Moisture transport by Atlantic tropical cyclones onto the North American continent

Tropical Cyclones (TCs) are an important source of freshwater for the North American continent. Many studies have tried to estimate this contribution by identifying TC-induced precipitation events, but few have explicitly diagnosed the moisture fluxes across continental boundaries. We design a set of attribution schemes to isolate the column-integrated moisture fluxes that are directly associated with TCs and to quantify the flux onto the North American Continent due to TCs. Averaged over the 2004–2012 hurricane seasons and integrated over the western, southern and eastern coasts of North America, the seven schemes attribute 7 to 18 % (mean 14 %) of total net onshore flux to Atlantic TCs. A reduced contribution of 10 % (range 9 to 11 %) was found for the 1980–2003 period, though only two schemes could be applied to this earlier period. Over the whole 1980–2012 period, a further 8 % (range 6 to 9 % from two schemes) was attributed to East Pacific TCs, resulting in a total TC contribution of 19 % (range 17 to 22 %) to the ocean-to-land moisture transport onto the North American continent between May and November. Analysis of the attribution uncertainties suggests that incorporating details of individual TC size and shape adds limited value to a fixed radius approach and TC positional errors in the ERA-Interim reanalysis do not affect the results significantly, but biases in peak wind speeds and TC sizes may lead to underestimates of moisture transport. The interannual variability does not appear to be strongly related to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation phenomenon

Alcohol Consumption and Common Carotid Intima-Media Thickness: The USE-IMT Study

AIMS: Epidemiological evidence indicates a protective effect of light to moderate alcohol consumption compared to non-drinking and heavy drinking. Although several mechanisms have been suggested, the effect of alcohol on atherosclerotic changes in vessel walls is unclear. Therefore, we explored the relationship between alcohol consumption and common carotid intima media thickness, a marker of early atherosclerosis in the general population. METHODS: Individual participant data from eight cohorts, involving 37,494 individuals from the USE-IMT collaboration were used. Multilevel age and sex adjusted linear regression models were applied to estimate mean differences in common carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) with alcohol consumption. RESULTS: The mean age was 57.9 years (SD 8.6) and the mean CIMT was 0.75 mm (SD 0.177). About, 40.5% reported no alcohol consumed, and among those who drank, mean consumption was 13.3 g per day (SD 16.4). Those consuming no alcohol or a very small amount (10 g per day, after adjusting for a range of confounding factors. CONCLUSION: In this large CIMT consortium, we did not find evidence to support a protective effect of alcohol on CIMT

Brain mitochondrial oxidative metabolism during and after cerebral hypoxia-ischemia studied by simultaneous phosphorus magnetic-resonance and broadband near-infrared spectroscopy.

Multimodal measurements combining broadband near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((31)P MRS) assessed associations between changes in the oxidation state of cerebral mitochondrial cytochrome-c-oxidase (Δ[oxCCO]) and (31)P metabolite peak-area ratios during and after transient cerebral hypoxia-ischemia (HI) in the newborn piglet

Bardet-Biedl syndrome with end-stage kidney disease in a four-year-old Romanian boy: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bardet-Biedl syndrome is a significant genetic cause of chronic kidney disease in children. Kidney abnormalities are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Bardet-Biedl syndrome, but the onset of end-stage renal disease at an early age and continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis, however, are not commonly mentioned in the literature.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We present the case of a four-year-old Romanian boy who presented to our department with 'febrile seizures'. After an initial evaluation, we diagnosed our patient as having hypertension, severe anemia and end-stage renal disease. He met the major and minor criteria for the diagnosis of Bardet-Biedl syndrome and underwent continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Close follow-up for renal involvement in patients with Bardet-Biedl syndrome and Alström syndrome from an early age is highly recommended to prevent end-stage renal disease and so renal replacement therapy can be started immediately.</p

Association of Osteocalcin and Abdominal Aortic Calcification in Older Women: The Study of Osteoporotic Fractures

Osteocalcin (OC) is produced by osteoblasts and vascular smooth muscle cells. In animal models, serum OC levels are strongly correlated with vascular calcium content, however, the association of OC with vascular calcification in humans is uncertain. The Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF) enrolled community-living women, age ≥65 years. The present study included a subsample of 363 randomly selected SOF participants. Serum total OC was measured by ELISA, and abdominal aortic calcification (AAC) was evaluated on lateral lumbar radiographs. We examined the cross-sectional association between serum OC and AAC. The mean serum OC level was 24 ± 11 ng/ml and AAC was present in 188 subjects (52%). We observed no association of OC and AAC in either unadjusted or adjusted analyses. For example, each standard deviation higher OC level was associated with an odds ratio (OR) for AAC prevalence (AAC score >0) near unity (OR = 1.06; 95% CI, 0.82–1.36) in models adjusted for CVD risk factors. Further adjustment for intact parathyroid hormone, bone-specific alkaline phosphatase, 25-hydroxyvitamin D, and hip and spine bone mineral density did not materially change the results (OR = 1.22; 95% CI, 0.86–1.75). Similarly, higher OC levels were not associated with severity of AAC (P = 0.87). In conclusion, among community-living older women, serum OC is not associated with AAC. These findings suggest that serum OC levels may more closely reflect bone formation than vascular calcification in humans

Longitudinal impact of a youth tobacco education program

BACKGROUND: Information on the effectiveness of elementary school level, tobacco-use prevention programs is generally limited. This study assessed the impact of a structured, one-time intervention that was designed to modify attitudes and knowledge about tobacco. Participants were fifth-grade students from schools in western New York State. METHODS: Twenty-eight schools, which were in relatively close geographic proximity, were randomized into three groups; Group 1 was used to assess whether attitudes/knowledge were changed in the hypothesized direction by the intervention, and if those changes were retained four months later. Groups 2 and 3, were used as comparison groups to assess possible test-retest bias and historical effects. Groups 1 and 3 were pooled to assess whether attitudes/knowledge were changed by the intervention as measured by an immediate post-test. The non-parametric analytical techniques of Wilcoxon-Matched Pairs/Sign Ranks and the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon Rank Sums Tests were used to compare proportions of correct responses at each of the schools. RESULTS: Pooled analyses showed that short-term retention on most items was achieved. It was also found that retention on two knowledge items 'recognition that smokers have yellow teeth and fingers' and 'smoking one pack of cigarettes a day costs several hundred dollars per year' was maintained for four months. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that inexpensive, one-time interventions for tobacco-use prevention can be of value. Changes in attitudes and knowledge conducive to the goal of tobacco-use prevention can be achieved for short-term retention and some relevant knowledge items can be retained for several months

Acceptability and feasibility of magnetic femoral nerve stimulation in older, functionally impaired patients

Abstract Objective Magnetic femoral nerve stimulation to test muscle function has been largely unexplored in older people. We assessed acceptability, feasibility, along with reproducibility and correlation with other physical function measures. Results Study 1 recruited older people with sarcopenia. Stimulation was performed at baseline and 2 weeks along with six minute walk (6MW), maximum voluntary quadriceps contraction, short physical performance battery and grip strength. Acceptability was measured using visual analog scales. Study 2 used baseline data from a trial of older people. We correlated stimulation results with 6MW, maximal voluntary contraction and muscle mass. Maximum quadriceps twitch tension was measured in both studies, evoked using biphasic magnetic stimulation of the femoral nerve. In study 1 (n = 12), magnetic stimulation was well tolerated with mean discomfort rating of 9% (range 0–40%) on a visual analog scale. Reproducibility was poor (intraclass correlation coefficient 0.06; p = 0.44). Study 2 (n = 64) showed only weak to moderate correlations for maximum quadriceps twitch tension with other measures of physical function (6 minute walk test r = 0.24, p = 0.06; maximal voluntary contraction r = 0.26; p = 0.04). We conclude that magnetic femoral nerve stimulation is acceptable and feasible but poorly reproducible in older, functionally impaired people

Evaluation of Jackknife and Bootstrap for Defining Confidence Intervals for Pairwise Agreement Measures

Several research fields frequently deal with the analysis of diverse classification results of the same entities. This should imply an objective detection of overlaps and divergences between the formed clusters. The congruence between classifications can be quantified by clustering agreement measures, including pairwise agreement measures. Several measures have been proposed and the importance of obtaining confidence intervals for the point estimate in the comparison of these measures has been highlighted. A broad range of methods can be used for the estimation of confidence intervals. However, evidence is lacking about what are the appropriate methods for the calculation of confidence intervals for most clustering agreement measures. Here we evaluate the resampling techniques of bootstrap and jackknife for the calculation of the confidence intervals for clustering agreement measures. Contrary to what has been shown for some statistics, simulations showed that the jackknife performs better than the bootstrap at accurately estimating confidence intervals for pairwise agreement measures, especially when the agreement between partitions is low. The coverage of the jackknife confidence interval is robust to changes in cluster number and cluster size distribution

RIPCAL: a tool for alignment-based analysis of repeat-induced point mutations in fungal genomic sequences

Background Repeat-induced point mutation (RIP) is a fungal-specific genome defence mechanism that alters the sequences of repetitive DNA, thereby inactivating coding genes. Repeated DNA sequences align between mating and meiosis and both sequences undergo C:G to T:A transitions. In most fungi these transitions preferentially affect CpA di-nucleotides thus altering the frequency of certain di-nucleotides in the affected sequences. The majority of previously published in silico analyses were limited to the comparison of ratios of pre- and post-RIP di-nucleotides in putatively RIP-affected sequences – so-called RIP indices. The analysis of RIP is significantly more informative when comparing sequence alignments of repeated sequences. There is, however, a dearth of bioinformatics tools available to the fungal research community for alignment-based RIP analysis of repeat families. Results We present RIPCAL http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/ripcal, a software tool for the automated analysis of RIP in fungal genomic DNA repeats, which performs both RIP index and alignment-based analyses. We demonstrate the ability of RIPCAL to detect RIP within known RIP-affected sequences of Neurospora crassa and other fungi. We also predict and delineate the presence of RIP in the genome of Stagonospora nodorum – a Dothideomycete pathogen of wheat. We show that RIP has affected different members of the S. nodorum rDNA tandem repeat to different extents depending on their genomic contexts. Conclusion The RIPCAL alignment-based method has considerable advantages over RIP indices for the analysis of whole genomes. We demonstrate its application to the recently published genome assembly of S. nodorum

Clustering of cardiovascular risk factors and carotid intima-media thickness : The USE-IMT study

Background The relation of a single risk factor with atherosclerosis is established. Clinically we know of risk factor clustering within individuals. Yet, studies into the magnitude of the relation of risk factor clusters with atherosclerosis are limited. Here, we assessed that relation. Methods Individual participant data from 14 cohorts, involving 59,025 individuals were used in this cross-sectional analysis. We made 15 clusters of four risk factors (current smoking, overweight, elevated blood pressure, elevated total cholesterol). Multilevel age and sex adjusted linear regression models were applied to estimate mean differences in common carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) between clusters using those without any of the four risk factors as reference group. Results Compared to the reference, those with 1, 2, 3 or 4 risk factors had a significantly higher common CIMT: mean difference of 0.026 mm, 0.052 mm, 0.074 mm and 0.114 mm, respectively. These findings were the same in men and in women, and across ethnic groups. Within each risk factor cluster (1, 2, 3 risk factors), groups with elevated blood pressure had the largest CIMT and those with elevated cholesterol the lowest CIMT, a pattern similar for men and women. Conclusion Clusters of risk factors relate to increased common CIMT in a graded manner, similar in men, women and across race-ethnic groups. Some clusters seemed more atherogenic than others. Our findings support the notion that cardiovascular prevention should focus on sets of risk factors rather than individual levels alone, but may prioritize within clusters.Peer reviewe