeny of Basal Iguanodonts (Dinosauria: Ornithischia): An Update

The precise phylogenetic relationships of many non-hadrosaurid members of Iguanodontia, i.e., basal iguanodonts, have been unclear. Therefore, to investigate the global phylogeny of basal iguanodonts a comprehensive data matrix was assembled, including nearly every valid taxon of basal iguanodont. The matrix was analyzed in the program TNT, and the maximum agreement subtree of the resulting most parsimonious trees was then calculated in PAUP. Ordering certain multistate characters and omitting taxa through safe taxonomic reduction did not markedly improve resolution. The results provide some new information on the phylogeny of basal iguanodonts, pertaining especially to obscure or recently described taxa, and support some recent taxonomic revisions, such as the splitting of traditional “Camptosaurus” and “Iguanodon”. The maximum agreement subtree also shows a close relationship between the Asian Probactrosaurus gobiensis and the North American Eolambia, supporting the previous hypothesis of faunal interchange between Asia and North America in the early Late Cretaceous. Nevertheless, the phylogenetic relationships of many basal iguanodonts remain ambiguous due to the high number of taxa removed from the maximum agreement subtree and poor resolution of consensus trees

Toxicity of Sediment-Associated Pesticides to Chironomus dilutus and Hyalella azteca

Two hundred sediment samples were collected and their toxicity evaluated to aquatic species in a previous study in the agriculturally dominated Central Valley of California, United States. Pyrethroid insecticides were the main contributors to the observed toxicity. However, mortality in approximately one third of the toxic samples could not be explained solely by the presence of pyrethroids in the matrices. Hundreds of pesticides are currently used in the Central Valley of California, but only a few dozen are analyzed in standard environmental monitoring. A significant amount of unexplained sediment toxicity may be due to pesticides that are in widespread use that but have not been routinely monitored in the environment, and even if some of them were, the concentrations harmful to aquatic organisms are unknown. In this study, toxicity thresholds for nine sediment-associated pesticides including abamectin, diazinon, dicofol, fenpropathrin, indoxacarb, methyl parathion, oxyfluorfen, propargite, and pyraclostrobin were established for two aquatic species, the midge Chironomus dilutus and the amphipod Hyalella azteca. For midges, the median lethal concentration (LC50) of the pesticides ranged from 0.18 to 964 μg/g organic carbon (OC), with abamectin being the most toxic and propargite being the least toxic pesticide. A sublethal growth endpoint using average individual ash-free dry mass was also measured for the midges. The no–observable effect concentration values for growth ranged from 0.10 to 633 μg/g OC for the nine pesticides. For the amphipods, fenpropathrin was the most toxic, with an LC50 of 1–2 μg/g OC. Abamectin, diazinon, and methyl parathion were all moderately toxic (LC50s 2.8–26 μg/g OC). Dicofol, indoxacarb, oxyfluorfen, propargite, and pyraclostrobin were all relatively nontoxic, with LC50s greater than the highest concentrations tested. The toxicity information collected in the present study will be helpful in decreasing the frequency of unexplained sediment toxicity in agricultural waterways