Coastal response to late-stage transgression and sea-level highstand

Coastal morphologic features associated with past shoreline transgressions and sea-level highstands can provide insight into the rates and processes associated with coastal response to the modern global rise in sea level. Along the eastern and southern Brazilian coasts of South America, 6000 years of sea-level fall have preserved late-stage transgressive and sea-level highstand features 1-4 m above present mean sea level and several kilometers landward of modern shorelines. GPS with real-time kinematics data, ground-penetrating radar, stratigraphy, and radiocarbon dating within a 2-3-km-wide river-associated strandplain in central Santa Catarina (southern Brazil) uncovered a diverse set of late-stage transgressive and highstand deposits. Here, the highstand took the forms of (1) an exposed bedrock coast in areas of high wave energy and low sediment supply; (2) a 3.8-m-high transgressive barrier ridge where landward barrier migration was prohibited by the presence of shallow bedrock; and (3) a complete barrier-island complex containing a 5.2-m-high barrier ridge, wash-over deposits, a paleo-inlet, and a backbarrier lowland, formed in a protected cove with ample sediment supply from small local streams and the erosion of upland sediments. Similar signatures of the mid-Holocene highstand can be traced across all coastal Brazilian states. This study presents the first complete compilation of the diversity of these sedimentary sequences. They are broadly classified here as exposed bedrock coasts (type A), back barrier deposits (type B), transgressive barrier ridges (type C), and barrier-island complexes (type D), according to localized conditions of upland migration potential, wave exposure, and sediment supply. These Brazilian systems present a paradigm for understanding future coastal response to climate change and accelerated sea-level rise: the recognition of a minimum threshold sea-level-rise rate of similar to 2 mm yr(-1) above which transgression proceeded too rapidly for the formation of these stable accretionary shoreline features demonstrates the nonlinearity of coastal response to sea-level change, and the site specificity of conditions associated with the formation of each highstand deposit type, even within a single small embayment, demonstrates the non-uniformity of that response

Polarizing Tweets on Climate Change

We introduce a framework to analyze the conversation between two competing groups of Twitter users, one who believe in the anthropogenic causes of climate change (Believers) and a second who are skeptical (Disbelievers). As a case study, we use Climate Change related tweets during the United Nation's (UN) Climate Change Conference - COP24 (2018), Katowice, Poland. We find that both Disbelievers and Believers talk within their group more than with the other group; this is more so the case for Disbelievers than for Believers. The Disbeliever messages focused more on attacking those personalities that believe in the anthropogenic causes of climate change. On the other hand, Believer messages focused on calls to combat climate change. We find that in both Disbelievers and Believers bot-like accounts were equally active and that unlike Believers, Disbelievers get their news from a concentrated number of news sources

Influence of a knot on the strength of a polymer strand

Many experiments have been done to determine the relative strength of different knots, and these show that the break in a knotted rope almost invariably occurs at a point just outside the `entrance' to the knot. The influence of knots on the properties of polymers has become of great interest, in part because of their effect on mechanical properties. Knot theory applied to the topology of macromolecules indicates that the simple trefoil or `overhand' knot is likely to be present with high probability in any long polymer strand. Fragments of DNA have been observed to contain such knots in experiments and computer simulations. Here we use {\it ab initio} computational methods to investigate the effect of a trefoil knot on the breaking strength of a polymer strand. We find that the knot weakens the strand significantly, and that, like a knotted rope, it breaks under tension at the entrance to the knot.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

Dynamic predicting by landmarking as an alternative for multi-state modeling: an application to acute lymphoid leukemia data

This paper considers the problem of obtaining a dynamic prediction for 5-year failure free survival after bone marrow transplantation in ALL patients using data from the EBMT, the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation. The paper compares the new landmark methodology as developed by the first author and the established multi-state modeling as described in a recent Tutorial in Biostatistics in Statistics in Medicine by the second author and colleagues. As expected the two approaches give similar results. The landmark methodology does not need complex modeling and leads to easy prediction rules. On the other hand, it does not give the insight in the biological processes as obtained for the multi-state model

Proteomics as a quality control tool of pharmaceutical probiotic bacterial lysate products

Probiotic bacteria have a wide range of applications in veterinary and human therapeutics. Inactivated probiotics are complex samples and quality control (QC) should measure as many molecular features as possible. Capillary electrophoresis coupled to mass spectrometry (CE/MS) has been used as a multidimensional and high throughput method for the identification and validation of biomarkers of disease in complex biological samples such as biofluids. In this study we evaluate the suitability of CE/MS to measure the consistency of different lots of the probiotic formulation Pro-Symbioflor which is a bacterial lysate of heat-inactivated Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis. Over 5000 peptides were detected by CE/MS in 5 different lots of the bacterial lysate and in a sample of culture medium. 71 to 75% of the total peptide content was identical in all lots. This percentage increased to 87–89% when allowing the absence of a peptide in one of the 5 samples. These results, based on over 2000 peptides, suggest high similarity of the 5 different lots. Sequence analysis identified peptides of both E. coli and E. faecalis and peptides originating from the culture medium, thus confirming the presence of the strains in the formulation. Ontology analysis suggested that the majority of the peptides identified for E. coli originated from the cell membrane or the fimbrium, while peptides identified for E. faecalis were enriched for peptides originating from the cytoplasm. The bacterial lysate peptides as a whole are recognised as highly conserved molecular patterns by the innate immune system as microbe associated molecular pattern (MAMP). Sequence analysis also identified the presence of soybean, yeast and casein protein fragments that are part of the formulation of the culture medium. In conclusion CE/MS seems an appropriate QC tool to analyze complex biological products such as inactivated probiotic formulations and allows determining the similarity between lots

A family history of breast cancer will not predict female early onset breast cancer in a population-based setting

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: An increased risk of breast cancer for relatives of breast cancer patients has been demonstrated in many studies, and having a relative diagnosed with breast cancer at an early age is an indication for breast cancer screening. This indication has been derived from estimates based on data from cancer-prone families or from BRCA1/2 mutation families, and might be biased because BRCA1/2 mutations explain only a small proportion of the familial clustering of breast cancer. The aim of the current study was to determine the predictive value of a family history of cancer with regard to early onset of female breast cancer in a population based setting. METHODS: An unselected sample of 1,987 women with and without breast cancer was studied with regard to the age of diagnosis of breast cancer. RESULTS: The risk of early-onset breast cancer was increased when there were: (1) at least 2 cases of female breast cancer in first-degree relatives (yes/no; HR at age 30: 3.09; 95% CI: 128-7.44), (2) at least 2 cases of female breast cancer in first or second-degree relatives under the age of 50 (yes/no; HR at age 30: 3.36; 95% CI: 1.12-10.08), (3) at least 1 case of female breast cancer under the age of 40 in a first- or second-degree relative (yes/no; HR at age 30: 2.06; 95% CI: 0.83-5.12) and (4) any case of bilateral breast cancer (yes/no; HR at age 30: 3.47; 95%: 1.33-9.05). The positive predictive value of having 2 or more of these characteristics was 13% for breast cancer before the age of 70, 11% for breast cancer before the age of 50, and 1% for breast cancer before the age of 30. CONCLUSION: Applying family history related criteria in an unselected population could result in the screening of many women who will not develop breast cancer at an early age

Interpretation of ambiguous situations: evidence for a dissociation between social and physical threat in Williams syndrome

There is increasing evidence that Williams syndrome (WS) is associated with elevated anxiety that is non-social in nature, including generalised anxiety and fears. To date very little research has examined the cognitive processes associated with this anxiety. In the present research, attentional bias for non-social threatening images in WS was examined using a dot-probe paradigm. Participants were 16 individuals with WS aged between 13 and 34 years and two groups of typically developing controls matched to the WS group on chronological age and attentional control ability respectively. The WS group exhibited a significant attention bias towards threatening images. In contrast, no bias was found for group matched on attentional control and a slight bias away from threat was found in the chronological age matched group. The results are contrasted with recent findings suggesting that individuals with WS do not show an attention bias for threatening faces and discussed in relation to neuroimaging research showing elevated amygdala activation in response to threatening non-social scenes in WS

Neo-Aristotelian Naturalism and the Evolutionary Objection: Rethinking the Relevance of Empirical Science

Neo-Aristotelian metaethical naturalism is a modern attempt at naturalizing ethics using ideas from Aristotle’s teleological metaphysics. Proponents of this view argue that moral virtue in human beings is an instance of natural goodness, a kind of goodness supposedly also found in the realm of non-human living things. Many critics question whether neo-Aristotelian naturalism is tenable in light of modern evolutionary biology. Two influential lines of objection have appealed to an evolutionary understanding of human nature and natural teleology to argue against this view. In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of these two seemingly different lines of objection as raising instances of the same dilemma, giving neo-Aristotelians a choice between contradicting our considered moral judgment and abandoning metaethical naturalism. I argue that resolving the dilemma requires showing a particular kind of continuity between the norms of moral virtue and norms that are necessary for understanding non-human living things. I also argue that in order to show such a continuity, neo-Aristotelians need to revise the relationship they adopt with empirical science and acknowledge that the latter is relevant to assessing their central commitments regarding living things. Finally, I argue that to move this debate forward, both neo-Aristotelians and their critics should pay attention to recent work on the concept of organism in evolutionary and developmental biology

Clinical risk factors for age-related macular degeneration: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in Western countries. Numerous risk factors have been reported but the evidence and strength of association is variable. We aimed to identify those risk factors with strong levels of evidence which could be easily assessed by physicians or ophthalmologists to implement preventive interventions or address current behaviours. METHODS: A systematic review identified 18 prospective and cross-sectional studies and 6 case control studies involving 113,780 persons with 17,236 cases of late AMD that included an estimate of the association between late AMD and at least one of 16 pre-selected risk factors. Fixed-effects meta-analyses were conducted for each factor to combine odds ratio (OR) and/or relative risk (RR) outcomes across studies by study design. Overall raw point estimates of each risk factor and associated 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. RESULTS: Increasing age, current cigarette smoking, previous cataract surgery, and a family history of AMD showed strong and consistent associations with late AMD. Risk factors with moderate and consistent associations were higher body mass index, history of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and higher plasma fibrinogen. Risk factors with weaker and inconsistent associations were gender, ethnicity, diabetes, iris colour, history of cerebrovascular disease, and serum total and HDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels. CONCLUSIONS: Smoking, previous cataract surgery and a family history of AMD are consistent risk factors for AMD. Cardiovascular risk factors are also associated with AMD. Knowledge of these risk factors that may be easily assessed by physicians and general ophthalmologists may assist in identification and appropriate referral of persons at risk of AMD