Antibody Levels to Persistent Pathogens and Incident Stroke in Mexican Americans

Background:Persistent pathogens have been proposed as risk factors for stroke; however, the evidence remains inconclusive. Mexican Americans have an increased risk of stroke especially at younger ages, as well as a higher prevalence of infections caused by several persistent pathogens.Methodology/Principal:Findings Using data from the Sacramento Area Latino Study on Aging (n = 1621), the authors used discrete-time regression to examine associations between stroke risk and (1) immunoglobulin G antibody levels to Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), Cytomegalovirus, Varicella Zoster Virus, Toxoplasma gondii and Herpes simplex virus 1, and (2) concurrent exposure to several pathogens (pathogen burden), defined as: (a) summed sero-positivity, (b) number of pathogens eliciting high antibody levels, and (c) average antibody level. Models were adjusted for socio-demographics and stroke risk factors. Antibody levels to H. pylori predicted incident stroke in fully adjusted models (Odds Ratio: 1.58; 95% Confidence Interval: 1.09, 2.28). No significant associations were found between stroke risk and antibody levels to the other four pathogens. No associations were found for pathogen burden and incident stroke in fully adjusted models.Conclusions/Significance:Our results suggest that exposure to H. pylori may be a stroke risk factor in Mexican Americans and may contribute to ethnic differences in stroke risk given the increased prevalence of exposure to H. pylori in this population. Future studies are needed to confirm this association

Diagonally Neighbour Transitive Codes and Frequency Permutation Arrays

Constant composition codes have been proposed as suitable coding schemes to solve the narrow band and impulse noise problems associated with powerline communication. In particular, a certain class of constant composition codes called frequency permutation arrays have been suggested as ideal, in some sense, for these purposes. In this paper we characterise a family of neighbour transitive codes in Hamming graphs in which frequency permutation arrays play a central rode. We also classify all the permutation codes generated by groups in this family

Application of mineralogical, petrological and geochemical tools for evaluating the palaeohdrogeological evolution of the PADAMOT study sites

The role of Work Package (WP) 2 of the PADAMOT project – ‘Palaeohydrogeological Data Measurements’ - has been to study late-stage fracture mineral and water samples from groundwater systems in Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, with the aim of understanding the recent palaeohydrogeological evolution of these groundwater systems. In particular, the project sought to develop and evaluate methods for obtaining information about past groundwater evolution during the Quaternary (about the last 2 million years) by examining how the late-stage mineralization might record mineralogical, petrographical and geochemical evidence of how the groundwater system may have responded to past geological and climatological changes. Fracture-flow groundwater systems at six European sites were studied: • Melechov Hill, in the Bohemian Massif of the Czech Republic: a shallow (0-100 m) dilute groundwater flow system within the near-surface weathering zone in fractured granitic rocks; • Cloud Hill, in the English Midlands: a (~100 m) shallow dilute groundwater flow system in fractured and dolomitized Carboniferous limestone; • Los Ratones, in southwest Spain: an intermediate depth (0-500 m) dilute groundwater flow system in fractured granitic rocks; • Laxemar, in southeast Sweden: a deep (0-1000 m) groundwater flow system in fractured granitic rocks. This is a complex groundwater system with potential recharge and flushing by glacial, marine, lacustrine and freshwater during the Quaternary; • Sellafield, northwest England: a deep (0-2000 m) groundwater flow system in fractured Ordovician low-grade metamorphosed volcaniclastic rocks and discontinuous Carboniferous Limestone, overlain by a Permo-Triassic sedimentary sequence with fracture and matrix porosity. This is a complex coastal groundwater system with deep hypersaline sedimentary basinal brines, and deep saline groundwaters in crystalline basement rocks, overlain by a shallow freshwater aquifer system. The site was glaciated several times during the Quaternary and may have been affected by recharge from glacial meltwater; • Dounreay, northeast Scotland: a deep (0-1400 m) groundwater flow system in fractured Precambrian crystalline basement overlain by fractured Devonian sedimentary rocks. This is within the coastal discharge area of a complex groundwater system, comprising deep saline groundwater hosted in crystalline basement, overlain by a fracture-controlled freshwater sedimentary aquifer system. Like Sellafield, this area experienced glaciation and may potentially record the impact of glacial meltwater recharge. In addition, a study has been made of two Quaternary sedimentary sequences in Andalusia in southeastern Spain to provide a basis of estimating the palaeoclimatic history of the region that could be used in any reconstruction of the palaeoclimatic history at the Los Ratones site: • The Cúllar-Baza lacustrine sequence records information about precipitation and palaeotemperature regimes, derived largely from the analysis of the stable isotope (δ18O and δ13C) signatures from biogenic calcite (ostracod shells). • The Padul Peat Bog sequence provided information on past vegetation cover and palaeogroundwater inputs based on the study of fossil pollen and biomarkers as proxies for past climate change. Following on from the earlier EC 4th Framework EQUIP project, the focus of the PADAMOT studies has been on calcite mineralization. Calcite has been identified as a late stage mineral, closely associated with hydraulically-conductive fractures in the present-day groundwater systems at the Äspö-Laxemar, Sellafield, Dounreay and Cloud Hill sites. At Los Ratones and Melechov sites late-stage mineralization is either absent or extremely scarce, and both the quantity and fine crystal size of any late-stage fracture mineralization relevant to Quaternary palaeohydrogeological investigations is difficult to work with. The results from the material investigated during the PADAMOT studies indicate that the fracture fillings at these sites are related to hydrothermal activity, and so do not have direct relevance as Quaternary indicators. Neoformed calcite has not been found at these two sites at the present depth of the investigations. Furthermore, the HCO3 - concentration in all the Los Ratones groundwaters is mainly controlled by complex carbonate dissolution. The carbonate mineral saturation indices do not indicate precipitation conditions, and this is consistent with the fact that neoformed calcite, ankerite or dolomite have not been observed petrographically

Cosmological parameters from SDSS and WMAP

We measure cosmological parameters using the three-dimensional power spectrum P(k) from over 200,000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in combination with WMAP and other data. Our results are consistent with a ``vanilla'' flat adiabatic Lambda-CDM model without tilt (n=1), running tilt, tensor modes or massive neutrinos. Adding SDSS information more than halves the WMAP-only error bars on some parameters, tightening 1 sigma constraints on the Hubble parameter from h~0.74+0.18-0.07 to h~0.70+0.04-0.03, on the matter density from Omega_m~0.25+/-0.10 to Omega_m~0.30+/-0.04 (1 sigma) and on neutrino masses from <11 eV to <0.6 eV (95%). SDSS helps even more when dropping prior assumptions about curvature, neutrinos, tensor modes and the equation of state. Our results are in substantial agreement with the joint analysis of WMAP and the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, which is an impressive consistency check with independent redshift survey data and analysis techniques. In this paper, we place particular emphasis on clarifying the physical origin of the constraints, i.e., what we do and do not know when using different data sets and prior assumptions. For instance, dropping the assumption that space is perfectly flat, the WMAP-only constraint on the measured age of the Universe tightens from t0~16.3+2.3-1.8 Gyr to t0~14.1+1.0-0.9 Gyr by adding SDSS and SN Ia data. Including tensors, running tilt, neutrino mass and equation of state in the list of free parameters, many constraints are still quite weak, but future cosmological measurements from SDSS and other sources should allow these to be substantially tightened.Comment: Minor revisions to match accepted PRD version. SDSS data and ppt figures available at http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/sdsspars.htm

Grain Surface Models and Data for Astrochemistry

AbstractThe cross-disciplinary field of astrochemistry exists to understand the formation, destruction, and survival of molecules in astrophysical environments. Molecules in space are synthesized via a large variety of gas-phase reactions, and reactions on dust-grain surfaces, where the surface acts as a catalyst. A broad consensus has been reached in the astrochemistry community on how to suitably treat gas-phase processes in models, and also on how to present the necessary reaction data in databases; however, no such consensus has yet been reached for grain-surface processes. A team of ∼25 experts covering observational, laboratory and theoretical (astro)chemistry met in summer of 2014 at the Lorentz Center in Leiden with the aim to provide solutions for this problem and to review the current state-of-the-art of grain surface models, both in terms of technical implementation into models as well as the most up-to-date information available from experiments and chemical computations. This review builds on the results of this workshop and gives an outlook for future directions

The handbook for standardised field and laboratory measurements in terrestrial climate-change experiments and observational studies

Climate change is a worldwide threat to biodiversity and ecosystem structure, functioning, and services. To understand the underlying drivers and mechanisms, and to predict the consequences for nature and people, we urgently need better understanding of the direction and magnitude of climate‐change impacts across the soil–plant–atmosphere continuum. An increasing number of climate‐change studies is creating new opportunities for meaningful and high‐quality generalisations and improved process understanding. However, significant challenges exist related to data availability and/or compatibility across studies, compromising opportunities for data re‐use, synthesis, and upscaling. Many of these challenges relate to a lack of an established “best practice” for measuring key impacts and responses. This restrains our current understanding of complex processes and mechanisms in terrestrial ecosystems related to climate change

Use of SMS texts for facilitating access to online alcohol interventions: a feasibility study

A41 Use of SMS texts for facilitating access to online alcohol interventions: a feasibility study In: Addiction Science & Clinical Practice 2017, 12(Suppl 1): A4