Constraining the presence of giant planets in two-belt debris disk systems with VLT/SPHERE direct imaging and dynamical arguments

Giant, wide-separation planets often lie in the gap between multiple, distinct rings of circumstellar debris: this is the case for the HR 8799 and HD 95086 systems, and even the solar system where the Asteroid and Kuiper belts enclose the four gas and ice giants. In the case that a debris disk, inferred from an infrared excess in the SED, is best modelled as two distinct temperatures, we infer the presence of two spatially separated rings of debris. Giant planets may well exist between these two belts of debris, and indeed could be responsible for the formation of the gap between these belts. We observe 24 such two-belt systems using the VLT/SPHERE high contrast imager, and interpret our results under the assumption that the gap is indeed formed by one or more giant planets. A theoretical minimum mass for each planet can then be calculated, based on the predicted dynamical timescales to clear debris. The typical dynamical lower limit is ˜0.2MJ in this work, and in some cases exceeds 1MJ. Direct imaging data, meanwhile, is typically sensitive to planets down to ˜3.6MJ at 1", and 1.7MJ in the best case. Together, these two limits tightly constrain the possible planetary systems present around each target, many of which will be detectable with the next generation of high-contrast imagers

Barriers to the Uptake of Cataract Surgery and Eye Care After Community Outreach Screening in Takeo Province, Cambodia

Purpose: To assess the barriers influencing eye healthcare seeking be-havior after community outreach screening. Design: A concurrent mixed methods study. Methods: A total of 469 patients screened during the previous 12 months were followed up, of which 354 (75%) from 5 districts were in-terviewed in person, using a semi-structured questionnaire, in-depth in-terviews (n = 11), and 16 focus groups (n = 71). SPSS and NVivo were used to analyze response frequency and identify themes. Results: Of the respondents, 98% (350/354) reported they were told they had an eye problem, with 295 individuals (83%) told to attend CARITAS Takeo Eye Hospital (CTEH) and 55 to have their eyes checked at Kiri Vong Vision Centre. Of those 68.9% (244/354) who reported seeking treatment, only 7.4% (18/244) reported they attended CTEH, 54% (n = 132) attended a “local pharmacy,” 31.6% (n = 77) “self-treated at home,” 11% (n = 27) reported “using steam from boiling rice,” and 10.7% (n = 26) attended a “traditional healer.” Of those who reported reasons for “not attending,” responses included “no time” (47.8%, 86/180), “no one to accompany” (21.7%, n = 39), “fear of losing sight” (17.8%, n = 32), “cannot afford to travel” (16.1%, n = 29), and “eye problem is not serious enough” (15.6%, n = 28). Follow-up of patient records identified that 128 individuals (79 females) attended eye care services. Conclusions: Socioeconomic factors, personal concerns, and the use of local cultural remedies were reasons for not seeking eye hospital treatment. An integrated community approach to improve awareness and uptake of appropriate treatment is recommended

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Pathway-Wide Association Study Implicates Multiple Sterol Transport and Metabolism Genes in HDL Cholesterol Regulation

Pathway-based association methods have been proposed to be an effective approach in identifying disease genes, when single-marker association tests do not have sufficient power. The analysis of quantitative traits may be benefited from these approaches, by sampling from two extreme tails of the distribution. Here we tested a pathway association approach on a small genome-wide association study (GWAS) on 653 subjects with extremely high high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels and 784 subjects with low HDL-C levels. We identified 102 genes in the sterol transport and metabolism pathways that collectively associate with HDL-C levels, and replicated these association signals in an independent GWAS. Interestingly, the pathways include 18 genes implicated in previous GWAS on lipid traits, suggesting that genuine HDL-C genes are highly enriched in these pathways. Additionally, multiple biologically relevant loci in the pathways were not detected by previous GWAS, including genes implicated in previous candidate gene association studies (such as LEPR, APOA2, HDLBP, SOAT2), genes that cause Mendelian forms of lipid disorders (such as DHCR24), and genes expressing dyslipidemia phenotypes in knockout mice (such as SOAT1, PON1). Our study suggests that sampling from two extreme tails of a quantitative trait and examining genetic pathways may yield biological insights from smaller samples than are generally required using single-marker analysis in large-scale GWAS. Our results also implicate that functionally related genes work together to regulate complex quantitative traits, and that future large-scale studies may benefit from pathway-association approaches to identify novel pathways regulating HDL-C levels

Positive and negative well-being and objectively measured sedentary behaviour in older adults: evidence from three cohorts

Background: Sedentary behaviour is related to poorer health independently of time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity. The aim of this study was to investigate whether wellbeing or symptoms of anxiety or depression predict sedentary behaviour in older adults. Method: Participants were drawn from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 (LBC1936) (n = 271), and the West of Scotland Twenty-07 1950s (n = 309) and 1930s (n = 118) cohorts. Sedentary outcomes, sedentary time, and number of sit-to-stand transitions, were measured with a three-dimensional accelerometer (activPAL activity monitor) worn for 7 days. In the Twenty-07 cohorts, symptoms of anxiety and depression were assessed in 2008 and sedentary outcomes were assessed ~ 8 years later in 2015 and 2016. In the LBC1936 cohort, wellbeing and symptoms of anxiety and depression were assessed concurrently with sedentary behaviour in 2015 and 2016. We tested for an association between wellbeing, anxiety or depression and the sedentary outcomes using multivariate regression analysis. Results: We observed no association between wellbeing or symptoms of anxiety and the sedentary outcomes. Symptoms of depression were positively associated with sedentary time in the LBC1936 and Twenty-07 1950s cohort, and negatively associated with number of sit-to-stand transitions in the LBC1936. Meta-analytic estimates of the association between depressive symptoms and sedentary time or number of sit-to-stand transitions, adjusted for age, sex, BMI, long-standing illness, and education, were β = 0.11 (95% CI = 0.03, 0.18) and β = − 0.11 (95% CI = − 0.19, −0.03) respectively. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that depressive symptoms are positively associated with sedentary behavior. Future studies should investigate the causal direction of this association

Pharamcological inhibition of protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B protects against atherosclerotic plaque formation in LDLR-/- mouse model of atherosclerosis

The authors wish to thank Professor Nicholas Tonks for providing the PTP1B inhibitor trodusquemine; Linda Robertson for her help with the aorta histology; Dr Fiona Grieg for tuition into aortic dissection and Dr James Hislop for critical reading of this manuscript. We also wish to thank the British Heart Foundation (PG/14/43/30889) for supporting this researchPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Alcelaphine herpesvirus 1 glycoprotein B:recombinant expression and antibody recognition

The gammaherpesvirus alcelaphine herpesvirus 1 (AlHV-1) causes fatal malignant catarrhal fever (MCF) in susceptible species including cattle, but infects its reservoir host, wildebeest, without causing disease. Pathology in cattle may be influenced by virus-host cell interactions mediated by the virus glycoproteins. Cloning and expression of a haemagglutinin-tagged version of the AlHV-1 glycoprotein B (gB) was used to demonstrate that the AlHV-1-specific monoclonal antibody 12B5 recognised gB and that gB was the main component of the gp115 complex of AlHV-1, a glycoprotein complex of five components identified on the surface of AlHV-1 by immunoprecipitation and radiolabelling. Analysis of AlHV-1 virus particles showed that the native form of gB was detected by mAb 12B5 as a band of about 70 kDa, whilst recombinant gB expressed by transfected HEK293T cells appeared to be subject to additional cleavage and incomplete post-translational processing. Antibody 12B5 recognised an epitope on the N-terminal furin-cleaved fragment of gB on AlHV-1 virus particles. It could be used to detect recombinant and virus-expressed gB on western blots and on the surface of infected cells by flow cytometry, whilst recombinant gB was detected on the surface of transfected cells by immunofluorescence. Recombinant gB has potential as an antigen for ELISA detection of MCF virus infection and as a candidate vaccine antigen

The Astropy Problem

The Astropy Project (http://astropy.org) is, in its own words, "a community effort to develop a single core package for Astronomy in Python and foster interoperability between Python astronomy packages." For five years this project has been managed, written, and operated as a grassroots, self-organized, almost entirely volunteer effort while the software is used by the majority of the astronomical community. Despite this, the project has always been and remains to this day effectively unfunded. Further, contributors receive little or no formal recognition for creating and supporting what is now critical software. This paper explores the problem in detail, outlines possible solutions to correct this, and presents a few suggestions on how to address the sustainability of general purpose astronomical software