Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Sleep Quality, Stress Level and Health-Related Quality of Life-A Large Prospective Cohort Study on Adult Danes

The everyday lives of Danish inhabitants have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, e.g., by social distancing, which was employed by the government in March 2020 to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, the pandemic has entailed economic consequences for many people. This study aims to assess changes in physical and mental health-related quality of life (MCS, PCS), in stress levels, and quality of sleep during the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify factors that impact such changes, using a prospective national cohort study including 26,453 participants from the Danish Blood Donor Study who answered a health questionnaire before the pandemic and during the pandemic. Descriptive statistics, multivariable linear and multinomial logistic regression analyses were applied. A worsening of MCS and quality of sleep was found, and an overall decrease in stress levels was observed. PCS was decreased in men and slightly increased in women. The extent of health changes was mainly affected by changes in job situation, type of job, previous use of anti-depressive medication and the participants’ level of personal stamina. Thus, living under the unusual circumstances that persisted during the COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on the health of the general population. This may, in time, constitute a public health problem

Comparison of quantitative trait loci methods:Total expression and allelic imbalance method in brain RNA-seq

BackgroundOf the 108 Schizophrenia (SZ) risk-loci discovered through genome-wide association studies (GWAS), 96 are not altering the sequence of any protein. Evidence linking non-coding risk-SNPs and genes may be established using expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL). However, other approaches such allelic expression quantitative trait loci (aeQTL) also may be of use.MethodsWe applied both the eQTL and aeQTL analysis to a biobank of deeply sequenced RNA from 680 dorso-lateral pre-frontal cortex (DLPFC) samples. For each of 340 genes proximal to the SZ risk-SNPs, we asked how much SNP-genotype affected total expression (eQTL), as well as how much the expression ratio between the two alleles differed from 1:1 as a consequence of the risk-SNP genotype (aeQTL).ResultsWe analyzed overlap with comparable eQTL-findings: 16 of the 30 risk-SNPs known to have gene-level eQTL also had gene-level aeQTL effects. 6 of 21 risk-SNPs with known splice-eQTL had exon-aeQTL effects. 12 novel potential risk genes were identified with the aeQTL approach, while 55 tested SNP-pairs were found as eQTL but not aeQTL. Of the tested 108 loci we could find at least one gene to be associated with 21 of the risk-SNPs using gene-level aeQTL, and with an additional 18 risk-SNPs using exon-level aeQTL.ConclusionOur results suggest that the aeQTL strategy complements the eQTL approach to susceptibility gene identification

Sistema web para asistencia en el manejo integrado de malezas: temperatura y humedad de suelos

Un insumo imprescindible para lograr un buen manejo integrado de las malezas es una herramienta que permita estimar de manera precisa su emergencia a campo, es decir, anticipar los flujos de germinación en función de las condiciones meteorológicas de la zona. Con este objetivo se han desarrollado una gran variedad de modelos matemáticos que permiten estimar la emergencia de diferentes malezas basados en datos meteorológicos, en particular, temperatura y precipitación diarios. Entre estos modelos tienen una gran popularidad los de tipo logísticos (sigmoidales, weibull), que utilizan como variable descriptiva algún índice hidrotermal acumulado. Estos índices integran de manera sencilla e intuitiva el calor y la humedad necesarias para la salida de la dormición, la germinación y la emergencia de las malezas. Estos índices se construyen habitualmente con información de la temperatura y humedad del suelo a una dada profundidad en la que se estima se encuentra la semilla. El cálculo de estas variables se realiza mediante balances de masa y energía utilizando información meteorológica, principalmente temperaturas y precipitaciones diarias, así como radiación y viento, entre otras.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Translating genome-wide association findings into new therapeutics for psychiatry

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in psychiatry, once they reach sufficient sample size and power, have been enormously successful. The Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) aims for mega-analyses with sample sizes that will grow to (cumulatively) >1 million individuals in the next 5 years. This should lead to hundreds of new findings for common genetic variants across nine psychiatric disorders studied by the PGC. The new targets discovered by GWAS have the potential to restart largely stalled psychiatric drug development pipelines, and the translation of GWAS findings into the clinic is a key aim of the recently funded phase 3 of the PGC. This is not without considerable technical challenges. These approaches complement the other main aim of GWAS studies on risk prediction approaches for improving detection, differential diagnosis, and clinical trial design. This paper outlines the motivations, technical and analytical issues, and the plans for translating PGC3 findings into new therapeutics

Lakselusinfestasjon på vill laksefisk våren og sommeren 2018 – Framdriftsrapport til Mattilsynet september 2018

Statusrapport fra overvåkingsprogrammet for lakselus på vill laksefisk 2018. Rapporten inneholder foreløpige data fra postsmolttråling etter laks og ruse-/garnfangst etter sjøørret i perioden 30. april til 9. august. Presenterte data er foreløpige og vil oppdateres og kvalitetssikres gjennom høsten 2018.Lakselusinfestasjon på vill laksefisk våren og sommeren 2018 – Framdriftsrapport til Mattilsynet september 2018publishedVersio