Crassostrea Ariakensis In Chesapeake Bay: Growth, Disease And Mortality In Shallow Subtidal Environments

In April 2004, triploid native (Crassostrea virginica) and nonnative (Crassostrea ariakensis) oysters were deployed in cages at four sites along a salinity gradient in Chesapeake Bay. In Maryland, the lowest salinity site was located in the Severn River and two low to mid-salinity sites were located in the Choptank and Patuxent Rivers. The highest salinity site was located in the York River in Virginia. Growth, disease acquisition, and mortality were measured in the deployed oysters through August 2006. Although ANOVA revealed that the nonnative oysters were significantly larger at the end of the experiment than the native oysters at all sites, the differences were much greater at the Virginia site (59 mm) than in Maryland waters (9-23 mm). With the exception of C. ariakensis in the Severn River, Perkinsus marinus infected both species at all sites. Prevalences and weighted prevalences in both species remained relatively low throughout the experiment, but native oysters consistently acquired higher prevalences and weighted prevalences than C. ariakensis by August 2006. With the exception of several mortality-inducing events including winter freezing and hypoxic exposure, mortality was generally low in both species. No disease-related mortality was suspected in either species given the low weighted prevalences observed. In the York River, where a substantial natural spatfall occurred in 2004, more native spat were found on C. ariakensis than on C. virginica. To our knowledge, this is the first comparison of triploid C. ariakensis to triploid C. virginica conducted in the field. Because we did not observe substantial disease-related mortality, it is too soon to draw conclusions regarding the disease tolerance of C. ariakensis in the field or its viability as a replacement for the native species

Study protocol to investigate the effect of a lifestyle intervention on body weight, psychological health status and risk factors associated with disease recurrence in women recovering from breast cancer treatment

Background Breast cancer survivors often encounter physiological and psychological problems related to their diagnosis and treatment that can influence long-term prognosis. The aim of this research is to investigate the effects of a lifestyle intervention on body weight and psychological well-being in women recovering from breast cancer treatment, and to determine the relationship between changes in these variables and biomarkers associated with disease recurrence and survival. Methods/design Following ethical approval, a total of 100 patients will be randomly assigned to a lifestyle intervention (incorporating dietary energy restriction in conjunction with aerobic exercise training) or normal care control group. Patients randomised to the dietary and exercise intervention will be given individualised healthy eating dietary advice and written information and attend moderate intensity aerobic exercise sessions on three to five days per week for a period of 24 weeks. The aim of this strategy is to induce a steady weight loss of up to 0.5 Kg each week. In addition, the overall quality of the diet will be examined with a view to (i) reducing the dietary intake of fat to ~25% of the total calories, (ii) eating at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day, (iii) increasing the intake of fibre and reducing refined carbohydrates, and (iv) taking moderate amounts of alcohol. Outcome measures will include body weight and body composition, psychological health status (stress and depression), cardiorespiratory fitness and quality of life. In addition, biomarkers associated with disease recurrence, including stress hormones, estrogen status, inflammatory markers and indices of innate and adaptive immune function will be monitored. Discussion This research will provide valuable information on the effectiveness of a practical, easily implemented lifestyle intervention for evoking positive effects on body weight and psychological well-being, two important factors that can influence long-term prognosis in breast cancer survivors. However, the added value of the study is that it will also evaluate the effects of the lifestyle intervention on a range of biomarkers associated with disease recurrence and survival. Considered together, the results should improve our understanding of the potential role that lifestyle-modifiable factors could play in saving or prolonging lives

Excess Mortality Rate During Adulthood Among Danish Adoptees

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Adoption studies have been used to disentangle the influence of genes from shared familial environment on various traits and disease risks. However, both the factors leading to adoption and living as an adoptee may bias the studies with regard to the relative influence of genes and environment compared to the general population. The aim was to investigate whether the cohort of domestic adoptees used for these studies in Denmark is similar to the general population with respect to all-cause mortality and cause-specific mortality rates. METHODS: 13,111 adoptees born in Denmark in 1917, or later, and adopted in 1924 to 1947 were compared to all Danes from the same birth cohorts using standardized mortality ratios (SMR). The 12,729 adoptees alive in 1970 were similarly compared to all Danes using SMR as well as cause-specific SMR. RESULTS: The excess in all-cause mortality before age 65 years in adoptees was estimated to be 1.30 (95% CI 1.26-1.35). Significant excess mortality before age 65 years was also observed for infections, vascular deaths, cancer, alcohol-related deaths and suicide. Analyses including deaths after age 65 generally showed slightly less excess in mortality, but the excess was significant for all-cause mortality, cancer, alcohol-related deaths and suicides. CONCLUSION: Adoptees have an increased all-cause mortality compared to the general population. All major specific causes of death contributed, and the highest excess is seen for alcohol-related deaths

Family History of Alcoholism and Childhood Adversity: Joint Effects on Alcohol Consumption and Dependence

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65494/1/j.1530-0277.1994.tb00085.x.pd

A Normative Pragmatic Theory of Exhorting

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10503-018-9465-y.We submit a normative pragmatic theory of exhorting—an account of conceptually necessary and potentially efficacious components of a coherent strategy for securing a sympathetic hearing for efforts to urge and inspire addressees to act on high-minded principles. Based on a Gricean analysis of utterance-meaning, we argue that the concept of exhorting comprises making statements openly urging addressees to perform some high-minded, principled course of action; openly intending to inspire addressees to act on the principles; and intending that addressees’ recognition of the intentions to urge and inspire creates reasons for addressees to grant a sympathetic hearing to what the speaker has to say. We show that the theory accounts for the design of Abraham Lincoln’s Cooper Union address. By doing so we add to the inventory of reasons why social actors make arguments, continue a line of research showing the relationship of arguing to master speech acts, and show that making arguments can be an effective strategy for inspiring principled action

Modeling of longitudinal polytomous outcome from complex survey data - application to investigate an association between mental distress and non-malignant respiratory diseases

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The data from longitudinal complex surveys based on multi-stage sampling designs contain cross-sectional dependencies among units due to clustered nature of the data and within-subject dependencies due to repeated measurements. Special statistical methods are required to analyze longitudinal complex survey data.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Statistics Canada's longitudinal National Population Health Survey (NPHS) dataset from the first five cycles (1994/1995 to 2002/2003) was used to investigate the effects of demographic, social, life-style, and health-related factors on the longitudinal changes of mental distress scores among the NPHS participants who self-reported physician diagnosed respiratory diseases, specifically asthma and chronic bronchitis. The NPHS longitudinal sample includes 17,276 persons of all ages. In this report, participants 15 years and older (n = 14,713) were considered for statistical analysis. Mental distress, an ordinal outcome variable (categories: no/low, moderate, and high) was examined. Ordered logistic regression models based on the weighted generalized estimating equations approach were fitted to investigate the association between respiratory diseases and mental distress adjusting for other covariates of interest. Variance estimates of regression coefficients were computed by using bootstrap methods. The final model was used to predict the probabilities of prevalence of no/low, moderate or high mental distress scores.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Accounting for design effects does not vary the significance of the coefficients of the model. Participants suffering with chronic bronchitis were significantly at a higher risk (OR_adj= 1.37; 95% CI: 1.12-1.66) of reporting high levels of mental distress compared to those who did not self-report chronic bronchitis. There was no significant association between asthma and mental distress. There was a significant interaction between sex and self-perceived general health status indicating a dose-response relationship. Among females, the risk of mental distress increases with increasing deteriorating (from excellent to very poor) self-perceived general health.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A positive association was observed between the physician diagnosed self-reported chronic bronchitis and an increased prevalence of mental distress when adjusted for important covariates. Variance estimates of regression coefficients obtained from the sandwich estimator (i.e. not accounting for design effects) were similar to bootstrap variance estimates (i.e. accounting for design effects). Even though these two sets of variance estimates are similar, it is more appropriate to use bootstrap variance estimates.</p

Antineoplastic activity of idazoxan hydrochloride

Idazoxan hydrochloride (IDA) is a 241 molecular weight imidazoline and adrenoreceptor ligand. It binds to mitochondrial membranes and promotes apoptosis of pancreatic beta cells. Since IDA has not been tested against tumor cells, the purpose of our study was to determine if IDA has antineoplastic activity. We used the conversion of a soluble tetrazolium salt to an insoluble formazan precipitate and differential staining cytotoxicity assays to determine if IDA was cytotoxic to cell lines of murine lung cancer and human prostate cancer, as well as to a variety of fresh human tumor samples. We used flow cytometry to analyze cell death and calreticulin expression. IDA is cytotoxic to both cell lines and against aliquots of specimens of breast, gastric, lung, ovarian and prostate cancers as well as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It produces apoptotic cell death and promotes calreticulin expression, suggesting that IDA might be immunomodulatory in vivo. We anticipate that IDA will be clinically useful in cancer treatment

A phase II study of weekly cisplatin, 6S-stereoisomer leucovorin and fluorouracil as first-line chemotherapy for elderly patients with advanced gastric cancer

The incidence of gastric cancer (GC) increases significantly after the fifth decade and palliative chemotherapy is the ultimate treatment in the majority of patients. We investigated safety and efficacy of a weekly regimen with cisplatin, fluorouracil and leucovorin as first-line chemotherapy for elderly patients with advanced GC. Chemotherapy-naive patients older than 65 years were considered eligible for study entry. Frail elderly patients were identified and excluded according to the following criteria: age >85 years, dependence in one or more activities of daily living (activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living scales), three or more comorbid conditions, one or more geriatric syndromes. Chemotherapy consisted of 1-day per week administration of intravenous cisplatin 35 mg m(-2), 6S-stereoisomer leucovorin 250 mg m(-2) and fluorouracil 500 mg m(-2) (PLF). Patients were re-evaluated after eight weekly cycles and six additional weekly administrations were planned for patients without disease progression. A 5-day subcutaneous filgrastim (5 mug Kg(-1) day(-1), days +1-+5) was used after the first treatment delay for neutropenia and maintained thereafter. In the whole group, the best intention-to-treat overall response rate was 43\% (95\% CI: 30-56\%). The time to disease progression and the median survival time were 5.3 and 8.6 months, respectively. Fatigue was the commonest nonhaematologic toxicity (71\% of the patients). Filgrastim was used in 30 patients who showed grade II (20 patients) or grade III (10 patients) neutropenia. Neither grade IV toxicity nor toxic deaths were observed. The weekly PLF regimen resulted safe and effective in elderly patients with advanced GC. This outpatient regimen is based on old and low-cost drugs and it may represent an alternative to new and more expensive combinations

Systemic Inhibition of NF-κB Activation Protects from Silicosis

Background: Silicosis is a complex lung disease for which no successful treatment is available and therefore lung transplantation is a potential alternative. Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) plays a central role in the pathogenesis of silicosis. TNFα signaling is mediated by the transcription factor, Nuclear Factor (NF)-κB, which regulates genes controlling several physiological processes including the innate immune responses, cell death, and inflammation. Therefore, inhibition of NF-κB activation represents a potential therapeutic strategy for silicosis. Methods/Findings: In the present work we evaluated the lung transplant database (May 1986-July 2007) at the University of Pittsburgh to study the efficacy of lung transplantation in patients with silicosis (n = 11). We contrasted the overall survival and rate of graft rejection in these patients to that of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF, n = 79) that was selected as a control group because survival benefit of lung transplantation has been identified for these patients. At the time of lung transplantation, we found the lungs of silica-exposed subjects to contain multiple foci of inflammatory cells and silicotic nodules with proximal TNFα expressing macrophage and NF-κB activation in epithelial cells. Patients with silicosis had poor survival (median survival 2.4 yr; confidence interval (CI): 0.16-7.88 yr) compared to IPF patients (5.3 yr; CI: 2.8-15 yr; p = 0.07), and experienced early rejection of their lung grafts (0.9 yr; CI: 0.22-0.9 yr) following lung transplantation (2.4 yr; CI:1.5-3.6 yr; p<0.05). Using a mouse experimental model in which the endotracheal instillation of silica reproduces the silica-induced lung injury observed in humans we found that systemic inhibition of NF-κB activation with a pharmacologic inhibitor (BAY 11-7085) of IκBα phosphorylation decreased silica-induced inflammation and collagen deposition. In contrast, transgenic mice expressing a dominant negative IκBα mutant protein under the control of epithelial cell specific promoters demonstrate enhanced apoptosis and collagen deposition in their lungs in response to silica. Conclusions: Although limited by its size, our data support that patients with silicosis appear to have poor outcome following lung transplantation. Experimental data indicate that while the systemic inhibition of NF-κB protects from silica-induced lung injury, epithelial cell specific NF-κB inhibition appears to aggravate the outcome of experimental silicosis. © 2009 Di Giuseppe et al

Common Functional Correlates of Head-Strike Behavior in the Pachycephalosaur Stegoceras validum (Ornithischia, Dinosauria) and Combative Artiodactyls

BACKGROUND: Pachycephalosaurs were bipedal herbivorous dinosaurs with bony domes on their heads, suggestive of head-butting as seen in bighorn sheep and musk oxen. Previous biomechanical studies indicate potential for pachycephalosaur head-butting, but bone histology appears to contradict the behavior in young and old individuals. Comparing pachycephalosaurs with fighting artiodactyls tests for common correlates of head-butting in their cranial structure and mechanics. METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Computed tomographic (CT) scans and physical sectioning revealed internal cranial structure of ten artiodactyls and pachycephalosaurs Stegoceras validum and Prenocephale prenes. Finite element analyses (FEA), incorporating bone and keratin tissue types, determined cranial stress and strain from simulated head impacts. Recursive partition analysis quantified strengths of correlation between functional morphology and actual or hypothesized behavior. Strong head-strike correlates include a dome-like cephalic morphology, neurovascular canals exiting onto the cranium surface, large neck muscle attachments, and dense cortical bone above a sparse cancellous layer in line with the force of impact. The head-butting duiker Cephalophus leucogaster is the closest morphological analog to Stegoceras, with a smaller yet similarly rounded dome. Crania of the duiker, pachycephalosaurs, and bighorn sheep Ovis canadensis share stratification of thick cortical and cancellous layers. Stegoceras, Cephalophus, and musk ox crania experience lower stress and higher safety factors for a given impact force than giraffe, pronghorn, or the non-combative llama. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Anatomy, biomechanics, and statistical correlation suggest that some pachycephalosaurs were as competent at head-to-head impacts as extant analogs displaying such combat. Large-scale comparisons and recursive partitioning can greatly refine inference of behavioral capability for fossil animals